I have the same lament about San Francisco. The only places I can consistently find a decent range of drinkable beers are German restaurants.

Yes! The first step towards supporting the local and regional funding measures is to sign the petitions to get them on the November ballot. While collecting signatures, I've run into quite a few people who were surprised to hear that they aren't already on the ballot.

It also might help if it were combined with a cut to some other tax, such as the sales tax.

A No Kings protest sign in the form of a giant Wordle grid reading FELON THIEF LOSER CREEP FRAUD TRUMP Not entirely accurate in terms of gameplay but close enough.

Good one in NYC.

Odd that the emphasis in the headline and the first sentence of the story is that a driver hopped a curb, not that a driver injured nine schoolchildren.

This is all absurd, but if the choice is between ICE agents terrorizing communities and ICE agents shuffling aimlessly around airports, I'd choose the latter.

Excellent article by the great Joe Eskenazi @esksf.bsky.social about BART's existential fiscal crisis.

Research around the impacts of Uber and Lyft has long foretold the impact of AVs: More empty/single occupancy vehicles creating traffic. That some boosters have actively denied this for years has made it hard to take their other AV analysis seriously. Zipper has been a clear voice for sanity.

Both North and South Dakota have elected Dems from time to time. E.g., George McGovern and one-time Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle were from SD. From 1960 until 2019 ND had at least one Dem senator and from 1987 to 2011 both its senators were Dems.

The quoted language isn’t in the Constitution. Of course DC isn’t currently a state, but the Constitution doesn’t bar it from becoming one so long as some portion remains outside the newly created state as the designated seat of the federal givernment.

Other cities located within existing states already have voting representation in Congress. DC doesn't. Congress can shrink the seat of government to include only the the governmental core of DC, e.g., the White House, the Capitol, the Supreme Court, the Mall & adjacent federal offices.

It's dumb that Wyoming, a place with a smaller population than more than 100 counties and less populous than fifteen counties in California alone, qualifies as a state.

Why does Jeff Bezos hate public transit, and Bay Area public transit in particular? Does he think Zoox can supplant it all?

I wonder how much disabled person parking placards affect this. The other day around lunchtime I walked along a block in San Francisco where cars were parked at each of the 14 parking meters and 12 of the cars were parking for free because they were displaying blue placards.

I've been gathering signatures for the regional sales tax measure and a number of people told me that they thought the measure had already qualified for the ballot.

That's great. The story, however, misleadingly states that two tax measures to fund Muni "will" appear on the ballot. I hope that will be the case, but supporters of the two measures will first need to collect enough signatures to get them on the ballot.

It's time to look at how city-funded neighborhood organizations spend their money. The Ocean Avenue Community Benefit District (funded via a property tax assessment) spearheaded the recent, so-far successful campaign to prevent installation of already-approved red Muni-only lanes on Ocean Ave.

I hate that @amtrak.com doesn't use the upper deck of the @transitcentersf.bsky.social transbay bus terminal. Their buses waste time stuck in downtown traffic and the experience for passengers waiting for buses is miserable, especially when the weather's bad.

In California, most projects that provide onsite inclusionary units are entitled to a density bonus plus other incentives & concessions. Has anyone done a study about whether & when density bonuses & related exceptions from zoning requirements are enough to offset the cost of inclusionary units?

How a defendant in Minnesota went free because of Justice Department turmoil The federal prosecutor’s office in Minnesota has been gutted by a wave of career officials resigning or retiring over objections to Trump administration directives.

So here's a hardened criminal in Minnesota who was about to go away for good and he went free ... because Trump and the MAGA degenerates are so focused on shooting protesters and assaulting law-abiding grandmas. apnews.com/article/minn...

Stronger Muni for All - Kickoff · Luma The Stronger Muni for All measure will prevent catastrophic Muni service cuts, reduce traffic congestion, and help secure the city’s economic recovery while…

San Francisco doesn't just need the regional transit funding measure to pass, it also needs a local funding measure to pass. Kickoff is March 3rd!

Why Everyone's Talking About Stephen Colbert, CBS, The FCC And James Talarico YouTube video by The Late Show with Stephen Colbert

Colbert has truly had a great relationship with CBS, even after he was told his contract wasn’t going to be renewed. So let me say: It’s stunning to me that, as he explains here, nobody at CBS told Colbert about the statement today.

This is a must-watch: youtu.be/OQIljje2B_Q?...

S.F. has zero office conversion projects. Could this new legislation make a difference? San Francisco has been rolling out the red carpet for developers and building owners, trying to entice them to start office-to-residential conversion projects in the city.

Here's more on SF's latest effort to encourage office-to-housing conversions:

www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/d...

Judge Bruce Chan apparently thinks that even a few hours of community service would be too great an imposition on a homicidal driver.

Who would ride this ferry? People who now ride BART or AC Transit transbay buses? Those who drive to SF? Who don't go to SF because they don't like current options but might if they could take the ferry? If it'd mainly be those who already take transit to SF, what benefit would the service provide?

This was the final straw. I finally cancelled my Washington Post subscription today.

Muni Metro stations have Clipper Card machines that don’t take either debit or credit cards and Muni ticket machines, but no signage telling people they can simply tap their credit or debit cards on the Clipper readers on the fare gates. Why is that?

"On December 2, 1783, then-Commander-in-Chief George Washington penned: “America is open to receive not only the Opulent & respected Stranger, but the oppressed & persecuted of all Nations & Religions.”1 More than two centuries later, Congress reaffirmed President Washington’s vision by establishing the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program. See 8 U.S.C. § 1254a (TPS statute). It provides humanitarian relief to foreign nationals in the United States who come from disaster-stricken countries. It also brings in substantial revenue, with TPS holders generating $5.2 billion in taxes annually. See Part VI. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem has a different take. [screenshot of tweet].

So says the official responsible for overseeing the TPS program. And one of those (her word) “damn” countries is Haiti. Relevant here, three days before making the above post, Secretary Noem announced she would terminate Haiti’s TPS designation as of February 3, 2026. See 90 Fed. Reg. 54733 (Nov. 28, 2025) (Termination). Plaintiffs are five Haitian TPS holders. They are not, it emerges, “killers, leeches, or entitlement junkies.” They are instead: Fritz Emmanuel Lesly Miot, a neuroscientist researching Alzheimer’s disease, Dkt. 90 (Second Am. Compl. (SAC)) ¶ 1; Rudolph Civil, a software engineer at a national bank, id. ¶ 2; Marlene Gail Noble, a laboratory assistant in a toxicology department, id. ¶ 3; Marica Merline Laguerre, a college economics major, id. ¶ 4; and Vilbrun Dorsainvil, a full-time registered nurse, id. ¶ 5. They claim that Secretary Noem’s decision violates the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U.S.C. § 706(2), and the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The Government counters that the Court does not have jurisdiction, and, in any case, the Secretary did not violate the law. Plaintiffs seek to stay the Secretary’s decision under 5 U.S.C. § 705 pending the outcome of this litigation. See Dkt. 81 (§ 705 Mot.). To decide their motion, the Court considers first whether it has jurisdiction. It does. See Part II. It then considers: whether Plaintiffs have a substantial likelihood of success on the merits; whether they will be irreparably harmed absent a stay; and whether a merged balance of the equities and public interest analysis favors a stay. See Part III. Each element favors Plaintiffs. See Parts IV, V, and VI. Plaintiffs charge that Secretary Noem preordained her termination decision and did so because of hostility to nonwhite immigrants. This seems substantially likely. Secretary Noem

has terminated every TPS country designation to have reached her desk—twelve countries up, twelve countries down. See Section IV.A.2. Her conclusion that Haiti (a majority nonwhite country) faces merely “concerning” conditions cannot be squared with the “perfect storm of suffering” and “staggering” “humanitarian toll” described in page-after-page of the Certified Administrative Record (CAR). See Section IV.A.3.a. She ignored Congress’s requirement that she “review the conditions” in Haiti only “after” consulting “with appropriate agencies.” 8 U.S.C. § 1254a(b)(3)(A); see Section IV.A.1. Indeed, she did not consult other agencies at all. See id. Her “national interest” analysis focuses on Haitians outside the United States or here illegally, ignoring that Haitian TPS holders already live here, and legally so. See Section IV.A.3.b. And though she states that the analysis must include “economic considerations,” she ignores altogether the billions Haitian TPS holders contribute to the economy. See id. The Government’s primary response is that the TPS statute gives the Secretary unbounded discretion to make whatever determination she wants, any way she wants. And, yes, the statute does grant her some discretion. But not unbounded discretion. To the contrary, Congress passed the TPS statute to standardize the then ad hoc temporary protection system—to replace executive whim with statutory predictability. See Section I.A. As to irreparable harm, the Government contends that, at most, the harms to Haitian TPS holders are speculative. But the Department of State (State) warns [screenshot]

Dkt. 100 (§ 705 Reply) at 20–21.4 “Do not travel to Haiti for any reason” does not exactly scream, as Secretary Noem concluded, suitable for return. And so, the Government studiously does not argue that Plaintiffs will suffer no harm if removed to Haiti. Instead, it argues Plaintiffs will not certainly suffer irreparable harm because DHS might not remove them. But this fails to take Secretary Noem at her word: “WE DON’T WANT THEM. NOT ONE.” See Section IV.B.2.b. Finally, the balance of equities and public interest favor a stay. The Government does not cite any reason termination must occur post haste. Secretary Noem complains of strains unlawful immigrants place on our immigration-enforcement system. Her answer? Turn 352,959 lawful immigrants into unlawful immigrants overnight. She complains of strains to our economy. Her answer? Turn employed lawful immigrants who contribute billions in taxes into the legally unemployable. She complains of strains to our healthcare system. Her answer? Turn the insured into the uninsured. This approach is many things—in the public interest is not one of them. For the reasons below, the Court GRANTS Plaintiffs’ Renewed Motion for a Stay Under 5 U.S.C. § 705, Dkt. 81.

Even if you don't have time to read all 83 pages of Judge Reyes's opinion barring the Trump administration from rescinding Temporary Protected Status for 350,000+ Haitians, please at least check out the four-page introduction.

It's a tour de force:

storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...