Trump thought Iran war would be easy as saying “You’re fired!”

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 8.12.2026

Donald Trump seriously believed the war on Iran would be over quickly.

Instead he has taken the World into economic discord with no end in sight.

Trump just thought this just another episode of The Apprentice where he could dispatch Iran with the words, “You’re fired!!”

Excerpted from Foreign Affairs – August 12th 2026

EMMA ASHFORD is a Senior Fellow in the Grand Strategy Program at the Stimson Center and the author of First Among Equals: U.S. Foreign Policy in a Multipolar World.

Donald Trump campaigned for a second U.S. presidential term on a promise to end wars, not start them.

And for the first year after his return, there were indications that he might make a real break with the status quo that has led Washington to overextend itself. He pushed the United States’ European allies to spend more on defense, promoted peace talks between Russia and Ukraine, and pursued a cautious détente with China that has dialed down tensions over Taiwan.

Eighteen months later, however, the United States is bogged down in a new war in the Middle East. Although the U.S. military has enjoyed tactical successes, Washington has not achieved any kind of meaningful strategic victory; in certain respects, Iran exerts more power now than it did in February.

The DonaldTrump way

Nonetheless, Trump has shied away from making diplomatic compromises. Just like his nemesis, U.S. President Barack Obama, Trump promised Americans that he would extract the country from pointless “forever wars” in the Middle East and then proved unable to do so.

But the fact that the United States again became mired in a Middle East conflict is even more surprising today, because over the past two decades, the American public as well as many U.S. leaders have firmly concluded that such wars are mistakes.

At heart, structures and incentives pull Washington back, repeatedly, to avoidable quagmires. For starters, military action is easy for U.S. presidents to initiate. Since 1991, U.S. leaders have gotten in the habit of deploying force to secure even the most minor U.S. interests. The short-term costs and risks of using force against a smaller, distant state or nonstate actor often appear small—most Americans can go about their day-to-day lives without even realizing their country is at war—and Congress has largely become willing to cede its constitutional oversight.

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/guest-pass/redeem/92meLFc_TI8

Did America really need to A-Bomb Japan in August 1945?

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 8.9.2026

This afternoon the blogger watched a very sobering documentary, “Atomic People”. The story of America’s atomic assault on Japan as seen and told by Japanese civilians, young at the time who experienced the horror.

Atomic cloud over Nagasaki, Japan – 8.9.1975

Today is the 81st sad anniversary of America dropping the atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan just three days after obliterating Hiroshima on August 6th, 1945.

Atomic People – Wikipedia Atomic People is a 2024 British television film about Hibakusha, the survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The film premiered on BBC Two on 31 July 2024.[1][2][3] The programme received critical acclaim for its interviews with survivors and its treatment of nuclear history. It won the British Academy Television Award for Best Specialist Factual at the 2025 British Academy Television Awards.[4][5] At the 2025 Venice TV Awards, Atomic People won the Special Jury Prize.[6]

There is no doubt that America, the only country to have used atomic weapons, hastened the Japanese surrender.

The fact remains to this day that hundreds of thousands of Japanese perished.

The toxicity of the radiation caused by these blasts resulted in the death and maiming of thousands more.

The conventional wisdom is that the destruction visited on the Japanese, at least in the minds of most Americans, was a legitimate action. It resulted in surrender by Japan.

81 years later history has not been so kind.

Nfront_page_1945-08-10Download
front_page_1945-08-07Download

https://www.c-span.org/program/white-house-event/president-truman-speech-after-the-bombing-of-hiroshima/229938

President Harry Truman’s statement following America dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

Outside Lands and Altamont. Golden Gate Park now and what was not then

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 8.8.2026 UPDATED

This August weekend is the now annual Outside Lands three day concert at the Polo Fields near the blogger’s home. 75,000 fans a day are expected to attend.

The hordes at Outside Lands – 8.7. 2026

Golden Gate Park was not always a cash register for corporatization.

One only need look back at rock and roll history to learn that in 1969 the Rolling Stones wanted to give a “free” concert in Golden Gate Park. San Francisco officialdom, mainly in the person of Mayor Joe Alioto, wouldn’t let it happen.

Instead the Stones concert was moved to Altamont Speedway in the East Bay which turned into a total disaster for the musicians and hundreds of thousands of fans. The tragic event is memorialized forever in the classic documentary ‘Gimme Shelter’ which is available on multiple streaming outlets and as a DVD in The Criterion Collection.

The days of San Francisco looking askance at massive concerts in park spaces are a thing of the past. What counts in the current Big Tech, AI monied metropolis is anything is permitted as long as it brings in money.

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

The Altamont Speedway Free Festival was a counterculture rock concert in the United States, held on Saturday, December 6, 1969, at the Altamont Speedway outside of Tracy, California.[2][3][4][5] Approximately 300,000 attended the concert,[2][4][5] with some anticipating that it would be a “Woodstock West“.[6] The Woodstock festival had taken place in Bethel, New York, in mid-August, almost four months earlier.

The event is remembered for its use of Hells Angels as security and its significant violence, including the killing of Meredith Hunter and three accidental deaths: two from a hit-and-run car crash, and one from a drowning incident in an irrigation canal.[4][5] Scores were injured, numerous cars were stolen (and subsequently abandoned), and there was extensive property damage.[7][8] During the Rolling Stones’ headline performance, violence erupted close to the stage, resulting in the fatal stabbing of Hunter, a spectator. MusicRadar noted that the tragedy, captured on film in Gimme Shelter, eclipsed the event and marked a dark ending for the 1960s counterculture.[9]

Outside Lands (festival) – Wikipedia

A “love letter to San Francisco,”[2] the festival is named for the city’s western neighborhoods, which were known as The Outside Lands in the 1800s. The 80-acre festival grounds feature art installations and exhibits by local artists and San Francisco-centric areas devoted to cannabis, activism and sustainability. With stages named after San Francisco locations including the Panhandle, Lands End, Twin Peaks, the Sutro and the Presidio, the San Francisco Weekly wrote that Outside Lands “was about the city, rather than just in it.”

Outside Lands, formerly known as the Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival, is a three-day music, art, food, wine, beer and cannabis festival held annually in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. Multi-genre and multi-generational, it is the largest independently owned music festival in the United States. It was founded in 2008 by Another Planet Entertainment, Starr Hill Presents, and Superfly.

Golden Gate Park is not a cash register for greedy promoters

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.

SF Gate – 8.6.2026

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

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.

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.

New York Times  – 8.6.2026
The Daily Beast – 8.5.2026

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.

San Francisco Chronicle – 3.1.2026
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

The Hill – 8.2.2026

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 7.10.2026Download
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