Clear Evidence of Bias at SFGate

In response to a post I made on SFGate, one of the anti-Mirkarimi haters made a comment in which he referred to me by a rather vulgar, and quite frankly, misogynistic variation of my user name (JUsher2). I have made three complaints about this obvious violation of SFGate’s rules. The comment remains in place. On the other hand, a comment I made in response to a post by a user who uses the user name “shingding,” who is one of the nastier haters of Ross Mirkarimi, where I pointed out that the suggestion that Federal funding for domestic violence should be denied as long as Ross is in office, showed more concern for political vengeance than victims of domestic violence, was promptly removed. This is not the first, or remotely the only time ths sort of thing has happened.

There are two possibilities here. The first is that SFGate uses some sort of voting system. If a post gets enough complaints, it is automatically removed. That would allow the AstroTurf mob that has been attacking Mirkarimi (their gaming of the thumbs up/thumbs down system is very obvious) to get posts removed. The other, and perhaps more likely, is that the San Francisco Chronicle is guilty of actual bias and has a profound lack of journalistic ethics.

I am not sure which is true, but this is truly outrageous

The Good Guys Win One!

Well, Sheriff Mirkarimi has been reinstated by the Board of Supervisors by a 4-7 vote. The mayor is acting like a petulant child, and well, Ross is acting like a contrite gentleman. I had worried that this would have to go to court, but in the end, four supervisors did the right thing, and told the mayor that he could not subvert justice. Sadly, seven others went with the LeePakBrown, Inc. approved railroad ticket and voted to remove. Ross needed three, he got four.

The Chronicle, and its resident press secretary for the Mayor, C.W. Nevius, are also having hissy fits. The haters are, as would be expected, all sore losers, and quite frankly, the lies are flying right and left. Christine Olague, who bucked the mayor who appointed her, got an extremely nasty bit of hate text from Tony Winnicker, who used to be Newsom’s press secretary, and who is now a “special advisor” to Mayor Lee.

There is, of course, talk of a recall. We shall see where that goes. Will the haters actually put their money where their mouth is? Are they willing to spew their hatred in public? They have hidden behind screen names on SFGate, but in a recall, they have to show their faces. It will not be so easy to run an AstroTurf campaign this time.

The Next Page in the Mirkarimi Saga

Well, Tuesday will be the day when the Board of Supervisors has its vote on Ross Mirkarimi. If they do the right thing, and vote to reinstate him, I suspect that it will pretty much be the end of the story. Oh, there will be a few weeks of saber rattling by the hate mob as they threaten a recall and maybe even a bit of an effort to get one started. A few signatures might even be gathered, but I suspect the effort will pretty much fizzle as they find that it will be too much effort and too little chance for success.

Or, the Board of Supervisors will do what many expect, and vote to remove the Sheriff. That will require them to pretty much ignore the facts, which is what the mayor has wants them to do, as does the mob. It will mean that some might well find their future on the board in doubt. Contrary to the suggestion of some, a vote for Mirkarimi is not a sure career ender. In fact, for some, such as Jane Kim and Christine Olague, it will probably be the opposite that is true. Both are in progressive strongholds where a vote to remove may will be held against them at election time. This is especially true for Olague, who is in the hard position of being caught between Lee and his owners Brown and Pak, and the voters of District Five who support Ross. Then again, I know I will not be voting for her regardless of how she votes.

Likewise, Avalos may well alienate his base if he goes with removal, and will likely gain few, if any votes from the haters, who are mostly right wing anyway. The same is true for Campos and Mar, who have little to gain from voting with Lee, but perhaps, much to lose.

In any case, it is very likely that the courts will overturn any removal of Ross other than a recall. None of this matters to the haters, and it may have little effect on the Board of Supervisors in the short run. But it could prove an embarrassment as a court details just how weak the mayor’s case actually was.

The haters, including the mayor, have repeatedly beat the drum of “wife beater,” “spousal abuser,” and “batterer,” even though none of these have any basis in fact. At least they have stopped suggesting that Ross is likely to be another “Dan White.” I don’t know if they realize that was backfiring, and making them look silly, or if they realized that some people saw that this was very possibly an insane attempt to excuse a police officer killing Mirkarimi, claiming he thought the mayor’s life was in danger. Such a possible plot will only work if people don’t see through it ahead of time.

In any case, it will be over on Tuesday, or it will be just the beginning of the next round. We shall see what happens next…

Catching Up

Sorry to be so long getting something up here…between computer problems (Kudos to Sweet Memories for an excellent job of repairing my MacBook Pro and saving my data) and real life, I have not had much time to post.

First off, I got an interesting phone call from Christina Olague in response to an email I sent here.  I found out she is my supervisor, and I asked her to recuse herself from voting on the Sheriff’s dismissal as I believe she is severely compromised.  She tried to tell me that Debra Walker had made up the stuff about Ed Lee, but I find that a bit of a stretch since Walker has given a sworn statement, under penalty of perjury.  All Olague has done is dodge answering direct questions.

I just read in the Chronicle that my former supervisor, Jane Kim, was going to stand up to the mayor, but between him, and pressure from Rose Pak, Kim caved in on actually giving the supervisors more say on redevelopment.  Liar Lee can’t have that.  You just can’t maintain the level of corrupt government he wants to deliver to his cronies Pak and WIllie Brown if you don’t control stuff.  Hopefully Kim will be a one term supervisor.  She certainly is doing a lousy job of representing District Six.

There was an interesting and rather spirited discussion on SFGate about the presence of homeless people at Harvey Milk Plaza in the Castro.  As I pointed out, change one word in many of the more hateful posts, from “bum,” or “homeless,” etc., to a rather horrid work used to refer to African Americans, and the phrases are the same I heard growing up in the Sixties in Birmingham, AL.

MUNI continues its downward slide.  I notice more and more, the horror of buses just disappearing off the face of the earth without a trace.  Where they go, and what happens to the poor driver and any passengers on board remains a mystery.  It appears that City Hall is engaged in a massive cover-up of this bizarre phenomena.  And it must be happening.  All too often, Next MUNI will show a bus on its way to a particular stop.  And then, often moments before it should arrive, it apparently disappears.  It does not show up, and it disappears from Next MUNI.  I mean, MUNI wouldn’t lie, and say a bus is coming, when it isn’t…would they?

And then there are the violations and misbehavior on MUNI that is just ignored.  I was on one bus where a  passenger was stretched out, taking up several seats at the front of the bus, sound asleep.  The driver paid no attention (see the photo).  Or the woman I encountered on a 14L who was chugging down a cold Old English Malt Liquor.  I called the driver’s attention to it, but she had finished it, and said “I save the cans…”  She wasn’t even making that much of an effort to hide it as she headed off to the welfare office at 9th and Mission.

Hello world!

Welcome to MUNIed Again, a blog that will examine the mismanagement of San Francisco under the current mayor, Ed Lee and the problems it results in.
So, why MUNIed Again?  Well, sometime back, not long after I moved to San Francisco, after yet another experience of MUNI’s infamous bad service, I thought “Well, I guess I was just MUNIed again!”  The idea stuck, and it became my personal term for bad service.  It is sort of a personal joke.  A rude waiter?  MUNIed again…  Lousy service in a store?  MUNIed again,  And lately, I have realized that our mayor is the ultimate source of bad service, so I am using my term to represent his rather horrid administration…
So, welcome to a place where people can come to complain about what is increasingly wrong with San Francisco…