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Phoenix Project

[Test] Scott Wiener and His Billionaire Friends

State Senator Scott Wiener has cast his lot with the wealthy donors who have continued to bankroll his rise through the political ranks. Wiener, who is running to replace Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, has opposed both Proposition D, the San Francisco Overpaid CEO Tax on the June ballot, and the California

A Growing Divide in Silicon Valley

Last month’s shooting death of Alex Jeffrey Pretti in Minneapolis at the hands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers has created a split in Silicon Valley. The Pretti incident has become the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back: The tech industry is finally speaking out against the

Mayor Daniel Lurie’s Dangerous Silence

Last week, many Americans watched in horror as video footage chronicled the killing of Alex Jeffrey Pretti, a 37-year-old nurse who was executed by an ICE agent during a Minneapolis protest. Pretti’s death was the second in a single month at the hands of ICE. Weeks earlier, Renee Good,

The Unaffordability Mayor

Mayor Daniel Lurie delivered his first state of the city address last week, using the occasion to deviate for a moment from his usual promise to combat a non-existent crime wave by sending more police onto mostly quiet city streets. Instead, Lurie took a page from recently elected New York

Mayor Daniel Lurie’s So-Called Charter Reform

The San Francisco Charter, the 548-page document that serves as the city’s constitution, is getting a rewrite at the behest of Mayor Daniel Lurie. To that end, Lurie and Board of Supervisors President Rafael Mandelman have appointed 31 San Franciscans to review and recommend changes. Revisions will then be

Gilded Rage: Elon Musk and the Radicalization of Silicon Valley

A new book by Jacob Silverman, Gilded Rage: Elon Musk and the Radicalization of Silicon Valley, painstakingly chronicles the rightward move of Silicon Valley’s tech titans, culminating in their embrace of President Donald Trump. Once considered reliably liberal, Musk and his peers have taken up authoritarianism with a relish

Our Top Five Most-Read Blogs of 2025

The year 2025 saw the inauguration of San Francisco’s 46th mayor, Daniel Lurie, a political neophyte and an heir to the billion-dollar Levi-Strauss fortune. It also saw the shift to a more conservative Board of Supervisors. But all was not rosy in the so-called moderate camp. Last November, saw

San Francisco Doom Loop Map

This map highlights the astroturf connections present between the various groups that are responsible for weaponizing the San Francisco doom loop narrative against progressives for conservative political gains from 2021-2025.