SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues

Vallejo cop Jarrett Tonn murdered 22-year old Sean Monterrosa in June 2020 while he was sitting in his car.

A terrible abuse of police power which the blogger wrote about at the time (see following: Murdered by Vallejo cop)

The cop was never charged. But, six years later Justice of a sort prevails.

Excerpted from San Francisco Chronicle 3.18.2026

The city of Vallejo will pay $8.5 million to settle a lawsuit filed by the family of Sean Monterrosa, who was shot and killed by a police officer there in 2020, the family’s attorney said. 

“The loss of Sean will forever be with our family, and no settlement can ease our pain,” the Monterrosa family said in a statement on Tuesday. “Nonetheless, we are grateful to have reached a resolution in this case.”

Monterrosa, 22, of San Francisco, was fatally shot by Officer Jarrett Tonn on June 2, 2020, just a week after a Minneapolis police officer killed George Floyd, sparking months of protests against police violence across the country. 

Vallejo police were responding to reports of looting and came upon a group of people including Monterrosa outside a Walgreens. Tonn, who was riding in the back of an unmarked police truck, fired through the windshield from the back seat, striking Monterrosa in the back of the head. The 22-year-old was found with a hammer in his sweatshirt pocket, which police said they mistook for a gun.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/vallejo-sean-monterrosa-lawsuit-settle-22084331.php

Murdered by Vallejo cop. Family of slain 22-year old files wrongful death suit

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues  3 18.2026

The blogger is shocked and dismayed to read The New York Times and subsequent reports in The San Francisco Chronicle chronicling years of  sexual abuse by United Farmworkers icon Cesar Chavez.

Equally dismaying is the Rush to Judgment to destroy Chavez’ legacy. In an SF Chronicle snap poll, over 75 percent of the respondents want his person and accomplishments vanquished from public life.

 

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 3.14.2026

The Academy Awards are upon us and serious movies rarely receive the Red Carpet treatment.

Tonight I watched transfixed the sobering and seriously motivating story ‘Mr. Jones ‘. Gareth Jones, a British journalist, who traveled to Soviet Russia in 1933 and exposed the terror of Stalin’s starvation campaign against his own people. Millions perished while the world remained ignorant the genocide until William Randolph Hearst published Gareth Jones harrowing tale.

Mr. Jones met a cruel fate. He was kidnapped and assassinated by Soviet agents in Mongolia one day before his 30th birthday in 1935. Gareth Jones (journalist) – Wikipedia

Mr. Jones (2019 film) – Wikipedia

The Holodomor,^[a] also known as the Ukrainian famine,^[8][9][b] was a massive man-made famine in Soviet Ukraine from 1932 to 1933 that killed millions of Ukrainians. The Holodomor was part of the wider Soviet famine of 1930–1933 which affected the major grain-producing areas of the Soviet Union.

Holodomor – Wikipedia

The film, directed by Agnieszka Holland, is meticulous. Particularly the cinemaphotography as it alternates between black/white and color.

The entire ensemble cast is stellar.

One story lines involves George Orwell and his novel ‘Animal Farm’. Apparently, the inspiration for the story was based on the ‘Holodomor’.

A second story line involves New York Times reporter Walter Duranty who won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting. It turns out that Duranty was well aware of Stalin’s atrocities against his own people. Yet continued to knowingly spin the fiction there was no famine. Even when the reality was known his Pulitzer was never revoked. Walter Duranty – Wikipedia https://share.google/MdriSCGn68mf9qEoU

Top photo: James Norton portrayed British journalist Gareth Jones

SAN FRANCISCO

Headlines for a Friday the 13th

Lee Heidhues 3.13.2026 UPDATED

Excerpted from New York Times – Mairav Zonszein 3.13.2026

Israel, having demonstrated overwhelming force, is once again mistaking domination for security and tactical escalation for a sustainable regional order — even as the region continues to burn.

Benjamin Netanyahu has spent much of his political life trying to make war with Iran seem not only inevitable but overdue.

Thus, for the Israeli prime minister, the latest conflict was a victory the moment it began. Not because every consequence is good for Israel, but because he can sell almost every conceivable result as proof that he was right all along: that Iran had to be confronted, that force was unavoidable and that delay would only have made the threat more treacherous.

🫨

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 3.10.2026 UPDATED

The blogger is well aware that Country Joe McDonald’s most well traveled song ‘I Feel Like I’m Fixin’ to Die Rag’ became a people’s anthem of the anti-Vietnam War movement.

The first Country Joe and the Fish album released in 1967 on the Vanguard Records label is a classic. Reading of Country Joe McDonald’s death at age 84 I took the album off the shelf and had some happy memories listening to the 11 tracks. In particular ‘Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine’.

Top photo: An older Country Joe McDonald

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 3.10.2026 UPDATED

Donald Trump’s unhinged, uncalled for, unnecessary assault on the people of Iran is destroying the infrastructure of this thousands year old nation.

The unilateral assault by America and its brethren Israel is causing ruin to the United States economy.

The only benefit to all this Trump inspired death and destruction is the blogger can only hope an angry and fed up American electorate will give a big thumbs down to the hegemon Trump and MAGA in the upcoming congressional elections.

Excerpted from The Wall Street Journal 3.6.2026

https://www.wsj.com/economy/jobs/february-jobs-report-unemployment-1d7d1a9b?mod=Searchresults&pos=2&page=1

The U.S. lost 92,000 jobs in February, a widespread and unexpected downturn for a job market that continues to struggle across a broad range of sectors.

The employment numbers, reported Friday by the Labor Department, fell far short of January’s gain of 126,000 jobs. They were also much worse than the gain of 50,000 jobs that economists polled by The Wall Street Journal had expected to see.

The unemployment rate ticked slightly higher to 4.4%. While that is still low, the Friday report exposes troubling weaknesses in a labor market that has shown very little employment growth in recent months.

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 3.5.2026

The Mainstream Media is all aTwitter and in high gear as DHS boss Kristi Noem has been given the “You’re Fired” treatment by Donald Trump.

For the blogger there’s a big San Francisco angle.

Turns out now ex-Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) queen has a very chummy relationship with San Francisco Mayor and Levi’s scion Daniel Lurie.

Now we know why the Mayor has refused to cough up details of his conversations with the White House. Conversations last Fall which kept the ICE brigades from invading San Francisco.

I suppose this relationship benefited San Francisco. Still, it would be nice to know the details of the chats.

Excerpted from The San Francisco Standard 3.5.2026

Speaking Thursday during a police conference in Nashville, minutes after being fired as Department of Homeland Security Secretary, Kristi Noem praised San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie’s cooperation with the federal government pertaining to its local enforcement efforts.

During the Q&A, San Francisco Police Officers Association Vice President Chris Galligan asked Noem whether or not the federal government could help reimburse local law enforcement for the work they do at events like the recent Super Bowl.

“You maybe have some challenges in San Francisco just because of your state laws and local laws,” Noem replied. “Although you’ve got a mayor that works with us very well. He probably doesn’t want me to talk about it a lot, actually. But he has been cooperative and we have great conversations and talk quite often.”

https://sfstandard.com/2026/03/05/kristi-noem-daniel-lurie-donald-trump-enforcement-cities/?

Top photo: ICE Queen Kristi Noem and San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie – Best Friends?

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 3.4.2026

Watching and reading about Trump’s years long unilateral fixation with chaos and destruction both at home and abroad it’s obvious he never had any intention to make a deal with Iran.

The “resolution” is the War Trump wants.

Excerpted from BBC News 3.3.2026

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c98qpz144nvo

Funerals have been held for students and staff killed in what Iranian authorities have said was a US-Israeli strike on a school in southern Iran.

Iranian officials said more than 160 people were killed when a girls’ school was hit in the city of Minab on Saturday, as the US and Israel launched widespread strikes targeting Iran’s military sites and leadership.

BBC News has not been able to independently verify the Iranian authorities’ death toll.

The school was located near an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) base.

The US military said it was looking into reports of the incident, while Israel’s military said it was “not aware” of any operations in the area.