Free Republic

An indecent exposure citation was reported Wednesday on the 400 block of Nancy Pelosi Drive in San Francisco. The city renamed Middle Drive East, which connects Martin Luther King Jr. Drive and John F. Kennedy Drive, after the House minority leader last year. “When I heard about it I said, ‘No, no, please don’t do that. I’m embarrassed, please don’t do that,’” Pelosi said at the ceremony last year, “until I heard that it was between JFK and MLK Jr. Drive and then I thought, ‘Well, I would like to go there and bear witness to the greatness of those...

Police arrested gay rights advocate Larry Brinkin, who has been a long-time human rights activist, on Friday in San Francisco for alleged possession of child pornography. Brinkin, 66, retired in 2010 after serving 22 years on the San Francisco Human Rights Commission.

7-14-2011 SACRAMENTO – Governor Edmund G. Brown, Jr. announced today that he has signed the following bill: • SB 48 by Senator Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) – Pupil instruction: prohibition of discriminatory content.

Got a spare $5,500 lying around that you want to get rid of? If every single San Franciscan coughed up that amount, we could pay City Hall's retiree health care bill - for now anyway. A new report from the controller's office shows the city has an unfunded retiree health care liability of $4.36 billion. That means it'll cost that much to pay the promised health care benefits for every current employee and retiree - and that number will keep growing as health care costs rise. By 2033, the tab will be a whopping $9.7 billion. Guess how much the...

Attorney General Eric Holder spoke with the group, Muslim Advocates, a pro-Muslim advocacy based out of San Fransisco. Holder expressed his resolve to prosecute hate crimes against Muslims in America, while holding to his mandate to catch and prosecute domestic terrorists, reports the Associated Press. The Department of Justice and the FBI have stopped domestic terrorist plots designed to attack and Oregon Christmas tree lighting, a Dallas skyscraper, Washington DC subways, and JFK Airport. Critics of the tactics used by the FBI call it entrapment, enticing Muslims into terrorism. ...The advocacy group was worried about the tactic used by local...

(Zombie/PJM)- We here at TLC realize that our fabulous new hit series Sarah Palin’s Alaska may not appeal to all our viewers. We understand that a substantial segment of the population has no interest in watching Sarah Palin or taking a tour of Alaska. And so it is with great pleasure that we’d like to announce a new show carefully designed to appeal to those of you who don’t like Sarah Palin, her state, or her values: Come join Nancy Pelosi as she shows you around the wild places of her home district. All the sights and sounds of San...

Today, I tried something new. I interviewed Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., via Twitter, the micro-blogging website. I received a lot of questions for the senator from the Twitter community -- thanks for those. McCain and I discussed the AIG bailout and bonuses; whether he agrees with former Vice President Dick Cheney that President Obama has put nation at risk of a new terror attack; which nation worries him more: Iran or Pakistan; and his reaction to his daughter's recent feud with radio talk show host Laura Ingraham and Ann Coulter. McCain said it is "too early" to tell if President...

(IsraelNN.com) A prominent pro-Israel activist was found dead at the bottom of an elevator shaft in a San Francisco building . The pro-Israel activist, Dr. Daniel Kliman was the co-founder of the San Francisco-based Voice for Israel, an affiliate of the national Israel advocacy group, StandWithUs. His body was found in the elevator shaft of a building where he was taking Arabic language classes. “He was the public face of grass-roots Israel advocacy in the San Franciso Bay area,” stated Mike Harris, Kliman’s colleague at Voice for Israel. Harris is unaware of specific threats against Kliman, who had previously been...

Republican Sen. John McCain will take his presidential bid to the symbolic heart of liberal America next Monday, making a stop in San Francisco's swank Fairmont Hotel for a fundraiser. The ticket? Up to $100,000 per person. The event is at least McCain's third fundraising pit stop in the city. Back on the last day in January - only days before the state's presidential primary, which he won resoundingly - McCain hosted a fundraiser at the Four Seasons hotel.

SAN FRANCISCO, April 14, 2008 – As the sun began setting over the city here April 11, retired Air Force Col. Ray Slifka was on duty at the San Francisco International Airport United Service Organizations lounge, providing hospitality and assistance to travel-weary military travelers and their families transiting through the airport. Navy Seaman Melissa Marrs makes herself comfortable at the United Service Organizations lounge at San Francisco International Airport while awaiting a flight to San Diego as she makes a permanent-change-of-station move from Naval Air Facility Atsugi, Japan. Photo by Donna Miles  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Slifka,...

Firefighters in this mountain resort town love to tell the story of the couple from Texas who wanted to know where they could buy one of those beautiful red evergreens that surround Lake Dillon. They offered the couple a chain saw and told them to take as many as they wanted. The trees aren’t red, they’re dead. The stately green lodgepole pines that once provided million-dollar views high in the Rockies are turning red and then brown in waves as tiny bark beetles eat their way across the Continental Divide. But environmentalists say that’s no reason to chop them down....

You’ll be shocked, shocked to find out who’s behind this: Veterans for Peace, Global Exchange and Code Pink. But don’t you dare question their patriotism. Questioning their sanity is fair game, though. Evidence of west coast anti-military crazy goes back a few years. The annual aerial show by the U.S. Navy’s Blue Angels — a San Francisco tradition dating back to 1981 that pumps millions into the local economy — is running into opposition from three local peace advocacy groups that are calling for a permanent halt to the popular Fleet Week flyover. CodePink, Global Exchange and Veterans for Peace,...

Model Minority: Smokers A historic S.F. cigar shop in the Financial District gets complaints from sensitive nonsmokers working nearby. By Martin Kuz Published: May 9, 2007 You think it's hard out here for a pimp? Sheeit, bro. Try hawking cigars sometime. You'll go back to pimping faster than Don Imus can say — well, you can guess. Joe Barron knows the struggle. He co-owns Grant's Tobacconists, one of the few remaining places in San Francisco where cigar and pipe aficionados can light up indoors. But while a pimp worries only about cops, Barron must contend with the longer arm of...

(CBS 5 / AP / BCN) SAN FRANCISCO A San Francisco woman who allegedly walked away from her baby boy after giving birth to him on a street corner was arrested on suspicion of child endangerment and neglect, police said. Nadine Matthews gave birth on the sidewalk Sunday night, then walked away pretending that it never happened, said SFPD Capt. Al Casciato. A security guard called 911 after seeing the woman give birth on 5th and Stevenson streets. When an ambulance arrived, a 5-pound, 12-ounce baby boy was found alive and kicking, but his mother was nowhere to be found,...

SAN FRANCISCO -- You could be anything you wanted to be in the Beat movement. This year is the 50th anniversary of the publication of Jack Kerouac's On the Road, in which he wrote how he stayed in San Francisco for a week and had the "beatest" time of his life. San Francisco is still a good place for that. The Beat Museum opened last fall in the North Beach neighborhood of San Francisco. It honors the Beat creed of tolerance, inclusiveness and having the be-all to follow your dreams. That's how remnants of the Sputnik I satellite landed last...

A decade-long project spearheaded by veterans and naval enthusiasts to bring the battleship USS Iowa to San Francisco's waterfront failed to gain the support of the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday. After a wrenching debate, supervisors voted 8-3 to reject a resolution urging congressional leaders to fight to bring the 48,000-pound vessel here, citing concerns such as possible costs incurred for maintaining and housing the World War II battleship; the disinclination of taxpayers to support a military monument; and the ongoing discrimination against gay Americans by the armed services. Supporters, including the Historic Ships at Memorial Square, a nonprofit, and...

North Korea has the capability of mounting a nuclear warhead on its missiles that could hit the United States, a senior US defense official said. Vice Admiral Lowell Jacoby, the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, gave the assessment during a Congressional hearing. Asked by Senator Hillary Clinton whether North Korea had the ability to arm a missile with a nuclear device, Jacoby said: "The assessment is that they have the capability to do that, yes, ma'am." He said that North Korea also had the ability to deploy a two-stage intercontinental missile that could successfully hit US territory. "Assessed to...

...In dueling marches, about 6,000 antiabortion activists in the Walk for Life West Coast were jeered and harangued by about 3,000 advocates for abortion rights, some waving wire hangers, a symbol of the unsafe procedures women feared before abortion was legal. Walk for Life organizers Dolores Meehan and Eva Muntean said they knew holding an anti-abortion rally in the liberal bastion of San Francisco would spark outrage. But doing so would draw the greatest exposure, Meehan said. ...[snip] Two people with the pro-choice group were arrested for assault on a police officer, said police Capt. Denis O'Leary, who estimated the...

Greetings, FReepers!SerpentDove here. I will intersperse photos along with my report. Last night, June 8, 2004, Dallas FReepers had the distinct honor of meeting and dining with the Big Enchilada, Jim Robinson! We met at Cozymel’s Mexican Restaurant in Plano. For those of you who have never met Jim in person, he is everything you would expect and more. Lightning shoots from his eyes and fingertips, and he went around all night telling everyone to “knock it off.” :-))) No, in actuality, Jim is a kind-faced man with smiling eyes, a gentle demeanor, and a sincere laugh. It...

SAN FRANCISCO - A woman has no parental rights over the twins she was raising with her lesbian partner — even though she is the children's genetic mother, an appeals court ruled. Upholding a lower court ruling, the 1st District Court of Appeal decided only the woman's partner — who gave birth to the twins after artificial insemination with eggs provided by her lover — has full parental rights. The court said though the genetic mother was a loving, at-home parent, "functioning as a parent does not bestow legal status as a parent." "An adoption decree would provide objective, formalized...