Free Republic

<p>SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — These days, the price of a San Francisco home can easily top a million dollars. But one savvy investor has bought up a whole street in the city's most exclusive neighborhood for a mere $90,000.</p> <p>Trouble is, some of the extremely wealthy residents of Presidio Terrace were not aware their street was up for sale and are not pleased it has been sold.</p>

SAN FRANCISCO — The heroin needles, the pile of excrement between parked cars, the yellow soup oozing out of a large plastic bag by the curb and the stained, faux Persian carpet dumped on the corner. It’s a scene of detritus that might bring to mind any variety of developing-world squalor. But this is San Francisco, the capital of the nation’s technology industry, where a single span of Hyde street hosts an open-air narcotics market by day and at night is occupied by the unsheltered and drug-addled slumped on the sidewalk. There are many other streets like it, but by...

San Francisco Supervisor Scott Wiener will always have a special place in my heart. Braving an onslaught of puns in a wiseacre nation, Wiener sponsored legislation to require that naked guys place a barrier between their butts and park seats. Later, he pushed for and won a ban on public nudity on city streets (except at events where people have grown to expect some exhibitionism). It was a gutsy move in a city where political correctness too often trumps common sense. Thanks to Wiener, I haven't seen a naked guy's privates in public for months. Thus, it is in sorrow...

Russian organized crime has become a significant problem for California law enforcement agencies. During the past several years, some Russian emigres have established a growing number of loosely structured criminal networks in this state that are involved in sophisticated criminal activities. The law enforcement intelligence community has also become aware of at least four structured Russian criminal organizations operating in California. Russian organized crime includes crime groups from all the republics which comprised the former Soviet Union. These crime groups are operating in many of the major cities in California including Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Jose, Sacramento, and San...

By LISA LEFF, Associated Press Writer SAN FRANCISCO - Anne Bakstad and Ed Cohen are starting to feel as if their family of four is an endangered species in San Francisco. Since the couple bought a house five years ago, more than a dozen families in their social circle have left the city for cheaper housing, better schools or both. The goodbyes are so frequent that Carina, age 4 1/2, wants to know when she is going to move, too. Eric, 2 1/2, misses Gus, his playmate from across the street. "When we get to know people through our kids,...

We're continually amazed by the brave gazillionaires who list their multimillion-dollar homes in this environment -- economic crisis or not -- knowing that their properties won't fetch top dollar. And we're equally fascinated by how few of those houses have sold. Among the multimillion-dollar San Francisco houses listed over the last week, three are priced above $5 million; six are priced between $2.7 million and $4.7 million; and a couple are prices slightly upwards of $2 million. The priciest of the bunch is 1188 Lombard Street -- a three-bedroom, Mediterranean-style Russian Hill home owned by Byron Meyer, who, as far...

Readers may recall, as early as March, city dwellers in California fled to suburbs and remote areas to isolate from the virus pandemic. The proliferation of remote work arrangements has led this shift to become more permanent. At first, the exodus out of the city was due to virus-related lockdowns, then social unrest, and now it appears a steady flow of folks are leaving the San Francisco Bay Area for rural communities as their flexible work environment (i.e., remote access) allows them to work from anywhere, more specifically, outside city centers where the cost of living is a whole...

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- San Francisco's city attorney is coming down hard on Catholic Churches that he says are gathering illegally indoors, without face coverings. In a seven-page cease-and-desist letter, City Attorney Dennis Herrera said the Archdiocese of San Francisco is "putting its parishioners and the larger community at risk of serious illness and death." The letter says despite calls between San Francisco Health Officer, Dr. Aragon, and Archbishop Cordileone, multiple churches have held indoor gatherings that "violate the health order" and fail to "follow common sense safety protocols." Indoor gatherings are not currently permitted in San Francisco. Outside religious...

Bill Scott, chief of San Francisco policoe, said new rule takes effect immediately San Francisco is adopting the policy to stop spreading negative stereotypes Los Angeles and New York already have a policy against releasing mug shots

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Dr. Priscilla Chan donated $75million to a San Francisco hospital in 2015 It was the single largest contribution by private individuals in support of a public hospital in the U.S. It came with the condition it would be renamed Zuckerberg San Francisco General hospital The name change immediately sparked backlash from some medical staff The push to drop Zuckerberg's name increased this week in light of an advertiser boycott of Facebook San Francisco supervisor Matt Haney has joined nurses' calls for the change SNIP

Nancy Pelosi claims Russians have something on President Trump to sway his administration to not to take action after learning that Moscow spies offered bounties to Afghan militants to kill U.S. troops.[snip]Pelosi said during an interview on ABC’s “This Week” that throughout Trump’s presidency he has ignored allegations against misdeeds committed by Russia, but that the new reports on bounties “is as bad as it gets.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Sunday that President Donald Trump "wants to ignore any allegation against Russia" as he and his administration deny ever being briefed about intelligence that Russians have offered to pay bounties to Taliban fighters who kill Americans. Speaking with ABC's "This Week," Pelosi said, "This is as bad as it gets." "And yet the president will not confront the Russians on this score, denies being briefed," Pelosi said. "Whether he is or not, his administration knows and our allies — some of our allies who work with us in Afghanistan had been briefed and accept...

Members of the American intelligence community have concluded that members of the Russian intelligence unit offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants if they successfully killed members of the American military, the New York Times reported. The problem, however, is that almost everyone involved in this story says it isn't true. The White House, Russia and even the Taliban have said the Times' story is false. According to the anonymous source that spoke to the Times, the Russians intending "to destabilize the West or take revenge on turncoats, had covertly offered rewards for successful attacks last year." The source claimed that President...

Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) accused President Donald Trump of “kissing up” to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Host George Stephanopoulos said, “I want to turn to that rather startling report in The New York Times [that] Russia secretly offered Afghan bounties to kill U.S. troops. It reports that American intelligence officials have concluded that Russian military intelligence units secretly offered bounties to Taliban linked militants for killing coalition forces in Afghanistan, including targeting American troops.” He asked, “Were you aware of these reports?” Pelosi said, “No, and we have called for a report to the Congress...

Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone of San Francisco led a Holy Hour of Reparation on Saturday morning at the site of the destruction of the St. Junipero Serra statue. Vandals tore down and defaced the monument on June 19. The Act of Reparation included the Holy Rosary and Latin prayers of exorcism. The service concluded with the archbishop blessing the site with holy water. Msgr. Stephen Rossetti of the St. Michael Center for Spiritual Renewal said the archbishop performed a minor exorcism and commanded Satan to leave. He recited the Pope Leo XII Deliverance Prayers for People, Places or Things, also...

That, of course, was blocked and filibustered by the Democrats. They didn’t want to talk about it. Debated, amended. She said that you and your Republican colleagues supporting the Justice Act were basically complicit in the murder of George Floyds, saying that you were trying to get away with his murder. As someone who’s worked very hard on this issue as a black man. What was your reaction when you heard that from Speaker Pelosi? SEN. TIM. SCOTT: It was the most outrageous, sinful comment I’ve heard as a public official period. I thought to myself that how in the...

NEW YORK, June 26, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) — United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres is calling for a “multilateral” level of governance with the “teeth” to “function as an instrument of global governance where it is needed.” “The problem is that today’s multilateralism lacks scale, ambition and teeth,” Guterres said during a Thursday press conference on the launch of the UN’s “comprehensive response to COVID-19” — the novel coronavirus that originated in Wuhan, China. “And some of the instruments that do have teeth, show little or no appetite to bite, as has recently been the case with the difficulties faced by...

Thursday, during an interview with Washington Post national political reporter Robert Costa, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said President Donald Trump was “glorifying white supremacy” by not wanting to rename U.S. military bases named after members of the Confederacy. Costa asked, “Should art depicting slave owners, including our nation’s Founding Fathers, come down in the country.”

San Francisco’s plan to put homeless people in hotels and motels is not going well. One recent morning a disheveled, visibly disturbed man ran frantically around the lobby of the Mark Hopkins Hotel, the historic and elegant property located at the crest of tony Nob Hill. As one of San Francisco’s designated Front-Line Worker Housing (FLWH) hotels, it’s reserved for health-care and public-safety employees working on Covid-19 related matters. But San Francisco is surreptitiously placing homeless people in luxury hotels by designating them as emergency front-line workers, a term that the broader community understands to mean doctors, nurses, and similar...

One recent morning a disheveled, visibly disturbed man ran frantically around the lobby of the Mark Hopkins Hotel, the historic and elegant property located at the crest of tony Nob Hill. As one of San Francisco’s designated Front-Line Worker Housing (FLWH) hotels, it’s reserved for health-care and public-safety employees working on Covid-19 related matters. But San Francisco is surreptitiously placing homeless people in luxury hotels by designating them as emergency front-line workers, a term that the broader community understands to mean doctors, nurses, and similar professionals. “Do I look scary to you?” the man demanded. “They’re trying to evict me...