Today's rally at City Hall in support of Bike Plan implementation...

Mere days after the head of the environmental department broke with Aaron Peskin and other city leaders on a Public Utilities Commission policy, this week Peskin introduced a wee bit of legislation that would obliterated said department. Yoinks....

After Supervisor Sandoval introduced a resolution to brand hyperbolic grandpa Michael Savage as a hate speech-spewing loon, it wasn't voted on unanimously yesterday, care of SFsit's favorite coverboy, Ed Jew. (Ah, World Net Daily, where we go to get all of our fair and balanced news, drizzled with a infusion of organic Nazism.) On July 5, after Savage predictably asked that students undergoing a weeklong fast for immigration reform (and, bonus, to slim down......

--Chris Daly gets booted as the chair of the Budget and Finance Committee. --Are they going to make Supervisor Gerardo Sandoval the next assessor? --A baby gets a margarita! --Someone defaced an Arabic mural with Christian crosses. --People didn't really like the Police show. Fabulous picture by reader Richard from the Ed Jew-endorsed Cherry Blossom Parade back in April!......

Nothing too new to report on the Ed Jew got arrested front this morning, but the Chron did survey all the other Board of Supervisor members for their reactions. Let's go in order! --District 1 (Jake McG): "The appearance is so bad, we don't need a trial." --District 2 (Michela Alioto-Pier): Considers Jew a friend, "Let's remember he's not been found guilty of anything." --District 3 (Aaron Peskin): "If I was in his place, I......

Uno, dos, tres, quatro!: the mayor's office has announced the fourth installment of his traveling lecture series, or, as he prefers to call it "the town hall open meeting where the public is not actually permitted to ask direct questions." Or -- as we prefer to call it -- FOURTH FAKE QUESTION TIME!!! Guess Gavin's still not going to do Actual Question Time before the Board of Supervisors, huh? Were all those sweet words......

A recent wave of immigration sweeps (or, as Indy Bay calls it "Gestapo Immigration Raiders") is creating a bit of a fuss not only in San Francisco but throughout the Peninsula and East Bay. There's talk of protests, organizing, sending out nasty press releases, and even the creation of new laws. In Redwood City, there's talk of creating an "Immigration Sanctuary" in San Mateo County and in San Francisco, the Board of Supervisors will debate a resolution tomorrow condemning the sweeps. That'll show them. Hell, even Gavin's jumped into the fray with his very own press release tut-tutting the raids. All of this has brought the Minutemen into the action as they held a rally in Castro Valley to call for closing the border. It wasn't until a few days ago when we realized the Minutemen were named after our Revolutionary soldiers and not their sexual dysfunctions, although one could probably explain the other. ...

The Navy was all set to commission a battleship in San Francisco in 2008, the Makin Island, but have decided to move it to San Diego instead. It turns out they're a little sensitive to all the anti-military stuff thrown around the city. The Navy, what a bunch of wusses. Eh, just so y'all know, that was a joke. The last thing we need is Fox News knocking on our door for questioning the machismo of the armed forces. ...

-Gavin's staff and political team sure thinks he's running. -Al goes to Berkeley to campaign for proposition 87, the tax the gas prop. ...

It turns out that Rev. Amos Brown-- African-American community leader, former City Supervisor, and the head of the Third Baptist Church-- is now shilling for Schwarzenegger in the upcoming gubernatorial election. What makes this so interesting is that Brown has in the past said not so nice things about Arnie, including that Arnie was part of "the national axis of evil" and was a "partner in crime" with the President....

Is everyone sitting down? And yes we realize that's a stupid question considering that you're all reading this at the computer so of course you're sitting down, but run with it. Anyways, we have some big, big news to relate to you: SF has been chosen to represent the U.S. for the 2016 Olympics! Or at least, that's what all the headlines say. The reality is that we're merely still in the running along with LA and Chicago as Houston and Philadelphia were dropped from consideration. Wah...wah...sucks to be you. ...

It's been awhile since we heard from Supervisor Gerardo Sandoval. Maybe he's decided to keep a low profile after his big Hannity & Colmes flame out? Well, who knows. Anyways, he's back and in rare form, having proposed legislation to the Board of Supervisors that in an effort to save American values that are currently threatened by an influx of Spanish speakers, we need to make English the official language of SF. And not just any ole English, Shakespearean English at that. ...

In light of all the brouhaha over Gerardo Sandoval's now notorious appearance on Hannity & Colmes last week, the question still out there is what the hell was he thinking? And we don't mean that for what he said but more for what was he thinking saying that on a show on Fox. After all, Hannity & Colmes is to political discourse what two drunken frat boys shoving each other outside the Balboa Cafe because they "have a problem with each other" is to Greco-Roman wrestling. ...

It's cold out there, people, as cold as our Junior Year prom date. -The Board of Supes voted by a 9-2 margin for the public financing of Mayoral races. The city will give a maximum of $1.375 million dollars for those who want in and will be given to candidates who have raised at least $525,000 on their own. That should at least keep Starchild from getting some of that money. Cost in total? $1.5 Million a year and a little over $6 mil an election cycle. ...

It's been a bad week for the Republican Party. So bad, in fact, that Cheney shooting a 78 year old man might have been the best thing to happen, if anything to take people's attention away from much more awful stuff. And so with polls sagging, scandals mounting, and bodies dropping, the RNC flashed the bat signal and out to the rescue came Fox News. Cause what rallies the conservative base more? Love of small government and deficit cutting? Bwah. No, it's beating up on wussy, liberal, America-hating, straw-man liberals. Which is why this week Fox News sent out their big guns and went big game hunting in San Francisco, the Quailtard covey of wussy, liberal, America-hating, straw-man liberals. The big show was Tuesday night when Hannity & Colmes not only had our very own Gerardo Sandoval on their show to be lamb to the slaughter and discuss the possibly earth-shattering news that the Board of Supes don't want a WWII era battleship to be berthed in the Bay, but Hannity was live in SF, parachuted into enemy territory as it were. They were so into it, in fact, they hyped the story all night. ...

Dan Gillmor bows out of Bayosphere in Businessweek -- reactions from JD Lasica, Jonas Luster and Thomas Hawk. Blogger Tom Foremski says he's doing just fine, claiming to be more popular with PR folks than the Wall Street Journal's Walter Mossberg. Hey, at least no one has had to resort to astroblogging (astroturfing + blogging, natch). John Paczkowski is afraid, very afraid about rumors that boo.com is back. "Best Headline in a While" award......

Supervisor Gerardo Sandoval's in a Monster Park of his own making, after his proposal before the Board of Supes to support the Seahawks was greeted with a cry of "Offsides!" from the red-and-gold faithful. "Sandoval sounds like a traitor," announces the head of the Santa Clara Niners booster club. A Niners spokesman said the resolution "represents an appalling lack of loyalty to San Francisco." That guy's just probably happy no one's asking him questions about videos for a change! Sandoval says, "Come on, give me a break, it's just a way to have fun and help a few bar owners," noting that sports bars have seen a precipitous decline in attendance since the Niners limped to a 4-12 season this last year and that Seahawks coach Mike Holmgren is a San Francisco native. But as of this morning, Niners fans vowed to show up at today's Board of Supes meeting at 2 p.m. to protest against the proposal. Well, given how bad the Niners defense is, we're sure the proposition will pass 41-3. Picture of a Niners-Seahawks game in 2003 from the NFL website...

There's been some amount of whining lately over this weekend's big championship football games. Especially here in the Bay Area as our football teams were out of the playoff running around the same time the Giants and the A's were. But relax, football fans, we just might have something to root for this weekend anyways. This week, Supervisor Gerardo Sandoval announced legislation to have the city adopt the Seattle Seahawks as our football team. It's kind of like having a Sister City. We now have a Sister-Team...

A few days ago, Pat Murphy handed the keys to the San Francisco Sentinel over to another political blogger, H Brown of the SF Bulldog. In a Week in Review type column, Brown starts giving out grades to members of the Board of Supervisors, based on his opinions and how they measured up to his progressive beliefs. He gives Sup. Gerardo Sandoval an A- and writes this as the reason why: "For taking one for the team in fighting Donald Fisher pretty much alone. I feel almost responsible because I kept writing about the Jewish cabal of Fisher & Shorenstein & Blum & Goldman & Hellman and how they're playing Sim City with San Francisco. It's true that they think they're better than all of us. It's true that a big part of why they think they're better than us is because they're Jewish. That's all true. But, you better not say it if you have any property to lose. Or, a family to raise. ...

We know you're probably just dying to know what's been happening on all those fascinating news items we've been telling you about. Well, fret no more! Your prayers have been answered! Supervisor Gerardo Sandoval argued on behalf of himself yesterday that he shouldn't have to pay Don Fisher's political committee any more money. The judge seemed sympathetic to District 11's finest, calling Fisher's request "odd." Man, the New York Liquor Store in Oakland's having a bad week. Not only does it get targeted for vandalism by Your Black Muslim bakery, then set on fire, and then its owner gets kidnapped and left in a car truck, but now folks in the neighborhood are looting the charred, broken remains of the store. After agreeing to host a ping-pong tournament with Shanghai, Gavin Newsom travels to Beijing and checks out the Great Wall. Also -- dude, check him out playing basketball at Yao Ming's elementary school. What are those shoes? And Gavin, have you gotten us a panda yet? And Tookie Williams's request for a stay on his execution order was denied. Only Arnold Schwarzenegger can save him now. ...

First he loses the race for assessor (and the sweet almost 100% pay raise it would have entailed), and now this? Supervisor Gerardo Sandoval will be arguing on his own behalf (who is it again that has himself as a lawyer...?) that he shouldn't have to pay an additional $57,000 to the political committee he unsuccessfully tried to sue. You may remember that Sandoval sued Don Fisher of the Gap and political consultant Duane Baughman for releasing attack ads against him in the 2004 election -- but he lost the case and now has to pay for the defendants' attorneys' fees. Sandoval settled with Baughman but not with Fisher -- and now Fisher's trying to get the $57,000 they claim they're owed over the appeal that Sandoval filed and their costs in attempting to enforce the judgment against Sandoval. Sandoval claims he has no money to pay them, can't afford a lawyer, says they're trying to take his house, and claims they've even talked about garnishing his wages. Fisher's lawyer says they don't want Sandoval's house but they do want him to pay their costs. Argument's this afternoon. ...

The concerns over The City's new franchise agreement with Comcast have been bubbling under the surface for a while now, but things are just starting to get nasty. Gerardo Sandoval, in a Bay Guardian editorial estimates that Comcast makes around $100 in revenue from subscriptions, and the current contract proposal would involve about $2.5 million a year to The City -- a $3.5 million lump sum, $5 million for public and government programming and......

Thanks to SFists Jackson and Eve for reading the weeklies last week! Last week's weekly of the week, as picked by you, our readers: The Guardian! Gerardo Sandoval continues his all-out media blitz, this time about Comcast (our main priority vis-a-vis Comcast is to get them to add Boomerang, the classic cartoon channel.) Where's our free wifi? A guy died in the SF jail (covered also by the Chron). Annalee Newitz on machinima (like fan fiction, but for videogame hacks). Cover: Oakland band Battleship (who get hit by firecrackers in their shows). Sonic Reducer: local bands go to a bar in LA and run into Lance Bass, Ryan Cabrera, and Courtney Love. The EBX: Bottom Feeder with an excellent Law and Order episode: a possibly-delusional woman who killed her husband, whom she met when she was a patient in his psychiatric practice, is defending herself and will be cross-examining her son. A paper targeted at the Oakland inner city and covering sex gossip, called BootyCrack! Bobblehead day at the Oakland Coliseum! Cover article: the overprescription of psychiatric drugs. And the allegedly-homophobic dancehall star Beenie Man comes to town and puts on a decent show. After the jump: the SF Weekly, and we go back to autocratically picking the weekly of the week....

Our preliminary exit polling in the closely-watched SFist Political Junkie Hottest Supervisor race is showing a neck-and-neck tie between Chris Daly's smoldering eyes and Fiona Ma's luscious hair -- with Michaela's flirty smile and Ross's melliflous basso tones not far behind. ....but isn't anyone going to vote for sexy board president Aaron Peskin? Love 'em for their policies? Love 'em for their sexy strut? Who cares! Clean out those cookies on your computer and stuff the ballot box for your hottie of choice!

Super Hotties! Who is the hottest SF Supe? Sean Elsbernd Fiona Ma Aaron Peskin Chris Daly Jake McGoldrick Ross Mirkarimi Michaela Alioto-Pier Sophie Maxwell Tom Ammiano Gerardo Sandoval Bevan Dufty view results Easy online poll builder - free! $5 Web Hosting!

SFist welcomes some new members of the family -- in English and in French (anybody want to contribute in Mandarin?). Oh, and Rehab the Crab! This is what happens when you introduce a conservative political columnist to postmodern critical theory. Though we admit, even we have a few pet conspiracy theories. Gerardo Sandoval owes Duane Baughman $15,000 -- a little more than a month's pay if he were the Assessor Recorder and made as......

Sorry, couldn't resist the opportunity to go all Drudge on this one. Hot on the heels of settling his civil suit, Gerardo Sandoval seems to be telling anyone who'll listen that he wants Mabel Teng's old job at the City Assessor's office. Friend of SFist Alex Clemens at the Usual Suspects (he and Pat Murphy can fight over who scooped whom amongst themselves) sent the following report and analysis: Sandoval is alerting people to......

Duane Baughman, you're our big winner! The political consultant is getting $15,000 to resolve the lawsuit that Supervisor (and newly-announced candidate for assessor/recorder, courtesy of the Sentinel) Gerardo Sandoval filed against him for those anonymous flyers sent out in the 2004 supervisors' race. Sandoval also, through gritted teeth, issued the following statement:

I regret pursuing this matter against Democratic political consultant Duane Baughman in the courts, and for any personal and professional trouble this may have caused him. We have settled the matter, and I consider it closed.

This settlement is proof that this was never about money. It was always about vindication in a public arena. Supervisor Sandoval has expressed his sincere regret to me personally about this entire matter. I consider the matter now closed, and I am happy to get back to the business of electing Democrats around the country.

Okay, we're a little late to the party on this one (what? We thought your party started at 9, not 7! Our bad!) -- but our new favorite TV channel's got to be the C-SPAN of San Francisco politics, SFGTV Channel 26. Yes, we know, you can download specific meetings to watch on your computer, or check out the DVDs of particular meetings from the library -- but what we're totally loving about Channel 26 is your total lack of control about what shows up! Where else could we totally just randomly turn on the TV and see..... Gavin Newsom joking with reporters...? ....Tom Ammiano telling the Board of Supes that "I've been out for years"....? ...or Chris Daly shouting out, "ONE COUNTRY, INDIVISIBLE" over everyone else's "under God" during the Pledge of Allegiance? It's like old-school MTV, only with Sean Elsbernd (and no "wubba wubba wubba"). Day or night, the videotapes of justice whir on -- whether Chris Daly's boredly twiddling his pen, or Gerardo Sandoval's running into a meeting right after he's marked "absent" on the roll call, or SFist Jackson pleading to get us a press pass -- it's awesome. Hey, any chance SFGTV could start airing Animal Care and Control dog hearings too? ...

Once a PD, always a PD -- Matt Gonzalez comes to the aid of fellow progressive (and former colleague at the public defender's office) Supervisor Gerardo Sandoval, penning an editorial published on the front page of the local African-American paper, the SF Bay View. So Sandoval's in a fight with Republican political consultant Duane Baughman over "anonymous" attack flyers mailed out in the 2004 race. But who? Who was it? Well, Gonzalez calls 'em out, identifying the flyers as sent by.... Don Fisher from the Gap -- possibly in retaliation for Sandoval's vote supporting a Gonzalez-sponsored bill against chain stores (which failed). Aw, say it ain't so, Matt! We love our Gap hoodie! One of the flyers, which Matt calls "the dirtiest piece of political mail I've ever seen," had a swastika on it and called Sandoval anti-Semitic. Another one had a picture of Ashcroft with the phrase "thanks, Gerardo!" stamped on The Soaring Eagle's forehead, arguing that Sandoval's support of that proposition allowing non-citizens to vote in school board elections would lead to more deportations. What, Fisher couldn't get Joss Stone to go negative about Sandoval's failure to wear white denim this season too? Gonzalez and Sandoval are calling for better disclosure laws on local political mailers in the future. Us, we're calling for a more relaxed fit on Don Fisher's boot-cut sandblasted vintage jeans. This picture of Matt is awesome. From the Progressive Voter Project....

It's all about bravery, people. But don't misplace your faith. Supporters rally for Gerardo Sandoval, whereas Jan Wahl has trouble with the audience. Dave Chappelle comes to town. How come we didn't know? Because we don't have B-list stars calling us like the Gavster does. Sean Elsbernd -- maybe not so good at math. He is, however, well mannered -- a rare quality these days. We're not narcissists, we're just self-aware. Unless, of course,......