The Morning Dissent

Good Morning, San Francisco

A cool, cloudy Tuesday morning out there — 52°F with a high that'll barely scratch 55, so keep the jacket zipped. The biggest trial in the city right now isn't about guilt or innocence — it's about whether a single word can be spoken in a courtroom.

The Word on Trial: DA Jenkins Tried to Ban "Genocide" From the Golden Gate Bridge Protest Case. A Judge Disagreed.

Seven pro-Palestine protesters who chained themselves across the Golden Gate Bridge last April, shutting down southbound traffic for over four hours, are now on trial facing felony charges that could put them in prison for up to 15 years. That's not a typo. District Attorney Brooke Jenkins is pursuing sentences that make the punishment handed to Bay Bridge protesters — who pulled a nearly identical stunt — look like a parking ticket.

But the most revealing moment came before the jury heard a word. Jenkins's office filed a motion to bar the word "genocide" from the trial entirely. The argument, presumably, was that the term is prejudicial and irrelevant to the criminal charges. The defense countered that their clients' entire justification — the legal concept of "necessity," that they broke the law to prevent a greater harm — depends on being able to articulate what harm they believed they were preventing. The judge sided with the defense. "Genocide" stays in.

Here's where this gets interesting from a liberty perspective. You can believe the bridge blockade was reckless, selfish, and deserving of serious consequences — and you should, because stranding thousands of commuters and potentially blocking emergency vehicles is not a victimless act of conscience. But Jenkins seeking 14-to-15-year sentences while similar protesters skated by elsewhere raises a real proportionality question. Are we prosecuting the crime or the politics? A DA's job is to enforce laws consistently, not to make examples out of people whose cause she finds inconvenient.

And the motion to ban a word? That's the tell. If your case is strong on the facts — they blocked a bridge, here's the video, here's the statute — you don't need to muzzle the defense's vocabulary. Trying to scrub "genocide" from the courtroom doesn't look like confidence in your prosecution. It looks like fear of the jury hearing the defendants' reasoning and finding it sympathetic. Jenkins lost that motion, and frankly, she should have. Let the defense say their piece. Let the jury weigh it. That's how trials work.

The Rundown

City Hall & Politics

AIPAC-linked super PACs drop roughly $500K behind Connie Chan's congressional bid. The money flowed through independent expenditure committees — not directly to Chan's campaign, because federal law prohibits coordination — but the signal is unmistakable. Chan is running for California's 11th Congressional District against Scott Wiener and Saikat Chakrabarti, among others. Outside money is flooding this race from every direction, and voters deserve to know exactly who's bankrolling whom. Whatever your politics, half a million dollars in outside spending on a House primary should make you ask: what's being purchased?

Public Safety & Community

Puppies are proliferating in the Tenderloin, and nobody can quite explain why. Residents along Turk Street and the Civic Center corridor are reporting more dogs — especially young ones — appearing in encampments, sometimes rotating week to week. Animal welfare advocates point to overlapping factors, but the lack of a clear explanation is itself the story. Unvaccinated, unregistered animals in encampments raise public health questions that the city's already-strained animal services aren't equipped to answer. This is the kind of slow-burn problem SF loves to study and hates to solve.

Culture & Food

Free museum day is today. Both the de Young and Legion of Honor waive admission on the first Tuesday of every month. No tickets, no registration — just show up between 9:30 and 5:15. The de Young's African and Oceanic galleries alone are worth the trip, and the Legion's Rodin collection never gets old. This is genuinely one of the best free things the city offers, and it costs taxpayers nothing extra. Take advantage.

The Box Shop is closing, and the final party has DJs. Another indie creative space bites the dust. Closing parties at places like this tend to be the best night they ever throw — loose energy, open doors, people who actually care showing up one last time. Check SFFuncheap for details before heading out.

Mezcal, mole, and stand-up comedy in Oakland — Monday and Tuesday nights at a small venue across the bay. The mole is reportedly the real draw, and the comedy is local-circuit, which means unpredictable in the best way. Get there early; small rooms fill fast.

Music & Arts

Bay Beats submission window is closing. If you're a local musician sitting on a demo, stop sitting. Bay Beats places artists into curated multi-date lineups across SF venues — actual exposure, not a one-off open mic for your roommates. Late submissions historically get second-tier review, so move now.

The SF Queer Art & Music Festival runs eight days starting May 31. Multiple venues, distributed stages, a mix of community acts and booked talent. The format rewards planning — pull up the venue map and pick your nights rather than trying to do everything.

Stanford's Afro-Latin Jazz Ensemble plays a free spring concert in SF. Percussion-forward, brass-heavy, Cuban-Brazilian-West African fusion from student musicians who are genuinely excellent. Check SFFuncheap for the venue.

Weekend Plans

Golden Gate Park is stacking free events like it's trying to win something. Mangoes and DJs at Speedway Meadow, swing dancing near 7th and Lincoln, roller disco at the Skatin' Place, chalk art on Hippie Hill, a free symphony at the bandshell, and Dub Mission's 30th anniversary reggae celebration. Dub Mission at 30 is the headliner — three decades of SF's longest-running dub night, now outdoors and free.

The Union Street Hill Climb, Twin Peaks trail cleanup, and a local art auction round out the first week of June. The Hill Climb is free to watch and genuinely entertaining. Bring layers — that 4 p.m. fog isn't messing around.

One More Thing

The SS Jeremiah O'Brien, that WWII Liberty ship parked at Pier 45, quietly moonlit as the Titanic's engine room in James Cameron's 1997 film. The ship's actual working steam engine stood in for the doomed liner's machinery. So if you've ever ugly-cried at that movie — and you have — part of your heartbreak was manufactured in San Francisco. As most things are.