Stanford authorities are investigating an incident in which an ex-IDF soldier, who was visiting the campus last week with Miss Israel, is accused of tackling and restraining a student who took a paper sign from the booth.

Melanie Shiraz, who was crowned Miss Israel last year, was visiting Stanford University last Wednesday with a group of former Israeli Defense Forces soldiers as part of a promotional tour at high-profile universities, as the Palo Alto Daily Post reports. The tour was reportedly in support of a Google VR project covering the October 7 attacks from the Israeli perspective.

According to KGO, Shiraz and the soldiers were stationed on campus with signs that said, "I'm Miss Israel. I'm an IDF Soldier. Ask us anything."

The Stanford Democrats Club wrote on social media that several of its members began a discussion with Shiraz and one of the former soldiers, who were reportedly "agitating and engaging in genocide denialism,” as one witness told KGO.

A different witness told the outlet that the students were verbally harassing Shiraz and the soldier and calling them terrorists when one of the club’s members reportedly took a paper sign off the table and fled on his bike.

The club says it condemns the member’s action as well as the ex-soldier’s subsequent use of excessive force, which included chasing down the student, tackling him to the ground from a moving bike, and placing him in a chokehold.

“Although we maintain that students, including our members, should uphold campus rules when engaging in discourse,” says the club on social media, “we strongly condemn the violent actions of this soldier and support the Stanford Department of Public Safety's investigation into the matter.”

The Daily Post reports that Stanford’s public safety deputies were on the scene following the incident, which is still under investigation, and the results will be reviewed by the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office.

“We believe that representing and meaningfully engaging diverse perspectives is integral to any college campus,” says the club. “That cannot happen when students are violently attacked.”

Image: BANGKOK, THAILAND - NOVEMBER 19: Miss Universe Israel, Melanie Shiraz,  showcases her evening gown during the 74th Miss Universe Preliminary  competition on November 19, 2025 in Bangkok, Thailand. (Photo by Mohan  Raj/Getty Images)

California Attorney General Rob Bonta on Tuesday announced his 45th lawsuit against the Trump administration so far this year, joining two dozen states in suing the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) for withholding SNAP benefits from low-income Americans as a consequence of the government shutdown.

SNAP, or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, provides food assistance (food stamps) to around 5.5 million Californians, and around 41 million Americans, most of them families and older adults. As of several weeks ago, the USDA did an about-face, reneging on an earlier plan to make sure November benefits were covered, and informed states that benefits would not be paid out on November 1 — blaming Democrats for not ending the government shutdown.

In a press conference Tuesday morning, Bonta pointed to the precendent of previous shutdowns, and to the very words stated by the USDA at the start of the shutdown in communications with states, in arguing that the government has $5 billion to $6 billion in contingency funds that should be tapped for this situation, in order to prevent people from going hungry.

Bonta noted that this is the first time the USDA has decided to withhold SNAP benefits during a shutdown since they were made permanent in the 1960s.

In recent days, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins has claimed that her department's contingency funds are "not legally available" to cover SNAP benefits, putting up a politically tinged notice on the USDA website — the Republicans are using the line "The well has run dry."

"In abruptly ending SNAP Benefits, Trump and Rollins have broken the law," Bonta said at the new conference. He said they were making statements about running out of money "even though there are billions of dollars in contingency funds that could be used to pay these benefits," and, "This is what contingency funds are for, exactly this type of situation."

Bonta added, "Trump and his administration are willing to put 41 million Americans at risk of going hungry as just another ploy in their twisted political game."

As the New York Times reports, the lawsuit was filed today by a "mix of attorneys general and governors" from over two dozen states, including Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, and North Carolina.

"We will be successful," Governor Gavin Newsom said at the press conference. "This is about as crystal clear an argument as I've seen among all the 44 other lawsuits we've filed against this administration."

Newsom called out Republican governors and all the red states that are not participating in this lawsuit, saying that rural and red areas will see a "disproportionate" impact if SNAP benefits are not paid.

Both Bonta and Newsom pointed to the irony of Trump starting demolition for his gold-trimmed ballroom where the East Wing of the White House used to be, all while millions of Americans are going to be going hungry. And Newsom also pointed to the Republicans' larger plan to cut off food assistance, including $186 billion in cuts to the SNAP program — creating new criteria and requirements for those applying — as evidence of their heartlessness to the poor of this country.

"Maybe they got an edited version of Donald Trump's Bible," Newsom said, referring to Republicans and their "prayer breakfasts," and how they regularly ignore the core tenet of the New and Old Testaments about feeding the hungry and caring for the poor.

Letitia James, the attorney general of New York State, who is currently under investigation by the Department of Justice in a retaliatory move by Trump for the lawsuits filed against him, gave a statement about the SNAP benefit situation, saying, "SNAP is one of our nation’s most effective tools to fight hunger, and the USDA has the money to keep it running."

She added, "There is no excuse for this administration to abandon families who rely on SNAP, or food stamps, as a lifeline."

Top image: Rob Bonta, California Attorney General, speaks onstage during the 2025 Concordia Annual Summit at Sheraton New York Times Square on September 23, 2025 in New York City. (Photo by Riccardo Savi/Getty Images for Concordia Annual Summit)

California's 13th Congressional District has flipped from Republican to Democrat, and with that race settled, we now know that the Republicans yet again hold the slimmest of majorities in the House — 220 seats to Democrats' 215.

Democrat Adam Gray has won the seat by a mere 187 votes at last count, and the Associated Press projected Tuesday that he will win. He beats incumbent Republican John Duarte, following a similarly tight race two years ago in which Duarte prevailed by just 564 votes, as KCRA reports.

Duarte conceded to Gray on Tuesday, as the Turlock Journal reported, with Duarte telling the paper, "I'm a citizen legislator, and I didn't plan on being in Congress forever."

California's 13th District is in the Central Valley and encompasses all of Merced County, as well as most of Madera County, and parts of Stanislaus, San Joaquin, and Fresno counties. The district is 66% Hispanic, with around 784,000 people, and  its current composition is fairly new — the 13th District used to be the one led by Barbara Lee that included Oakland, but it was moved to the Central Valley in 2022 amid redistricting.

With the departures of Matt Gaetz (bye!), Mike Waltz, and Elise Stefanik, the latter two of whom are set to join Trump's cabinet, and special elections to fill their seats months away, the Republican-led House will likely have some bruising fights ahead getting any votes passed until then, and even after those seats are filled.

As ABC News notes, with 217 seats, votes taken when anyone is absent due to illness or any other reason could fall in Democrats' favor. And even if every single congressperson shows up for a given vote, a single Republican member could gum the works and threaten to vote with Democrats, creating a 216-216 tie. Or if even two Republicans abstain, the nays will have it.

Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson is of course trying to spin this positively, telling ABC, "Well, just like we do every day here, we've developed an expertise in that. We know how to work with a small majority. That's our custom now. So, yes — do the math. We can, we have nothing to spare. But all of our members know that we talked about that today, as we do constantly, that this is a team effort that we've got to all row in the same direction."

There are also a couple of elderly members on the Democratic side who missed votes last year, and that could happen again, as ABC News notes, giving Republicans a bit more wiggle room until those special elections occur.

Gray, for his part, struck a tone of unity on Tuesday. The Merced native told the Turlock Journal, "As divided as people suggest the country is, I think we all have a lot more in common than we’re given credit for. People do want change, but the change they want is for Congress to get back to solving problems. … They don’t want people yelling and screaming at each other. That’s not the kind of leadership people want. They want a government that works for them."

Well, prepare for some yelling and screaming, Adam, because this Congress is going to be seated in during a no-doubt unhinged second Trump administration, and with a barely-there Republican majority that could be thwarted if Marjorie Taylor Greene wakes up in a bad mood that day. Good luck.

Photo from Adam Gray for Congress via Turlock Journal

We interrupt your doomscrolling with a flicker of hope, which is that the Democrats can still win control of the House of Representatives, but they’ll need California to do it.

The Donald Trump win in Tuesday night’s election got even scarier upon realizing that Republicans took control of the US Senate with a now 52-seat majority. But there is one thing standing in the way of Trump and the Republicans commanding the entire apparatus of the US government, which is that control of the House of Representatives is not yet decided, as CNBC reminds us.  

As of right now, the Democrats have only lost a net of one seat. They need 28 more seats to take the chamber, but some of those are Democrat vs Democrat races where they’ll definitely win. NBC News estimates there are about 20 key races that will determine who wins control of the House, and Dems would need to pretty much run the table to keep the House.  

“The path to take back the majority now runs through too close to call pick-up opportunities,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said in a statement Wednesday afternoon. “The party that will hold the majority in the House of Representatives in January 2025 has yet to be determined. We must count every vote.”

A disproportionate number of the key races are in California and Arizona, so California cannot deliver the House to Democrats on its own. And these aren’t like the East Bay’s Lateefah Simon vs Jennifer Tran race (not yet called, but Simon’s way ahead), or the South Bay’s Sam Liccardo vs Evan Low race (Liccardo just won), as those are all Democrat-on-Democrat races. These key races are all the standard Democrat vs Republican races.

The Desert Sun points out that these races are largely in Southern California, and here’s where things currently stand in these undetermined races:

• 13th District (San Joaquin Valley): Republican John Duarte leads Democrat Adam Gray 51%-49%
• 22nd District in (Central Valley): Republican David Valadao leads Democrat Rudy Salas 55%-45%
• 27th District (Los Angeles County): Republican Mike Garcia leads Democrat George Whitesides 51%-49%
• 41st District (Imperial Valley): Republican Ken Calvert and Democrat Will Rollins are effectively in a dead heat
• 45th District (Orange and Los Angeles counties): Republican Michelle Steel leads Democrat Derek Tran 53%-47%

Yes, Dems are behind in basically each race. But these are margin-of-error deficits with hundreds of thousands of votes yet to be counted.

Whichever party does win control of the House, they will probably not learn this for a while yet. As has been noted many times, in House of Representatives elections, particularly in California, notoriously can take weeks to determine the winner.  

Related: ​​House Speaker Kevin McCarthy Removed as Speaker Same Day That Laphonza Butler Is Sworn In to Senate [SFist]

Image: The east side of the US Capitol in the early morning. Senate Chamber in the foreground. (Getty Images)

Just in time for the big Harris-Trump debate Tuesday, the new campaign headquarters of the San Francisco Democratic Party is opening at Fifth and Market streets, in the former Nordstrom Rack store.

As the Chronicle reports, there will be a watch party for the debate tomorrow in what was the shoe section of Nordstrom Rack (1390 Market Street), until the store closed when Nordstrom vacated their larger store across the street last year. And phone-banking is going to start at the campaign headquarters at 4 pm Wednesday — with volunteers using their own laptops and cellphones to make cold calls to support both Harris, and a couple of key Central Valley congressional races where the Dems are hoping to pick up seats in November.

Nancy Tung, chair of the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee, tells the Chronicle that volunteers seem eager to gather and do phone-banking work — even though the same work could be done from their homes. And this space will have room to accommodate 1,000 or more volunteers at a time.

"There is so much energy around the presidential election because Kamala Harris is a Bay Area native that I thought it was important for people to have space to come together," Tung tells the paper. She says she's hoping for a "if you build it, they will come" effect.

The new campaign headquarters will open Tuesday with a rally at 4:30 pm. The debate begins at 6 pm PT, and is expected to wrap up by 8 or 8:30 pm.

Phone-banking for Democrats hoping to win seats in California's 13th and 22nd congressional districts will also begin in earnest this week, and the DCCC will be sponsoring bus trips to the Central Valley this fall for volunteers to go door-knocking as well.

The 13th Congressional District is represented by Republican John Duarte, who was elected in 2022. But since redistricting in 2021, in which parts of Alameda County moved into what's now the 12th District, this district covering all of Merced County and parts of Stanislaus, Fresno, Madera, and San Joaquin countis, is considered a Democrat-leaning swing district.

Meanwhile, California's 22nd District, which was part of a redistricting in 2021, is the most Democrat-leaning district in the country that is currently led by a Republican. Rep. David Valadao formerly represented California's 21st District, and the new district, which covers part of Bakersfield and areas to the north, would have gone for Joe Biden in 2020 had it existed in its current configuration, according to the Cook Political Report.

For now, volunteer hours at the Market Street campaign headquarters will be from 4 pm to 8 pm, but hours are expected to ramp up in the coming weeks.

Tung says that high school students are also free to volunteer, and will receive training in phone-banking.

Photo via Google Street View

Somehow there are still over a dozen Democrats in the race for 2020, and 13 of them will be in town in SF this weekend for the Democratic National Committee’s Summer Meeting.

This follows closely on the California Democratic Party's Organizing Convention that happened here in June, and even then 13 or 14 candidates came to town. Now, it sounds like almost everyone still in the race except Joe Biden is coming to San Francisco, according to KPIX, and they'll be at the Hilton San Francisco in Union Square all weekend. Those coming: Senators Kamala Harris, Michael Bennet, Cory Booker, Amy Klobuchar, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren; U.S. Reps. Seth Moulton and Tim Ryan; Julian Castro, Marianne Williamson, Andrew Yang, Tom Steyer and former Pennsylvania congressman Joe Sestak.

Attendees will reportedly "participate in caucus, council and committee meetings," and the candidates will likely be out stumping as well. We already known Marianne Williamson, who was just in town last week, is doing an event Friday at the First Unitarian Universalist Church on Franklin Street.

Per NBC Bay Area, candidates who can't attend this weekend's meeting may appear via video conference.

To be clear, not all of these people have even qualified for the September debate because their poll and fundraising numbers are too low — and a couple candidates who are close will not be in attendance, because they've got some serious work to do. As the New York Times reports, Steyer still needs one more qualifying poll in which he gets 2 percent or more; Rep. Tulsi Gabbard needs two more polls; and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand needs three more polls and 20,000 more donors. The ten who have already qualified are Biden, Booker, Castro, Harris, Klobuchar, Sanders, Warren, Yang, Pete Buttigieg, and Beto O'Rourke. To qualify, candidates must show they have 130,000 donors and have ranked at 2 percent or above in four qualifying polls.

If just one more candidate qualifies, the debate will have to be split over two nights like the last debate, because the Dems have decided 10 is the maximum for a single debate.

The DNC's Summer Meeting kicks off today, and attendees can still register here.

Photo courtesy of Hilton San Francisco

Candidate Tom Gallagher blamed Shahid Buttar for throwing the last primary to the Republicans, and Agatha Bacelar fought off charter-school allegations as Nancy Pelosi’s primary challengers debated for nearly two-and-a-half hours Saturday night.

Speaker of the House and local congressional representative Nancy Pelosi has three potential challengers in an upcoming March 3, 2020 primary election. Only one will get the privilege of advancing to face her in the top-two primary that determines who dukes it out against Pelosi in the November 2020 election, and the three Bernie-esque progressives battling for that chance to “primary” her debated in an online, Skype-style forum on Saturday night — which SFist, dear readers, took the time to watch so you don't have to. Here’s a full recap of the two-and-a-half hour debate moderated by Real Progressives’ Savage Joy, available on demand at Facebook Live Video (where it has more than 5,000 views) and YouTube (currently at 778 views).

First, meet your candidates: Shahid Buttar ran for this seat in 2018, is the Electronic Freedom Foundation’s director of grassroots advocacy, and had a hand in crafting San Francisco’s facial recognition ban. Agatha Bacelar is a 27-year-old Brazilian-American immigrant turned Stanford engineering grad, and founding member of the “blockchain-based governance software” Democracy Earth. Tom Gallagher was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives from 1980-86, is a former president of the Bernal Heights Democratic Club, and was a 2016 Democratic National Convention delegate for Bernie Sanders.

This debate featured plenty of deeply detailed policy analysis. But any normal debate recap reader wants to hear about the zing-iest exchanges, biggest flubs, and best sound bites. So we’ll start with those, with their YouTube clips linked and queued up right to that moment so you can just click Play to see the exchange.

The testiest back-and-forth came right before the two-hour mark (video here). Shahid Buttar pointed out that news “outlets have done long-form profiles of our campaign [including] Jacobin, Mother Jones, Jewish Current, Salon; we’ve been quoted in the New York Times, the Washington Post, The Hill. These kinds of opportunities to frame the debate, already even before having a see, reflects our ability as a campaign, I dare say uniquely in the field, to challenge the Speaker not just for the seat, but for the ideas discursively in the meantime.”

But Gallagher shot back that Buttar had personally doomed progressives in this race in 2018. “Shahid discusses his candidacy last year as if it was a triumph, a personal triumph.” (Buttar came in third in the top-two primary, affording Pelosi an easily beatable Republican in this bluest-of-blue districts.)  “When he entered the race, there was already a candidate that had the endorsement of Brand New Congress, the organization made famous by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s win. There was another candidate who had the endorsement of the San Francisco Berniecrats. But whatever his reasons were, he decided he needed to enter at that late point.”

“It is hard for me to not conclude that that late entry is precisely what caused the Republican to be able to win,” Gallagher said. “They would have had the votes to beat that candidate absent you.”

Buttar insisted he was asked to run, saying, “I ran the only campaign in 2018 that was intersectionally committed to justice, and the reason I got in the race is because there wasn’t a campaign doing that before with any degree of credibility or preparation.”

Gallagher was skeptical, asking, “Did the people who asked you to run consider it a triumph when a Republican made the final?”  

“You might have to ask them, Tom,” Buttar said. “I think you might be asking the wrong person.”

Seconds later, Buttar interrupted the woman moderating the debate in a moment whose optics were not fortunate (Video here, you have to rewind the above video by about five seconds to take in the  full interruption sequence). As Savage Joy started her next question, Buttar butted in, “Joy, can I just ask how long we’re going to be going? Because we’ve been going for over two hours at this point. My impression was we were supposed to be finished about 45 minutes ago. Do you plan for this to go on much longer?”  

Buttar was technically correct; the debate was scheduled to have ended 43 minutes earlier, following a 10-minute delay to the start time. But the interruption and mansplain did not constitute a good look.

Agatha Bacelar faced tough questioning not from an opponent, but from audience-submitted comments. (Video here) The questions hammered her on connections to the Emerson Collective, an education  and immigration reform nonprofit founded by Steve Jobs’ widow, whose partners commenters slammed as including a “union-busting charter school advocate” who “had a plan to expand border detention centers.”

“I did work at Emerson Collective for four-and-a-half years,” Bacelar responded. “That’s absolutely not the case. I would say that Emerson Collective is the most progressive advocate for undocumented immigrants and asylum seekers in the United States. The partners we work with would never endorse that. I visited immigrant detention so many times to expose what was going on and put an end to it."

“Emerson does support some charter schools,” she admitted. “But we’re very specific about which charter schools we support. It’s nonprofit charter schools that have open admissions, that are fair and try to close the gap in equity,” she said, citing foster kids, and an environmental justice school.

There were a few awkward points that were unique to an online debate. Gallagher had a choppy wi-fi connection at times, cutting out bits of his answers, Bacelar had to throw headphones on to hear the second half of the debate, and the discourse was occasionally interrupted by sneezes and screen freezes.

Bacelar struggled notably on a question about the Federal Jobs Guarantee in the Green New Deal. (Video here.) “This is actually a topic that I need to know more about,” she said, seemingly unfamiliar with the idea. “Can I hear a little bit [from the other candidates] and then riff off of it?” Buttar took that question a masterfully and emphasized he’d create jobs in wildfire prevention, whereas Gallagher dropped a Ron Dellums reference that most of the audience probably got, and would probably not impress those who did.  

Buttar was always impressive with lawyerly wordsmithing, but with rhetoric that was not always concise or relatable. His lines of “I’m an intersectional feminist,” and “My campaign has a 30-point platform; it’s expansive, it’s visionary, it’s the most robust remix that I’ve seen” might play well at a TED Talk or Manny’s, but might not resonate with a larger electorate.

But Nancy Pelosi was, naturally, the main target, and the challengers laid strong arguments against her. Buttar charged that “Her continued commitment to protecting our criminal president from the overdue impeachment that he and his criminal administration deserve reflects another example of her unfortunate conservatism.”

Bacelar noted that “Speaker Pelosi has been in office for longer than I’ve been alive. And in that time, San Francisco has changed dramatically.” She also derided Pelosi as “such a lightning rod. Even though we can get Democrats to pass things in the House, they just die in the Senate because Republicans refuse to work with her. It’s not good for any of us when the two sides can’t work together.”

So who “won” this debate? An informal (and still active) Twitter poll screenshotted at 10 a.m. Monday shows Bacelar with something of a winning vote plurality, though these things are highly unreliable and susceptible to vote-stuffing. [Update: the updated poll numbers are above.] To really decide for yourself, here are some of the candidates’ strongest arguments on homelessness, immigration, “the Squad,” and Pelosi’s infamous State of the Union clap.

Pelosi’s clap, seen by many as dismissive toward socialism

Tom Gallagher: “I was an open Socialist legislator in Massachusetts, and that was a rare item.”

Shahid Buttar: “My reaction to that frankly was to smirk, recognize the bipartisan complicity, and for-profit crony capitalism, extracted corporate capitalism, of the sort that kills American every day.”

Agatha Bacelar: "[Socialists] want to take care of our environment and humanity above profits. And I think that is something that almost everyone can agree with.”

Homelessness and the housing crisis

Tom Gallagher: “San Francisco streets are scandalous… It’s a problem of national priorities. The military budget — hey, I don’t think expect a Sanders administration to be able to pull this off, but if a representative from California should be calling for it to be cut in half. That would open up some serious revenue.”

Agatha Bacelar: “In San Francisco you have the YIMBYs and NIMBYs, but even if you’re ‘Yes In My Backyard,’ what kind of housing are we building? It needs to be public housing, affordable housing.”

Shahid Buttar: “This is a national problem, it has a federal root,” [mentioning a sharp decline in community development block grants from HUD] “That erosion happened under Pelosi’s watch.”

Pelosi’s attitude toward the Squad

Agatha Bacelar: “As the first female Speaker of the House, I think Pelosi should know better than to be dismissive.”

Shahid Buttar: “One of the reasons representatives Omar, Ocasio-Cortez, and Tlaib are demonized by the right wing is because they’re so incredibly effective. They’ve been able to leverage the oversight process.”

Tom Gallagher: “None of us will be Speaker if we get elected, so people are thinking of [Pelosi] from outside in a different way than the replacement…. I would be right there with them [the Squad].”

Immigration

Tom Gallagher: “The violence level in Central America, in Honduras, in El Salvador and Guatemala is nothing that any of us would ever would want to live with… Most of the people who are the ‘we’ when we talk about this are descendants of people or related to people who took this country from someone else in the first place. So a great deal of modesty, humility, should come over in this.”

Agatha Bacelar: “Immigrant detention is the most profitable part of mass incarceration, and actually has worse outcomes…. I’ve been to a childhood morgue [in Central America] where there is a warehouse of coffins that are short, like the size of children, mostly because of gang violence. And it’s just despicable, the U.S influence in that needs to be addressed.

Shahid Buttar: “I take a great deal of pride as in immigrant constitutional lawyer in being called frankly to remind so many of my neighbors and other Americans what out own country’s own stated values and commitments are. In a time like this when out communities are demonized and vilified, is an opportunity for us to demonstrate and model precisely what it means to be American.”

Again, the primary is March 3, 2020, and only one of these candidates will move on to face Pelosi in November 2020. Whoever wins probably has a 20% floor of Pelosi-haters. “Any of us would take that 20% if it were just the one of us,” Gallagher said in closing. “The question is can anybody get past that?”

The full Facebook Live Video and YouTube video are still online, and the approximate start times of each discussion are listed below.

0:55 - Broadcast begins

4:30 - Opening statements

13:30 - Why each candidate is running

17:30 - Term limits

20:20 - Israel and BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions)

24:20 - Israel and Reps. Omar and Tlaib

29:20 - Pelosi’s “cringe clap”

32:30 - Venezuela

37:20 - France ‘Yellow Vest’ movement and whether it could happen here

42:30 - Housing crisis in San Francisco

49:20 - Where they would work with Republicans

59:00 - Medicare for All

1:08:00 - Federal Jobs Guarantee in the Green New Deal

1:13:15 - Immigration

1:22:20 - For-profit prisons and how to get rid of them

1:31:30 - Charter schools and debt-free college

1:27:40 - Pay-Go

1:41:00 - Whether to Impeach Trump

1:45:50 - Bacelar and Emerson Collective

1:48:50 - Gallagher on being “relatively unknown”

1:52:30 - Are you staying in to the end of the primary or will you throw support to another candidate

2:03:10 - Combating defeatism and ‘My vote doesn’t matter’

2:09:30 - Closing statements

Related: Nancy Pelosi Run Out of Her Own Press Conference By DACA Activists [SFist]

It certainly feels like we're in a lead-up-to-the-Iraq-War kind of moment when Democrats who vote the wrong way in order to placate their friends in Congress or show some deference to a new president are going to be regretting their votes for the rest of their careers. Local progressive firebrand, Season of the Witch scribe, and new (temporary) Chronicle columnist David Talbot has a few choice words today for these Dems, including Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, who fell in line last week and cast "yes" votes for two of Trump's cabinet nominees, Mike Pompeo as CIA director "despite his noxious support for those agency personnel who participated in the torture program (he calls them “patriots”) and his bigoted views conflating Islamic leaders with terrorists"; and John Kelly as Homeland Security secretary "despite his pledge to crack down on San Francisco and other sanctuary cities." And, Talbot adds exasperatedly, "even progressive hero Elizabeth Warren voted for Ben Carson as housing and urban development secretary."

These votes certainly feel like betrayals, but in the minds of these politicians they are perhaps just courtesies, given that the Republican majority is in charge now and their "no" votes are only going to serve as gestures of protests. Perhaps there's a strategy, and knowing they can't win all these fights they're saving their no votes for gestures that might count more, or that might sway a Republican or two, though that is probably an empty hope now. (For her part, Feinstein at least announced she'd vote against confirming Sen. Jeff Sessions as attorney general today.)

But Talbot isn't having it:

It’s not enough to issue flowery statements on behalf of sanctuary cities and our constitutional values. Thugs like Trump and his political mastermind Steve Bannon only understand force. The Democrats who emerge as the leaders of the future will be those who mount the most fierce and unbending resistance to this extremist administration.

He's equally outraged at accused Trump collaborator Travis Kalanick (whom he unfortunately misnames as Travis Karalnick), who announced that he would join Trump's economic advisory team in order to advocate for Uber and Silicon Valley from the inside. But that move blew up when Uber then got caught in the crosshairs during a New York taxi strike on Saturday in response to Trump's immigration ban.

Once again in our recent history it seems like a time for the Democrats to show some balls and resist wherever and however they can — and that goes double for corporations who don't want to face boycotts and protests by those on the Left whose anger is not likely to abate soon.

Says Talbot, via a conversation with new D9 Supervisor Hillary Ronen:

Many Americans already think that the Democratic Party —and the corporate elites that took control of it — sold them out, said Ronen. If the party doesn’t fight back tooth and nail against Trump’s attack on the most vulnerable in our society, then Democrats will continue down their path to oblivion.

Previously: David Talbot Reveals Notable Bernal Neighbors In First Chronicle Column

In a heated (read: lots of mailers) race for the District 11 State Senate seat currently occupied by Mark Leno, who is due to be termed-out, two Democratic San Francisco Supervisors — Scott Wiener and Jane Kim — edged out Republican Kenneth Loo to face off against one another this November. (Read: Expect more fucking mailers.)

The Examiner puts the difference between them at just 2,800 votes, a lead of 1.65 percent held by Wiener. Bay City News records the tally, via ABC7, as around 46.1 precent for Wiener and 44.4 percent for Kim (with 594 of 645 precinct results in as of publication time). Wiener's narrow lead was wider in early returns, at one point a gap of 11 percent, and in San Mateo he led more clearly with 46.43 percent of the vote over Kim's 37.33 percent.

Bay City News calls Scott Wiener the "widely viewed... favorite to win." Closer to the center than Kim, Wiener got into the race first and secured key endorsements from mainstream Democrats.

Jane Kim, for her part, claimed the endorsement of Bernie Sanders: The two were seen palling around Chinatown days ago.

As far as real policy differences, Kim was first among the Supervisors to call for the resignation of Chief Suhr, whom Wiener appeared to defend. Wiener is sightly softer on Airbnb, having received, in a donations haul that between the two candidates was more than $2 million dollars so far, a small sum from Airbnb's CEO.

Neither really liked the Super Bowl, though Kim was more vocal about the event while Wiener focused his attacks on the safety problems posed by tent cities. Further, Wiener has made a name for himself as a public transit junkie, campaigning for more and better transit options.

Approaching November as the "top-two" candidate in the open primary system for statewide offices, the candidates will likely draw further, more substantive distinctions between themselves. Namely: Who can send more mailers and, eventually, get more votes.

Related: Wiener vs. Kim Already Most Expensive District 11 State Senate Race Ever

Though 1600 protesters were said to be showing up in support of Bernie Sanders' candidacy for president, less than 100 actually made it to the rally and march on Friday, which began at Huntington Park at 5 p.m. The group nonetheless made some noise, as you can hear in the video above, and as Hoodline reports they made their way as close as they could get to the Washington Street home of venture capitalist Shervin Pishevar, where a fundraiser was happening for Hillary Clinton and featured the presence of longtime Clinton fan George Clooney, along with his wife, human rights attorney Amal Clooney.

At issue, of course, was the $33,400-$353,400 ticket price, and Hillary's documented connections to some of the big banks that Senator Sanders would like to become smaller.

As KRON 4 reports, protesters chanted "We are the 99 percent!" As one Sanders supporter, Heidi Knodle, shouted, "Votes for sale only $353,000, including dinner. Get big money out of politics.”

According to the Chronicle, "Other signs compared Clinton to fabled French queen Marie Antoinette of 'Let them eat cake' fame."

It's unclear whether the #DineWithThe99 potluck actually took place outside Pishevar's home or not, but Hoodline says, "After some time protesting outside of Pishevar's home, the group continued marching down Jones and over to Jackson Street, with police following on motorcycles."

As we noted earlier, this was one of two fundraisers the Clooneys are hosting for Hillary, with the second one tonight in Los Angeles at the Clooney home, which will be attended by Steven Spielberg, wife Kate Capshaw, and big-time Obama supporters Jeffrey and Marilyn Katzenberg.

The events are for the "joint fundraising committee" known as the Hillary Victory Fund, which is separate from the campaign and therefore can accept bigger donations than the $2,700 limit. An early Victory Fund event hosted by Sting in December raised $8 million in one night, as Politico noted. Funds from these fundraisers also go to other Democratic candidates in smaller races.

Update: Some tweets from inside Friday's fundraiser, via re/Code.

Previously: 1600 Sanders Supporters To Bang Pots Outside George Clooney's SF Fundraiser For Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton asking for $353k/couple to sit at table with her & George Clooney at 4/15 funder. #EverydayAmericans pic.twitter.com/hAHXIjdo1s

— Kenneth P. Vogel (@kenvogel) March 24, 2016

While she decided to retire the "everyday Americans" catchphrase last fall, presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton has still struggled to combat the impression that she is out of touch with the concerns of the average voter. It is an impression that will not be challenged by news of upcoming campaign fundraiser for the candidate to be held in San Francisco. An invite for the April 15 event lists the comical price of $353,400 (per couple) to eat dinner with both Clinton and George and Amal Clooney.

"Please join George and Amal Clooney for cocktails and dinner with Hillary Rodham Clinton in support of the Hillary Victory Fund," reads the invite (which interestingly gives the Clooneys top billing) emailed out to potential donors.

As Politico notes, that $353,400 price tag is more than four times the average income in San Francisco.

The dinner is set to take place at the San Francisco home of venture capitalist Shervin Pishevar, and offers several tiered pricing options. For $353,400, you and your dining partner can be an honorary "event chair," a designation which comes with the exciting opportunity to lobby (likely future president) Clinton during a "roundtable" in addition to "premium dinner seating." A bit out of your range? For the $100,000, you and a guest can hang at the "host reception." Still too expensive? For $33,400 you can get a photo with candidate.

Politico points out that the money is going to the Hillary Victory Fund, a joint fundraising committee that is legally allowed to accept well over the $2,700 primary campaign individual contribution limit.

The San Francisco fundraiser is to be followed by a similar LA fundraiser with the Clooneys on April 16, reports Page Six, which also quotes Hillary for America national finance director Dennis Cheng as saying they "expect both events to sell out." That event will also include Steven Spielberg and wife Kate Capshaw, and Jeffrey

Better snap those tickets up fast.

Related: In Speech At Stanford, Hillary Clinton Responds To Brussels Attack

Obama is coming, yet again, to the Bay Area, and will be touching down at Moffett Field near Mountain View at 7:30 p.m. Googlers be warned: There will be extra motorcade-related traffic.

Also, this often means a temporary grounding of planes at SFO to clear the airspace, so you might want to look out for flight delays there too.

According to ABC 7, the President will spend Wednesday and Thursday night in the South Bay, and he has two fundraisers down there tomorrow.

There's always the possibility, of course, that he'll be popping into SF for an event too, but that has not been announced. The President was last here in October when he attended that fundraiser with Kanye West at The Warfield, and last year at about this time he dropped into SF to have dinner with Elon Musk and some other tech CEOs at Spruce.

According to his published schedule, the President spent the day today in Springfield, Illinois where he addressed the state's general assembly and gave remarks at an arts center.

In related news, President Obama today asked Congress to allocate $125 million in next year's budget to go toward the project to electrify Caltrain, as KRON 4 reports.

Previously: Video: The SF Giants Get All Dressed Up And Hang Out With President Obama

In memory of Democratic leader, and New York's last liberal governor, Mario Cuomo, who passed away yesterday at age 82, here's a clip from Cuomo's inspiring keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in San Francisco in 1984. It stands in sharp contrast to the endless positivity of President Reagan, and cuts to the heart of economic inequalities facing the nation 30 years ago.

[h/t: KQED]

We don't know if she's just being coy, but House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi just gave an interview in which she says that she's not interested in being Speaker of the House again, should the Democrats ever succeed in winning back a majority of seats.

The reason she gives is that she's already held the job, and the reason she doesn't give is that at age 73 she might be getting a little tired. But will she ever retire?

She gave the interview to the National Journal, and it's the first time she's definitively addressed the question of her political future since giving up the Speaker seat to John Boehner two years ago. She addressed the question really briefly though, saying only, "No, that's not my thing. I did that."

She also has some choice words for Republicans, and for the deadly repetitiveness of being in Congress these days.

Oh, it's Groundhog Day Central. There's no question about that. It's not productive. It's a waste of the taxpayers' dollar. It's a waste of our time. And it's time that's not working [for] the American people. [The Republicans'] agenda is nothing, and their timetable is never. But having said that, hopefully there are some among them that realize we have a responsibility to govern...

Here's what I have to say to my Republican friends out there: Take back your party. This isn't the Grand Old Party that used to have such great leadership. The name "Republican" in some ways has been hijacked by obstructionists. They are nowhere on the spectrum of trying to get the job done, and they claim the name without bringing to it the greatness, the leadership of the past.

Pelosi has now spent 26 years in Congress, and having served as Speaker from 2007 to 2011, she remains the highest ranking female politician in American history.

[National Journal]
[CBS]