Free Republic

Yesterday, the Chronicle reported that the White House had threatened to kick veteran reporter Carla Marinucci off the press pool because she posted a video of a protest at a San Francisco fundraiser last week. Today Politico.com ran a story on the controversy that included White House claims that the Chronicle report was "not true." Let me assure readers that the Chronicle does not run a story of this nature -- plus an editorial and a blog by Phil Bronstein lightly. It may well be the case that Carla remains on the pool -- I can't tell from this statement...

The White House that fancies itself as the most transparent in history is not without its control-freak instincts when it comes to media access. It seems that Team Obama was none too pleased that veteran Chronicle political reporter Carla Marinucci posted a 40-second video of a group of supporters-turned-protesters serenading the president a cappella - "We paid our dues ... where's our change" - at a recent fundraising breakfast at San Francisco's St. Regis Hotel. The protesters' objection: the treatment of Wikileaks source Pfc. Bradley Manning. The White House threatened that Marinucci would no longer be allowed to serve as...

The Illinois senator has shown beyond a doubt that he is the one to lead the nation in troubled times.The stakes were extraordinarily high even before our economy began to spasm and hurtle toward the abyss.From the start of the campaign, Americans were confronted with profound policy choices about how and when to extricate this nation from a war it initiated, how to temper a looming recession, and whether to continue Bush administration policies that had widened the gap between rich and poor, eroded individual liberties, strengthened presidential power, shifted the Supreme Court to the right, weakened relations with our...

LINKS TO disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, efforts to gut wildlife protections and sell off national parks, and a blessing to offshore oil drilling. That's the profile of U.S. Rep. Richard Pombo. In seven prior elections, the Tracy Republican has had an easy time. He's run low-profile races in a GOP-leaning district that straddles the low hills separating the Bay Area and the San Joaquin Valley. But this time his ethical stumbles and radical positions should catch up with him. His opponent, engineer Jerry McNerney brings a low-key probity that the district and House deserve. Pombo's positions are simply out of...

SAN FRANCISCO - The San Francisco Chronicle is filing a legal motion today to quash federal subpoenas that call on two reporters to identify the source of grand jury testimony they reported in articles about the use of performance-enhancing drugs by Barry Bonds and other star athletes. If the law was bent or broken by the leaking of the testimony, the motion argues, that damage was more than balanced by the benefits of the articles, which revealed the biggest sports scandal in a generation and led to action by Congress and Major League Baseball. [Hearst general counsel Eve Burton explains...

NOBODY does dismissive better than Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. When confronted with an uncomfortable truth, he has a way of brushing it off with a brusque one liner. "Death has a tendency to encourage a depressing view of war,'' was one of his classics. A war gone awry has a way of encouraging a depressing view of its leadership. Rumsfeld cannot so easily dismiss the rising chorus of condemnation from retired generals who have called for his resignation. As Army Maj. Gen. John Riggs told National Public Radio last week, Rumsfeld has fostered an "atmosphere of arrogance" at the Pentagon....

WE'LL LEAVE the lawyer jokes and wisecracks about a trigger-happy foreign policy to talk-show comics. But Vice President Dick Cheney's accidental shooting of an attorney buddy on a quail hunt has a serious side beyond the birdshot injuries. The incident took nearly 24 hours to be made public, and then only when the ranch owner hosting the hunt poured out her chatty, impressionistic account in a phone call to a local Corpus Christi, Texas, newspaper. Using this uncontradicted account, the vice president swung his shotgun to follow a quail and accidentally shot a hunting pal in the face and chest...

A San Francisco cab driver misidentified by the San Francisco Chronicle as a police officer with a history of violence said the incident has made him fear for his safety, but that he has no immediate plans to sue. Jack Neeley Jr., 42, said he worries that people with a grudge against police officers will become violent with him as a result of an article about police violence in Sunday's Chronicle. It included a picture of Neeley and identified the man pictured as Sgt. John Haggett, a 23-year veteran of the force who was suspended three times for using unnecessary...

After a lifetime voting for and working for Democratic candidates and independents, I'm finally going to make the switch and become a Republican. The reasons are many, not the least of which is age. I turned 55 recently and, having lived more than half my life, I can't afford to worry anymore about the other guy. It's time for me. As a Republican, I can now proudly -- indeed, defiantly -- pledge to never again vote for anyone who raises taxes for any reason. To hell with roads, bridges, schools, police and fire protection, Medicare, Social Security and regulation of...

Relationship Beats Second-Quarter Expectations. Jersey City, N.J. -- Kirk Herman and Deanna Greunwald surprised friends by exceeding second-quarter expectations for their relationship Monday. Now there's a business story people would read. That's what the folks who run the Onion are betting on. The satirical weekly newspaper that expertly mocks traditional newspaper style is coming to the Bay Area, with hopes that its snarky, funny news spoofs will attract enough readers to pick off some local advertising. Many fans who know the Onion from its Web site, www.theonion.com, don't realize the outfit started as a weekly newspaper in Madison, Wis., in...

Federal Offices President / Vice President John F. Kerry (D) / John Edwards (D) U.S. SenateBarbara Boxer (D)* U.S. House of Representatives 1 Mike Thompson (D)* 6 Lynn Woolsey (D)* 7 George Miller (D)* 8 Nancy Pelosi (D)* 9 Barbara Lee (D)* 10 Ellen Tauscher (D)* 11 Gerald McNerney (D) 12 Tom Lantos (D)* 13 Fortney "Pete" Stark (D)* 14 Anna G. Eshoo (D)* 15 Mike Honda (D)* 16 Zoe Lofgren (D)*