• A mortuary and funeral services business in the South Bay is being sued by a family who says they were given a bag containing the remains of their son’s brain. The father said he emptied what he thought was a bag of his deceased son’s clothing into the washing machine before realizing it was biohazardous material. [KRON4]
• Nolan Leonardo, 36, of San Francisco, faces five felonies and two misdemeanors after allegedly following a woman home from SF to Berkeley on November 29. Leonardo, who has eight prior convictions, was allegedly found to be in possession of a pistol, condoms, a flashlight Taser, a BB gun, five crack pipes, gloves, and sex toys. [Bay Area News Group]
• Ten people were displaced after a second fire spread between two houses in SF Friday morning near Balboa Park on the 200 block of Niagara Street, but no injuries were reported. [Chronicle]

National:

• When some San Diego high school students showed up to use their school gymnasium one Friday night, they were shocked to find it was being used for a porn live-stream. Twitch user named Wubby, or “PayMoneyWubby,” rented out the gym for a 24-hour event, which was sponsored by adult content subscription service, Fansly, featuring adult babies and crucifixion scenes. [NBC San Diego]
• Several of the GOP Indiana senators who vetoed Trump’s state redistricting plan cited his extensive bullying for their decision. [Associated Press]
• Turns out the drunk raccoon that took the internet by storm last week when it was found passed out in a Virginia liquor store bathroom has quite a rap sheet. [BBC]

Video of the Day:

The BART mobile was aglow with festive lights last week for Livermore’s Christmas parade in the East Bay.

Image: Leanne Maxwell/SFist

• Over 10,000 Air Canada flight attendants went on strike early Saturday, prompting the Canadian government to force the airline into arbitration. The shutdown of the airline, which operates about 700 flights a day, has left over 100,000 travelers stranded worldwide. [Associated Press]

• Mayor Lurie claimed his office secured $3.4 million in immigrant legal defense funding, which was actually awarded to the public defender’s office. Additionally, he neglected to renew $878,000 in grant funding that London Breed was awarded last year. [Mission Local]
• The Golden State Valkyries won their fourth game in a row Friday, scoring 90-59 against the Chicago Sky. [Bay Area News Group]
• The second bird in a month has been found to be infected with the West Nile virus — a crow from Walnut Creek tested positive on Friday. [KRON4]

• There have been 117 tiny earthquakes since Thursday’s 4.0-magnitude quake near the Geysers geothermal field in Mendicino, northeast of Healdsburg. [SFGate]

Image: Leanne Maxwell/SFist

The Senate is expected to vote by July 4 on the “Big Beautiful” bill, which could allow the sale of up to 3 million acres of public land across 11 western states. In California, 16 million acres are eligible, including land near Yosemite and Lake Tahoe.

As The Hill reports, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) — who’s Chair of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources — added a provision to the bill that directs the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management to sell between 0.5% and 0.75% of their holdings.

The targeted land excludes national parks and wilderness areas but includes National Forest and BLM-controlled land. The Chronicle has a map from the Wilderness Society showing affected parcels scattered throughout California, from Sierra wilderness zones to rural Central Valley foothills.

Lee argues the sale could promote housing development, energy production, and generate up to $10 billion for the federal government. “Washington has proven time and again it can’t manage this land. This bill puts it in better hands,” he said.

But conservationists and community groups see it as a major threat to public access, environmental protections, and wildfire management. “Once the land is sold, we will never get it back,” warned Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-Montana), who helped remove the land sale provision from the House version of the bill before it resurfaced in the Senate.

As Fresno’s KSFN reports, environmental groups like Unite 4 Parks have raised alarms about the speed and scope of the sales. “All of us are going to lose if we lose access to this landscape that we're used to camping in and so forth,” said Deanna Wulff. She added that three million acres isn’t a small number: “If you took Yosemite, and the Sierra National Forest, and then the Sequoia/Kings Canyon range… that whole stretch, that’s 3 million acres. That is huge.”

The bill allows “any interested party” to purchase land, which critics say opens the door to wealthy individuals and corporations outbidding state and local governments that lack the budget to compete. As Michael Carroll of the Wilderness Society told SFGate, “They capped it at 3 million acres, but 258 million acres is on the menu.”

U.S. Senator Adam Schiff (D-California) said he will fight the bill "tooth and nail."

Image: YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK, CA - JUNE 18:  The Merced River flows through  the center of the Valley as viewed on June 18, 2024, at Yosemite  National Park, California.  (Photo by  George Rose/Getty Images)

In a charged address at the California Republican Party convention in Anaheim Friday, Donald Trump made headlines with a mix of familiar attacks and grievances, as well as a concerning call for violent retribution against criminals.

Some of the topics of the complaints in Trump’s wandering 90-minute speech: crime, forests, homelessness, Nancy Pelosi, Gavin Newsom, electric vehicles, and, of course, alleged election fraud, according to the Chronicle.

He reportedly called retail thieves “Marxist monsters unleashing mayhem in Los Angeles and San Francisco,” and said he send “every asset” he could to “shoot” them — apparently drawing applause from the 1,500-person crowd. Going off-script, he said, "If you rob a store, you can fully expect to be shot as you are leaving that store," emphasizing his call for violent punishment.

Trump also wants to “wet” forest floors to prevent wildfires, per the Chronicle. But then he said that rich people in Beverly Hills smell bad because they're denied water, as KCRA reported.

Going after California's Democratic leadership, Trump blamed them for issues such as homelessness, high taxes, and inequality. He reportedly accused the state of being a "dumping ground" for prisoners, terrorists, and mental patients, pledging to "reverse the decline of America."

Naturally, Trump has no shot of winning the state, but California is set up to play a pivotal role in the Super Tuesday primaries, so the state's GOP support is valuable — he currently leads the primary race among likely Republican voters, according to a recent poll, per the LA Times.

Also in attendance at the convention were other Republican contenders, including Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, who expressed support for law enforcement without advocating violence, according to the Chronicle. But Trump’s legal challenges still loom as he faces felony charges in four criminal cases.

While he was in Southern California on Friday, he went to a gun store and may have bought a handgun, as the Washington Post reported. A staffer reportedly posted a picture of him with a gun, and federal prosecutors are questioning if that counts as a violation of the gag order imposed on him amid his criminal trials because the image could be construed as a public threat.

“The defendant either purchased a gun in violation of the law and his conditions of release, or seeks to benefit from his supporters’ mistaken belief that he did so,” the court filing says, per WaPo. “It would be a separate federal crime, and thus a violation of the defendant’s conditions of release, for him to purchase a gun while this felony indictment is pending.”

Feature image of former U.S. President Donald Trump greeting fans during the California GOP convention on September 29, 2023 in Los Angeles, California, via David McNew/Getty Images.

“San Francisco Values,” hmmm? Local attorney and longtime Republican gadfly Harmeet K. Dhillon is running against Ronna McDaniel in Friday’s race for RNC chair, but her reported “unity ticket” with the MyPillow Guy might doze her odds off.

The Republican party’s 2022 midterm election whiff, combined with Kevin McCarthy’s comical stumbling out of the gate to be House Speaker, have turned the traditional media tides to create a “GOP in Disarray” narrative. And that narrative is poison for Republican National Committee (RNC) chair Ronna McDanield, severely weakened as she faces a tough reelection for that position this Friday at the RNC Winter Meeting in Dana Point, California.

So who’s challenging her?

Hey-o! That is San Francisco attorney Harmeet K. Dhillon, a Fox News regular, former vice chair of the California Republican Party, and a legal adviser in Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election, alongside the dripping liquid hair of Rudy Giuliani. SFist readers may recall her lawyerly activities of representing opponents of the Haight Street McDonald’s lot tent city, taking the case of mens’ rights Google bro James Damore, and trying to sue Berkeley for not letting Ann Coulter speak. But it absolutely helps Dhillon’s chances that she just got a glowing Time magazine writeup, which declares, “How Harmeet Dhillon Turned the Race for RNC Chair Into a Real Fight.”

Meanwhile, it absolutely hurts her chances that today, her spokesperson declared Dhillon would be running on a unity ticket with MyPillow Guy Mike Lindell.

So what are Dhillon’s odds? The Hill sizes it up: “Several letters have circulated over the last few months with more than 100 RNC members publicly supporting McDaniel, while Dhillon’s website for her campaign for RNC chair shows 28 endorsements from state chairs and RNC committee members,” that site notes. "Her website specifies that it’s a 'partial list.'"

Dhillon has never won a public election against a Democratic candidate. But she has won internal Republican elections for local, state, and national positions. And Friday’s vote is an internal Republican election, and a secret ballot at that.

Related: Over 56,000 People in San Francisco Voted for Trump [SFist]

Image: White House staff via Wikimedia Commons

Republican party operations in Fresno, Los Angeles, and Orange County were busted for bamboozling voters with phony ballot drop boxes, which is totally a felony.

You’ve heard President Trump and his unemployable sons complaining for months that mail-in voting would lead to widespread voter fraud. And now that Governor Newsom has ordered mail-in ballots be sent to every registered voter in  the state, allow us to knock you over with a feather with the news that the California Republican party has been caught doing the voter fraud, putting out illegal and unauthorized ballot boxes as SFGate reports. That article picks up on an Orange County Register exposé on a California Republican Party operative posting a fake ballot box on social media, but reporting from other areas of the state has found more unauthorized GOP-owned ballot boxes in other parts of California.

The tweet above, from California Republican Party regional field director Jordan Tygh, is technically deleted from Twitter with the message “This Tweet violated the Twitter Rules.” But since he didn’t delete it, you can still find it displaying on various timelines with some clever searching tactics. Tygh is seen giving a thumbs-up in front of what is clearly just any old office filing cabinet, with the message, “Doing my part and voting early,” and “DM me for convenient locations to drop your ballot off at!”

SFist would normally be inclined to chalk this up as a rogue operative acting out of line, or perhaps even a set-up by a clever rival operative. But NBC Los Angeles, investigating a similar bogus ballot box at a Los Angeles County church, got the state Republican party to completely admit these boxes are theirs. State GOP spokesperson Hector Barajas declined to say how many of these boxes they’d placed out, but claimed they were legal. “Democrats only seem to object to ballot harvesting when someone else does it," he told the station.

California Secretary of State Alex Padilla was clear with the OC Register that this is absolutely not legal. “Operating unofficial ballot drop boxes – especially those misrepresented as official drop boxes – is not just misleading to voters, it’s a violation of state law,” he said, adding that doing so is a felony with a possible two- to four-year sentence.

The AP adds that there was a similar scheme in Fresno, and SFist found that at least 12 bogus ballot boxes were being operated there by the Fresno County Republican Party. While the Fresno GOP website has removed its listed fraudulent ballot box locations, a quick trip to the Internet Archive Wayback Machine shows 12 Fresno bogus ballot box locations were onthe site as seen below. One of them is the county Republican party headquarters, another is “Sinclair Gas Station,” and half of the others are gun shops with names like “Uncle Sam’s Fire Arms.”

It’s tempting to laugh that this is a hilarious self-own, duping Republican voters into casting their ballots in ways that would disqualify the votes, and hurting Republicans far more than Democrats. But maybe that’s the point. The state GOP may see every major race as essentially lost at this point, so their only hope is stir up as much mistrust as possible, and then rely on histrionics or legal challenges to undermine the electoral outcomes. So maybe they want to gaslight their own voters by sending them to vote at the gas station.

Related: What Are the California November Ballot Initiatives, and How Are They Polling? A Review [SFist]

Image: @JordanTygh via Twitter

In preparation for the Republican Party's national convention, that party's delegates have unanimously adopted an amendment to their highly conservative draft platform referring to pornography as "a public health crisis" and a "public menace." Very retro!

“Pornography, with his harmful effects, especially on children, has become a public health crisis that is destroying the life of millions," Yahoo News quotes the amendment. "We encourage states to continue to fight this public menace and pledge our commitment to children’s safety and wellbeing,” the amendment stated."

Those are some honest-to-god, good-old-fashioned, down-with-smut American Values — but here San Francisco, we've been known to abide by a different set of principles. Acting, no doubt, under director orders from His Majesty Satan, one local group is sticking it to the Republicans with a fairly delicious stunt that's at once promotional and political. Kink.com, your friendly neighborhood BDSM pornographers, will offer free access to its online fetish films to all Republican delegates. Maitresse Madeline Marlowe, a director at Kink.com who has quite the way with words, put it this way in an open letter:

Dear Republican Delegates,

We read with dismay that the Republican Party platform committee has endorsed a plank declaring “porn a public health crisis” and a “menace.” While it may not fit with your morals, studies have repeatedly shown that access to adult entertainment is positively correlated with decreases in sex crimes, better performance in bed, and more feminist views of women. (We understand that last one might not be a net positive for you, but we like it.)

Next week, you’ll vote to approve or reject that platform, and we want you to have an informed decision. That’s why we’re offering every credentialled (sic) Republican delegate free access to our sites from now until November 8. Kink has been a leader in ethical production of adult film for nearly two decades, and are proud to celebrate a diverse articulation of sexuality and gender. Unlike those your platform committee, we know the difference between fantasy and reality, the importance of informed decisions about sex, and the necessity of sexual representation. Porn isn’t harmful, but shame around sexuality is.

Now, since social conservatives might be concerned that their, uh, research, might be brought to bear against them, Marlowe proposes the following to ensure their privacy:

All we’ll need from you is proof of your delegate credentials, sent via email. We also understand the value of anonymity in accessing adult material, so as with any of our members, your request will be kept private. Heck, if you’re really concerned, you can even use a burner account — provided that you can adequately demonstrate the credentials (and your age) without revealing your name. We’re not here to shame or expose you you, we’re here to enlighten you.

Delivering one last plug, Marlowe encourages those "bound" delegates who support Donald Trump to check out a recent film of hers: "Make America Gape Again", a severely disturbing porn flick that depicts a group of men wearing Trump masks having sex with a woman representing America.

"Even the Republicans on our site loved it," Marlowe says of her work.

Related: Trump Literally Schlongs America In Horrifying New Kink.com Video

Apple CEO Tim Cook today was scheduled to host a fundraiser for GOP House Majority Leader Paul Ryan. Ryan is one of the most visible leaders of his party, and as the Chronicle reports, the fact that a Silicon Valley darling is raising money for the party of Donald Trump has angered a different kind of Bay Area heavy hitter — House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.

“Poor Tim," Pelosi told the paper. "What a nice guy he is, but somebody gave him bad advice. He probably doesn’t think that much about politics.”

Although Apple and other big tech companies have made a habit of donating money to both sides of the aisle, the fact that Tim Cook is the person in question is definitely turning heads. Cook, you surely recall, is an out gay man who has publicly come out against Republican-backed anti-LGBTQ legislation. Just last year he published an op-ed in The Washington Post condemning a host of legislation including a specific bill that "would strip the salaries and pensions of [Texas] clerks who issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples."

"These bills rationalize injustice by pretending to defend something many of us hold dear," wrote Cook. "They go against the very principles our nation was founded on, and they have the potential to undo decades of progress toward greater equality."

This fundraiser, it should be noted, is purely personal — Cook is not doing this on behalf of Apple. This fact was not lost on Congresswoman Pelosi. “Everybody has the right to do whatever they want to do,” Pelosi told the Chronicle. “But when they say, ‘We don’t like what Trump says, but we’ll donate to his party,’ they’re either naive or they think we’re naive.”

According to The Almanac, the fundraiser is taking place at an undisclosed location in Menlo Park, and some of the money raised will go to a joint fundraising committee that helps fund Republican congressional campaigns.

Related: Feds Successfully Hack San Bernardino Shooter's iPhone, Drop Court Case Against Apple

CBS 5 calls it a "boycott," which might be an extreme way of looking at it, but yes, Politico reports that Apple will not lend any help to the GOP convention over the controversial statements of Donald Trump, which is a break from other tech companies and its own history of bipartisan support for such things.

Republican leaders were informed privately of the move by Apple, and the New York Times confirmed the matter, writing judiciously that the company would "withhold its support."

Campaign finance records show that in 2008 Apple provided $140,000 to each major party for MacBooks and more at events like the parties' conventions. In 2012, the company merely lent products to both parties. When asked for a comment about the move, a Republican party spokesperson said that "We are working with a variety of major tech partners who are focused on being part of the American political process," a statement with some implications!

By contrast, Microsoft will provide computers and software for the GOP convention, if not outright funds. Facebook has pledged support, financial and otherwise, for the June convention, and while CEO Mark Zuckerberg, an advocate for immigration reform, has voiced criticism for Trump's stances on the matter, Facebook board member Peter Thiel is an avowed Trump supporter and a pledged delegate for the candidate. Facebook landed in hot water with conservatives earlier this year when the company was accused of suppressing conservative news from its curated "trending topics" section, and Zuck tried to smooth things over in a meeting with Glenn Beck and other conservative thought leaders.

In the past, Trump has sparred with Apple over its perceived non-compliance with the government over an encrypted iPhone used by the San Bernardino mass murderer, of which the Verge writes here.

Related: Peter Thiel, Trump-Loving Tech Billionaire, Maybe Also Suing Gawker Over Article On Trump's 'Hair'

Warning: One arguably NSFW image below.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump brought his reality-TV-and-racism roadshow to the Bay Area today, speaking to a California GOP Convention crowd of about 600 party bigwigs Friday in Burlingame. But more than 1,000 demonstrators gathered outside the convention’s Hyatt Regency location, and made an almost-successful attempt to prevent Trump's limousine from arriving. SFist was on hand to capture exclusive videos and pictures of the melees, confrontations and amusingly clever signage.

Not to mention the costumes. Here we see “Captain Mexico”, who gained additional notoriety for burning Trump in pinata effigy. “It’s originally a Captain America [outfit] and I just spray-painted it,” Cap told SFist (his real name is Eric Lopez and he’s from Hercules). “I love Captain America, don’t get me wrong. I’m pro-Cap. Civil War. It’s just now with the whole political thing, I thought it was the right time to bring it out. I’m not a Donald Trump supporter.”

The first crashing of the gates came at roughly 11:50 a.m., before Trump’s delayed limo had even arrived. About 50 protesters were able to infiltrate the barriers and get right right up to the hotel’s main entrance. Police blocked them from entering, and eventually push the crowd back at the 2:08 mark. Despite the audible shouts, no one was injured in the confrontation. The LA Times has video of the initial barrier crashing.

But that was nothing. A second, far more substantial gate crash at about 12:20 p.m. allowed any protester who wanted to to just waltz right on to the hotel property. SFist did just that, and got this video as hundreds mobbed the entrances of the Hyatt to engage in NSFW chants.

As demonstrators blocked the adjacent 101, the orange-and-thin-skinned real estate mogul was forced to hop over a median wall on foot to get to his speaking engagement. “His hair was just blowing in the wind, and yes his hands are small” said Leela Najafi, an eyewitness to Trump’s pedestrian escapade.

Image: Joe Kukura

“That was not the easiest entrance,” The Donald said in his speech, according to KTVU. “I felt like I was crossing the border."

Image: Joe Kukura

Though the security perimeter was crashed twice, there was not violence on the level of Trump’s Costa Mesa appearance last night at which five police cars were damaged and 17 were arrested. There were five arrested at today’s demonstrations, and one injury was reported by CNN.

Image: Joe Kukura

The day was not free of skirmishes, though. Discovery Bay Trump supporter Adam Carry was shoved around, had his phone whacked out of his hands (and eventually returned) and his ballcap knocked off by jeering protesters. ”I was just taking pictures. Next thing I know I was mobbed,” Carry told SFist, before Fox News whisked him away for an onscreen interview.

Image: Joe Kukura

The above sign was created by 14-year-old Adrian Agnoli, “Trump’s a madman, dude," the youngster told SFist. “If he wins, we are all screwed over. I want to see if I can do something about it.”

Image: Joe Kukura

Trump’s speech did eventually go off as planned. Should you care, GOP hopeful John Kasich addresses the audience tonight at a dinner banquet, and both Ted Cruz and Carly Fiorina will address the convention tomorrow. Trump’s full remarks can be seen below, beginning at the 1:09:00 mark.

Previously: Photo Du Jour: Trump Pinata Burned In Effigy
[Update] Donald Trump Arrives In Burlingame As Protesters Block Freeway

Former SF Mayor, now California Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom has been busy this month, what with hanging out with the French President, pulling his support from CA's high-speed rail project, and encouraging everybody to pin stuff to his Pinterest board. Now he might need to add "campaigning" to his jam packed schedule, as a high profile Republican has announced plans to run for Newsom's seat this June.

San Diego-based Ron Nehring, a Schwarzenegger appointee to the CA Board of Forestry and Fire Protection who has chaired both the San Diego County Republican Party and the statewide GOP, is ready to take over the job that Newsom famously said it’s time to “get rid of."

On his campaign site, Nehring, (age 43 to Newsom's 47, but age is just a number!) says that Newsom has made the Lt. Gov. position "a taxpayer funded gubernatorial exploratory committee," apparently forgetting that it was also a comfy place from which to pen Citizenville, Newsom's 2013 book on how "ordinary citizens can use new digital tools to dissolve political gridlock and transform American democracy." Sure!

It's hard to tell what Nehring's plans for California are as of yet. As KQED notes, Nehring's campaign statement says "reform" nine times, but doesn't offer much in the way of specifics.

The Chron reports that the incumbent's camp doesn't appear too worried about the competition, with a Newsom advisor saying "Ron Nehring has a curious resume for statewide office. He won zero statewide elections as Republican Chair while steering his party to the outer margins of irrelevancy with out-of-step positions on issues like marriage equality."

Nehring filed his intention to run in the June 3 election last week. An email sent to Nehring via his website asking if he thinks Sacramento is "I just, ugh, God," and/or a place he could bear to visit more than once a week had not been responded to at publication time.

[Ron Nehring]
[Chron]

The GOP's egregious shutdown of the federal government will have wide-reaching effects (other than your noble attempts at being a fantasy Daily Show writer, as evidenced by Facebook and Twitter). In addition to, say, the families who won't receive a WIC payment today or those who won't get treatment from the National Institutes of Health, it will also hit us on the local level.

Golden Gate National Recreation Area, Fort Point, Lands End, and Muir Woods will be closed to visitors. Open areas like Crissy Field, however, will remain open. Bay Area national parks see an estimated 17 million visitors per year. Most of the parks' employees will be sent home without pay.

Also of note: "people who purchased Alcatraz cruises—which often sell out weeks in advance—would be given a refund or the option to reschedule their visits," reports SF Appeal.

Most of the 169,000 federal employees in the Bay Area will be furloughed sans pay. Also, as The Chronicle reports, "At greater risk are the 31,000 people who rely on federally funded public housing at the San Francisco Housing Authority, which is technically not a city agency. "

Mail will still be delivered. Social Security and Medicare benefits will also continue. Back in the niners, however, when the shutdown last 21 days from 1995 into 1996, people saw delays in the issuing of Social Security, Medicare, veterans' checks, and passport and visa applications.

Here's a list of things you need to know about how the government shutdown will affect you.

Update: SFist commenter Allyson E-B alerts us that Mayor Ed Lee made an official statement regarding the shutdown. Describing himself as "extremely concerned," Lee said: "[A] prolonged government shutdown could affect the more than 31,000 San Franciscans served by the San Francisco Housing Authority and the more than 31,000 families relying on subsidized food and nutrition programs. Our most vulnerable residents are the people who stand to suffer the most from Congressional Republican inaction." He adds that Congress’ actions have jeopardized programs funded by the $447 million in federal government funds.

[DCist]
[SF Appeal]

The Human Rights Campaign released financial documents today from the National Organization for Marriage (AKA NOM, the organization partially responsible for Proposition 8, California's same-sex marriage ban) that show a staggering $10,000 donation from Governor Mitt Romney's PAC prior the November election in 2008. While Romney's views on civil rights and gay marriage are not terribly surprising (as you can have surmise, the GOP presidential hopeful is staunchly against two dudes getting married), how he went about making the donation should give voters pause for concern.

Huffington Post has more:

... [W]hen Romney eventually made his donation, he did so quietly, and through an unusual channel. Records filed by Romney's Free and Strong America PAC with the Federal Election Commission did not include details of that $10,000 donation. Nor did NOM's public 990 form. In fact, record of the payment was only uncovered Friday when the pro-gay rights Human Rights Campaign was sent a private IRS filing from NOM via a whistleblower.

The HRC shared the filing with Huffington Post, which you can view here.

Speaking of anti-gay efforts, HRC revealed that NOM has a new and frightening "divisive strategy," one that will pit one group against another. According to HRC's Fred Sainz, "HRC is calling on Mitt Romney to disavow the racially divisive tactics of the National Organization for Marriage, which HRC this week revealed to be engaging in a plan to 'drive a wedge between gays and blacks' and manipulate the Latino community."

In related gay marriage news, NOM wants you to "dump Starbucks" due to the coffee company's progressive stance on gay marriage. So, feel free to buy a round of Strawberry Frappuccinos for the entire office. Bugs be damned!

On Monday night, the Marriott Hotel in Walnut Creek hosted the 2012 East Bay Women's Conference featuring feminist and political icon Gloria Steinem. During the conference, which culminated in her standing ovation-causing "The Progression of Feminism and Social Equity" speech, Oakland Tribune's Angela Hill caught up with Steinem for a one-on-one interview. When asked to give her thoughts on the recent political battle over contraception, Rush Limbaugh's slut-gate, and the conservative "war on women." Behold:

Yes, and there has been for a long time. But it wasn't always that way. The Republican Party supported the Equal Rights Amendment before the Democrats did. What's happening now is about a relatively small percentage of religious and economic extremists that have taken over the party. Reproductive freedom is a fundamental human right -- to decide what happens to our own bodies is as basic as freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. But there's a backlash against it from patriarchal religions that have enshrined the idea of a male God and control of women. Religion is sometimes politics you can't -- or you're not supposed to -- criticize.

As to Rush? You're listening to Rush hang himself. I'm glad to see his sponsors withdrawing. He ought to be fired. He's been saying horrific things for a long time.

Hear, hear.

But. Before we herald the second coming of Steinem, her thoughts on pop culture, at least according to this television theoretician of unparalleled taste and scrutiny, leave much to be desired. When asked if the various Housewives shows on Bravo, Jersey Shore's Snooki, and the prostitutes known as the Kardashians are setting women back, Steinem replied:

Well, yes. Women are portrayed as ornaments. The media shapes our views of what we can be. Part of the backlash says, if we just changed our bodies, society would be fine. I'm not trying to demonize these people. I don't know the Kardashians or Snooki. But what is going to happen to Snooki later in life? She is a joke.

Eh. Granted, the Kardashians and the girls (and boys) on Jersey Shore are wastes of molecules and, yes, do fuck with young girls' minds. But the Housewives? They're platinum. Let's not put The Countess or Kim Richards in the same class as a living dandruff flake rolling around drunk on the Jersey Shore.

Read the entire interview at Oakland Tribune.