‘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.

San Francisco Chronicle – 3.1.2026
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.

TIME – after the coup – 9.24.1973

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.

Using sweeping subpoenas Obama DOJ went after reporters

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 7.25.2026

The blogger was shocked, saddened and surprised to learn that President Barack Obama unleashed the Department of Justice to obtain “cellular, office and home telephone records of individual reporters and an editor” in 2013.

It’s of little consequence which Administration tries to stifle the Press. The fact of the matter is that the First Amendment is the bedrock of American democracy.

Excerpted from The Washington Post – May 13, 2013

https://wapo.st/4fBWmbm

Under sweeping subpoenas, Justice Department obtained AP phone records in leak investigation

In a sweeping and unusual move, the Justice Department secretly obtained two months’ worth of telephone records of journalists working for the Associated Press as part of a year-long investigation into the disclosure of classified information about a failed al-Qaeda plot last year.

The AP’s president said Monday that federal authorities obtained cellular, office and home telephone records of individual reporters and an editor; AP general office numbers in Washington, New York and Hartford, Conn.; and the main number for AP reporters covering Congress. He called the Justice Department’s actions a “massive and unprecedented intrusion” into newsgathering activities.

Six officials have been prosecuted, more than under all previous administrations combined.

The aggressive investigation into the possible disclosure of classified information to the AP is part of a pattern in which the Obama administration has pursued current and former government officials suspected of releasing secret material. Six officials have been prosecuted, more than under all previous administrations combined.

In a letter to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., the AP’s president and chief executive, Gary B. Pruitt, said that the Justice Department sought information beyond what could be justified by any specific probe and demanded that the government return the phone records and destroy all copies.

“There can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection of the telephone communications of The Associated Press and its reporters,” Pruitt wrote to Holder. “These records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the newsgathering activities undertaken by the AP during a two-month period, provide a road map to AP’s newsgathering operations, and disclose information about AP’s activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know.”

Obama administration was marked by lack of transparency, access.

Attacks on the Press in 2013: United States – Committee to Protect Journalists

As part of its investigations into earlier leaks, the Justice Department revealed it had secretly subpoenaed the phone records of nearly two dozen Associated Press telephone lines and the emails and phone records of Fox News reporter James Rosen. The two cases, and language in the Rosen subpoena that suggested the journalist could be criminally charged for receiving the information, provoked widespread criticism. The backlash resulted in the drafting of revised Justice Department guidelines on press subpoenas and a renewed debate in the Senate of a federal shield law that would allow journalists greater protection for their sources. As the debate moved forward in the Senate, a federal appeals court rejected an appeal by New York Times reporter James Risen in his long-term effort to protect a confidential source, setting up a likely Supreme Court showdown. 

First Amendment icon lines up with police friendly Clearview AI

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 7.24.2026

Last night I watched an intriguing documentary on First Amendment advocate Floyd Abrams who gained fame when his advocacy in 1971 was instrumental in the Supreme Court decision upholding The New York Times right to publish The Pentagon Papers. Pentagon Papers – Wikipedia

Thus it came as a surprise when further on in the documentary I learned that Floyd Abrams represented Clearview AI which has been sued in several jurisdictions by privacy advocates for selling its facial recognition to law enforcement agencies. The New York Times published a story in August 2020 analyzing Abrams involvement with Clearview AI.

In 2023 the author was interviewed by Teri Gross on Fresh Air.

https://www.npr.org/2023/09/28/1202310781/exposing-the-secretive-company-at-the-forefront-of-facial-recognition-technology

Floyd Abrams – Wikipedia

Clearview AI, Inc. is an American facial recognition company, providing software primarily to law enforcement and other government agencies.[2] The company’s algorithm matches faces to a database of more than 20 billion images collected from the Internet, including social media applications.[1] Founded by Hoan Ton-That, Charles C. Johnson,[3] and Richard Schwartz, the company maintained a low profile until late 2019, when its usage by law enforcement was first reported.[4]

Use of the facial recognition tool has been controversial. Several U.S. senators have expressed concern about privacy rights and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has sued the company for violating privacy laws on several occasions. U.S. police have used the software to apprehend suspected criminals.[5][6][7] Clearview’s practices have led to fines and bans by EU nations for violating privacy laws, and investigations in the U.S. and other countries.[8][9][10] In 2022, Clearview reached a settlement with the ACLU, in which they agreed to restrict U.S. market sales of facial recognition services to government entities. Clearview AI – Wikipedia

https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/us-appeals-court-overturns-clearview-ai-settlement-2026-07-13

Bunsen from the soundtrack of dystopian 2015 film ‘ex Machina’ Ex Machina (film) – Wikipedia – straight outta the Clearview AI playbook
Big Brother 2020: US police departments using ‘dystopian’ face recognition app
Lee’s Perspective blog post – January 18th 2020.

An invigorating dawn walk. Sutro Park by the Pacific Ocean

SAN FRANCISCO – SUTRO HEIGHTS PARK BY THE PACIFIC OCEAN

Lee Heidhues 7.23.2026

The blogger set out for his daily walk at the unusual time of 4:30AM.

The streets were dark. Devoid of cars and people.

It’s an eerie feeling of quiet on the streets of San Francisco in the outer Richmond neighborhood. Just blocks from the Pacific Ocean.

The blogger leaves San Francisco land and enters Sutro Heights Park in the Golden Gate National Recreational area. The sky is completely dark. An unhoused person walking a bicycle loaded with belongings shouts a greeting, “Hi buddy.”

As the blogger makes his way around a dark Park the skies begin to lighten in the northeast. Gradually becoming fully daylight. The sounds the blogger hears are the Pacific Ocean waves hitting the coastline and the birds talking at daybreak.

This is a very invigorating experience to feel the wind and breathe in the fresh air at dawn.

A genuinely San Francisco experience.

La mer (Debussy) – Wikipedia

Throughout the dawn walk in Sutro Park the blogger is thinking of the beautiful symphony by Claude Debussy, La Mer

Mayor Mamdani correctly labeled Bibi “war criminal.”

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 7.22.2026

The mainstream media is in a general uproar because New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani has correctly labeled Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu a “war criminal.”

If it was up to New York’s Mayor the Israeli Prime Minister would be arrested when he arrives for the United Nations general assembly meeting.

It’s easy to ignore reality. The Israeli military has slaughtered over 70,000 Palestinians in Gaza since October 7, 2023. In retaliation for the Hamas attack which resulted in the deaths of over 1300 people, mostly Israelis.

Netanyahu has been indicted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands. ICC arrest warrants for Israeli leaders – Wikipedia

On 21 November 2024, following an investigation of war crimes and crimes against humanity, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for two senior Israeli officials, Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, and Yoav Gallant, the former Minister of Defense of Israel, alleging responsibility for the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts during the Gaza war.[1][2] The warrant against Netanyahu is the first against the leader of a Western-backed democratic country for war crimes.[3][4][5]

Eventually, Netanyahu will have his day in Court. Regrettably, it won’t happen in the United States.

Excerpted from The New York Times – 7.22.2026

Mayor Zohran Mamdani recently disclosed that he was in “active conversation” with his legal team about whether he could make good on a campaign vow to arrest Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, should he set foot in New York City.

What the mayor neglected to say, in a wide-ranging interview with The New York Times last week, was that he had already been advised by lawyers that he had no authority to do so.

The International Criminal Court – International Criminal Court – Wikipedia

His declaration risked a rare public clash with his police commissioner, Jessica Tisch, whose pro-Israel stance runs counter to the mayor’s longstanding position.

Ms. Tisch had no intention of arresting Mr. Netanyahu, and the Police Department was ready to make that clear with a formal statement declaring that it lacked the authority to take such action. Lawyers agreed that such an arrest was not within the scope of the Police Department.

Top photo: War criminal Bibi Netanyahu with the Israeli military

Angry Prez 1st Amendment attack on nemesis NY Times

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 7.23.2026 UPDATED

THE FIRST AMENDMENT SURVIVES!!!

Daily Beast 7.23.2026
The First Amendment survives
Wall Street Journal – 7.23.2026
Wall Street Journal – 7.20.2026

Donald Trump lives in America in 2026. His attitude and actions are akin to Germany in the 1930’s.

While Trump is precluded from going as far as 1930’s Germany he is using his Department of Justice to intimidate and bully the media for exercising its First Amendment rights to publish.

This is a chilling assault on the foundation of 🇺🇸 American democracy

One of the first things the National Socialists did after assuming power in early 1933 was quash the free press. This action was followed by a series of book burnings.

The  Nazi book burnings  were a campaign conducted by the  German Student Union  (German:  Deutsche Studentenschaft,  DSt) to ceremonially  burn books  in  Nazi Germany  and  Austria  in the 1930s. The books targeted for burning were those viewed as being subversive or as representing ideologies opposed to  Nazism. These included books written by  Jewish,  half-Jewish,  communist,  socialist,  anarchist,  liberal,  pacifist, and  sexologist  authors among others.[1]  The initial books burned were those of  Karl Marx  and  Karl Kautsky,[2]&n bsp;but the burned books came to include other authors, including the works of  Albert Einstein,  Helen Keller,  H.G. Wells, and effectively any book incompatible with Nazi ideology. The first burning consisted mainly of LGBTQ books from the Institute of Sexual Research (Institut für Sexualwissenschaft)  founded by the pioneering Jewish sexologist  Magnus Hirschfeld  as the first medical center devoted to the study of gender and sexuality.[3]  In a campaign of  cultural genocide, books were also burned  en masse&n bsp;by the Nazis in  occupied territories  as well,  such as in Poland.[4] Nazi book burnings – Wikipedia

Donald Trump Is Tearing Up The First Amendment

The president is waging an across-the-board war against the First Amendment and its legal interpretations from the mid-20th century to today. – Huffington Post 3.13.2025

Excerpted from The New York Times – 7.20.2026

The Trump administration sought the phone records of several New York Times journalists and their relatives — including one reporter’s mother — in its effort to unmask the confidential sources who had provided information for articles about the security capabilities of President Trump’s new Air Force One jet.

The Justice Department told The Times late last week that it had issued subpoenas to third-party phone service providers seeking several journalists’ phone and text messaging records. That effort was in addition to the subpoenas issued on July 10  that sought to compel reporters  to testify before a federal grand jury.

The government’s actions amount to an extraordinarily aggressive and unorthodox attempt by the Trump administration to unearth the confidential sources of independent journalists whose reporting  had angered the president.

The additional subpoenas — which also sought information about calls and messages on the phones of two of the reporters’ spouses — were described in a  motion  filed on Saturday by lawyers for The Times, which is  seeking to quash the requests. The motion was unsealed on Monday morning by Judge Arun Subramanian of U.S. District Court in Manhattan.

The  First Amendment  (Amendment I) to the  United States Constitution&nbs p;prevents  Congress  from making laws respecting an  establishment of religion; prohibiting the  free exercise of religion; or abridging the  freedom of speech, the  freedom of the press, the  freedom of peaceable assembly  and the  right to petition  the government for redress of  grievances.[1]  It was adopted on December 15, 1791, as one of the ten amendments that constitute the  Bill of Rights. In the original draft of the Bill of Rights, what is now the First Amendment occupied third place. The first two articles were not ratified by the states, so the article on disestablishment and free speech ended up being first.[2][3]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

Top drawing: Herblock in Washington Post June 1971 during Pentagon Papers First Amendment battle. The Nixon administration tried to enjoin the New York Times from publishing the history of the Vietnam War. The Supreme Court upheld the Times right to publish.

“A little bit of courage is all we lack. So, catch me if you can I’m going back.” The Byrds

Angry fans humiliate Trump off the pitch at World Cup finale

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 7.20.2026 UPDATED

‘With a permissive referee running the show..” The Argentina 🇦🇷 “intimidation” was ultimately thwarted…Wall Street Journal – 7.20.2026
San Francisco Chronicle – Ann Killion – 7.20.2026

Spain won its second World Cup in a extremely physical match with defending World Cup champion Argentina and Lionel Messi.

FIFA boss Gianni Infantino had to push Trump off the Victory stage – 7.19.2026

But how many will remember the game when, as is often the case, the Audience of One Donald Trump tried to steal the show.

Fortunately thousands of fans in attendance let Trump know what they thought of his party crashing obnoxious appearance.

Excerpted from NJ.com 7.19.2026

A coalition of artists, organizers and advocacy organizations was set to distribute 50,000 red cards to fans headed to MetLife Stadium for the World Cup final on Sunday to stage an in-stadium protest of FIFA and President Donald Trump.

The plan was for fans to hold up the red cards following the Spain-Argentina match when Trump and FIFA President Gianni Infantino presented the championship trophy to the winning team.

The red card protest was organized by SoundsGood Presents, along with several activist groups, including Contra-ICE, Make the Road New Jersey, 50501, People vs. The Machine, Way to Win and Movement Voter Project. Other local groups and U.S. Rep. Analilia Mejia (D-11th Dist.) were also part of the coalition.

Excerpted from Yahoo Sports!/Athlon 7.19.2026

Trump demands another World Cup in United States ‘immediately’

Donald Trump has declared that the World Cup should return to the United States “immediately” and claimed he would ask Fifa president Gianni Infantino to help stage another tournament during his presidency.

The hosting rights for next two World Cup have already been decided. The 2030 edition will take place in Morocco, Portugal and Spain, following opening matches in Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay to mark the tournament’s centenary, while the 2034 tournament will be held in Saudi Arabia.

Donald Trump’s close friendship with Gianni Infantino and apparent influence over the FIFA president has received backlash, including from within U.S. Soccer as well as from other countries. And after Trump took credit for overturning a suspension on USMNT striker Folarin Balogun, Belgium trolled both the U.S. team and Trump himself following a win over the USMNT in the Round of 16.

Will anyone ever know what Lionel Messi was thinking as he shook hands with Trump?

Top photo: Donald Trump and his entourage do the helicopter flyover at Met Life Stadium