Chan responds to “Falsities fraught with racist and sexist overtones”

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 8.7.2026 UPDATED

Ever since becoming a San Francisco Supervisor in 2021 Connie Chan has been subjected to vicious sexist racist red baiting attacks.

Now as a candidate for Congress representing San Francisco as successor to iconic Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi she is the target of a scurrilous AI campaign by her opponent State Senator Scott Wiener.

Scott Wiener thinks this is just the normal campaign activity. It’s not. “Falsities fraught with racist and sexist overtones” is how Connie Chan’s campaign describes the AI attack.

Excerpted from SF Gate 8.6.2026

State Sen. Scott Wiener, a San Francisco Democrat running for Congress who is backed by Anthropic, just launched a chatbot of his opponent — and his team used Claude to do it.

The website, called ConnieChan.ai, launched on Monday morning and sarcastically refers to itself as “the world’s first AI trained to say no to anything you ask.” It prompts the user to type in a question, and the bot will spit out an answer impersonating Wiener’s opponent, District 1 Supervisor Connie Chan: “Bring me an idea and I’ll explain why it can’t, shouldn’t, and won’t happen,” it says.

**ConnieChan.AI – an attack production by Scott Wiener**

Wiener has received over $4 million for his congressional campaign, and an Anthropic-funded PAC called Public First has committed $500,000 to support his candidacy. Anthropic also backed a tech regulation legislation package that Wiener authored last year. It requires big tech companies like Anthropic, OpenAI and Meta to publish safety reports when they release new AI products.

‘**ConnieChan.ai’ billboard at 25th Avenue and Geary Blvd. San Francisco – photo Lee Heidhues**

Wieners’s team told SFGATE that they spent $20,000 on two billboards in San Francisco promoting the chatbot. They will run until the end of the month.

https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/scott-wiener-anthropic-billboard-22372638.php

Top photo: Congressional candidate Connie Chan cited by San Francisco Police speaking out for workers at San Francisco International Airport – May 2026

This campaign reminds the blogger of the classic Western Once Upon a Time in the West and the theme ‘Man with a Harmonica’.

Seriously ill Broadcast icon Greg Papa purged by corporate media

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 8.5.2026

Totally brutal and callous. Broadcaster Greg Papa purged by the station for which he hosted one of its most popular Sports Talk shows for decades.

Papa has been most prominently the voice of the Oakland (now Las Vegas) Raiders and most currently the San Francisco 49ers. His signature touchdown calls are well known to football fans.

Radio station KNBR – 680AM and 1050FM This takes the cake for corporate brutality. Dumping an icon when he is struggling mightily to survive. This sends a message. There’s no humanity in the broadcast industry whatsoever.

It comes as a total shock to the blogger that his employer is oblivious to the outrage which can be expected from the rabid and dedicated sports audience.

Greg Papa – Wikipedia

Gregory Charles Papa (born October 10, 1962)^[1] is an American sportscaster, currently employed as the radio play-by-play announcer for the San Francisco 49ers. He has also broadcast for the Indiana Pacers, Golden State Warriors, Oakland Athletics, San Antonio Spurs, Oakland Raiders, and San Francisco Giants during his career.^[2]

He is best known as the radio play-by-play caller for the Raiders and the host of Chronicle Live on NBC Sports Bay Area.^[3] He, Garry St. Jean, and Kelenna Azubuike used to do the in-studio analysis for all the Golden State Warriors regular season games on NBC Sports Bay Area. He is the younger brother of deceased Philadelphia sportscaster Gary Papa. Papa is a three-time California Sportscaster of the Year Award winner.^[4]

Excerpted from The San Francisco Chronicle – 8.5.2026

KNBR has laid off longtime Bay Area voice Greg Papa, 63, who was diagnosed with leukemia just over a year ago and returned to his North Bay home last month after a life-threatening 78-day hospital stay that included lung failure.

The station also parted with Greg Silver, who had been Papa’s partner on their midday KNBR talk show. The pair will be replaced on their 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. show by John Lund, a longtime Bay Area radio voice who was fired by KNBR in November 2024.

Silver confirmed the news, which was first reported by SFGate.com. Papa declined comment. KNBR program director Mike Hohler did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

**Greg Papa at the Oakland Coliseum when he was the voice of the Oakland Raiders**

Papa, a 42-year broadcasting veteran and four-time California Sportscaster of the Year, has a separate contract with the San Francisco 49ers. He’s served as the team radio play-by-play man since 2019. His employment status with the organization remains unchanged, a team spokesman said.

Papa recently spoke with the Chronicle to detail his health journey since he underwent a successful bone marrow transplant on March 4. He is at home, using supplemental oxygen, but he’s cancer-free and his oxygen needs have significantly decreased since both lungs collapsed during his nearly three-month stay at UCSF Medical Center.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/sports/49ers/article/broadcaster-greg-papa-let-go-knbr-part-mid-day-22375803.php?utm_source=marketing&utm_medium=copy-url-link&utm_campaign=article-share&hash=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuc2ZjaHJvbmljbGUuY29tL3Nwb3J0cy80OWVycy9hcnRpY2xlL2Jyb2FkY2FzdGVyLWdyZWctcGFwYS1sZXQtZ28ta25ici1wYXJ0LW1pZC1kYXktMjIzNzU4MDMucGhw&time=MTc4NTk4Njg1NzE1MA%3D%3D&rid=OTJhM2RhZWItNDMzYy00ZjMxLTgyMTQtZTU2ZjE2NDIzNDRl&sharecount=MQ%3D%3D

Top photo: Greg Papa gives the thumbs up

The Rapid Rise of DSA Progressive El-Sayed Democrats

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 8.6.2026 UPDATED

If truth be told the Wall Street Journal and its favorite tabloid The New York Post are praying for a victory in November by Dr. El-Sayed.

The WSJ editorial page will be in overdrive excoriating the Doctor for the next six years. It will be great for circulation and provide plenty of Red Meat to the WSJ crowd.

Wall Street Journal Opinion 8.5.2026

The March of the El-Sayed Democrats

His victory in Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary sets up the race of the year in November.

Abdul El-Sayed’s victory in Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary on Tuesday is no surprise in this year of rising radicalism in the party. But maybe hold off on French Revolution 2.0. Democratic voters made the race far closer than pollsters predicted, and now Mr. El-Sayed will have to persuade voters beyond Ann Arbor and the white liberal gentry.

Mr. El-Sayed, an articulate 41-year-old public-health official, was expected to roll over Rep. Haley Stevens. But his lead was 1% on Wednesday when the race was called. The narrow victory suggests many Democrats had second thoughts about nominating a man with radical views hailed by Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as the next great progressive hope.

Progressive is an understatement. Mr. El-Sayed now says he’s a “capitalist,” distancing himself from the Democratic Socialists of America, but his agenda remains the full Bernie Sanders. He continues to support Medicare for All. He favors a wealth tax and an enormous expansion in federal entitlements for child care and more. He wants to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement, saying the agency “is about normalizing paramilitary force on our streets.”

He has a particular animus toward Israel and has campaigned with Hasan Piker, the Mao Zedong fanboy and Soviet Union admirer who has said the U.S. “deserved 9/11.” Mr. El-Sayed wants to cut off all U.S. military aid to Israel, which he accuses of genocide in Gaza.

**Karen Tumulty – Washington Post-8.5.2026**

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-march-of-the-el-sayed-democrats-87bd9eb4?st=pPjnKJ&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

**Is that the best the WSJ Opinion readers can do responding to the blogger’s ‘Comment’?**

Top photo: Dr. Abdul El-Sayed Democrat nominee for US Senate from Michigan

Why did Trump Wag the Dog in 2026?

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 8.2.2026

Six years ago the blogger thought a floundering Trump would Wag the Dog and attack Iran in his re-election year.

He didn’t.

Six years later and back in the White House Trump played the War card.

There was no presidential election he could brazenly utilize to propel him to victory.

The question will forever be, “What was he thinking?” as his presidency crumbles and the world economy tumbles.

Wag the dog – Wikipedia The term did not gain political popularity until the 1990s, with the success of the 1993 novel Wag the Dog and the 1997 film of the same name. In the film, a sitting U.S. president becomes embroiled in scandal weeks before he is up for re-election, and a spin doctor arranges for a Hollywood producer to fabricate military action to save the campaign. This led to the phrase “wag the dog” becoming used to describe superfluous military actions undertaken to distract from domestic scandals.^[1] It was used multiple times during U.S. president Donald Trump‘s first term. First, in April 2017 when he conducted airstrikes against Syria during an investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections,^[3] and again in January 2020, after a U.S. airstrike assassination of Iran‘s General Qasem Soleimani occurred during the first impeachment trials of Trump.^[7]

Wag the Dog 2020. Would Trump Go to War With Iran to Get Reelected?

Top photo: Tehran aflame as Trump attacks Iran – 2.28.2026

Trump Trolls Times reporter again fishing for sources

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 8.2.2026 UPDATED

For a President who is so media savvy and friendly when it suits him the blogger can only continue to look on with dismay as Donald Trump assaults the First Amendment and crush the right to publish.

During his second term Trump’s Department of Justice has already issued subpoenas against The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post.

Does Trump seriously believe these mainstream media giants are standing idly by while its reporters are harassed by his DOJ? Thank goodness these publications are having none of it.

Excerpted from The New York Times 8.1.2026

Previously undisclosed subpoena, involving reporting on a failed 2019 SEAL Team 6 mission in North Korea, reflects the Trump’s expanding campaign to investigate leaks of what Trump labels secrets.

A freelance reporter has been fighting a subpoena from the Trump administration seeking to force him to reveal his sources for a New York Times article about a failed top secret mission in North Korea, according to people familiar with the matter.

Charlie Stadtlander, a spokesman for The Times, said in a statement that the subpoena to Matthew Cole was “part of the government’s escalating attacks on journalists, which should concern all Americans.” He added that the demand to disclose Mr. Cole’s sources “is another brazen and illegal attack from the administration designed to deny the public information of vital importance.”

The subpoena, which has not been previously disclosed, reflects the administration’s intensifying campaign to investigate leaks of government secrets by pressuring reporters to divulge their sources. Until President Trump began his second term, federal subpoenas to reporters were exceedingly rare.

In February, F.B.I. agents showed up at the New York home of the reporter, Matthew Cole, to deliver the grand jury subpoena, which was issued by prosecutors in Newport News, Va., according to the people familiar with the matter, who described the private conversations on the condition of anonymity.

The Times is providing a legal defense to Mr. Cole.

Trump jabs the media on Air Force One

The investigators are seeking his testimony about two years’ worth of information about Mr. Cole’s contacts and conversations, as they try to identify his sources for the article about the operation in North Korea, the people familiar with the matter said. It is unclear if the administration has also sought Mr. Cole’s phone and email data, as it has done in other cases.

Last fall, Mr. Cole, along with a staff reporter for The Times, Dave Philipps, revealed the details of a Navy SEAL Team 6 mission in 2019 that went awry. The article described how the SEAL members killed two or three unarmed North Koreans who appeared to have stumbled upon the mission, a classified operation to plant a secret eavesdropping device near the country’s coastline. The Times’s account, published in September, drew on interviews with two dozen people.

The article also noted that the Trump administration did not notify key members of Congress who oversee intelligence operations, before or after the mission, an omission that may have violated the law.

The Justice Department has not subpoenaed Mr. Philipps, according to people familiar with the matter. He declined to comment.

Mr. Cole disclosed more details of his reporting on his Substack newsletter, stating that despite learning about the mission in 2023, he waited for months before making calls to find out more given the sensitive nature of the reporting.

Top graphic by: Dave Whamond

Again!! Why is Sunset Dunes Park on the San Francisco ballot?

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 7.31.2026

This is getting boring. There’s more to Life Than This.

Icelandic musician sang it best, “It’s Getting Boring. There’s More to Life Than This.”

How many times will the San Francisco electorate be forced to vote on the future of Sunset Dunes Park adjacent to the Pacific Ocean shoreline?

Voters in San Francisco have twice voted in favor of this shoreline park. Most recently in 2024 when 55.73% of the electorate just said YES!!

In addition advocates for Sunset Dunes Park have prevailed in every court case and administrative hearing including the California Coastal Commission.

The social media site Nextdoor conducted a snap survey. 54 percent of the respondents favor keeping Sunset Dunes Park permanently as a pedestrian, cyclist oasis.

Nonetheless, the voters who feel they have a virtual birthright to drive their vehicles on what used to be called The Great Highway are at it, again. Using San Francisco election law which requires only 10,700 signatures to qualify a ballot measure the blogger will have to vote, again.

Enough is enough. And the blogger is not alone. A group calling itself ‘Friends of Sunset Dunes’ filed a petition for a Writ of Mandate (CPF-26-519780). The matter will be heard in San Francisco Superior Court, 400 McAllister Street, Dept. 302. Hopefully the Judge will approve the Writ of Mandate and strike this vexatious litigation from the November 3rd, 2026 ballot. And put an end once and for all to this abuse of the ballot.

Notice of Hearing CPF-26-519780 7.10.2026 Download

Bloggers Liz and Lee ‘Interview’ at Sunset Dunes Park – July 27, 2024

**Sunset Dunes Park ROAD CLOSED to cars**

‘Extraordinary Rendition’ America’s shameful activity

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 7.30.2026

The blogger just watched the 2007 film Rendition twice. While the film is definitely a Hollywoodization of a shameful period in American history it definitely was a story which needed telling. Upon it’s release the film was generally panned by critics and movie goers alike. It could be the reason for this critical negativity was the fact the story left many movie goers feeling uncomfortable, squeamish to be viewing what American policy is capable of doing.

Extraordinary rendition – Wikipedia

Extraordinary rendition is a euphemistically named policy of state-sponsored abduction in a foreign jurisdiction and transfer to a third state. The best-known use of extraordinary rendition is in a United States-led program during the war on terror,^[1] which circumvented the source country’s laws on interrogation, detention, extradition and/or torture. Extraordinary rendition is a type of extraterritorial abduction, but not all extraterritorial abductions include transfer to a third country.

Extraordinary rendition began under the administration of President Bill Clinton and continued under the administration of President George W. Bush, which abducted hundreds of “illegal combatants” for U.S. detention and transported them to U.S.-controlled sites as part of an extensive interrogation program that included torture.^[2] Extraordinary rendition continued under the Obama administration, with targets being interrogated and subsequently taken to the U.S. for trial.^[3] A 2018 report by the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament found the United Kingdom, specifically MI5 and MI6, to be complicit in many of the renditions carried out by the U.S., by helping to fund them, by supplying intelligence, and by knowingly allowing the abductions to happen.^[4]

Egyptian-born Anwar El-Ibrahimi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omar_Metwally is a chemical engineer living in Chicago with his mother, his pregnant wife Isabella, and their young son. He is believed to be linked to known terrorist Rashid by records indicating several calls to his cellphone. Returning from a conference in South Africa, Anwar is detained by American officials and sent to a secret facility near the earlier attack, where he is interrogated and tortured.

Rendition (film) – Wikipedia

Rendition is a 2007 American political thriller film directed by Gavin Hood, and starring Reese Witherspoon, Jake Gyllenhaal, Meryl Streep, Peter Sarsgaard, Alan Arkin, and Omar Metwally. The film centers on the controversial CIA practice of extraordinary rendition and is based on the true story of Khalid El-Masri, who was mistaken for Khalid al-Masri.

The film was produced by Level 1 Entertainment and Anonymous Content and distributed by New Line Cinema, and premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 7, 2007, before being released theatrically in North America on October 19, 2007. The film received mixed reviews from critics and underperformed at the box office

A clip from the ‘Rendition’ soundtrack composed by Paul Hepker and Mark Kilian

Lindsey Graham. Trump’s favorite Sycophant

San Francisco

Lee Heidhues 7.27.2026

In Memoriam.

May Lindsey Graham Rest in Peace 🙏 in a place where he can no longer cause damage.

Lindsey Graham will receive a State funeral in Washington DC.

The place where he held forth and spewed forth his nonsensical and dangerous 😳 bloviating for decades.

The public needs to know, remember and never forget Lindsey Graham was no paragon of Democracy.

Lindsey Graham was a racist war mongering political hack who this blogger with good reason called out seven years ago.

“Communists.” I thought MAD Magazine was dead. No!!! We have Lindsey Graham

Sen. Graham. His antics served only Trump and Netanyahu

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 7.27.2026

May Lindsey RIP because the World will no longer have to read about his slavish antics to serve the interests of Netanyahu and Trump and their relentless efforts to destroy the Peoples of 🇵🇸 Palestine and 🇮🇷 Iran.

**Lindsey Graham. Spent his political life cleaning up the mess made by Trump and Netanyahu**

Excerpted from The Wall Street Journal 7.27.2026

TEL AVIV—The sudden passing of Sen. Lindsey Graham has deprived Israel of a rare friend—one who was both an ardent supporter and politically powerful—at a time when energetic factions in the Republican and Democratic parties are turning against the country.

The South Carolina Republican was one of Israel’s most effective advocates in Washington, and he leaves behind bilateral ties that are stretching, if not snapping, amid the controversy over Israel’s wars in Gaza and Iran.

War lovers Lindsey and Bibi

“This is in a way the changing of the guard,” said Jonathan Rynhold, a political scientist at Bar-Ilan University in central Israel. “It is hard to imagine anyone on the Republican side with more political heft.”

Graham, who will be honored at a funeral at Washington’s National Cathedral on Tuesday, served as a conduit between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Trump. The senator helped persuade Trump to attack Iran in February, including by coaching the Israeli leader on how to lobby the president for action, The Wall Street Journal previously reported.

Netanyahu is expected to attend the funeral and meet with Trump, a win for the prime minister after weeks of lobbying for a White House sit-down.

https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/lindsey-graham-death-israel-4f1449ec?st=MDoiXv&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

Chile 9/11/73. Strategic Insight, Moral Myopia Shaped Kissinger

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 7.26.2026

Henry Kissinger has been dead nearly three years but his legacy of Machiavellian intrigue will long be remembered. Perhaps no more so than Chile where the Kissinger and Nixon sought to keep socialist Salvador Allende from gaining power.

When that failed and a military coup eliminated President Allende on September 11, 1973 the American government aligned itself at the hip with the free market fascist leaning junta led by Augusto Pinochet.

Excerpted from Foreign Affairs Magazine – 12.3.2023 Timothy Naftali

The Nixon administration continued the policy started by President Kennedy of deploying covert action in Vietnam to prevent the socialist Salvatore Allende from ever becoming president of Chile

Kissinger and Nixon.

Never best friends. Just allies out of necessity

In September 1970, Henry Kissinger supervised the CIA’s efforts to arrange a military coup to prevent Allende, who had just received the largest number of votes in a national election, from becoming president that year. “I don’t see why we have to let a country go Marxist,” Kissinger announced to the board that recommended U.S. covert action to Nixon, “just because its people are irresponsible.” Known as “Track II,” this covert action failed to produce the desired outcome.

Three years later, there were no American puppet masters in the military coup, led by the brutal Augusto Pinochet, that brought down Allende. But Kissinger welcomed the result and refused to apply any pressure on the new, pro-U.S. regime to prevent human rights abuses—indeed, Kissinger did the opposite.

**Chilean military guards detained political prisoners in the Santiago soccer stadium after the 9.11.1973 military coup**

In June 1976, after Pinochet’s junta had detained thousands of innocent Chileans, torturing an estimated 30,000 and executing at least 2,200 of them, Kissinger told Pinochet in a private meeting, “My evaluation is that you are a victim of all left-wing groups around the world, and that your greatest sin was that you overthrew a government which was going communist.”

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/henry-kissinger-contradictions-america-secretary-state-tim-naftali

September 11, 1973. A Day of Shame for America. Sponsored Coup d’etat in Chile

Opening theme of 1982 film ‘Missing’, adapted from the book of the same title by Thomas Hauser. The controversial cinematic account of the deaths of two Americans Charles Horman and Frank Teruggi. Detained and executed by the Chilean military after the coup. Missing (1982 film) – Wikipedia

Top photo: La Moneda the presidential palace in Chile under attack during the September 11th 1973 Coup.

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The March of the El-Sayed Democrats

His victory in Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary sets up the race of the year in November.

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