Fresh off placing a distant fifth on the mayoral campaign trail, Leland Yee is back to business as usual up in Sacramento. Unsatisfied with UC President Mark Yudof's plan to assemble 10 UC Chancellors to look in to the matter, Yee called Chancellor Katehi's task force investigation "a sham" in a press release sent from the State Senator's Office today. more ›

Gee, this is rich: Leland Yee, arguably the goofiest candidate running for San Francisco mayor, wants to make Muni free for all public school kids. Yee's Clintonesque-titled new plan, “It Takes a Community," wants to "provide affordable housing for teachers, time off for parents to participate, free Muni for low-income students, community services through school programs, and more college savings accounts," reports the Daily Kos. more ›

Jeff Adachi, John Avalos, David Chiu, Bevan Dufty, Dennis Herrera, Joanna Rees, Phil Ting, and Leland Yee will all sport their finest bikinis (or not) during this Saturday's fundraiser car wash for McKinley Elementary School. No word yet if frontrunner Ed Lee will show up for some sudsy fun in the sun, but a boy can dream. Anyway, here are the rules: more ›

The already stupidly crowded to become Mayor of San Francisco just got more crowded, as the Ex reports on the candidacy of Emil Lawrence, a San Francisco cab driver who paid the $5,000 to get on the November ballot on Friday, since he had not collected the necessary 10,000 signatures. Lawrence seems to be a one-issue kind of guy, and he's most pissed off about how the city has been treating cab drivers of late. He's also been a frequent speaker on the subject at Board of Supervisors meetings, and obviously his anger is such that he's willing to spend $5K in a seemingly futile attempt to take control of the situation. (See the almost official candidate list below.) more ›

California's proposed law to ban the sale of violent video games to minors was shot down when the Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional on a 7-2 vote this morning. Justice Scalia blew up the proposed legislation, stating that the ban would have violated minors' First Amendment rights. In the court's majority opinion, Scalia wrote that the state shouldn't be allowed to, "restrict the ideas to which children may be exposed," before going on to cite several gory fairy tales that we regularly subject our children to. more ›

Venture capitalist Joanna Rees, that's who. According to an excellent article in the Examiner published today, one that "broke down the voting history of the mayoral hopefuls," the Jason Lewis-approved candidate missed most city elections. Behold: more ›

Arriving late to the Pier 38 offices of Automattic yesterday evening for a mayoral candidate forum on Open Government, we caught the tail end of opening remarks from a panel comprised of the nine candidates for mayor that people actually take seriously. The polite debate that followed ostensibly focused on the vague topic of technology, but actually drifted everywhere from Treasure Island development to smartphone apps for Muni Operators. Mostly it was an opportunity for these candidates to see who could toss around the most buzzwords without sounding like a complete tool while their media team set their thumbs on fire tweeting updates and pull-quotes to loyal Internet followers. more ›

After we questioned Leland Yee's voting record yesterday, the Yee for Mayor campaign reached out to us to provide some additional perspective on the story. Obviously, the BeyondChron story we linked to yesterday carries a bias (duh, it's a blog). So in the interest of fairness and balance, here's a list of the 10 most recent bills that the Sierra Club has made their priority, along with Yee's vote (or his current position) on each. Also, some grains of salt. more ›

State Senator and shark fin soup slurper Leland Yee recently won an endorsement from the Sierra Club in his campaign for the top job in City Hall. It was a curious endorsement, given the environmentalist group's push to ban the sale of shark fin soup, but as the Weekly pointed out Sierra Club chairman John Rizzo has been circling Ross Mirkarimi's seat on the board as if he had a dorsal fin himself. If Yee got the gig in room 200 it's all but guaranteed we'll see Rizzo representing District Five. That's some shady politicking to begin with, but as BeyondChron found out today Yee's flip-flopping wasn't just limited to culinary issues. He's also being called out for going against the Sierra Club while supporting the interests of a generous campaign contributor and misrepresenting his own record as a tenant's rights advocate. more ›

As the California Redistricting Commission prepares to release their first draft of the latest district lines for state senate seats, the Examiner is wringing their hands over what could become of our two San Francisco Senators. As you know, Leland Yee currently holds court over the western half of the city while Mark Leno claims the eastern portion along with parts of San Mateo, Marin and Sonoma counties. If the Redistricting Comission follows through on their proposal to consolidate San Francisco's two districts, we stand to lose a lot of sway in the state government. Or, to put it in terms of metropolitan rivalries: LA could have a dozen senators to San Francisco's single senate seat. more ›

Shark fin soup is delicious deplorable. Up to 70 million sharks are killed annually for their luxurious fins. Alice Waters knows this all too well. Today, California Assembly Members Paul Fong and Jared Huffman introduced a bill that would prohibit the sale of shark fins in California, which is "one of the largest sources of demand for shark fin outside Asia." more ›

Sen. Leland Yee received some sort of death threat today - a faxed death threat, no less - after performance artist Rush Limbaugh's humor-free tirade about the Chinese language. more ›

Via SF Weekly's blog this a.m. we see that former supervisor and assemblyman Leland Yee may be looking to become S.F.'s first Asian mayor -- that is unless David Chiu becomes interim mayor in January. He's making an announcement at the Department of Elections today, and all signs point to his candidacy. This would put him in the running against, probably, City Attorney Dennis Herrera, Supervisor Bevan Dufty, Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, Public Defender Jeff Adachi, and *maybe* State Senator Mark Leno. (Photo of Leland with Cornell West via Yee's old website.) more ›

Though touched upon in yesterday's Day Around the Bay, we thought we'd share it with you in a separate post since it's a peek inside the heart of the former VP candidate cum proverbial whore for the blind far-right, Sarah Palin, and some of her not-so-merry band of Tea Party members. See, after daring to raise questions about a questionable speaking engagement by Palin scheduled for June at California State University Stanislaus, Senator Leland Yee, according to KTVU, "says he has received death threats in recent days, along with racist hate messages about President Obama and homophobic hate messages, apparently because he represents San Francisco." more ›

Legislation introduced by Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco/San Mate, which will spare domestic violence programs from budget cuts, is expected to be signed by Gov Arnold Schwarzenegger on Wednesday. SF Appeal/BCN reports that the legislation would "restore $16.3 million to shelters and centers across the state." In July, Schwarzenegger used a line-item veto to slice $20.4 million from the much-needed Domestic Violence Program. more ›

Tara Shabazz, Moby, and Leland Yee at Thursday's rally for funding for domestic violence shelters on the steps of SF City Hall. more ›

In what could be the most bizarre yet amusing pairing this city has seen since bacon met ice cream, Senator Leland Yee and violently-vegan musician Moby will join forces today on the steps of City Hall. Why? To combat domestic violence. more ›

Jackie Speier runs for Congress again, after a 29-year break. more ›

State Senator Leland Yee introduced a bill in the State Legislature this morning that, if passed, would see traffic fines double for violations occurring along the deadly strip of San Francisco road known as 19th Avenue. (Shudder.) more ›

Hooray! We're back with more Ed Jew news! And this time, with a vast Sunset-wing conspiracy. more ›

Oh, so now that Ed Jew's gone from the politics scene, now the truth comes out! Leland Yee reveals to Matier and Ross that he was the person who originally called the authorities about the Quickly shakedown! more ›

News from the non-Nancy Pelosi side of the San Francisco House of Representatives delegation -- Tom Lantos, the fourteen-term representative for the Sunset, along with northern San Mateo County, has announced that he will not be seeking reelection, because he's been diagnosed with esophageal cancer. Jackie "Jonestown survivor" Speier is considered the early favorite to fill Lantos's seat, and reliable object of fun Leland Yee is reported to be considering a run as well. more ›

Where the hell is 19th and Sloat? Oh, it's in, like, Southie. Near the Golf Course District. Anyway, the intersection is getting a left-turn arrow, hooray! Nineteenth is an insanely deadly stretch. A young lady died at this particular intersection a month ago; meanwhile, negotiations between the MTA and Caltrans to improve the intersection languished in their SEVENTH . more ›

The newish website Maplight won some recognition today from Netsquared. Netsquared's one of those techno social change-o thinktanky sites that does progressive, but we can't tell what. Fortunately, Maplight's purpose is a bit more concrete. They correlate politicians' donations and votes, showing where someone might be motivated more by money than by duty to the citizens. more ›

SFist Jim is going to kill us, since he sent us these pictures on the promise that we'd write something up about the panel that Sen. Leland Yee (above) and Assessor Phil Ting appeared on the other day about the dangers of foreclosure and predatory loans -- but we just think this picture is awesome. Whatever happened to that website "Are You Kidding Mee," that was devoted solely to the various scrapes that Leland Yee had gotten into? more ›

Photos from the Chinese New Year Parade more ›

-Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow. -Or maybe not-- the Governator declares a state of emergency after a potential loss of $1 billion dollars in losses to citrus farms. more ›

-St. Boniface Catholic Church in the Tenderloin is having a money crunch which could affect it's ability to handle the homeless. -Cabbie is found shot to death in the Richmond Annex more ›

Guess who got endorsed on the cover by last week's winner, the Bay Guardian? Where's the green beads, Chris? Letters about fixie bikes, and Tim Redmond notes that Renee Saucedo shouldn't have endorsed Prop 90 (the overbroad eminent domain one). Dan Noyes, gadfly. Also endorsed by the Guardian: Phil Angelides, Jerry Brown, Leland Yee, Barbara Lee, and Krissy Keefer. And Steven T. Jones had nothing at all to do with their endorsement of Alix Rosenthal. Did he have anything to do with the Alix flyer inserted in the paper? Sonic Reducer brings sexy back. Marke B had a nice time at the Love Parade. L.E. Leone's friend Carrie is moving to New York. And Gavin Newsom's horoscope: He is classically associated with the arts. more ›

Many of us were disconcerted by the stories of forced abandonment of animals by their guardians in the wake of disasters, and asked ourselves "How would our dumb-ass cats fare on their own? Maybe if they were forced to fare for themselves, they'd finally appreciate how freakin' good thay have it. Yeah!" It looks like we're getting closer to never having to find out just how well Mr. Sniffy can operate a can opener, as a bill proposed by SF-based state Assemblyman Leland Yee requiring the state Office of Emergency Services to take animals into account when coordinating evacuations has recieved unanimous approval from the Governmental Organization Committee. We're waiting for the final hurdle of Senatorial approval before we start packing any tiny cat suitcases. more ›