Results tagged “diannefeinstein”

Now that Gavin Newsom has dropped out of the governor's race (welcome back to work, Gavin!), rumors are swirling that Senator Dianne Feinstein might take a stab as the new "it" Democratic candidate. Or not. Who's to say for sure. This speculation pops up all the time with DiFi.

Call it what you will, but hometown gal Nancy Pelosi's push to get the President's health care initiative through Congress before their August recess appears to be failing, and among those stalling it is another hometown gal, Senator Dianne Feinstein, who still doesn't know how we're going to pay for any of this shit. Her actual words relate more to creating new health care entitlements that the country's budget can't afford. To wit: "Entitlements are well over 50 percent of every dollar the federal government spends this year and are going straight up. If you add more entitlements, it's a problem." We would agree that a feasible plan for covering the costs of this plan should be laid out, but President Obama promises it won't add to the deficit. DiFi calls bullshit. Who to believe?

During opening remarks by Sen. Dianne Feinstein in the Supreme Court confirmation hearing of Judge Sonia Sotomayor this morning, an anti-abortion protester stood up, shouted something about genocide and the unborn, and was promptly dragged out of the room. Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, who's presiding over the hearing and therefore in charge of the gavel, was having none of it. The man's name is Robert James, and he's been charged with unlawful conduct and disruption of Congress. No word on whether the God Hates Fags-famed Phelpses -- who never met an event that they couldn't relate back to homosexuality and God's wrath -- have shown up.

Harvey Milk-era diva, former San Francisco Mayor, and Presidio Terrace resident Sen. Dianne Feinstein will become chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, making her the first dame to the first dame to chair the committee in its 32-year history. In a statement released, DiFi said that her goals will be "working with the Obama administration to end the practice of coercive interrogations and creating a uniform standard for interrogations throughout the U.S. government, granting the Red Cross access to detainees and closing the Guantánamo Bay detention facility within one year." (Huh?) This also clears up any rumors that she would run for governor of California, which allows Mayor Gavin Newsom to focus most of his attention on making the move to Sacramento.

Offices in Capitol Hill received a manila envelope with a letter claiming responsibility for today's bombing of a landmark military recruiting station in Times Square, NYC. Our parent site, Gothamist, tells us that "WNBC reports that the letters, which arrived today, included a photo of the Army recruiting center 'before it was bombed and...the words 'We did it.'" Which group is claiming responsibility, exactly, remains to be known.

Undergoing a procedure to erase 30 years from its face, the Castro neighborhood is going retro, circa 1978, for the filming of Gus Van Sant's Harvey Milk biopic, Milk, which starts shooting this week. Already the Castro Theatre, right, and boutique shop Given, formerly Milk's camera store / campaign headquarters, are being renovated to get that '70s vibe. Rumor has it that Castro Street between 18th and 19th streets (i.e., the staphicenter) will be closed on Thursday. We'll update with more info as it comes in.

As of noon today, the District 4 seat formerly occupied by Ed Jew is now empty, and the Sunset has no representation on the Board of Supervisors. Quick, everyone, now's the time to put a toxic waste dump on 26th and Wawona! (We just like saying the word "Wawona" is all.)

“I was shocked,” said Board of Supervisors Prez Aaron Peskin after being asked about Gavin Newsom's whereabouts this past weekend. Same here. Word is that Gavin was in Hawaii this past weekend, kicking in the sand and surf. Has senioritis kicked in already, Mayor? Not that you could've mopped up the oil singlehandedly, but still, you should have been here. We're a sensitive lot, us SF babies.

Well spun, Dianne. Looking to use the oil spill to get some much needed face time -- perfect for balancing out other less savory images of the Senator -- Dianne Feinstein flew to San Francisco yesterday to put her foot down about the Bay Area's "disturbing lack of readiness" to the oil spill. "It's pretty clear cities around the bay should have been brought in faster than they were," she said, according to the...

Local movie star, sometimes activist, and Tosca regular Sean Penn will play gay for pay in the long-incubated version of Randy Shilts' 1982 "The Mayor of Castro Street". (An amazing book for those of you who have yet to read it.) He'll play murdered San Francisco Supervisor and gay rights activist Harvey Milk, who was shot and killed along with Mayor George Moscone by Supervisor Dan White. Perma-boy Matt Damon gets to play the...

Offside! Penalty -- three months. Any talk of the Niners moving from San Francisco down to Santa Clara is before the snap (did we get our convoluted football metaphor right? SFist Jon's out on vacation this week so we can't check), now that the City of Santa Clara's experienced yet more delays in completing the required feasibility study about how they're going to raise their $160 million share for the stadium.

. Meredith ventures back to the Mission to try that place that opened in the old KFC (she had the lobster). Minnie Driver uses the word love 54 times on her album. And former SFist Violet Blue guests in the Savage Love.

A public memorial is all set to honor Bill Walsh. It'll be held at Candlestick at 11 AM on August 10th and among the speakers will be Joe Montana and Eddie De Bartolo. A private ceremony will be held on August 9th at the Stanford Memorial Church. Speakers there will not only include Montana and DeBartolo, but NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and Dianne Feinstein. Rumored to attend are Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and former Secretary of State George Shultz who were friends of the Genius. Current owners of the 49ers, John and Denise York have also asked that the Governor declare a Bill Walsh Day.

Total number of people pictured in this week's Swells society column: 65.

On Fark.com they have this thing where if anyone in the House or Senate introduces a silly little bill, the person who writes the headline will always say "with nothing else going on Senator Blah Blah Blah introduced a bill to blah blah blah." Chuckles all around. So what does this have to do with anything? Well, with all the other stuff going on, you know, like the war, Senator Dianne Feinstein yesterday introduced legislation into the Senate giving the NFL a limited anti-trust exemption and so making it so that no team could move without first getting permission from the NFL first. And if you were to guess that this was all in an attempt to keep you know who from moving to you know where, you would be correct.

While most of the 2006 elections are over, there's still a bit of a contention coming from, where else, Florida. In the Sarasota congressional race, a recount was held and 18,000 under votes were discovered. That meant those people voted for everything else but not for congress. This drew alarm bells from people because the percentage of under votes was higher than anywhere else. And, you'd have to figure that the one race people would vote on would be for congress instead of the school board or bond measures or a Sarasota style Question Time. Voters also complained that the machines garbled everything up and they never got a chance to vote.

. Boooo!). It's actually a pretty decent article about the future of the Chron online, the criminal lack of mentioning of Eve notwithstanding. Book section. Meredith Brody tries out Top Chef entrees around town. SFist Ced is outraged that she would review a TGI Friday's when there's no TGI Friday's in the City. Wasn't there a TGI Friday's in Fisherman's Wharf? What happened to that one? The (((folkYEAH!))) festival in Big Sur. Doc's Clock, everyone's second-choice hipster bar. And Dan Savage ate too much pot pumpkin cake.

Total number of people pictured in this week's Swells society column: 59.

--Sofia Milos is back in town.

Old skool's hot again, as the Quaker Oats folks who own Rice-A-Roni have decided to bring back the cable car and the "San Francisco treat" tagline in its ad campaigns. And what about that infernally-catchy song? "We haven't brought back the jingle, but we're talking about it,'' Rice-a-Roni's marketing director Monica Young told the Chron.

Our own Dianne Feinstein continues to put her own stamp on Congress' annual "Seersucker Thursday" tribute to Southern style. Not since the last "Jeans Day" at their local Catholic High School has this country seen such a gang of folks giddy about a short-term change in dress expectations, and DiFi keeps the fun rolling with her gift of seersucker suits to her female colleagues in the senate.

Man, our office is the Montgomery BART/MUNI stop and we didn't see this. Well, we did overoptimistically think we wouldn't need an umbrella today, so we were a little distracted by the rain to look for folks in orange jumpsuits blocking the street from about 8:15-8:45 a.m.

One of the ways bloggers can leverage their collective influence is through a good, old-fashioned pile on. We don't have to necessarily break the story, but if a critical mass of bloggers start addressing it simultaneously, the s**tstorm will finally hit the mainstream. Just ask Dan Rather.

We asked some of our representatives last week about their feelings about the Terri Schiavo issue and the bill passed by Congress to allow her parents to sue. Guess what? No one got back to us, not even our favorite rep, Barbara Lee. Shame on you, unresponsive representatives.

We're a little late on this, but mazel tov to newly-affianced Mayor Jerry Brown of Oakland and his girlfriend of 15 years, Gap executive Anne Gust! (We apologize for using the picture of Jerry Brown with ex Linda Ronstadt, but Linda is apparently getting an invitation to the wedding so we figure it's all good.) Brown proposed on Gust's birthday two weeks ago, in their loft on Telegraph Avenue, after he cooked her a romantic dinner of BBQ chicken and peas. He was so excited he hadn't even bought a ring yet! Awwwwwww. It's a first wedding for them both. They're tentatively planning for a June 2005 wedding. Guess if you're the mayor, you don't have to worry so much about the year-long wait lists at popular Oaktown wedding spots like the rest of us. Sen. Dianne Feinstein will officiate (here's hoping she doesn't accidentally sell Brown and Gust out to the right wing in the process). And no registry -- all gifts should be sent to the Oakland School of the Arts. Cynics may say that this may have something to do with the fact that Jerry's planning on running for attorney general next year -- but we're choosing to see it solely as a move for love! Most importantly, though, Jerry! Are you going to go the route of all engaged bloggers and fill up your blogspot account with long accounts of trying on shoes and cake tastings and ofotos of fabric swatches? We can't wait!

The Schiavo bill passed without almost any input from Bay Area lawmakers. How did that happen?

Nothing like senate confirmation hearings to get the partisan juices flowing. Kos reports that Senator Barbara Boxer would speak her mind [link via 1115] as part of Dr. Condoleeza Rice's confirmation as Secretary of State. Dr. Rice, former Provost at Stanford, and Boxer, the only Senator to request an investigation into voter disenfranchisement in Ohio, are two of Washington's most powerful women. While SFist would rather have seen this settled in a steel-cage match, the halls of congress will have to do. From Boxer's prepared statement:

The National Geographic reported today that scientists now project that the Arctic may have melted completely by the end of this century, raising sea level globally by some 20 feet or so. The hardest hit, of course, would be coastline areas, especially major cities like ours that run right up to the water. We can't help but think that this is a nefarious plot by the GOP to make sure that the 2100 elections are locked up by submerging the majority of the blue states (and now we know why they're colored blue to begin with -- clever foreshadowing, no?). Also, in the post-election handwringing, implications from the all-but-Republican Dianne Feinstein that it was really San Francisco's endorsement of marriage for all that lost the election for Kerry, it's possible that San Francisco has been targeted for ice-cap-melting-submersion by not only Republicans but bitter, homophobic Democrats. More updates as this story, uh, submerges.

Sort of touching on the previous post, our boy Gavin's not having the best week this week either. His tax increases lost (so MUNI fares may go up to $1.50, 300 city employees will be fired, and a homeless shelter will be closed -- you gotta kinda admire Newsom, he went on record and was like, "if you don't vote for tax increases, I'll shoot this dog," and now he's going to shoot the dog), his Board of Supervisors will continue to be divided, Bad Reporter continues to envelop him in a spoon-hug on the carpet, and now this?