Author: leeheidhues

I am a Green Party member, legal worker, walker, cyclist who follows politics, world events, 🌎 the literary world and 🎥 film

The original 9.11. The US and Chile’s coup September 11, 1973

While the American public is justifiably fixated on the upcoming Impeachment Trial of Trump following the abortive Coup D’Etat on January 6, 2021 there was another Coup.  This one successful. The American government was deeply involved in its implementation, execution and creation of the Fascist government which violently seized power on 9.11.1973.

Perhaps the most visual memory of this period is the 1982 Academy Award winning film by the Greek director Costa Gavras. It recounts the disappareance and murder by Chilean authorities of Charles Horman, an American journalist who was traveling in Chile with his wife.  Those ultimately responsibile for this crime have, nearly 50 years later, never been brought to justice.

The Costa Gavras film puts a human face to a terrible political murder. The American government, having help foment the Coup, is just as responsible as the Pinochet government.

A detailed Wikipedia link to the murder of Charles Horman and the Coup is attached.

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

617 - FC 302

Photo – Augusto Pinochet and American Secretary of State Henry Kissinger -1976

The Guardian – 9.11.2013 – Joyce Horman

Forty years ago, during Chile’s bloody coup of 11 September 1973, my husband, Charles Horman, stepped into a car driven by “Captain” Ray Davis, the head of the US military group in Chile, for a ride from the coastal resort town of Viña del Mar to the capital of Santiago. That one journey forever changed our family, and placed me on a quest for justice that persists to this day.

Charlie was a journalist, and we both were enthusiastic supporters of the democratically-elected socialist president, Salvador Allende. When General Augusto Pinochet launched his coup against Allende from the same coastal town Charles was visiting, my husband was surprised to see not only many Chilean tanks and helicopters moving out, but US warships cruising just off the coast, and US military personnel on the ground. He overheard some of those personnel enthusiastically and eagerly taking credit for the success of the coup, implying US military involvement. Charlie dutifully took his notes.

Before he, and our visiting friend from New York, Terry, began their journey with Davis, Charles knew he had come upon dangerous information. The drive past heavy military roadblocks into the heart of Santiago where Pinochet’s forces were on a search-and-destroy mission for Allende supporters, provided the perfect opportunity for Davis to evaluate Charles and his loyalties. This reality did not escape my husband, and he began to fear Captain Davis.

Charles returned to our home in Santiago, and as he recounted his journey and discoveries to me, we resolved to leave the country. On 17 September, we separately embarked on our errands for the day, and kissed each other goodbye. I did not realize at the time that I would never see my husband alive again.

Later that day, Charles was abducted from our home by more than a dozen Chilean soldiers. He was brought to the national stadium, where some of the most brutal of the regime’s crimes were carried out against presumed Allende “sympathizers”. When I returned to find our home in disarray, and Charles missing, I feared the worst.

In the days and weeks that followed, Charles’ father, Ed Horman, and I sought the help of American officials. Rather than aiding our search, however, they inquired about our social circles, and asked if we had been “annoying” the Chileans. Gradually, it dawned on us that our worst fears were well-founded. If it had been made public, the information that Charles had acquired would have risked derailing the recognition of Chile’s junta by the US government. In that context, Charles was transformed from an American citizen who was entitled to protection, to a vulnerable and disposable threat to powerful forces.

A month would pass before it was revealed, through help from the Ford Foundation, that Charles had been executed – his bullet-ridden body buried in a wall in the national stadium. Yet, it was not until after Pinochet’s 1998 arrest in London, that an era of renewed pressure for accountability regarding the regime’s crimes would drive the Clinton administration to declassify many previously-redacted texts about that terrible time. According to one document:

US intelligence may have played an unfortunate part in Horman’s death. At best, it was limited to providing or confirming information that helped motivate his murder by the GOC [government of Chile]. At worst, US intelligence was aware the GOC saw Horman in a rather serious light and US officials did nothing to discourage the logical outcome of GOC paranoia.

Throughout these 40 years, our family has never relented in our search for truth and accountability around Charles’ death. We filed a case against Henry Kissinger in 1976. In 1981, it was dismissed “without prejudice” – free to re-open when more evidence became available. I personally testified in the House of Commons during Pinochet’s arrest in London. Our December 2000 case in Chile against Pinochet forces is still under investigation.

Missing Costa Gavras 1982 2.6.2021

Sissy Spacek and Jack Lemmon in Missing

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_(1982_film)

A year ago, Chile’s supreme court approved investigative Judge Zepeda‘s request for extradition of Ray Davis to Chile concerning the deaths of Charles Horman and Frank Teruggi, another American journalist who was killed during the coup. The US has not yet been served with the extradition request; if and when that happens, it would set an important precedent for a US military officer to be charged by another country for the death of American citizens.

In the 40 intervening years, some wrongs have been revealed and some cases have been tried in Chile, which is, again, a democracy. Pinochet’s arrest certainly served as a lightning rod to broaden the global mechanisms to hold human rights violators accountable. But there is still a long way to go: the United States military continues to lie to the public, and take every opportunity available to cover up their abuses of power. We all have an interest in uncovering the truth about whether Captain Ray Davis played a role in the death of my husband.

In that sense, Charles’ story is just as relevant today as it was 40 years ago, and makes the cases against those responsible just as pressing. Charles’ mother, Elizabeth, often used the refrain, “we will leave no stone unturned.” That, too, is my mission, and should be the goal of all those dedicated to a just world in which no individual is too big, or too powerful, to answer for their crimes.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/11/justice-charles-horman-us-chile-coup

 

 

San Francisco Great Highway at the Pacific to remain a car free zone.

I am stunningly happy and beyond joyful that San Francisco has decided to keep cars off the Great Highway.  This decision, along with the closure of Golden Gate Park to cars, is the most environmentally positive decision taken by San Francisco government in my lifetime.

Excerpted from San Francisco Examiner 2.4.2021

A traffic calming plan approved by San Francisco will have no bearing on the current vehicle-free status of the Upper Great Highway.

Great Highway IV 11.13.2020.jpg

SFMTA data shows nearly 4,000 people each weekday and more than 12,000 each weekend enjoy car-free activity along the Great Highway. Advocates have called for it to be permanently closed to vehicles, and some have even floated the idea of turning it into a state-of-the art public park.

Officials simply hope it will help make everyone who enjoys, plays or lives near one of San Francisco’s crown jewels feel safer.

Following an outcry over the traffic impacts of closing the Great Highway to cars, city officials announced on Wednesday a comprehensive set of traffic safety measures that they believe will mitigate the negative impacts on surrounding streets.

Supervisor Gordon Mar, whose district encompasses the Outer Sunset, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency and other stakeholders have negotiated a deal to install dozens of traffic calming tools over the next two months around the Lower Great Highway.

Great Highway VI 11.15.2020

Measures include 24 new speed cushions, 12 all-way stop signs, six changeable message signs to divert traffic to main corridors and one speed table, as well as a commitment to provide traffic enforcement on each weekend day for the next six weeks and additional deployment of parking control officers.

Implementation will begin as early as March, and all infrastructure should be installed by April 31.

“The transformation of the Great Highway has provided tremendous benefits, but safety always must come first,” Mar said in a statement. “We can’t sacrifice safety for recreation, and I believe with this plan we can have both.”

Great Highway I 11.15.2020

Mar originally supported the closure of the Upper Great Highway to vehicles in April 2020 as a way to provide space for socially distant recreation. Since then, it’s been embraced as a new kind of public space, not just as an outdoor haven for thousands of people and families from all over The City, but also as a backdrop for community-building, marches for social justice and public art.
Photos – Lee Heidhues

 

Vladimir Putin Has Become America’s Ex-Boyfriend From Hell

Headline of the Day..If not the year.

This is the Headline in a column by Thomas Friedman in the New York Times.

The article may be incisive and informative. But the Headline says it all.

Excerpted from New York Times – 2.2.2021 Thomas Friedman

For a country with so much human talent, that’s pathetic. Russia today is a Czarist economy with a space station — Dr. Zhivago with nuclear missiles and hackers. Meanwhile, scientists who fled Russia have made Israel and Silicon Valley tech superpowers. A rare success is Russia’s Covid-19 vaccine, but it is difficult to mass produce.

When did you last buy a computer, smartphone or app from a Russian company? A Russian car? A Russian watch? Russian-made commercial aircraft? I’d rather take a bus than fly on one. The only Russian exports that appeal to Westerners are caviar, vodka and nesting dolls — and we’re full up on all three.

 

The recent discovery of a massive, highly sophisticated hack, almost certainly by Russia, of key U.S. technology companies and government agencies puts the new Biden team in a real quandary: How, when or even whether should they retaliate against Russia’s president? I have a lot of sympathy with that quandary — because Vladimir Putin has become America’s ex-boyfriend from hell.

There was a time when Russia — formerly the core of the Soviet Union (a country with double the population of the one Putin now rules) — was very important to us. It once threatened to conquer all of Europe and spread communism across the globe. That time was the Cold War. That time is long gone. Our most important global rival today is China.

Putin is not very important to us at all. He’s a Moscow mafia don who had his agents try to kill an anti-corruption activist, Aleksei Navalny, by sprinkling a Soviet-era nerve agent, Novichok, in the crotch of his underwear. I’m not making that up! Russia once gave the world Tolstoy, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Dostoyevsky, Sakharov and Solzhenitsyn. Putin’s Russia will be remembered for giving the world poisoned underwear.

But to distract his people from his corruption and maintain his grip on power, Putin presents himself as the great defender of the Russian Motherland, and its Orthodox Christian culture, from godless, pro-gay Westerners. And to inflate his importance — in his own eyes and in the eyes of Russians — he keeps stalking us. He meddles in our elections, hacks our companies, while denying it all with a smirk and relishing the notion that so many Americans think he installed Donald Trump as president.

Top photo – Vladimir Putin and then President Bush take a spin together.

 

Fred Hampton, murdered by FBI and Chicago cops, subject of new film

The murder of Fred Hampton may be ancient history but it is a story which needs a full airing

The release at the Sundance Film Festival of “Judas and the Black Messiah” is the vehicle for people to relive the State sanctioned murder in Chicago on December 4, 1969 of the charismatic young black leader.

The complicity of the FBI and Chicago police in the murder was covered up for years. It was only through the Courts and persistence of civil rights attorneys that the government involvement saw the light of day.

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

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Fred Hampton in life – Fred Hampton after murder by Chicago police

Democracy Now 2.1.2021

A highly anticipated new feature film, “Judas and the Black Messiah,” tells the story of Black Panther leader Fred Hampton and William O’Neal, the FBI informant who infiltrated the Illinois Black Panther Party to collect information that ultimately led to Hampton’s killing in 1969 by law enforcement officers. The film is premiering at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival and stars Daniel Kaluuya as Hampton, LaKeith Stanfield as O’Neal and Martin Sheen as FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. Shaka King, the film’s director and co-writer, says focusing on Hampton and O’Neal was a way “to make ‘The Departed’ inside the world of COINTELPRO,” referring to the decades-long illegal FBI program to undermine Black and radical political organizations. “I just thought that that was a very clever vessel and intelligent way to Trojan-horse a Fred Hampton biopic.”

Judas-and-the-Black-Messiah II 2.1.2021.jpg

https://www.democracynow.org/2021/2/1/judas_and_the_black_messiah_interview

 

Pandemic is boom time for one industry. Looking for a new bike? Wait in line

The Pandemic has brought cycling to new heights of interest. San Francisco has closed streets, Golden Gate Park and the Great Highway to accommodate the rush to cycle and exercise during these days of sheltering in place and working at home.

Sometimes it takes a disastrous event to get folks to change their lifestyle habits.

A down side to all this is that bicycle prices have skyrocketed. Bicycles in the $5,000 range are becoming commonplace. In 1982 I bought my Trek 311 – 12 speed for $325.00. It still rides just fine with a lot of love from my local bike shop proprietor.

Excerpted from San Francisco Examiner 1.31.2021

During normal times, bike shops in The City would have slowed to a crawl this by time of year.

The winter months are typically when shops get a brief break, a time to exhale, reset and restock before warmer weather brings business back through the door.

But on a Wednesday afternoon in January, Spoke Easy, a small bike shop in the Richmond District, has a steady line out the door and the service department is booked nearly a month out.

That is, of course, because these are not normal times.

While COVID-19 has wreaked havoc on supply chains and altered consumer behavior across the board, one of the industries most severely jolted has been the bike industry. Demand for bikes skyrocketed amid the pandemic, prompting a worldwide bike shortage that’s shown no signs of easing up.

“My suppliers, their inventory is totally out of stock,” said Anson Vaughan, the owner of Spoke Easy. “As soon as bikes come into stock, they’re just gone again.”

Whether it’s been people looking for new ways to get active, commuters wanting to avoid public transit, parents looking to get outside with their kids, or simply folks with a lot more time on their hands to explore on two wheels, bicycling’s popularity — in the Bay Area and across the country — has soared.

Great Highway II 11.15.2020.jpg

Bicycle sales as much as tripled the previous year’s numbers in certain segments, according to the NPD Group, a market research company.

“People were coming in and asking for bicycles, and I didn’t have any solutions for them,” Vaughan said. “Anything under that $1,500 hundred price point, it’s been really crazy to get a hold of.”

Vaughan, like other shop owners in The City, had to stray from the usual brands he stocks in order to meet demand. Though there are now some bikes ready for purchase on his showroom floor, customers set on particular models from popular manufactures may leave disappointed.

Scott, one of the primary bicycle brands carried by Spoke Easy, has seen its inventory run nearly dry of bikes costing less than $5,000, Vaughan said. It’s a similar story with the other big brands Spoke Easy typically sells.

Bike shortage II 1.31.2021.jpg

And the shortages at his shop and others could last deep into the year, possibly beyond.

Chris Holmes, brand director for Marin bikes, a bicycle manufacturer based in Petaluma that supplies bikes globally, said he has no idea when they’ll be able to satiate dealer demand.

“Some common parts currently have 400-450 day lead times, so our logistics and product development teams have had to scramble to make substitutions,” Chris Holmes said.

“Some of our bikes are pre-booked through the end of the summer,” said Holmes. “I’ve been in the bike biz for over 25 years and have never seen anything like this.”

Holmes said the biggest hurdle for bike companies is the sourcing of components — things like brakes, tires and saddles.

Bike shortage I 1.31.2021.jpg

Anson Vaughan, the owner of Spoke Easy in San Francisco Richmond District talks business with a customer.

That’s partly due to COVID-shutdowns in factories in Asia where such parts are produced. In Marin’s case, similar to other large manufactures, those shutdowns had little effect initially as the company had a safety-stock of pre-made bikes. But even with those factories back open and working overtime, as the pandemic wore on and demand skyrocketed, the backlogs for the necessary components grew.

https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/looking-for-a-new-bike-be-prepared-to-wait/

Gang of Ten GOP Senators moves to undo Biden 1.9MM robust pandemic package

President Biden needs to stand his ground and ram through his entire 1.9MM package without delay. I don’t trust the Republicans Gang of 10 for one second.  I thank the Stars above that the Democrats are in the Majority in Congress. If Mitch and Friends were running the show there would be nothing on the table for the American public. It appears the Democrats have learned that there is no negotiation with the Republicans. Given the opportunity the Republicans will slow walk and talk to death any proposal not to their liking.

Wall Street Journal 1.31.2021

Gang of 10 proposal comes as Democratic lawmakers prepare to advance the president’s $1.9 trillion plan without Republican support

WASHINGTON—A group of Republican senators asked President Biden to work with them on a $600 billion bipartisan coronavirus relief effort as Democrats prepared to move forward on a $1.9 trillion package without GOP support.

In a letter Sunday, the 10 centrist Republican senators asked to meet with Mr. Biden to present details of their proposal and said they were coming forward in response to his appeal for bipartisanship.

“We have to be ready,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) told reporters last week. “We want it to be bipartisan always, but we can’t surrender if they’re not going to be doing that,” she said of Republicans.

Stimulus III 3.27.2020

Democrats will have to keep their own ranks aligned. They can afford no defections in the evenly split Senate and no more than four in the narrowly divided House on legislation if Republicans remain unified in opposition.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.), who will help lead the reconciliation process as the top member of the Democratic caucus on the Senate Budget Committee, said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that he is “absolutely confident” Democrats have the votes to go ahead, despite reservations voiced by some moderates.

Brian Deese, Mr. Biden’s top economic adviser, said Sunday the White House is reviewing the Republicans’ letter and is willing to discuss ways to make the relief package more effective.

Mr. Deese, responding to questions on two Sunday morning news shows, declined to say whether the $1.9 trillion spending level is negotiable and suggested that delaying relief would worsen the pandemic and its effects on the economy.

“If we don’t act now the cost of that is going to be greater going forward,” Mr. Deese said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Unemployment II 1.18.2021

The letter didn’t specify the cost of the proposal. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R., La.), one of the Republicans who signed the letter, said on “Fox News Sunday” that the proposal amounts to roughly $600 billion in spending. He also said it would match President Biden’s $160 billion allocation for increasing vaccinations and other efforts to control the spread of the coronavirus.

The offer is the first Republicans have forwarded since Mr. Biden proposed the $1.9 trillion plan, which Republicans have said is too costly and includes unneeded initiatives, and tests whether the Biden administration and Democrats in Congress will seek compromise or try to pass the relief package themselves. Democratic leaders have said they plan to begin a legislative process that would bypass the need for Republican support this week, with the first step coming as soon as Monday.

 

Animal’s pioneering ‘House of the Rising Sun’ guitarist passes away at age 77

The 1960’s was the time of the rock and British invasion. The Stones and Beatles were without a doubt the main attraction and their popularity lives on still.

There were other groups. The Animals were one of the invading bands. Their rendition of House of the Rising Sun is considered the best cover of the song whose origin is rich in musical history. It has been covered by many musicians including Jimi Hendrix and Woody Guthrie.

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

Hilton Valentine II 1.29.2021.jpg

Animals publicity photo (circa 1960’s)
The Guardian 1.30.2021

 

Hilton Valentine, North Shields born and founding guitarist of the 60s group the Animals, has died aged 77.

Valentine’s death was confirmed by the band’s label ABKCO Music, who wrote in a statement on Twitter on Saturdy night: “Our deepest sympathies go out to Hilton Valentine’s family and friends on his passing this morning, at the age of 77.”

“A founding member and original guitarist of the Animals, Valentine was a pioneering guitar player influencing the sound of rock and roll for decades to come.”

Valentine, from North Shields near Newcastle, formed the Animals in 1963 alongside fellow north-easterners singer Eric Burdon, bassist Chas Chandler, organist Alan Price and drummer John Steel.

The band’s most famous song, a cover version of the blues standard The House Of The Rising Sun, topped the charts in both the UK and the US in 1964. They then had a string of hits with other reworkings of classic blues songs such as Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood and We Gotta Get Out Of This Place, before the band fell apart in the late 1960s.

Singer Eric Burdon paid tribute to Valentine on Instagram, writing: “The opening opus of Rising Sun will never sound the same!… You didn’t just play it, you lived it! Heartbroken by the sudden news of Hilton’s passing.

Valentine Hilton plays the guitar intro on the The Animals classic version of The House of the Rising Sun.

Valentine’s part in their success has entered the annals of rock history. Colin Larkin, writing in the Virgin Encyclopeadia of Popular Music, has this pithy summary: “The combination of Valentine’s now legendary but simplistic guitar introduction and [Alan] Price’s shrill organ complemented [Eric] Burdon’s remarkable mature and bloodcurdling vocal.”

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/jan/31/hilton-valentine-founding-guitarist-in-the-animals-dies-aged-77

 

Federal criminal indictments. Proud Boys Charged With Conspiracy in Capitol Riot

The only way these fascist and neo nazi groups will be put down is for the Feds to utilize all the tools at their disposal and crush them.  

The law enforcement and judicial crackdown on the perpetrators of the Trump fueled January 6 aborted Coup D’Etat are justifiably facing the full wrath of the Federal government.

New York Times 1.29.2021

Federal prosecutors investigating the violent riot at the Capitol this month announced their first conspiracy charges against the Proud Boys on Friday night, accusing two members of the far-right nationalist group of working together to obstruct and interfere with law enforcement officers protecting Congress during the final certification of the presidential election.

In a brief news release, the Justice Department said that an indictment had been filed against two Proud Boys, Dominic Pezzola, of Rochester, N.Y., and William Pepe, of Beacon, N.Y. But by late Friday night, the charging papers had not yet appeared in the Washington federal court database. Both Mr. Pezzola, a former boxer and Marine, and Mr. Pepe, an employee of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, already had been facing lesser charges connected to the Capitol attack.

The Proud Boys, a self-described “western chauvinist” group that has a long history of bloody street fights with the activists known as Antifa, have drawn the attention of investigators because they are one of the extremist outfits that had a large presence on Capitol Hill during the assault.

The organization, which has maintained links with both overt white supremacists and more mainstream Republicans, has been a vocal — and often violent — advocate for former President Donald J. Trump. During one of the presidential debates, Mr. Trump seemed to signal his support by telling its members to “stand back and stand by.”

Investigators have made a priority of exploring whether the attack was planned in advance. Earlier this week, Michael Sherwin, the U.S. attorney in Washington, said that prosecutors were focused on bringing “more complicated conspiracy cases related to possible coordination among militia groups” and “individuals from different states that had a plan to travel” to Washington before Jan. 6.

13 Trump riot 1.6.2021

Because the new indictment remained under seal on Friday night, it remained unclear precisely how prosecutors believed that Mr. Pezzola and Mr. Pepe conspired together to obstruct law enforcement.

Mr. Pezzola, 43, has been a particular focus of the sprawling investigation into the Capitol attack almost from the moment it began.

Court papers released on Friday morning said that he was in the first wave of rioters to enter the building, shattering a window with a plastic police shield. After climbing through the window, prosecutors said, Mr. Pezzola joined a mob that confronted a Capitol Police officer, Eugene Goodman, in a stairwell near the Senate floor. According to court papers, someone in the mob called out, “Where they meeting at? Where they counting the votes?”

Prosecutors said that Mr. Pezzola later posted a video of himself online, smoking a cigar inside the Capitol. In the video, court papers say, he refers to the cigar as a “victory smoke,” adding that he knew the mob would be able to take over the building if the rioters “tried hard enough.”

When F.B.I. agents searched Mr. Pezzola’s home near Rochester after the riot, prosecutors said, they found a thumb drive with several PDF files, some suggesting he had been studying bomb-making techniques. The computer files, court papers said, had titles like “Advanced Improvised Explosives,” “Explosive Dusts” and “Ragnar’s Big Book of Homemade Weapons.”

Michael Scibetta, Mr. Pezzola’s lawyer, said on Friday night that he had not yet seen the new conspiracy charges and complained that the authorities were not letting him see his client, who is now in custody in Washington.

“The matter is evolving,” Mr. Scibetta said, adding that prosecutors were depriving Mr. Pezzola of “his constitutionally guaranteed right of assistance of counsel.”

Mr. Pepe’s lawyer, Susanne Brody, did not respond to an email seeking comment.At least four other members of the Proud Boys have been charged so far in connection with the Capitol attack, including a top-ranking leader of the group, Joseph Biggs. Mr. Biggs, a U.S. Army veteran, stands accused of leading a group of about 100 Proud Boys on an angry march toward and into the Capitol.

What me worry? We’ve got a QAnon crazy stalking the Halls of Congress

Back in the day there used to be Mad Magazine featuring Alfred E. Neuman with his signature, “What me worry?” shout out.

 

Now we have QAnon zealot Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia spewing forth one nonsensical stream of consciousness after another. It would be funny except folks like QAnon Greene are the 2021 face of the Republican Party.  More distressing is that voters in her District saw fit to elect the QAnon Greene  to Congress with nearly 75% of the votes.

In the Georgia Congressional District located in the northwest section of the State the deposed Trump received 73% of the vote in 2020. During her first day in Congress QAnon Greene introduced a Bill to impeach President Biden.

Mad Magazine I 1.28.2021

Excerpted from San Francisco Chronicle 1.28.2021

WASHINGTON — A newly elected Republican member of the House known for conspiratorial social media posts spread a false theory that PG&E started the devastating Camp Fire in 2018 with space lasers in a clean-energy experiment gone awry, according to a new report.

In a news conference Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, said Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene’s past comments should reflect poorly on House GOP leadership, which has assigned her to the committee that handles education policy.

Greene of Georgia has since deleted the Facebook post in which she made the suggestion, according to Media Matters for America, a left-leaning research outlet. But the group released a screen grab of the November 2018 post in which Greene detailed a long, meandering conspiracy theory involving Pacific Gas and Electric Co., former Gov. Jerry Brown, Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s husband, space-based solar generators and unnamed people who claimed to have seen “what looked like lasers or blue beams of light causing the fires.”

“The idea is clean energy to replace coal and oil,” Greene wrote. “If they are beaming the suns energy back to Earth, I’m sure they wouldn’t ever miss a transmitter receiving station right??!!”

11 Trump riot 1.6.2021

The post includes references to the Rothschild Inc. investment firm, a frequent subject of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories that are monitored by the Anti-Defamation League. It also falsely alleges the fire that ripped through Butte County was along the path of the state’s planned high-speed rail line, which in reality is hundreds of miles to the south.

Greene’s post came as the Camp Fire was in the process of being contained but had already ravaged the town of Paradise and nearby communities. The blaze was the deadliest in the state’s history, killing 85 people and destroying nearly 20,000 structures.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/Conspiracy-friendly-GOP-lawmaker-falsely-15906172.php

 

Who would have thought? Proud Boys leader revealed as Federal informant

It’s well known there’s a revolving door between elected official and the private sector.

Now we know there’s another revolving door. Neo Nazi thugs and the Federal government.  

Does it really surprise that the mob of insurrectionists encouraged by the deposed Trump and  lead by the Proud Boys, QAnon et al so easily stormed Congress on January 6? 

Excerpted from Reuters 1.27.2021

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Enrique Tarrio, the leader of the Proud Boys extremist group, has a past as an informer for federal and local law enforcement, repeatedly working undercover for investigators after he was arrested in 2012, according to a former prosecutor and a transcript of a 2014 federal court proceeding obtained by Reuters.

1 Enrique Torrio 1.27.2021.jpg

 Enrique Torrio – Proud Boys leader and government informant

In the Miami hearing, a federal prosecutor, a Federal Bureau of Investigation agent and Tarrio’s own lawyer described his undercover work and said he had helped authorities prosecute more than a dozen people in various cases involving drugs, gambling and human smuggling.

Tarrio, in an interview with Reuters Tuesday, denied working undercover or cooperating in cases against others. “I don’t know any of this,” he said, when asked about the transcript. “I don’t recall any of this.”

Law-enforcement officials and the court transcript contradict Tarrio’s denial. In a statement to Reuters, the former federal prosecutor in Tarrio’s case, Vanessa Singh Johannes, confirmed that “he cooperated with local and federal law enforcement, to aid in the prosecution of those running other, separate criminal enterprises, ranging from running marijuana grow houses in Miami to operating pharmaceutical fraud schemes.”

Tarrio, 36, is a high-profile figure who organizes and leads the right-wing Proud Boys in their confrontations with those they believe to be Antifa, short for “anti-fascism,” an amorphous and often violent leftist movement. The Proud Boys were involved in the deadly insurrection at the Capitol January 6.

The records uncovered by Reuters are startling because they show that a leader of a far-right group now under intense scrutiny by law enforcement was previously an active collaborator with criminal investigators.

Washington police arrested Tarrio in early January when he arrived in the city two days before the Capitol Hill riot. He was charged with possessing two high-capacity rifle magazines, and burning a Black Lives Matter banner during a December demonstration by supporters of former President Donald Trump. The D.C. Superior Court ordered him to leave the city pending a court date in June.

Though Tarrio did not take part in the Capitol insurrection, at least five Proud Boys members have been charged in the riot. The FBI previously said Tarrio’s earlier arrest was an effort to preempt the events of January 6.

The transcript from 2014 shines a new light on Tarrio’s past connections to law enforcement. During the hearing, the prosecutor and Tarrio’s defense attorney asked a judge to reduce the prison sentence of Tarrio and two co-defendants. They had pleaded guilty in a fraud case related to the relabeling and sale of stolen diabetes test kits.

The prosecutor said Tarrio’s information had led to the prosecution of 13 people on federal charges in two separate cases, and had helped local authorities investigate a gambling ring.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-proudboys-leader-exclusive/exclusive-proud-boys-leader-was-prolific-informer-for-law-enforcement-idUSKBN29W1PE