The San Francisco Chronicle is waging a vicious campaign to impugn and destroy District Attorney Chesa Boudin.

The latest salvo in this war is a totally disjointed and misguided story involving a misdemeanor theft which the Chronicle has blown up into a cause celebre.

Equally distressing is the fact the San Francisco Chronicle is doing the political dirty work of the Police Officers Association which spent nearly $1MM to defeat Chesa Boudin in 2019.

Regrettably many in the public will only glance at the headlines and not take the time to carefully dissect the story.

The main points.

A parolee was arrested for the misdemeanor offense of taking a cell phone from another passenger while traveling on a Muni bus. There were no witnesses.

The District Attorney, after hearing from veteran members of his team who are long time Assistant District Attorneys, turned the suspect over to Solano County authorities where he was wanted for another offense. Solano County authorities released him.

The suspect traveled to Sacramento. There was a disturbance at his home. Police responded and left. The suspect shot and killed his mother AFTER the police left. Link to local TV news story attached.

https://www.abc10.com/article/news/local/sacramento/standoff-northeast-sacramento-apartment/103-2f677913-da7f-49f3-89c0-1df12024a507

The San Francisco Chronicle has taken it upon itself to hold the San Francisco DA accountable for this chain of events. What makes it most disturbing is that the Chronicle, if it did its homework, could have and should have written a more factual account.

Instead, The San Francisco Chronicle cherry picked the data and published a misleading account in its campaign against Chesa Boudin.

Excerpted from San Francisco Chronicle – Rachel Swan 1.26.2021

A man accused of shooting and killing his mother in Sacramento was arrested and booked in a strong-arm robbery case weeks earlier in San Francisco, but the district attorney did not charge him.

Records show that instead of charging Ali Mustafa Hudson, 42, for allegedly stealing a phone from a passenger on a Muni bus on Dec. 20, District Attorney Chesa Boudin had him transported to Solano County, where Hudson had a $5,000 misdemeanor warrant for drug possession and driving without a valid driver’s license.

Officials in Solano County were not immediately able to confirm the date Hudson was released, but under COVID-19 emergency orders, counties generally do not hold people on misdemeanor warrants.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/Man-accused-of-killing-mother-in-Sacramento-was-15897826.php

It’s puzzling that The New York Times would fire an editor for simply tweeting she had “chills” watching President Biden arrive for his inaugural.

The Times has been so aggressive in going after the deposed Trump. Firing an editor for making a vaguely political tweet seems far fetched.

There must be more to the story.

Excerpted from The Advocate 1.25.2021

The New York Times is under fire after terminating an editor who had tweeted that she had “chills” after watching Joe Biden’s plane land as he arrived in the Washington, D.C., area for his inauguration as president.

Numerous journalists and others have posted tweets in support of Lauren Wolfe, saying she has been treated differently from other Times writers and editors involved in controversies.

Wolfe is a distinguished journalist who has reported extensively on rape and sexual assault during the civil war in Syria as well as a politician in Congo, who, with members of his private militia, had been raping toddlers. In addition to her work for the Times, she has written for The Atlantic, The Guardian, and many other publications, and served as director and creator of WMC WomenUnderSiegeProject.org, a journalism initiative on sexualized violence in conflict originated by Gloria Steinem at the Women’s Media Center in New York.

Wolfe, who according to friends is queer, had been a freelance editor for the Times, responsible primarily for editing stories on the Times home page related to the COVID-19 pandemic, journalist Yashar Ali tweeted Thursday.

Wolfe had tweeted the “chills” comment along with a photo of Biden’s plane arriving at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, just outside D.C. She had also criticized Donald Trump’s administration for “pettiness” in not providing a plane for the incoming president, but she deleted that tweet “when she learned Biden chose to take his own plane,” Ali wrote.

Criticism of the Times has been mounting over the past few days, with many saying on social media that the paper had given in to right-wing coercion.

“The NYT was pressured by fascists, Trumpkins and hypocrites on the right for tweeting she had ‘chills’ after witnessing Biden’s landing on the 20th,” Josh Shahryar, a friend of Wolfe’s, wrote on Twitter Saturday. Shahryar, who has set up a Venmo account to support Wolfe, also tweeted that Wolfe is queer and Jewish, and had lost much of her family in the Holocaust.

Wolfe, who has now deleted her social media accounts, had tweeted earlier that she was being stalked and had received death threats as a result of her statement.

The Times responded Sunday. “There’s a lot of inaccurate information circulating on Twitter,” spokeswoman Danielle Rhoades Ha told The Washington Post. “For privacy reasons, we don’t get into the details of personnel matters, but we can say that we didn’t end someone’s employment over a single tweet. Out of respect for the individuals involved, we don’t plan to comment further.” Times officials did say that Wolfe did not have a contract “and instead worked on a more informal freelance basis,” the Post reports.

https://www.advocate.com/media/2021/1/24/queer-journalist-fired-new-york-times-after-pro-biden-tweet

Every Picture Tells a Story – Ongoing series

Associate Blog Mistress Liz Heidhues walked to the Great Highway on a recent afternoon and took these photos.

The car free pedestrian and bicycle only thoroughfare close by the Pacific Ocean in San Francisco.

The Dutch are thought to be tolerant.  Not necessarily so as the Pandemic continues to impact the world.

The ongoing Pandemic and its restrictions on lifestyle are obviously too much for a portion of The Netherlands population.

In the country of Anne Frank it’s shocking.

Deutsche Welle 1.24.2021

Hundreds of opponents of the first nighttime curfew in the Netherlands since World War II have clashed with police in Eindhoven, Amsterdam and elsewhere, resulting in scores of arrests.

Clashes broke out on Sunday in Amsterdam, Eindhoven and Stein, a small city near the Dutch-Belgium border, over the introduction of a nationwide curfew to curtail the spread of the coronavirus.

The violence came hours after a group of young people torched a viral testing center overnight in Urk, a fishing industry city northeast of the Dutch capital.

Photo- torched viral testing center in Urk

Security forces in both cities used water cannon as well as batons, horses and dogs — and in Eindhoven tear gas — to quell the protests.

Vehicles were also set ablaze and shops plundered near Eindhoven’s main railway station, reported regional broadcaster Omroep Brabant.

Dutch rail company NS urged travelers to avoid the Eindhoven station.

Fearing a riot or a disease-spreading event, Mayor Femke Halsema had designated the square as a “high-risk zone” and gave police the power to preemptively frisk people for weapons.

Nationwide, more than 100 people were detained Sunday, police said.

And in Stein — near Maastricht close to Belgium — clashes with police occurred as they broke up an illegal party reportedly attended by 100 people.

Journalist Michel Kerres told DW that the collapse of the Dutch government 10 days ago, over a child welfare scandal, has likely spurred protesters:

“We now have a caretaker government and the political debate is heating up, going into elections in March. There is more restlessness and people are disappointed that things are taking very long, that the coronavirus is not going away and that the Netherlands is doing very badly with vaccines.”

By mid-week, Dutch authorities had vaccinated just 100,000 people.

https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-dutch-covid-curfew-protests-turn-violent/a-56330715

Russian dictator  Vladimir Putin, the former KGB operative, knows how to deal with dissent. He crushes it either through rigged elections or using the State apparatus.

Alexei Navalny courageously returned to Russia after his near fatal poisoning with a nerve agent. An attack which most observers was done at the direction of Putin.

Putin will put down the dissent by any means necessary. No wonder the deposed Trump likes Putin. These are tactics the ex-President employed, ultimately without success, in his futile attempt to stay in power.

Excerpted from Deutsche Welle 1.23.2021

Police have rounded up more than 3,000 people at rallies across the country in support of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny. Over 1,000 people were detained in Moscow alone.

Protests demanding the release of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny erupted in cities across Russia on Saturday, with a demonstration in Moscow extending into the evening.

More than 3,000 people, including a politician, have been detained, according to the OVD-Info protest monitor. Around 90 rallies took place in over 60 cities across the country.

Of those, at least 1,167 people were detained in the capital Moscow and over 460 in St Petersburg.

Ahead of the demonstrations, police warned that they would be “immediately suppressed.”

Navalny was arrested on his return to Russia from Germany on January 17, following a near-fatal poisoning with a nerve agent.

He was handed a 30-day jail term for violating the terms of a suspended sentence he was given in 2014 on fraud charges. The 44-year-old says the charges are politically motivated.

Thousands of people gathered in central Moscow to march from central Pushkin Square to the Kremlin. The Interior Ministry estimated 4,000 people attended. Several news agencies reported much higher figures, putting the total number of protesters between 20,000 and 40,000.

DW’s Russia correspondent Emily Sherwin reported that despite the arrests, protesters in Moscow remained on the streets well into the evening.

“They’re calling for Navalny to be freed and chanting ‘We are the power here!’ — determined in the face of riot police,” she said.

https://www.dw.com/en/russia-police-detain-thousands-at-pro-navalny-protests/a-56321592

Threatening to assassinate Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and a US Capitol Police officer in support of the deposed Trump.

We know one who should be in jail. Trump.

To rephrase Trump’s campaign slogan of 2016 with the correct gender, “Lock him up!!”

CNN 1.23.2021

The Justice Department revealed new charges against a Texas man who allegedly participated in the Capitol attack and posted online death threats against Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and a US Capitol Police officer.

Clint Broden, a lawyer for Garrett Miller, told CNN Saturday that his client “certainly regrets what he did.”

“He did it in support of former President (Donald) Trump, but regrets his actions. He has the support of his family, and a lot of the comments, as viewed in context, are really sort of misguided political hyperbole. Given the political divide these days, there is a lot of hyperbole,” Broden said.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/page/file/1359541/download

Lauren Boebert is the 34 year old Congresswoman from Rifle, Colorado who got her claim to fame when she was featured on Nightline in 2014.

When the newly minted Congresswoman entered the House this month she wanted to bring her Glock onto the floor of the Chamber. Predictably, Boebert is one of the 140 Republicans who would not certify President Biden as the winner following the aborted Coup D’Etat on January 6.

The attached video is mind boggling, disturbing and, in a perverse way Entertaining

It’s about time these nihilist Neo Nazi insurrectionists are brought to heel.

This subversion of the rule of law began with the Klan after the Civil War.

These extreme Neo Nazis have run amok for decades with no legal consequences 

The ex President actively encouraged and abetted the Neo Nazi mobs for years culminating in the foiled Coup D’etat.

The real threat comes from the Neo Nazis and their chief enabler. Trump

Excerpted from The New  York Times 1.22.2021

WASHINGTON — President Biden on Friday ordered the director of national intelligence to work with the F.B.I. and the Department of Homeland Security to conduct a comprehensive assessment of the threat from domestic violent extremism, a sign of how seriously the new administration is taking the issue in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol.

The new order on domestic extremism, and growing interest on Capitol Hill, could also push the intelligence agencies and law enforcement to look for ways to work more closely on tracking and countering extremist groups in the country.

The growing concern about these groups is also reflected in the tough stances judges have taken with those arrested in connection with the Jan. 6 riot.

“Far-right, white supremacist extremism, nurtured on online platforms, has become one of the most dangerous threats to our nation,” said Representative Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California and chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

The request comes only days after Avril D. Haines, the newly installed director of national intelligence, pledged to members of Congress during her confirmation hearing that she would help with just such an assessment.

The new intelligence work began as people charged in the mob attack on the Capitol by supporters of former President Donald J. Trump continued to appear in court. On Friday, a federal magistrate judge in Dayton, Ohio ordered Donovan Crowl, an accused rioter linked to the far-right group the Oath Keepers, detained until his trial, citing the safety of the community.

Mr. Crowl, the suspect denied bail in Ohio, was part of a group dressed in paramilitary equipment that approached the Capitol “in an organized and practiced fashion” to move their way to the front of the crowd, according to court papers.

In a New Yorker article about the riot, Mr. Crowl, a 50-year-old Ohio resident, acknowledged that he had entered the Capitol but claimed that he had traveled to Washington to “do security” for “V.I.P.s” whom he did not name and that his intentions had been peaceful. But court filings made clear that prosecutors did not believe that.

“This defendant, through force and violence, attempted to disrupt the process that our country’s been engaged in for over 200 years,” said the prosecutor, Nicholas Dingeldein, during the hearing on Friday. “He’s been preparing for literal war because that’s what this organization, the Oath Keepers, has told him he has to do.”

The judge, Sharon L. Ovington, noted that Mr. Crowl had a criminal record and said she saw “clear and convincing evidence” that there were no conditions that would reasonably assure Mr. Crowl’s appearance in court or the safety of the community.

Domestic terrorism and violent groups are a thorny issue for intelligence agencies like the C.I.A., which are limited to tracking attempts by foreign governments or organizations to influence extremist groups in America. The F.B.I. and Department of Homeland Security have more leeway to investigate domestic groups and homegrown terrorism.

The New York congresswoman put the inane Texas blowhard Ted Cruz in his place.

This is the guy who had the nerve to show up at the inaugural after spinning the lies which proceeded the failed January 6 Coup D’Etat. After the Coup was smashed he still voted to deny President Biden his election victory.

Daily Beast 1.21.2021

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wrote: “Nice tweet Sen. Cruz! Quick question: do you also believe the Geneva Convention was about the views of the citizens of Geneva?”

After months of vomiting up falsehoods about election fraud to please Donald Trump, it might have been a good idea for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) to just quieten down for a little while. But, true to form, he’s bumbled into the Biden era with some fresh nonsense. In a clueless attack on President Joe Biden’s decision to re-enter the Paris Climate Agreement—the flagship international treaty to tackle the climate crisis—Cruz failed to wrap his head around why Biden backs a deal signed in France. Paraphrasing an old Trump line, he wrote: “By rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement, President Biden indicates he’s more interested in the views of the citizens of Paris than in the jobs of the citizens of Pittsburgh.” His misunderstanding, whether it was wilful or not, has been treated with the derision it deserves.

Texas Senator Ted Cruz

https://www.thedailybeast.com/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-brutally-mocks-ted-cruz-for-searingly-dumb-paris-climate-agreement-tweet?ref=home?ref=home

Now that Trump is gone in disgrace serious attention will be given to the vicious mindless insurrectionists who led the aborted January 6, 2021 Coup D’Etat. For decades these Fascist Neo Nazi type groups have been permitted to grow and prosper.

Either out of ignorance or fear of conservative blowback the Feds have tended to look the other way.  The aborted Coup has finally shown what these dead ender nihilists true goal has been all along. Destroy Democracy.

Aided and abetted by Trump these deplorable people reached the point where they were able to mount a serious assault on the American government.

It is time to crush them all. The scores of arrests by the FBI since January 6 are a step in the right direction. The pursuit and smashing of these insurrectionists must continue aggressively by any means necessary.

Daily Beast 1.20.2021

President Joe Biden’s new Director of National Intelligence who now oversees 18 U.S. intelligence agencies anticipates producing a public assessment of the threat from QAnon, she testified at her confirmation hearing on Tuesday.

Avril Haines, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avril_Haines whom Biden tapped as the next director of national intelligence, told Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM) that she would provide him with such an assessment, which Heinrich requested last month in a letter.

In one of the indications of how the Jan. 6 insurrection is shaping the context of Biden’s impending presidency, Haines seemed to reject putting the intelligence agencies in the lead on “an issue such as solely domestic terrorism.” She instead told the Senate intelligence committee that she wanted to provide “critical support” to the FBI and Department of Homeland Security, which will play that leading role. But she did not specify what such support would precisely be.

Instead, Haines indicated she views the intelligence agency’s work with regard to far-right terror—Haines used the phrase “white nationalism”—as a matter of identifying connections to foreign actors and disinformation. The coalescing of globalizing white nationalist and far-right violence is increasingly a focus of the incoming Biden team. Russ Travers, a former acting director of the National Counterterrorism Center who was recently tapped as Biden’s deputy homeland-security adviser at the White House, has written that the U.S. is increasingly an exporter of such violence and drew connections to the 2019 mosque murders in Christchurch, New Zealand.

But an intelligence focus on QAnon will inevitably stoke controversy. Even after the FBI warned in 2019 that QAnon posed a domestic-terror threat, at least two QAnon boosters, Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Lauren Boebert (R-CO), have been elected to Congress. Efforts a decade ago to study far-right terror resulted in the Obama administration ending a DHS analytic entity that did so following a conservative outcry.

Speaking to the veteran presence at the Capitol insurrection, Biden’s nominee for secretary of defense, Lloyd Austin, pledged on Tuesday to “rid our ranks of racists and extremists” at his own confirmation hearing.

Notably, Haines did not during testimony request any additional authorities for the intelligence agencies with regard to right-wing extremism, an effort that has some support from liberals.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/bidens-intelligence-nominee-pledges-threat-assessment-on-qanon