A new report by the University of San Francisco’s Center for Law and Global Justice, points out a dispicable statistic, via the LA Times:

California has sentenced more juveniles to life in prison without possibility of parole than any state in the nation except Pennsylvania, according to a new study by the University of San Francisco’s Center for Law and Global Justice. California currently has 227 inmates serving such sentences for crimes committed before they turned 18; Pennsylvania has 433.

The study, titled “Sentencing Children to Die in Prison,” also found that the United States has far more juveniles serving life terms than any other country — 2,387 at present — with Israel running a distant second at 7. Israel, the only other country that imprisons juveniles for life, according to the study, has not issued such a sentence since 2004.(LAT 11.19.07)

The full report can be viewed here (PDF).

A rush of adjectives come at me on this statistic, but I’m not sure if any are truly appropriate. Clearly we are failing our children, giving up entirely on the idea of rehabilitation, and dooming ourselves to failure. Surely there must be a better solution, both in California, and for our nation in general. We can’t afford to blindly pursue ToughOnCrime^TM without considering the consequences.

I should point out that Sen. Leland Yee (D-SF) has a bill pending in the Senate, SB 999, that would allow for the possibility of parole for all juvenile offenders after 25 years in prison. The Bill goes to the floor in January. Unfortunately it will need 2/3 support, and I’m not sure how many Repubs will be willing to look past their war drum to what is best for the state.

The Assembly Session is now over and a special session for health care and water issues has been convened. The Senate is expected to conclude its session soon as well, but not before hashing out a few more obstacles.  Hundreds of bills are headed to the Governor's desk (the Assembly sent 234 before it adjourned in the wee hours).  But, it turns out that money does buy you love if you start astroturf organizations, but not so much for the real grassroots. So, the mothers of MOMS rising and other organizations that have been fighting toxic chemicals that are in our everyday environment will have to keep on fighting.

UPDATE: From the commnts, AB 706 is now officially dead. The vote count was 19 Ayes, 20 Noes, 1 Abstain.  Dems who voted the wrong way: Correa (Orange County), Ducheny (San Diego), Florez (Bakersfield & Fresno), Machado (Stockton), and Vincent (LA…WTF?). Gloria Negrete McCleod abstained. Sen. Yee flipped his vote late last night.  Thank you, Senator.

See the flip for lots more. 

Science is ever-changing, but that doesn't mean we should be ignoring its lessons. What we once thought was “better living” we now know is killing us. Yet we dawdle. And succumb to a few million bucks spent on mailers with deceptive images of firefighters. So, the scorecard on toxic chemicals this session, well, it is a mixed bag. Fiona Ma's bill to ban thalates in children's toys has passed both houses. You can learn more in this video.  But whether it will be signed is seriously in doubt. If I were a cynic, I would say that the idea of a veto is precisely why it was allowed to be passed.

But, there are more failures than successes. And it seems the Senate has a profound interest in killing anti-toxics bills.  You might say that the Senate is Toxic. (Oh man, I am funny!) So, you've heard a lot about AB 706 (here and here, video here), Mark Leno's Bill banning the use of certain fire retardants for furniture sold in the state. The bill passed the Assembly, and the LA Times named it one of its 6 must pass bills. Yet, the Democrats in the Senate (no Republicans are needed) have broken ranks. You see, apparently the millions of dollars the “Californians for Fire Safety” has spent opposing the bill, and protecting their toxic chemical business.  A number of Senators changed their votes from earlier votes in Committee, Most noticeable are two Senators: Senators Florez (D-Bakersfield/Fresno) and Senator Leland Yee(D-SF/San Mateo).

Look, this isn't an issue of left/right. People in red counties respect their firefighters and want to keep them safe too, so the fact that Sen. Florez's district isn't the bluest is not relevant. If citizens are calling their legislators upset about AB 706, perhaps it is because “Californians for Fire Safety” has mislead the public into thinking that firefighters oppose the bill, when in fact, they support the bill. 

Another bill, AB 558 by Asm. Mike Feuer(D-LA), would require the state to build a catalog of toxics, rather than proceeding through regulation one by one.  Again, the bill was endoresed by the LA Times, who said that the program is worthy of support because of its purpost “to shift the focus from controlling pollution — that is, regulating how chemicals are disposed of or emitted — to preventing it by reducing the use of hazardous materials.” Yet, once again, Senators Florez and Yee killed the bill. This time in the Appropriations Committee.  This bill wasn't even granted the courtesey of a floor vote by the two Senators.

Both of these Senators owe their constituents an explanation for their strong defense of the chemical industry over California's families. This is especially true of Senator Yee, my senator, who took over from one of the most consistently good votes in the Senate, Jackie Speier. (If there ever were an argument against term limits, it is Jackie Speier.) But, in the wake of her departure, we fail to protect Californians from toxic chemicals. And the manufacturers are allowed to buy another year to poison our children and imperil our firefighters. The dollar, I fear, proved once again that it is the strongest voice in Sacramento. Of course, as always, if I'm wrong I take criticism in the comments. 

In what was a victory for the Video Game industry, Judge Ronald Whyte struck down the ban against selling or renting M-Rated games to minors. Attorney General Jerry Brown has vowed to appeal the decision to the 9th Circuit.  In overturning the law, Judge Whyte found that the state did have a compelling interest in regulating video games due to studies indicating violent games can harm children. 

As for me, I was never a huge fan of this law as I was troubled by the First Amendment concerns raised in this decision. If the decision stands, one would expect Sen. Yee to work on crafting a new bill quickly. Press release over the flip.

Federal Court Leaves Children at Risk of Violent Video Games

Yee Responds to Overturn of Violent Video Game Law

SACRAMENTO – United States District Court Judge Ronald Whyte today struck down Assembly Bill 1179, the violent video game law authored by then Assemblyman and now Senator Leland Yee (D-San Francisco/San Mateo) and signed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-Los Angeles), from taking effect. Senator Yee expressed deep concern with decision and urged the Governor and Attorney General to immediacy appeal to a higher court.

“I am shocked that the Court struck down this common-sense law” said Senator Yee. “AB 1179 worked to empower parents by giving them the ultimate decision over whether or not their children should be playing in a world of violence and murder.”

Assembly Bill (AB) 1179 was intended to prevent the sale and rental of violent video games that depict serious injury to human beings in a manner that is especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel, by persons who are under 18 years of age. Retailers who violated the act would be liable in an amount up to $1,000 for each violation.

Judge Whyte’s 17-page opinion stated that “neither the legislative findings nor the evidence submitted by defendants suggest that the expression in violent video games is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action” and that language within the Act is “broad”. Judge Whyte also stated that the State must prove that the video game industry’s rating system does “not equally address the state’s interest in protecting the physical and psychological well-being of children.”

Recent Federal Trade Commission studies suggest that the video game industry’s rating system is not working. In fact, more than half of the children under age of 17 were able to purchase M-rated games which are designed for adults.

Despite the setback for child advocates, this case was deliberated for over a year and was the first time a court recognized the state’s compelling interest to intercede in the video game industry. Judge Whyte stated “The desire to regulate the exposure of minors to senseless violent acts is understandable and, perhaps, more important than regulating exposure to obscenity…Most parents hope that their children will grow up to be non-violent. If exposing minors to depictions of violence in video games makes them experience feelings of aggression and exhibit violent anti-social or aggressive behavior, the state could have a compelling interest in restricting minors’ access to such material.”

“The $31 billion video game industry has fought any attempt at regulation every step of the way,” said Senator Yee. “They fought efforts to publicize their rating system because they thought it would impact sales, and now they’re again putting their profit margins over the rights of parents and the well-being of children.”

According to the National Institute for Media and the Family, eighty-seven percent of children play video or computer games, and approximately sixty percent of their favorite games are rated M for Mature. Mature-rated games are the fastest growing segment of the video game industry; in fact the top selling games reward players for killing police officers, maiming elderly persons, running over pedestrians and committing despicable acts of murder and torture upon women and racial minorities.

In drafting this legislation, Yee worked with constitutional experts to differentiate AB 1179 from that of legislation in other states that have been unsuccessful in the courts, by establishing a state interest in regulating video games based on known detrimental effects and the likely harm these products may cause.

“The deliberations in this case took over a year, which shows that the ever-growing body of evidence that violent video games are harmful to children is getting harder and harder to ignore,” said Yee, who is also a child psychologist. “The medical data clearly indicates that these ultra-violent video games have harmful effects on kids, and thus we have a state interest to protect them.”

“We simply cannot trust the industry to regulate itself,” said Yee. “I strongly urge the Governor and the Attorney General to appeal this decision to a higher court and to the Supreme Court if necessary until our children are protected from excessively violent video games.”

I wrote this for today’s Beyond Chron, San Francisco’s Alternative Online Daily.

Last week, housing advocates couldn’t muster the 21 votes needed to pass SB 464, which would curb speculator evictions under the Ellis Act by limiting its scope to landlords who owned the property for at least 5 years.  Not even reducing it to three years was enough to overcome opposition from the real estate industry.  After Elaine Alquist of San Jose betrayed tenants by flipping her initial support, and Jack Scott of Pasadena said he would only support it if was whittled down to one year, it became clear that SB 464 wasn’t going to pass – so sponsor Sheila Kuehl delayed the vote until January.  This would never have happened in a State Senate run by David Roberti or John Burton, but current Senate President Don Perata never made Ellis Act reform a “leadership” issue.  And although she worked hard in the final days, State Senator Carole Migden’s efforts were too little, too late.  But advocates did secure the support of a swing vote, Leland Yee, and their efforts with Yee provide a roadmap for passing SB 464 next year.

It’s actually incredible that SB 464 got as far as it did – eighteen “yes” votes in the State Senate, which is the more conservative body in the state legislature.  Landlord and realtor lobbyists outnumber tenant lobbyists in Sacramento by a 12-1 margin, and they have shown a ruthless willingness to oppose even the most basic and incremental reforms to the Ellis Act.  While Democrats control both chambers, most of the moderate legislators will not support a bill that will arise the wrath of the realtors in their districts, especially if Governor Schwarzenegger – who owns rental property in Santa Monica – will veto it.

Housing advocates have generally prevailed in Sacramento when they had at least one of two things: (1) a strong tenant movement that had a grass-roots presence in pivotal districts, or (2) legislative leadership who was willing to take heat from the realtors.  The reason it took 17 years for landlords to pass Costa-Hawkins is simple – David Roberti of West Hollywood was President of the State Senate, and he would always arrange to have it killed in committee.  When San Francisco’s John Burton was Senate President from 1998 to 2004, tenants won many victories at Ellis Act reform like (a) a one-year notice for elderly or disabled tenants, and (b) exempting residential hotels (SRO’s) that provide housing for formerly homeless people.

But the leadership was silent about SB 464, leaving Sheila Kuehl and other supporters hanging dry to corral votes while the realtors ruthlessly applied pressure.  While State Senate President Don Perata represents Berkeley and Oakland (two progressive cities whose tenants have struggled with the Ellis Act), he was never a vocal supporter – despite wishful thinking to the contrary.  Perata told supporters he would vote for the bill when it came up, but he never made it a “leadership” issue and did not put pressure on Senate Democrats to get it passed.

It’s somewhat expected that a Democrat from the Central Valley would oppose SB 464.  But it’s inexcusable that Elaine Alquist of San Jose would cave in after the realtors, who were in Sacramento last week for their convention, confronted her about it.  Nor should Jack Scott of Pasadena have chickened out, or Joe Simitian (whose district includes East Palo Alto) come out against it.

The plain fact is that if Don Perata had made it a legislative priority, he could have brought these wavering Senators in line.

But it is also a defeat for Carole Migden, who is in a tough re-election fight for her San Francisco seat.  Migden was always a solid supporter of SB 464, but she didn’t work to get it passed until she had to shore up her progressive credentials.  Last week, Migden devoted her time and energy lobbying Senators to get it passed, while promising constituents that she would fight hard to deliver.  “It’s terribly important to send folks with the heft and continuity to bring things home,” said Migden in a candidates’ debate with her challenger, Mark Leno.  Now her effectiveness in Sacramento is called into question.

Ironically, Don Perata could have used SB 464 to help Carole Migden’s re-election chances.  When Mark Leno formally declared in March that he would challenge the incumbent Senator, Perata told the Chronicle’s Matier & Ross that by taking on Migden, Leno was “campaigning against the good work of all 25 Senate Democrats. To get to her, Mark must come over us.”  Instead, Perata showed that his commitment to Migden’s re-election was pure rhetoric, as he denied her the opportunity to deliver for her San Francisco constituents.

Politics aside, SB 464 was probably not going to pass without a systematic grass-roots effort to put pressure on the wavering legislators.  And that takes time and energy to organize a coalition that is both strategic and effective.  Housing and labor activists in San Jose could have gotten Elaine Alquist to switch her vote, and there are many tenants who live in Jack Scott’s Pasadena district.  A more organized effort in San Mateo County could have made Joe Simitian think twice, and serious noise from the East Bay might have placed the issue on Don Perata’s radar.

Nevertheless, housing advocates were successful in getting one moderate Senator to support Ellis Act Reform – Leland Yee of San Francisco.  To do that, they rounded up more than just the usual suspects.  The local Democratic County Central Committee passed a resolution urging the bill’s passage, and long-time supporters of Yee wrote to request his support.  After a weekend meeting with a diverse group of labor leaders, Asian-American activists and environmentalists, Yee told Sheila Kuehl the following Monday that he would vote “yes” on SB 464.

“Tenants don’t have an automatic 21 votes in the State Senate,” said Randy Shaw, executive director of the Tenderloin Housing Clinic and publisher of Beyond Chron.  “If we’re going to get Alquist and Scott’s vote in January, we’re going to have to put grassroots pressure in their districts to do the right thing.” 

And if Yee is any example, such work requires not just housing activists, but also progressive allies to let the Senator know that a wrong vote could carry consequences beyond just one constituency.  Housing advocates will have another chance to pass Ellis Act Reform, and in order to previal, the work will have to start now.

EDITOR’S NOTE: As a private citizen, Paul Hogarth has endorsed Mark Leno for State Senate but plays no advisory role in the campaign.  When he lived in Berkeley, he also campaigned for Don Perata’s opponent, Dion Aroner, in the 1998 special election.  Send feedback to [email protected]

Today down in sunny Mission Bay along SF’s less scenic waterfront (and only a few steps from my gym), Sen. Leland Yee announced his plan for pension reform.  Currently UC’s pension plan is governed solely by the UC Regents, with no input from workers. WTF?

So, Sen. Yee plans to require joint governance with other higher ed. pension plans.  Given that UC’s pension has dramatically underperformed, perhaps not a bad idea.  Check out the press release over the flip…

UC Conflicts of Interest Prompt Call for Pension Governance Reform

Senator Yee introduces legislation to give workers equal vote on pensions

SAN FRANCISCO – As a result of recent revelations regarding conflicts of interest on the University of California (UC) pension plan and the fact that the once top-performing plan is now significantly underperforming its peers, Senator Leland Yee (D-San Francisco/San Mateo) has introduced legislation (SCR 52) calling for joint governance of the UC employee’s pension plan.

“The UC Retirement Plan is the only state public pension plan that does not give a voice to the workers,” said Yee.  “As a result, we have seen complete mismanagement of their retirement plans and serious questions regarding financial conflicts of interest.  Now 200,000 UC workers are unfairly being asked to foot the bill.”

Both California State University and community college workers have pension plans with joint governance, with both employee and employer representation on their boards.  At UC, the Regents currently have unilateral control over all pension decisions.

“Having jointly governed pension plans improves pension security by preventing conflicts of interest and providing better oversight of pension investments and benefits changes – all of which is greatly needed at UC,” said Lakesha Harrison, President, AFSCME Local 3299.  “We believe that the time for band-aid solutions is over. UC workers want full access to information and an equal say on decisions about our pension. We demand joint governance of our pension.”

Under joint governance, what happens with any fund surplus is agreed upon by the employee and employer trustees.  UC would not be able to propose items such as supplemental benefits for executives, as it has done in the past, unless trustees elected by workers and retirees agreed.

It was recently reported that two members of an investment advisory committee for the UC appear to have previously undisclosed connections to firms who won contracts to invest pieces of the university’s $43.4 billion pension plan.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, one such member, John Hotchkis, retains a 1.1 percent interest in his former firm Hotchkis & Wiley Capital Management, which was chosen in July 2004 to manage more than $430 million in UC equity funds.  In addition, in 2005 a firm headed by Hotchkis’s daughter was chosen to manage $311 million in non-US equity funds.  Another member of the investment committee, David Fisher, is the chair of the board of Capital Guardian Trust Co., a company chosen to manage $377 million in fund assets.

UC claims that these connections do not constitute a conflict and has a proposal to relax, rather than tighten, existing governance policies on conflict of interest.

Last week, the East Bay Express newspaper extensively detailed how a number of recent changes at the pension fund have cost the university billions of dollars.  Once one of the top performing pension plans in the country, it now ranks among the nation’s worst performers.  Although the fund is still over 100 percent funded, for the first time in seventeen years, employees are being asked to pay money into the pension fund, between 5 to 8 percent of their paychecks.

For the past several years, the Regents have increasingly contracted with a number of high-priced pension consultants and money management firms, rather than stick to the decades-long and highly successful practice of using professional university financial staff to trade stocks themselves.

“Workers at UC are already extremely underpaid and now the Regents are expecting them to sacrifice an additional 8 percent of their salaries as a result of this poor management,” said Yee.  “That is simply unconscionable.”

The Regents have made many of these decisions behind closed doors, although lawsuits have since required minutes of these meetings to be publicly released.  In the secret meetings, regents discussed how they could minimize the impact of disclosing fund figures as not to coincide with the 2002 election.  In fact, when the regents were told the figures would not be made public until after the election, regent Norman Pattiz said, “That’s good” and a regent consultant Bruce Lehmann said, “Thank God the doors are closed.”

A report provided by the University shows that under the management of UC staff, the retirement fund earned an average of 15.6 percent per year during the 1990s, compared to only 13.5 percent for comparable multibillion dollar portfolios.  Since UC has contracted out many fund management duties to outside consultants, 86 percent of large US investment trusts outperformed the UC pension fund, according to a report by State Street, UC’s custodial bank.  During the 1990s, the fund spent approximately $5.5 million a year to buy and sell bonds and almost nothing to trade stocks.  In comparison, last year alone the university paid more than $22 million in commissions and paid private fund managers $32 million to trade stocks that were previously handled by existing UC staff.

“Had the UC Retirement Plan even performed as well as half of the comparable funds in the past five years, it would have an addition $3.3 billion,” said Yee.  “Recent decisions have led to billions in lost profits, millions in unnecessary fees, and thousands of employees stuck with the invoice.  We need new governance and oversight of these dollars and workers deserve an equal vote on their pensions.”

“The Regents have a choice: change to joint governance of the retirement plan or we will go to the ballot and ask the voters to make this change for them,” said Yee.

In addition to SCR 52, Senator Yee has authored SB 190, which among a number of reforms, requires advisory groups similar to the investment advisory committee to meet in public.  In addition, SB 190 will require all executive compensation packages to be voted on in an open session of a subcommittee and the full board.  The bill will also require full disclosure of the compensation package with accompanying rationale and public comment on the specific action item.

(Whoa! Wild stuff. – promoted by atdleft)

I wrote this for today’s Beyond Chron, San Francisco’s Alternative Online Daily

As the State Senate plans to vote next week on SB 464 to prevent real estate speculators from abusing the Ellis Act, the San Francisco Association of Realtors recently sent a mass e-mail to its members stressing the need to “aggressively oppose any change” to the Ellis Act whatsoever.  The Realtors also claimed in the same e-mail that State Senate President Don Perata had “convened a meeting” with other legislators about SB 464 and was leading a “tag team” with Senator Sheila Kuehl (the bill’s sponsor) to get it passed.  But Perata has not taken a position on SB 464, and Beyond Chron has learned from Perata’s staff (later confirmed by Perata himself) that there was no such meeting.  In an effort to whip up a hysterical frenzy to defeat SB 464, why would the San Francisco Association of Realtors blatantly lie to their own members about a basic fact?

The Ellis Act is a state law that allows property owners to evict an entire building of tenants when they want to “go out of business.”  SB 464 is a modest but necessary reform that would limit the Ellis Act to landlords who have owned the building for more than five years.  In San Francisco and Los Angeles, real estate speculators who never intended to become landlords have bought rental properties, used the Ellis Act to evict tenants within days, and then re-sold them at a massive profit.  Average landlords who want to “go out of business” after years of renting out property would be unaffected by SB 464.

Several weeks ago, the sponsors of SB 464 amended it in committee so that it would not cover property owners who bought a building before March 27th of this year.  Therefore, SB 464 will not affect anyone who already owns property but will discourage real estate speculators who want to buy a building to evict tenants.  In the e-mail to its members, the Realtors acknowledged that this change “softens the effect” of SB 464, but argued that it was “critically important” to “aggressively oppose any change to the Ellis Act.” 

That’s right.  The Realtors oppose “any change” to the Ellis Act at all.  In other words, the Ellis Act is a sacred cow – and they will always oppose any reforms, no matter how modest, reasonable or measured.  The Ellis Act was supposed to be an exit for property owners who were sick of being landlords, not real estate speculators who buy up the property to then evict tenants.  But for the Realtors, any reform at all is anathema.

It is precisely this kind of knee-jerk extremism that Senator Leland Yee (who is currently undecided on SB 464) says he abhors.  Yee told the San Francisco Tenants Union last year that he was a “moderate” on tenants’ rights, and agreed during the endorsement interview that something needs to be done about the Ellis Act.  With the Realtors now saying that they will oppose any change to the Ellis Act whatsoever, Yee now has the opportunity to prove that he’s a moderate by supporting SB 464.

As the late U.S. Senator Patrick Moynihan once said, “you can have your own opinions, but you can’t have your own facts.”  The San Francisco Association of Realtors are entitled to have a knee-jerk opposition to Ellis Act reform, but one would hope that they wouldn’t completely make up facts when peddling their agenda.

But in the e-mail to its members, the Association of Realtors lied about State Senate President Don Perata and his involvement with SB 464.  “The opposition efforts of realtors,” they said, “have Sheila Kuehl on the ropes.  But from the reports we have received, Kuehl is attempting to put a tag team together, led by Senate President pro Tem Don Perata of Oakland.”

If only that were true.  Perata has not taken a position on SB 464, and he certainly isn’t working with Sheila Kuehl as a “tag team” to pressure other Senators to support it as well.  His housing policy adviser says that she hasn’t even had a conversation with Perata about the bill.  The Realtors are nervous about SB 464’s passage because it will hurt real estate speculators – so they’ve resorted to exaggerating the extent of support that the bill has to whip up their members into a hysterical frenzy.

But the e-mail went even further by talking about a meeting of state legislators that never existed.  “Disturbingly,” it said, “Perata convened a meeting of leading Democrats in Sacramento yesterday to discuss SB 464.”  Because the e-mail was probably sent out on Saturday, April 28th (although some received it as late as Tuesday), that means the meeting would have been on Friday, April 27th – or possibly a few days later.

But the legislature was not in session on Friday, and most Senators were off to San Diego for the Democratic Convention.  Perata’s office confirmed to us that he was in Oakland on that day, was in a car accident later that evening, and has not left the Bay Area since.  A number of legislators (but not Perata) left for D.C. on a lobbying trip Sunday, so there’s no way that the meeting could have happened later.

Last night, Perata confirmed that there had been “no such meeting.”  This was not a case of merely exaggerating the facts.  The Association of Realtors flat-out lied to their own members about a meeting that did not exist.  If that’s how they communicate with their own members, how do they communicate with the media?  The public?  Legislators?

Hopefully, the State Senate will pass the SB 464 to help save tenants from speculative evictions – not to mention knee-jerk extremists who lie about basic facts to peddle their insidious agenda.

Send feedback to [email protected]

( – promoted by Brian Leubitz)

Sometimes you just can’t make this stuff up.  Over the flip you will find the tale of Chinese furniture, being sold in Canada, with a bad attitude. Take that Sen. Correa, you aren’t the only one fighting the symbolic fight.

Yee Demands Apology, Removal of Racist Furniture Labels

Guangzhou company markets color of leather sofa with racial slur

SACRAMENTO – Senator Leland Yee (D-San Francisco/San Mateo) today called on a Chinese company to immediately discontinue selling furniture labeled with a racist slur and to issue an apology.  It was recently reported in the Toronto Star that a company from Guangzhou, China is selling leather furniture with a color description as “Nigger-brown.”  While the furniture is being sold in Canada, it is not yet known if the furniture is also being sold in the United States.

“It is completely unacceptable and there is really no excuse for an international company to market their product with such hurtful and derogatory language,” said Yee, who was born Guangzhou.  “While this may be the result of a poor translation, there needs to be some quality control when it comes to such insensitive words.”

“I have called the Counsel General in San Francisco and we plan to get to the bottom of this,” said Yee.  “This company needs to immediately discontinue selling products with this description and issue an apology.”

Last summer, Yee led an effort to remove a racially charged advertisement in the Netherlands.  The ad, promoting the release of Sony’s white-cased portable video game system (PSP), depicted a white woman angrily grabbing a black woman in the face with the text “Playstation Portable. White is coming.”  One week after Yee launch his campaign against the billboard, Sony pulled the ad and issued a formal apology.