May 26, 2019
Every Picture Tells a Story – Ongoing Series
These pictures were taken Friday afternoon in busy downtown San Francisco. The scene was disrupted by the sudden appearance of several police cars careening down Market Street enroute to a crime scene.
Photos by Lee Heidhues
“Progressive” San Francisco must hit hard at the POA for a shameful, dangerous intervention in the political process. The Mayor and Board of Supervisors cannot allow themselves to be intimidated by a Police State.
The POA was not satisfied with trashing Jeff Adachi after his death. The release of a Police Report compiled the night of his death on February 22, by as yet unnamed cops, was illegal and unethical.
The May 10 detention and brutalization of a local freelance journalist by a squadron of local cops and FBI agents raised the hackles and set off the alarm bells of Press Freedom advocates.
Chief of Police William Scott (pictured above), local elected officials and the Judiciary have been villilfied for their generally silent reaction to what can be described as a Police State action in conducting the raid on a Journalist.
Finally, the Chief has apologized for the actions of his department.
This apology is too much for the POA. It published a strident Statement blasting the Chief, ridiculing him in the most abusive manner and calling for his immediate resignation.
The POA is engaging in an act of shameful behavior which can be described as “eating its own.”
San Francisco Chronicle 5.25.2019 News Story
https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/Adachi-leak-SF-police-union-calls-on-police-13896795.php
I should not be stunned at the obtuseness of the cops. The good news, after receiving a total pounding the past two weeks the San Francisco Chief of Police is acknowledging the obvious. He screwed up!!!
Excerpted from San Francisco Examiner 5.24.2019
San Francisco Police Chief Bill Scott conceded Friday that a raid on a journalist’s home during an investigation into a leaked police report last month may have violated state laws and called for an independent investigation into the matter.
In a statement released Friday, Scott said that a “top-to-bottom” review of the criminal investigation into the unauthorized release of the police report on Public Defender Jeff Adachi’s death has raised concerns over a “lack of due diligence by department investigators” in seeking search warrants for freelance stringer Bryan Carmody.
Scott said the investigators also may not have properly addressed Carmody’s “status as a member of the news media.”
On May 10, police and FBI officials executed two search warrants on Carmody’s home and office. Officers showed up with a sledgehammer to force entry into his home, and confiscated over 100 of his personal items, including tablets and thumb drives.
“This has raised important questions about our handling of this case and whether the California shield law was violated,” said Scott.
Committee to Protect Journalists 5.24.2019
Berlin, May 24, 2019 — Italian authorities should swiftly and thoroughly investigate the police beating of La Repubblicareporter Stefano Origone and hold those responsible to account, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.
Yesterday, a group of riot police officers beat Origone with batons and kicked him while the journalist was covering clashes among demonstrators near a rally staged by far-right party CasaPound in Genoa, according to a video of the incident published by his employer, Italian daily La Repubblica, and as Origone recounted in a report published today in the paper.
Police officers beat Origone while he curled in the fetal position, breaking two of his fingers and one of his ribs, according to his report in La Repubblica. He shouted that he was a journalist, but police only stopped beating him when one officer recognized him, Origone wrote.
“Italian authorities should hold to account the officers responsible for beating La Repubblica reporter Stefano Origone,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, in New York. “Journalists should be able to carry out their duty to report on demonstrations without being harassed or attacked; authorities should ensure their safety, not endanger it.”
In his report today, Origone wrote that he remained hospitalized in Genoa with heavy bruising and head trauma.
Riot police began beating demonstrators after CasaPound supporters and opponents clashed near the party’s rally, according to news reports.
“The journalist, Origone, was in the piazza to do his job in a peaceful manner as a reporter. I don’t know how he could have been mistaken for a rioter,” said Genoa’s chief prosecutor, Francesco Cozzi, according to German international broadcaster Deutsche Welle.
Italian prosecutors have opened an investigation into Origone’s beating, according to the broadcaster.
In an interview published by La Repubblica, Genoa Police Superintendent Vincenzo Ciarambino apologized for the officers’ attack on the journalist.
CPJ emailed the Genoa police for comment but did not immediately receive a reply.
https://cpj.org/2019/05/italian-riot-police-beat-la-repubblica-reporter-st.php
Bay City News Service 5.23.2019
The California State University Board of Trustees on Wednesday appointed Lynn Mahoney to serve as the president of San Francisco State University, the first woman to serve in that role.
Mahoney, currently the provost and vice president for academic affairs at California State University, Los Angeles, will be the 14th president of SFSU when she officially takes over in July.
She is replacing Leslie Wong, who is retiring after seven years as SFSU president.
“San Francisco State is the city’s vibrant and diverse nexus for academics, culture and advocacy,” Mahoney said in a news release. “I look forward to working with faculty, staff, students, community members and campus administrators to ensure a welcome and inclusive environment for our students as is befitting one of the most socially conscious cities in the country.”
Mahoney previously held various roles at CSU Long Beach before going to CSU Los Angeles. She earned her bachelor’s degree in American studies at Stanford University and a doctorate in history from Rutgers University.
Let’s hope that this Con artist who self promoted his way into the White House is FINALLY being given the treatment that egomaniacs and serial liars deserve.
Excerpted from Deutsche Welle 5.22.2019
US President Donald Trump has failed in his legal attempt to stop Congress subpoenas to force Deutsche Bank to release his financial details. The German bank reportedly lent Trump over $2 billion in the last 20 years.
US President Donald Trump has lost a legal battle to block Congress from subpoenaing his financial records from two banks. The president also said he would not work with the House unless it stopped investigating him or his finances.
New York District Judge Edgardo Ramos ruled on Wednesday that Trump, his family, and his company were “highly unlikely” to succeed in a lawsuit claiming that the subpoenas by Democratic lawmakers were unconstitutional. Ramos said the subpoenas have “a legitimate legislative purpose.”
The move could mean that Deutsche Bank and Capital One, two banks that Trump has borrowed millions of dollars from, may be forced to release their documents on the president.
A 2017 disclosure form showed that Trump had had at least $130 million (€116 million) of liabilities to Deutsche Bank alone, with the new subpoena seeking more records of accounts, transactions and investments linked to Trump, his immediate family and their various businesses.
The New York Times has reported that Trump owed Deutsche Bank some $300 million when he was inaugurated in 2017. The bank has said it would comply with subpoenas.
The lawyers for the Congress’ House Financial Services and Intelligence committees said they needed access to documents from the banks to investigate possible “foreign influence in the US political process” and possible money laundering from abroad.
https://www.dw.com/en/court-deutsche-bank-may-release-files-on-donald-trump/a-48840492
Best quote. “We can’t negotiate if they don’t respect us. ”
Excerpted from Politico Europe
Okkupert (“Occupied”), the most expensive Norwegian television show in history, never mentions the word “quisling.” And yet its premise — a Russian occupation of Norway — evokes Vidkun Quisling’s Nazi collaborationist government and is permeated with the still unshakable trauma of that era.
Between 1942 and 1945, Quisling’s puppet regime revoked the authority of the Norwegian King (exiled to Great Britain after refusing German demands to abdicate), banned the entry of Jews fleeing Nazi terror, and fruitlessly committed Norwegian soldiers to the Eastern Front. At the end of the war, Quisling was executed and his name now dubiously lives on as an eponym for “traitor.”
Okkupert wrestles with a modern version of Quisling’s devastating legacy — and the shameful blot it left on the country’s history. The show is set in the near future, where a Green party government comes to power in Oslo on the heels of a hugely damaging global warming-related hurricane. Promising to unveil a revolutionary new form of nuclear energy powered by the chemical element thorium, Prime Minister Jesper Berg strikes a very Scandinavian pose by announcing that Norway will lead by example and immediately shut down its considerable gas and oil production.
This upsets the European Union, of which Norway is not a member. In cahoots with Moscow, Brussels secretly threatens Berg with a full-scale Russian invasion unless he commits to maintaining Norway’s fossil fuel extraction under Moscow’s supervision. (The United States, having recently achieved energy independence, has withdrawn from NATO and sits disinterestedly aside.) Berg reluctantly agrees to this scheme, promising his people that the insertion of Russian worker crews to restart Norway’s energy industry will be temporary.
When the Russians come to Norway, there are no tanks or fighter jets or “little green men.” The diminution of Norwegian sovereignty and the assertion of Russian control is much more subtle and visible only to those who care to notice. In the absence of a defensive alliance like NATO to deter the Russian threat, the mere mention of war leaves Berg with little choice — at least initially — but to go along with the “temporary” occupation. On the surface, life remains normal for most Norwegians, who go about their daily business as though nothing had changed.
All this lends Occupied an authenticity that has struck a chord in Norway. “I think the feeling we are secure and things can’t really change is an illusion,” Jo Nesbø told the Guardian shortly after Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula in 2014. “That is the scary bit, because things can change very fast. The thing about Scandinavia is that we take things for granted.”
Teasing out “the scary bits” of such a frightening scenario is what makes Occupied one of the most rivetingly realistic TV shows about international politics in recent memory. Aside from its opening plot device, there’s little about the show that’s unbelievable. The best aspects aren’t the occasional explosions and shoot-outs, but the human drama. Little by little, viewers come to see how a democratic society becomes morally corroded by the everyday compromises regular people are forced to make.
On opposite ends of this dilemma stand Thomas Eriksen, a crusading journalist who risks his life to expose the truth, and Hans Martin Djupvik, a member of Berg’s security detail who sincerely believes he’s helping his country by working with the Russians to monitor and root out fellow Norwegians who oppose the new dispensation.
There’s the teenage boy Djupvik arrests and interrogates for creating an anti-Russian blog. There’s the apolitical restaurateur who, after converting her struggling eatery into a hangout for big-spending Russian securocrats working at the secretive occupation headquarters across the street, is targeted for intimidation by “Free Norway,” an underground, anti-Russian paramilitary movement.
Occupied also taps into distinctively Scandinavian cultural undertones. The last time fears of Russia kept Norwegians awake at night was during the Cold War, when Finland adopted a foreign policy of neutrality that allowed it to retain its formal independence, thereby escaping the fate of the Baltics (forcefully incorporated in the Soviet Union) or countries like Poland and Czechoslovakia (which became communist satellites). Finland had a democratic political system and free-market economy, but its position popularized the word “Finlandization,” a pejorative term still occasionally used by political scientists to describe the phenomenon whereby a small country living alongside a large and territorially expansionist one accepts a reduction of its sovereignty in exchange for self-rule.
“Finlandized Finland … showed the world that the Soviet Union was able to live in friendship with the neighbor. At the same time, Finland remained on the Soviet Union’s leash. Since this was a successful project, it is no wonder that today’s Russia desires to Finlandize other countries.”
“It is certainly regretful that in the year when the 70th anniversary of the victory in the Second World War is celebrated, the series’s creators decided to scare Norwegian viewers with a non-existing threat from the East in the worst Cold War traditions.”
