December 23, 2020
My dear friend Charly moved to the Pacific Northwest several years ago.
Charly is an artist, free thinker and traveler. He sent me these drawings as he marks nearly a year of The Pandemic living in a tranquil place far away from the urban craziness.
The drawing above is titled Pandemic Puppy Parade.
Several more follow.
Crowded Covid or Social Distancing is Relative
The House that Covid Bill Built
Pandemic of Oz
P is for Pandemic Peril
This is tawdry international politics. Â Or the incompetence of American law enforcement. Or just plain stupid.
I wrote about this in an earlier blog post. This is the update.
Last month the Justice Department cut loose former Mexican Defense chief Salvador Cienfuegos. Â He had been charged in Federal Court for taking bribes in exchange for protecting cartel leaders.
The move to drop charges and Cienfuegos back to Mexico, where he likely will never face prosecution, was a political chess move by DOJ to protect American law enforcement assets in Mexico.
The Americans say “foreign policy considerations” were a factor. That’s for sure.
So, what happened? The Mexican Congress immediately passed a law restricting American Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) activity in Mexico.
The 50 year war on drugs has been a travesty. This is just another example.
Excerpted from The Wall Street Journal 12.21.2020
Explosive U.S. drug-trafficking allegations against Mexicoâs former defense minister Salvador Cienfuegos rely largely on circumstantial evidence, diminishing the chances that the Mexican government could bring a case against him to trial or could convict him in a Mexican court if it did, according to people in both countries familiar with the case.
The surprise arrest, which angered civilian and military officials in Mexico who thought the U.S. overstepped its bounds, was followed by a bigger shock when the U.S. dropped the charges just over a month later and returned Gen. Cienfuegos to Mexico.
U.S. officials said foreign-policy considerations, including law-enforcement cooperation between both countries, played a big role in the decision.
They passed the results of their investigations to their Mexican counterparts and let Mexico decide whether to investigate and possibly charge the general.
U.S. federal prosecutors insisted in court hearings and filings that the evidence was strong against the retired general, who played a leading role in Mexicoâs counternarcotics strategy when he headed the armed forces.
Justice Department spokeswoman Nicole Navas said the agency dismissed the case because of foreign-policy concerns, ânot because of any perceived weakness in the case.â
Despite U.S. hopes that releasing Gen. Cienfuegos would safeguard security cooperation between the U.S. and Mexico, Mexican President Andres Manuel LĂłpez Obrador this month pushed a law through the nationâs Congress that U.S. officials say could cripple bilateral law-enforcement ties.
The law, which requires strict regulation of meetings between local, state and federal Mexican officials and foreign agents, would regulate the activities of the 50 Drug Enforcement Administration agents stationed in Mexico.
The law âcan only benefit the violent transnational criminal organizations and other criminals that we are jointly fighting,â U.S. Attorney General William Barr said earlier this month.
Churches are not exempt from obeying strict lockdown measures during The Pandemic.
The ongoing obstinacy of certain religious institutions to flaunt and disregard common sense behavior during The Pandemic is confounding.
No amount of spirituality will protect a citizen, regardless of his/her religious preference from the ravages of Covid-19. These religious institutions which think they are immune need to get serious and Deal with It realistically.
Excerpted from San Francisco Chronicle 12.22.2020
âThe Constitution,â U.S. District Judge Jesus Bernal  of Riverside said, quoting past Supreme Court opinions, âis not a suicide pact.â
The federal judge ruled Gov. Gavin Newsomâs shutdown of indoor worship services in most of California is a valid measure to protect public health and protects religious freedom by allowing outdoor services, unlike the New York restrictions struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court.
 Bernal, ordered to review Newsomâs current restrictions under the Supreme Courtâs standards, said Monday the governorâs measures â now including a ban on indoor religious services in all counties except Mariposa, Sierra and Alpine â are justified and non-discriminatory.
Harvest Rock Church of Pasadena and Harvest International Ministry, affiliated with 162 California churches, argued that Newsomâs orders violated the constitutional standards set by the high court in its Nov. 25 ruling on the New York case.
After President Trumpâs appointment of Amy Coney Barrett to succeed the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Supreme Court rejected the reasoning of its May 30 decision allowing an earlier version of Newsomâs limits on indoor worship services and barred New York state from restricting religious activities more tightly than secular businesses. A panel of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals cited that ruling Dec. 15 when it ordered Nevadaâs governor to remove a 50-person limit on indoor religious services.
The churches in Bernalâs court said they would appeal his decision to the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco.
Liz Heidhues was out at the World’s Edge along the Pacific to witness the mingling of Jupiter and Saturn for the first time in nearly 400 years. She took many shots to commemorate this historical astrological event.
For some musical accompaniment I am posting a link to the Pink Floyd piece Astronomy Domine from the 1970 double LP Ummagumma
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Dn9WoEHs5g
San Francisco Chronicle 12.21.2020
For the first time in centuries, the planets Jupiter and Saturn crossed paths in the night sky Monday, a rare celestial phenomenon made all the more special by falling on the winter solstice.
The notoriously unpredictable Bay Area weather cooperated, and residents were able to spot the glow of the overlapping planets â known to astronomers as a âconjunctionââ just after twilight.
It was a highly unusual convergence: the last time Jupiter and Saturn came this close was in 1623, said Andrew Fraknoi, a professor of astronomy at University of San Franciscoâs Fromm Institute.
As the planets aligned, Fraknoi said, they appeared as a single, bright point of light in the southwest night sky. While the planets werenât actually any closer to each other, they looked aligned to earthbound observers.
In the end, the clouds cooperated.
Monday nightâs forecast for the Bay Area called for some high clouds to drift in between 8 p.m. and 11 p.m., but they failed to obscure the fleeting planetary alignment.
Even after Monday, Jupiter and Saturn will still be visible in the night sky â just moving a little further apart.
The two planetsâ next rendezvous wonât occur until 2080, Fraknoi said. After that, they wonât overlap again until the year 2400. Each planetâs unique path and tilt around the sun make the conjunction a rare and irregular event for Jupiter and Saturn, the two largest planets in our solar system.
Saturnâs comet-filled rings could be observed through a telescope as the planet orbited past Jupiter. But unlike many other celestial events, the conjunction was also visible to the naked eye â no high-powered telescope or camera lens necessary.
âItâs very democratic â easily observable by anyone,â Fraknoi said.
Top photo – San Francisco Chronicle
All other photos – Liz Heidhues
“President Trump accomplished a great deal in four years…”
Yah, Right. Trump accomplished a lot.Â
Trump Spent four years undermining a Democratic (and I don’t mean the political party) system of government which has survived over 200 years and finished off his reprehensible term in office with an abortive coup d’etat.Â
Trump’s bizarro antics have been a boon for those in the medical profession who treat high blood pressure, stress and psychological disorders.Â
All’s I have to say is, “You’re fired!!!!! in 31 days. Good riddance.”
Wall Street Journal editorial 12.20.2020
President Trump accomplished a great deal in four years, but as he leaves office he canât seem to help reminding Americans why they denied him a second term.
He could focus on the positive, such as the Covid-19 vaccines and his Arab-Israeli peace breakthrough. Instead heâs calling Members of Congress and asking them to object on the House and Senate floor to the results of the Electoral College count.
This wonât change the outcome, but it will put pressure on Republicans to embarrass themselves by indulging Mr. Trumpâs attempts to delegitimize the results. We hope the Members ignore his pleas.
But Mr. Trump tweeted that âRussia, Russia is the priority chant when anything happens because Lamestream [media] is, for mostly financial reasons, petrified of . . . discussing the possibility that it may be China (it may!).â Then he linked the hack to a possible âhit on our ridiculous voting machines during the election, which is now obvious that I won big, making it an even more corrupted embarrassment for the USA.â
Mr. Pompeo has no incentive to dissemble about Russiaâs role, and Americans deserve to know the truth about what happened. Mr. Trump doesnât want to admit he lost, and he can duck the inauguration if he likes.
But his sore loser routine is beginning to grate even on millions who voted for him.
It’s only a month until arguably the worst President in American history will slither into retirement. Trump has been a conniving loser and con artist for 50 years.
The ultimate political joke in the form of a junk food eating liar will leave a tawdry legacy which will take years to unravel.
Vanity Fair 12.20.2020
According to two sources briefed on the conversations, Republicans are privately suggesting to Donald Trump that he should call Biden. Their advice is that Trump doesnât have to concede. Instead, Trump should tell Biden that he will assist with the transition while he waits for legal challenges to play out. Trump rejected the idea, the sources said.
Trumpâs grip on the party is slowly slipping.
On Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell became the highest-profile Republican to recognize Biden as president-elect. A former West Wing official told me that more elected Republicans are waiting until January to come out and pressure Trump to step aside. (Congress officially counts the electoral votes on January 6.) âThereâs going to be a coordinated effort to say we need peace,â the official said.
Inside the West Wing, officials are aware that the end is near. âTheyâre packing up,â a former White House official told me.
At the nadir of his 1990 debt crisis, Trump bunkered himself inside Trump Tower for days on end, subsisting on a steady diet of hamburgers and French fries.
Vanity Fair – September 1990
As his real estate empire was collapsing, and his first marriage unraveling, Trump simply refused to accept the reality that his life was in a tailspin. âDo people really think I am in trouble?â Trump asked Vanity Fairâs Marie Brenner at the time, to which she replied, âYes, they think youâre finished.â
One of Trumpâs lawyers, meanwhile, told Brenner, âDonald is a believer in the big-lie theory. If you say something again and again, people will believe you.â
Fast-forward 30 years, and Trump is living out the final days of his presidency in a similar state of denial. âItâs rigged and stolen!â he complained during a phone call with a prominent Republican the day after the Electoral College affirmed Joe Biden as president-elect. âYou canât reason with him at all,â the Republican said.
As Bidenâs inauguration approaches, Republicans close to the White House told me Trump could be poised for a final round of norm-shattering actions. One source said Trump has discussed a preemptive-pardon blitz of everyone close to him, so Bidenâs Justice Department canât investigate his administration. (A White House spokesperson declined to comment.)
âTrump doesnât want his team targeted,â the source said. Another source said Trump wants the Department of Justice to name a special counsel to investigate Joe and Hunter Biden as a way of getting even with Democrats for the Robert Mueller probe. âIf Trump is going to leave office, he wants a special counsel, 100%,â the source said.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/12/trump-spends-final-days-plotting-revenge
San Francisco as yet another lock down takes place has some beautiful scenery at a time when fewer people are out and about. The natural splendor of the area can be seen in plain view.
Photos are taken at the Pacific Ocean, Holocaust Memorial at the Legion of Honor and a car free Golden Gate Park along with an aircraft high in the sky.
Photos – Lee Heidhues
Americans are too acquiescent in responding to the violent and racist acts perpetrated by Neo-Nazis such as the QAnon, the Proudboys and the Klan.
The Germans, who are well schooled in the evils of Nazism know how to stand up to these despicable deplorables.
Excerpted from Deutsche Welle 12.16.2020
Survivors of Germany’s Halle synagogue attack are now tracking white supremacist extremists worldwide. Terrorists use online platforms like Twitch, which police are failing to monitor, they say.
On August 3, 2019, a right-wing extremist shot dead 23 people at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas. He had just posted a “manifesto” on the online forum 8chan in which he declared his hatred of immigrants and Hispanic people.
Proud Boys rally for Trump in Washington, DC 12.12.2020
When questioned in court, many of the police officers say it simply isn’t their job to investigate the background of the crime. After all, from a narrow legal point of view, this seemed reasonable. The case was clear: There was a confession and a video recording the act â why dig any deeper? “So often I heard them say: It’s not my job to understand the context,” said Talya Feldman, an art student from Colorado who was among the people in the Halle synagogue during the attack.
Feldman. said “Which leads me to ask, well then whose job is it?”
That’s an important question, given that both the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the German domestic intelligence agency, the Verfassungsschutz, agree that far-right extremism currently represents the biggest domestic terrorist threat in their respective countries. According to a Reuters report, a DHS memo from August this year even identified white supremacists and other lone offenders with “personalized ideologies” as posing the greatest threat of deadly violence in the US.
Stephan B.’s trial, which has lasted 25 court days, is due to reach a verdict on Monday.
On the same day, a young man in eastern Germany signed up to the online platform Twitch, a streaming service mainly used by gamers to watch each other play video games. Two months later, this young man, 27-year-old Stephan B.*, would use this service to live-stream footage from his helmet camera that showed his attempt to murder 52 Jewish people in a synagogue in the city of Halle.
Like the El Paso shooter, the young German also posted a “manifesto” on an online forum moments before the attack began. The synagogue attack failed, thwarted largely because the door to the courtyard outside the synagogue was locked â a necessary precaution for many Jewish communities in Germany and around the world. In frustration, Stephan B. killed two non-Jewish Germans.
The two white supremacists didn’t know each other personally, and there is no evidence that they ever communicated directly. But they shared an ideology and frequented the same online forums and often unmoderated “imageboards,” where a globe-spanning network of young men regularly air racism and misogyny and feed each other’s anger and resentment about society.
The two men had also both publicly expressed their admiration for the mass-murderer of Christchurch, who had killed 51 people in a mosque a few months earlier, in March 2019, who himself had been directly inspired by Anders Breivik, the Norwegian neo-Nazi who killed 77 people during an attack in 2011.
The sheer frequency of these otherwise “unconnected” attacks mean they are often lost in the ocean of daily news: In the two months between the El Paso shooting and the Halle attack alone, there were two more attacks by young men in Dayton, Ohio, and Baerum, Norway, which together left 10 more people dead.
And in Germany, the death toll in Halle was superseded by another more recent racist atrocity: this February another man attacked a cafe and a hookah bar in Hanau, western Germany, killing 10 people of immigrant background.
https://www.dw.com/en/neo-nazi-attack-survivors-create-tool-to-track-racist-extremists/a-55959989
Here is a  tale of one woman’s ongoing public service to keep the environment clean and safe on her block in San Francisco
San Francisco Water Power Sewer newsletter 12.15.2020
Nestled on the bottom of a steep San Francisco hill is âDonnaâ the drain.
âOne time someone dumped wallpaper paste or some kind of white hardened stuff into Donna. I had to scrape it off her grate with a silverware knife. That is the one time I got fed up with the mistaken notion anything can be dumped into a drain.â
Elizabeth Heidues has been a part of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC)âs, Adopt a Drain Program since January 2017. She wants to share her story in the hopes to encourage others to adopt a drain themselves.
âIâve never owned a car; I bike, I walk or take public transportation. Being in the streets of San Francisco all the time, Iâve encountered clogged drains. I wanted to do something with my growing frustration. It was the perfect way for me to get off on the right foot in the new year.â
Elizabeth learned about the Adopt a Drain Program after she picked up a free SFPUC Pollution Prevention Calendar from her local garden store in 2017.
âIn the calendarâs very first page, in the month of January, there was a written invitation to adopt a drain through SFPUCâs wastewater division. I responded.â
And for Elizabeth, the rest is history.
âMy drain has given me a lot to contemplate about managing stormwater. At first, I worked hard to clean up Donna. But once I worked out a system, maintaining her became a lot easier, exclaimed Elizabeth.â
Every drain adopter seems to have a unique reason as to why they named their drain the way they did. Elizabeth considers âDonna the drainâ part of the family.
â I named my drain Donna for two reasons: For one, Donna is situated on a steep hill. When it rains , everything is swept âDOWN-A the Drainâ! Since I am half Italian, this pronunciation was perfect for my adopted drain. âDOWN-A the Drainâ really describes what happens to the trash that is swept down the gutter with the cascading rain and deposited into Donna. Secondly, I named my drain after my sister Donna, my only sibling. My sister is a native San Franciscan, just like me. Naming a hard-working drain after my sister seemed an appropriate way to honor her grit for living harmoniously off the land and reducing her impact on the planet.â
World traveler Liz with a new found friend at the Berlin Zoo – 2018
Adopt a Drain adopter Liz and her helper, Lee
Elizabeth has a lot of things to say about her drain and takes it personally when she finds discarded face masks and gloves littering the streets.
âPersonal Protection Equipment has put a big glitch in our environmental program, and the human impact on the environment has gotten worst. The gloves and masks discarded on our streets are going to be with us for a long time, and while masks are mandatory, people need to start thinking about using re-usable masks.â
On the flip side of things, Elizabeth has literally found that âsomeoneâs trash is another oneâs treasure.â
âOne time I found an unusually large transparent marble with glittery stuff suspended in it resting on her grate.â
Elizabeth says that while she recognizes that we are in a pandemic, she hopes drain adopters wonât abandon their drain.
âMy drain is part of my family; itâs named after my sister after all.â
https://sfpucnewsroom.com/sewer/how-a-san-francisco-drain-becomes-part-of-the-family/
San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin is adhering to his vow of seeking equal justice for all regardless of their job title.
Law enforcement is being given the same treatment  as would any citizen who commits a criminal act. Wearing a badge does not sanction unlawful conduct.
Excerpted from San Francisco Chronicle 12.14.2020
San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin filed felony battery and assault charges Monday against a police officer he said unneccesarily and violently beat a Black man in Fishermanâs Wharf last year.
âGrowing up in the 1970s in San Francisco seeing police commit violence on Black men and never being held accountable made me feel like being Black meant we were less than,â said Gloria Berry, Chair of the Black Lives Matter San Francisco County Central Committee and member of the DAâs Officeâs African American Advisory Board.
âToday I have tears in my eyes to hear that under the Office of the San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin, officers are being charged, history is being made, and Black people are finally being seen.â
Terrance Stangel is the third current or former SFPD officer that Boudin has criminally charged in a use-of-force case in the past month as part of his campaign to hold police accountable for wrongdoing. A judge on Monday signed a warrant for the police officerâs arrest.
âOfficers responding to a call have a duty to promote public safety â not to turn to violence as a show of authority,â Boudin said in a statement. âThis case is an example of an officer unnecessarily escalating a situation and then violently beating a Black man whom he had no legal basis to even arrest.â
According to the DA, victim Dacari Spiers was on a date with his girlfriend at Fishermanâs Wharf on the evening of October 7, 2019, when officers Stangel and Cuahtemoc Martinez responded to a 911 call of a man assaulting a woman.
Prosecutors said the officers were directed to Spiers and his girlfriend, âwho were standing close to each other and talking.â Police did not witness any physical violence or unlawful conduct between the two, the DAâs office said.
Much of the incident was captured on police body cameras, prosecutors said, which show police ordering Spiers to turn around without responding to his and his girlfriendâs questions about what he had done.
âOfficer Martinez immediately tried to grab Mr. Spiers, who insisted he had not done anything, and officers ignored Mr. Spiersâs girlfriend, who was screaming, âNo!â and âWhat did he do?ââ officials from the DAâs office stated.
Prosecutors said Stangel struck Spiers from behind with a baton, and struck his legs again multiple times after Martinez took Spiers to the ground. Martinez did not strike Spiers and was not criminally charged.
Stangel was charged with four felonies: battery with serious bodily injury, assault with a deadly weapon, assault with force likely to cause great bodily â with an allegation that he did in fact cause great bodily injury â and assault under the color of authority.
In a statement, San Francisco Police Officers Association President Tony Montoya accused Boudin of âheadline chasing.â
The charges come after Spiers filed a civil lawsuit claiming excessive use of force and police misconduct against the city. The case is pending in federal court, and the San Francisco City Attorneyâs Office has denied nearly every allegation listed in the complaint.Â
https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/man-suing-sfpd-alleging-officers-beat-him-with-batons/
âThis officer is going to murder an innocent person if heâs not taken off the street,â said Curtis Briggs, an attorney for Spiers. âItâs very important to prosecute him.â
Spiers estimated he was struck between 10 to 15 times with a baton, including at least once when he was handcuffed, the suit said. Officers additionally kicked and hit him and threw him to the ground without out explanation, according to Spiersâ attorneys.
The incident resulted in a broken leg and wrist â both of which required surgery â and a laceration on his leg that required stitches, the suit states.
The case is being prosecuted by the District Attorneyâs Officeâs Independent Investigation Bureau, which investigates police shootings and other serious use-of-force incidents. Prosecutors said they will not request Stangel be detained during pretrial proceedings.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/DA-Boudin-files-criminal-charges-against-SFPD-15801780.php
