For presidental candidate Biden this could be the Karma backlash and fatal to his candidacy.

The accusation of sexual abuse against Joe Biden warrants serious attention. It is no surprise  former Fox News megastar Megyn Kelly, herself a subject of sexual abuse, landed the first on-camera interview with accuser Tara Reade. The broadcast is receiving major buzz in the British tabloid The Daily Mail.

Afterall, then Senator Biden was Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committe in 1991 when Clarence Thomas was up for confirmation to the US Supreme Court

Anita Hill testifed in public and leveled serious charges of sexual misconduct against then nominee Thomas.  There were other women who wanted to testify about similiar sexual harassment by now Associate Justice Thomas.

Senator Biden did not permit this testimony.  Had he done so, Clarence Thomas may not have been elevated to the Supreme Court from which he has wreaked havoc on the rights of Americans for nearly 30 years.

To learn in detail about Biden’s performance I recommend reading the book Strange Justice by Jane Mayer and Jill Abramson.

Daily Mail-UK 5.7.2020

Tara Reade, the woman who’s accused Joe Biden of sexual assault, sat down with Megyn Kelly for her first major on-camera interview and said she wished Biden would drop out of the presidential race. 

She also blasted Biden’s campaign for not making her feel ‘safe’ to speak out about an alleged assault that occurred when she worked for Biden as a U.S. senator in 1993.

‘I want to say you and I were there, Joe Biden, please step forward and be held accountable, you should not be running on character for president of the United States,’ Reade told Kelly, who had asked what her message was for Biden.

Kelly followed up by asking Reade if she wanted Biden to withdraw from the presidential contest.

‘I wish he would,’ Reade answered. ‘But he won’t, but I wish he would,’ Reade said.

She explained that’s how she feels ’emotionally’ and also told Kelly that an apology now wouldn’t be sufficient.

‘I think it’s a little late,’ Reade said.

Kelly, formerly of Fox News Channel and NBC News, had announced earlier Thursday on Twitter that she had nabbed the first major sit-down with Reade, who previously complained about the big networks not giving her TV time.

‘Her story & some tough Q’s in a riveting exchange,’ Kelly wrote. ‘A ton of news coming … ,’ she said and included a photo of both she and Reade.

Since leaving NBC News in January 2019, Kelly has worked for herself, posting interviews to her YouTube channel, and then promoting them on social media platforms.

The first clip of the interview, which Kelly posted on Twitter late Thursday afternoon, began with Reade telling the former Fox anchor about harassment she’s endured at the hands of so-called Biden ‘surrogates.’

‘It’s been stunning, actually, how the – some of his surrogates, with the blue checks, that are his surrogates, have been saying really horrible things about me and to me on social media,’ Reade said.

‘He hasn’t himself, but, there’s a measure of hypocrisy with the campaign saying it’s safe,’ she continued.

‘It’s not been safe,’ Reade said. ‘All my social media has been hacked. All my personal information has been dragged through. Every person that maybe has you know a gripe against me, an ex-boyfriend or an ex-landlord whatever it is, has been able to have a platform rather than me.’

Late last month, Reade told The New York Times’ media critic Ben Smith that no major networks had offered to put her on TV.

‘They’re just doing stories. No anchors, no nothing like that,’ she said.

At the time, Smith reported, Reade was in talks with Fox News Channel about doing an on-camera interview, with ‘Fox News Sunday’ with Chris Wallace looking to be the venue.

Fox News Channel told The Atlantic that the interview reported by The Times was ‘never confirmed.’

Reade told The Times that she backed out due to getting death threats.

Reade previously did an on-camera interview with Hill.TV, but when discussing media coverage with The Times, she was referencing major network television, saying she had hoped for a sit-down with someone like Gayle King, the host of ‘CBS This Morning.’

Reade has accused Biden of sticking his hand down her skirt and digitally penatrating her in a Congressional hallway when she worked for him as an aide in 1993.

She first told her story to journalist Katie Halper for her ‘Katie Halper Show’ podcast on March 25.

Biden denied the allegations on-camera last Friday on ‘Morning Joe,’ which was his first television appearance pushing back on Reade’s story.

Kelly was among the women at Fox News Channel who accused the late Fox News Channel CEO Roger Ailes of sexual harassment.

Since leaving NBC News, Kelly’s video report on how real life Fox News employees responded to the movie ‘Bombshell,’ a film where she’s portrayed by Charlize Theron, was her most widely viewed piece of content, receiving 1.5 million hits on YouTube.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8297889/Megyn-Kelly-reveals-major-camera-interview-Joe-Bidens-sex-assault-accuser-Tara-Reade.html?ito=push-notification&ci=14675&si=7511025

The Pandemic is not going away.  Nonetheless some business owners want to pretend they can go back to making money and try to believe their lives will be the same.

Their lives and the lives of their customers have changed for the forseeable future.

California authorities are taking the only reasonable action. Come down hard on people who are putting their fellow citizens at risk.

Excerpted from San Francisco Chronicle 5.6.2020

YUBA CITY, Sutter County — State regulators began threatening to shut down dozens of restaurants, pubs, barbershops and beauty salons in rural Sutter and Yuba counties this week, just one day after officials in the region defied California’s shelter-in-place order and gave the go-ahead for businesses to reopen.

Several areas of the state, including many Northern California counties, have become weary of restrictions aimed at stopping the spread of the coronavirus because of the economic fallout, with some spots allowing residents to start ignoring Gov. Gavin Newsom’s prescribed lockdown. But the 160,000-population Yuba City metro area, the largest place to defy the stay-at-home directive, is the only one that appears to have been hit with consequences.

“People are just trying to get back to work and communicate with each other again,” said Donnie Walker, whose family runs Walker’s Wine and Brew House in the town of Wheatland, south of Yuba City, where state regulators swept through Tuesday afternoon. “It’s sad that they’re doing this.”

Like many businesses in the region, Donnie Walker opened his tap room Monday to crowds eager to get out and about after six weeks of hunkering down. But on Tuesday afternoon, a state regulator stopped in and put an end to the welcome — yet brief — brush with normal life.

“They said, ‘If you continue to serve, we’ll take your liquor license away,’” Walker said. “I mean, what are you going to do?”

State officials confirmed Wednesday that agents spoke with an undisclosed number of businesses in Sutter and Yuba counties on Tuesday to enforce the shutdown order’s safety regulations. Several business owners told The Chronicle that they got visits or phone calls from regulators demanding that they abide by shelter-in-place rules or risk losing their license to operate.

Restaurants and pubs were visited by officials with the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, who made sure businesses like Walker’s offered only takeout dining, which is permitted under the state rules.

Barbershops, salons and spas, meanwhile, reported receiving phone calls from officials with the state Board of Barbering and Cosmetology, telling them to close completely. These businesses are considered too risky to open because they could hasten spread of the coronavirus.

“We thought we were going to be open this week,” said Kristi Goldby, who runs Headlines Salon and Spa in Yuba City and had begun rescheduling appointments with customers.

But state regulators called Goldby on Tuesday afternoon, telling her not to honor the appointments. Several of her cosmetologists said they had received emails from the state telling them not to go to work.

The Board of Barbering and Cosmetology could not be reached immediately, but the state ABC confirmed it was helping enforce the statewide lockdown. It did not provide details of the effort.

“Agents asked those ABC-licensed locations to close to in-house dining voluntarily until it is safe to reopen, in order to stop the spread of COVID-19,” spokesman John Carr said in an email. “ABC could discipline a business that does not comply with the request to turn into a take-out only operation. As of today, we have not filed any administrative actions against any businesses.”

On Wednesday, many establishments — namely those that don’t require state licensing — continued to operate in defiance of Newsom’s order.

The reopening of the region follows a similar resumption of commerce in remote Modoc County last week as well as various reopenings of clusters of businesses across the state, all growing weary of the state shutdown.

As in the other areas, officials in Sutter and Yuba counties cited the low number of COVID-19 cases and a need for the governor to loosen restrictions in places less affected by the virus.

The governor’s office did not respond to requests for comment from The Chronicle on the Yuba City-area crackdown.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/news/article/Newsom-cracks-down-on-rural-counties-defying-15252216.php#photo-19383840

It’s easy to draw parallels between Trump, his Make America Great Again know nothings and the Nazi Party in Weimar Germany.

Now we have a disturbing study by the Federal Reserve Bank.  It makes comparisons between the 1918 influenza outbreak and the 2020 Pandemic. This is another analysis of the eerie symbiosis between the rise of Nazism in Germany and Trump’s America.

Picture above: American Neo-Nazis.

What makes it more compelling is that the study was done by the austere Federal Reserve.

Top picture: A street scene in Berlin showing the shattered fronts of Jewish-owned store

Politico 5.5.2020

A new academic paper produced by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York concludes that deaths caused by the 1918 influenza pandemic “profoundly shaped German society” in subsequent years and contributed to the strengthening of the Nazi Party.

The conclusions come amid fears that the current coronavirus pandemic will shake up international politics and spur extremism around the world, as officials and public health experts look to previous outbreaks for guidance on how to navigate the months and years to come.

The Washington Post has looked into the Crystal Ball and paints a gloomy picture for Republicans and their Captain Ahab Trump at the helm.  If the Post is correct the ship will sink and take Trump, the Republican Senate and all their Fox News media sycophants with them.  Here’s hoping.

May Day is always a tumultuous time in Berlin. Liz and I were in the epicenter of Berlin’s politically active Kreuzberg neighborhood on May Day in 2017.

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

Kreuzberg was swarming with local citizens and hundreds of Polizei

This year was no other and to make things more distressing a crew of journalists were assaulted.  Several were injured to the point of being hospitalized.

Berlin law enforcement has several suspects in custody and is investigating the “political background” of the assailants in custody.

Deutsche Welle 5.2.2020

A day after an attack on a camera crew in Berlin, police have announced that state security are looking into the political background of the suspected assailants. Protesters in Berlin also injured 20 police officers.

Authorities confirmed on Saturday that they are investigating the political motives behind an attack on the camera team of popular German satirical news show the heute-show [Today Show].

While filming on May Day, several members of the crew were attacked while filming in Berlin. Four members of the team sustained injuries severe enough to be sent to hospital. Five men and one woman were arrested.

The German Journalists’ Association described the event as an attack on the freedom of the press, although the motives of the assailants remain unclear.

German state security is now investigating the crime, Berlin Chief of Police Barbara Slowik told German broadcaster RBB on Saturday morning. She described the attack as “cowardly” and said federal investigators were looking into the political backgrounds of the assailants.

One of the suspects will appear before a judge on Saturday, she confirmed.

Read more: Labor Day — Berlin workers’ rally defies social distancing ban

‘Not a peaceful May Day’

May Day is a traditional day for protests in Germany, but they were curtailed by restrictions put in place to counter the coronavirus pandemic.

Police allowed several small-scale protests to take place in the German capital, but thousands defied the bans and took to the streets in the district of Kreuzberg in the evening to take part in demonstrations for Labor Day.

The German police union said that almost 20 officers were injured during the course of Friday night when scuffles and small-scale riots emerged from the protests. “It was not a peaceful May Day,” the union added.

Nearly 350 people were arrested or had their details noted, with police confirming the presence of right-wing activists and conspiracy theorists.

The heute-show went ahead as usual on Friday night on German TV station ZDF, with the production team condemning the attack.

“We are seriously affected by this and wish our colleagues a speedy recovery,” they wrote on Twitter.

https://www.dw.com/en/german-attack-on-journalists-to-be-investigated-for-political-motives/a-53311058

Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) is no platform for political propaganda.

But.

Everything is political in San Francisco even face masks during the Pandemic.

Now it’s the cops who are being critiqued while sporting the latest Covid-19 fashion statement. Only this fashion statement is not being critiqued in the pages of Vogue Magazine.

The cops face scarves have raised the ire of the American Civil Liberties Union.

The ACLU calls these scarves a “politcal button” and is calling out the cops for wearing scarves emblazoned with the Stars and Stripes along with a thin blue line.

Oh.

Send the Chief your suggestions.

San Francisco Chronicle 5.2.2020

San Francisco Police Chief Bill Scott is seeking “neutral” face coverings for the city’s rank and file, an effort to defuse tensions after officers patrolled a May Day protest in controversial masks emblazoned with the “thin blue line” flag.

In a statement, Scott acknowledged the divisive nature of the flag, which bears the same stars and stripes as the American flag, except that it’s midnight blue with a blue stripe across the middle. The symbol gained prominence in the Blue Lives Matter movement, a display of unity and pride among police officers in reaction to Black Lives Matter.

Officers wore identical flag-themed masks to oversee a demonstration in the Castro district Friday, during which two homeless women locked themselves inside a vacant house. The women sought to highlight San Francisco’s affordability crisis and increase pressure on Mayor London Breed to put all homeless people in hotels amid the deadly coronavirus pandemic.

But to some people, the police officers, with their matching face garments, became stars of the show.

Retired American Civil Liberties Union lawyer John Crew was irate when he saw the masks, partly because of the flag, but largely because each one had a San Francisco Police Officers Association logo.

“This is two issues combined,” Crew said.

“The thin blue line is a political symbol,” he noted, referring to the flag and stripe. “And it’s a POA-branded mask. It’s like wearing a political button.”

He viewed the insignia as a direct challenge to a long-standing policy that bars police from expressing political opinions while wearing their uniforms. The police union has sparred with Scott throughout his three-year tenure, though according to Crew, the power struggle between the department and the association existed long before the chief arrived.

“It makes you wonder if it was some sort of stunt and if they were trying to provoke a controversy,” he said.

Even without the police union branding, the blue flag and stripe are potent images that invite various interpretations. Scott described them as a sincere expression “to honor fallen police officers,” a sentiment that’s more fraught with meaning with so many first responders risking their lives during the pandemic.

Critics, however, perceive Blue Lives Matter as an attempt to undermine a civil rights movement and excuse violence perpetrated by police officers. Some see it as a means to classify police as a separate, superior group — one central credo of the Blue Lives Matter movement is that killing a police officer should count as a hate crime.

Scott offered to replace the masks “as an affirmation of the principle of safety with respect for all.”

Police Officers Association President Tony Montoya was not immediately available for comment Saturday.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/SF-police-chief-to-replace-thin-blue-line-15242351.php

Every Picture Tells a Story – Ongoing Series

Masks are now a staple of daily Covid-19 life around the World.

May 1, 2020

America should be embarassed the way it treats its workers during the Coronavirus. To see how other countries treat their work force during a time of crisis there are plenty of examples of doing the right thing.

Photo above – Protesters placed empty chairs in front of Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate to protest hotel and restaurant owners’ plight.

Wall Street Journal 4.30.2020

German and Japanese unemployment rates forecast to remain low, while U.S. rate jumps, but longer-term outlook is less clear

Germany’s jobless rate will average just 3.9% this year, up from 3.2% in 2019, the IMF projects, though protesters still placed empty chairs in front of Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate to protest hotel and restaurant owners’ plight.

WASHINGTON—Workers in Germany and Japan are likely to weather an expected coronavirus-induced global recession better than their U.S. peers, thanks in part to stronger job-retention programs, recent data suggest.

Germany’s jobless rate will average just 3.9% this year, up from 3.2% in 2019, the International Monetary Fund projected this month. In Japan, the rate is forecast to rise to 3% from 2.4%. But in the U.S., it is expected to jump to 10.4% from 3.7% in 2019.

A German program intended to keep workers in their jobs during a downturn has been emulated in a number of other advanced economies, including Canada and Australia, which are also forecast to see lower unemployment than the U.S.

“The details differ, but the philosophy is the same,” said Jean Pisani-Ferry, a French economist and senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. “Those schemes have basically absorbed most of the shock to the labor market.”

The German program, known as “Kurzarbeit,” is open to all businesses making social-security contributions regardless of size, and it was recently expanded to include temporary workers. The government sends cash directly to businesses so they can continue to pay employees even if virus-related lockdowns keep them from going to work.

With the government picking up as much as two-thirds of worker wages for up to a year, companies don’t need to cut as many employees if revenue falls. Ties between employees and employers remain intact, making it easier for businesses to start up again when the economy improves.

As of April 20, the number of companies applying for funds stood at 718,000, or about a third of all firms, according to the German labor agency.

By contrast, the U.S. job-retention program covers payrolls only through June and is mostly limited to small businesses with up to 500 employees. It is also “much more complicated,” Mr. Pisani-Ferry said.

Small businesses must apply to banks for government loans, which will be forgiven if they maintain their workforce, and then wait for approval. Employers have complained that the program is too small and plagued by delays and confusing rules.

The U.S. job-retention program covers payrolls only through June and is mostly limited to small businesses with up to 500 employees. In Las Vegas, volunteers prepare groceries to be given out at a food-distribution site.

Congress last month approved $350 billion for the so-called Paycheck Protection Program. That money quickly ran out, and Congress appropriated an additional $310 billion last week, after the IMF released its unemployment projections.

Officials estimate that about 23% of U.S. private-sector workers benefited from the first tranche of loans, and more will benefit as the additional money becomes available.

To help those who lose their jobs, Congress augmented unemployment benefits. Lawmakers also appropriated $292 billion in direct payments to households.

In Australia, which recently adopted a system similar to Germany’s, the jobless rate is forecast by the IMF to average 7.6% this year, up from 5.2% last year.

As in Germany, Australia’s JobKeeper program subsidizes businesses to keep workers employed. At 130 billion Australian dollars (about $85 billion), it is the most expensive government spending program ever implemented in the country.

Reserve Bank of Australia Gov. Philip Lowe said he hoped the government’s efforts would limit destruction of jobs.

“I am hopeful that unemployment might be lower than this if businesses are able to retain their employees on lower hours,” he said in an April 21 speech. “The unemployment rate would have been much higher than this without the government’s JobKeeper wage subsidy.”

Japan also recently expanded a business-subsidy program to include part-time workers to prevent mass layoffs of people like retail clerks. If an employer keeps a worker on the payroll at full pay, the government will cover 94% of the cost, up to about $77 a day. As with the German program, the higher the subsidy, the lower the incentive a firm has to lay off employees.

In Canada, the government will cover up to 75% of the wages of workers who would otherwise have lost their jobs due to the pandemic. Costas Christou, the IMF’s mission chief for Canada, said Canada’s wage subsidy should help limit unemployment growth. The IMF forecasts an average jobless rate of 7.5% this year, up from 5.7% last year.

Which model—the German or American—is best for workers and the economy in the long run may depend on the depth and severity of the global recession.

The German model is well suited for a relatively brief downturn, because companies that keep their workers won’t have to worry about hiring and training when the economic cycle turns, said Enzo Weber, an economist at the German Institute for Employment Research.

On the other hand, Mr. Pisani-Ferry said, subsidy programs like Germany’s could end up sustaining businesses that have no hope of surviving a longer downturn.

Defenders of the more flexible U.S. labor market believe American firms will be better positioned to survive and adapt to the changed economic landscape once the pandemic is over.

“The moment of truth will come when the confinement ends,” Mr. Pisani-Ferry said. “The idea that you can freeze everything for two months and unfreeze, obviously it’s going to be tested.”

The German government has banned the Lebanon based Hezbollah, the “Party of God,”  and conducted raids on four mosque associations in Berlin, Dortmund, Bremen and Münster accused of belonging to the organization

This is a big story which will receive scant attention in America.

The action by the German government is another move in the political intrigue at play involving Germany, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Israel and, of course, the United States.

Hezbollah which has been in existence since the 1960’s receives much of its funding from Iran and is reputed to act as its proxy in the Middle east. The Shiite Islamist political, military and social organization wields considerable power in Lebanon. 

For a more thorough look at Hezbollah, a Wikipedia link is attached.

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

Excerpted from Deutsche Welle 4.30.2020

German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer on Thursday banned all Hezbollah activities in the country, his ministry spokesman said on Twitter.  Authorities estimate around 1,050 people in Germany are active members of the Lebanese militant group.

A group with international ties

Hezbollah maintains close ties with Iran and is seen by many as an extension of the Iranian regime. According to Nathan Sales, the coordinator for counterterrorism within the US Department of State, Iran provides Hezbollah’s Lebanon chapter with over $700 million (€643 million) per year, while the group’s annual budget is estimated to be around $1 billion.

Within that financing mechanism, Hezbollah makes an estimated $300 million per year through international transactions, including drug smuggling and trafficking in counterfeit products. In order to conduct such activities on such a broad international scale, the group needs strong international roots — not just a foothold within the Middle East.

Some experts and diplomats have said that by allowing the political arm of Hezbollah to thrive in Germany, the government had effectively made the country a hotbed for money laundering.

“Germany is incredibly important for Hezbollah, because Germany is an Eldorado for money laundering,” political scientist and scholar of Islam Ralph Ghadban told DW.

Pressure had been mounting on Germany to ban all arms of the organization since before 2013. However, international calls to do so became louder after the UK implemented an outright ban on the group in February of last year.

He also confirmed that “police measures are underway in several federal states concurrently,” and added that even in times of crisis, the “rule of law is able to act.”

The police raids were focused on four mosque associations in Berlin, Dortmund, Bremen and Münster accused of belonging to Hezbollah.

Hezbollah is a Lebanese Shiite organization consisting of a political and a militant branch. It receives significant backing from Iran and has fought alongside the troops of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Germany had previously distinguished between the group’s political and militant arms, but on Thursday the country classified the group in its entirety as a terrorist organization.

“Hezbollah openly calls for the violent elimination of the State of Israel and questions the right of the State of Israel to exist,” the Interior Ministry said in a statement.

“The organization is therefore fundamentally against the concept of international understanding, regardless of whether it presents itself as a political, social or military structure.”

Read more:  Pro-Iranian militias: How autonomous are they?

What does the ban mean — at home and abroad? 

The ban essentially criminalizes public expression of support for Hezbollah within Germany. Followers can no longer display the flag of the Lebanese militia, a green rifle on a yellow background.

Additionally, the total ban has effectively made it easier for authorities to take action against the group, which in turn makes it more difficult for Hezbollah to conduct transnational activities using Germany as a transit point.

Banning Hezbollah could strain relations between Germany and Iran. However, Iran is dependent on good relations with Germany and the European Union, exemplified most recently by the use of Instex, an EU-Iran trading mechanism designed to skirt US-imposed sanctions and export medical supplies to the pandemic-hit country.

The ban also risks impacting Germany’s relationship with Lebanon, as the organization has been represented as part of the Lebanese National Assembly since 1992 and makes up around 10% of all Lebanese parliamentarians. Many German politicians have opposed a total ban, saying allowing Hezbollah’s political arm to exist is essential to maintaining relations with Lebanon.

Kathrin Vogler, a spokesperson on peace policy for the Left Party parliamentary group, told DW last year that banning Hezbollah would not improve the security situation but would make things worse for it in the future, as the move gives the impression that Germany is siding with US demands. “This should be rejected with the necessary clarity,” she said.  

However, other German and international politicians and leaders welcomed the German ban.

Omid Nouripour, the foreign policy spokesperson of the Green Party in the German parliament said banning Hezbollah in Germany was “absolutely correct.”

Nouripour told DW that Hezbollah was “trying to find funding in Germany for their work in Lebanon and in Syria, and they are trying to recruit people. This is not something we can accept on our soil.”

The American Jewish Committee (AJC) praised Germany’s move to ban Hezbollah, calling it a “welcome, much-anticipated and significant German decision” in a statement.

https://www.dw.com/en/german-government-bans-hezbollah-interior-ministry/a-53287126

Time passes all too quickly.

There are some events we never forget.  The assassination of President Kennedy. The assassination of Martin Luther King. The assassination of Robert Kennedy. September 11.

There is another obscene event which will stain American history forever.

On Monday May 4, 1970 protests rocked America following President Nixon’s “incursion” into Cambodia.

At Kent State in Ohio National Guardsmen opened fire on unarmed students and massacred four of them. It was an appalling, shameful and shocking event which still resonates throughout American culture.

It is a stain which will never be erased.

Lee Heidhues

Following are  links to the State sanctioned murders of four unarmed students.

The Wikipedia recitation of the massacre and its aftermath.

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

The Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young song “Ohio” complete with disturbing graphic photos of the murders.