Even by WSJ editorial page standards for vicious name calling and “Red Baiting” this editorial with its off the hook unfounded condemnation of the Climate Justice Alliance and, by inference, the Biden Administration wins the prize.
Should Trump and his “Reich” gain power in 2025 we can expect more of this dangerous rhetoric and, more insidiously, dangerous assaults on all those groups and individuals who oppose the entrenched power structure in America.
Excerpted from Wall Street Journal Editorial – 5.24.2024
The Radicals Getting Your Tax Money
The EPA awards $50 million to a group that says Palestine is a ‘climate justice issue.’
In other words, banishing fossil fuels won’t be enough to arrest rising temperatures and sea levels. Israel, the military, the police, immigration enforcement, prisons, and capitalism all will have to go, too. The EPA is funding radicals whose aim is to sow division and dismantle U.S. institutions.
President Biden in the sights of the “Red Baiting” WSJ editorial page – “The Biden Administration, in its rush to hand out taxpayers dollars, isn’t scrutinizing the recipients. More worrisome is the idea that federal officials might agree with them.”
What does Climate Justice Alliance do? Last November it helped to coordinate a “March on Washington,” where protesters waved the banner “Free Palestine Is a Climate Justice Issue.” Other slogans included “Our Government Funds Palestinian Genocide” and “Only Socialist Revolution Can Stop World War III.”
The group’s website includes a “Free Palestine” section, with a video that uses “an anti-colonial framework to show how Climate Justice and the liberation of Palestine are connected.” It doesn’t disappoint. “Climate change did not begin with the burning of fossil fuels,” the narrator says. “It began with settler colonialism, imperialism and extractivism.” He asks viewers “to demand that we cut military funding to Israel and begin the process of demilitarization, so that we can all be free.
Climate Justice Alliance the latest pinata for the WSJ editorial page
Donald Trump is coming to San Francisco. It’s not because he loves The City which despises him. It’s so he can sit down with the wealthiest of the wealthiest in Pacific Heights at 2845 Broadway Street (between Broderick and Baker).
Perhaps the most expensive home in San Francisco, according to readily available public records.
At $50K to 500K!!!! per head in the home of David Sacks. Super wealthy politico who was instrumental in the 2022 Recall of District Attorney Chesa Boudin.
Artwork by @simbagirrl
The San Francisco Chronicle 5.22.2024
Former President Donald Trump will attend a campaign fundraiser where attendance will cost as much as $500,000 per couple in San Francisco on June 6.
The fundraiser, first reported by Puck News, will be hosted by investor David Sacks; his wife, clothing brand Saint Haven CEO Jacqueline Sacks; and investor Chamath Palihapitiya, according to an invitation obtained by Reuters. The event will reportedly be held at the Sacks’ Pacific Heights mansion — which, at the time of its sale in 2012, was San Francisco’s most expensive house on the market.
Donors will need to spend at least $50,000 to enter the fundraiser.
Donald Trump in New York City criminal court. Will he be a convicted felon on June 6th?
David Sacks and Palihapitiya, along with two other investors, host a business and investment podcast. Sacks has supported several other presidential campaigns this cycle. He co-hosted the launch of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ failed presidential bid with X CEO Elon Musk on the platform and he and Palihapitiya co-hosted a $10,000-per-ticket fundraiser last year on behalf of a political action committee supporting Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s campaign.
Lara Trump, Eric Trump’s wife, made a recent appearance at the California Republican Party convention in Burlingame last weekend.
Eric Trump, the former president’s second-eldest son, will be the guest of honor at a fundraiser in Temecula (Riverside County) Wednesday evening to raise money for the Inland Empire Family political action committee. The IE Family PAC works to elect “conservative school board members who hold to a Judeo-Christian set of principles.”
The only reason Julian Assange is still locked up in the Belmarsh British prison is the obscene behavior of the Biden administration.
Assange has been confined in London since 2012. Initially for five years in the Ecuadorian Embassy and since then in British prisons. The American so called Justice Department seeks to try him for making public American wrongdoing in Iraq and Afghanistan through his Wikileaks site.
Assange is a journalist and whistleblower who made public information which every citizen has a right to know.
A court in London today decided that Assange has legal grounds to appeal his extradition to America. This sordid saga will continue while Assange continues to wither in an English prison.
Chip Gibbons, policy director of Defending Rights & Dissent, covering the extradition hearing for Jacobin magazine. His recent piece for The Nation is headlined “End the Persecution of Julian Assange.”
“Assange remains confined in Belmarsh, one of the harshest prisons. We know his health is deteriorating. That’s why he was not allowed in court today. We also know they have forbidden remote access to journalists who are not based in England and Wales, because they can’t be prosecuted for taking a screenshot of the hearing. That’s why I’m in London and not in my house in D.C. watching this. I suspect the reason why they won’t grant these transmissions is they’re afraid, if Julian Assange does show up, someone will take a screenshot of him, because we know they don’t want people filming or taking pictures of Julian Assange, revealing the terrible shape that he’s in.
So, this is a victory for Julian Assange in that he lives on to fight another day, his case lives to fight another day, but he’s not out of Belmarsh yet, and he’s not in the clear yet. This could still end in him being sent to the U.S.
And the person who can stop this is Joe Biden and Merrick Garland. They could drop these charges today. They keep claiming, “Oh, this is the Justice Department. We don’t want to politicize the Justice Department.” But this is a political prosecution. The choice to bring charges against a journalist for exposing U.S. war crimes is the choice to bring a political prosecution. It was a political decision when Barack Obama refused to bring the case, and it was a political decision when Trump and Sessions and Barr chose to bring it. And, you know, Biden can sit there and say he’s not like Trump, he believes in democracy, journalism is not a crime, all of those sorts of things, but those words are extremely hollow so long as Biden continues to make the political decision to continue this Trump-era persecution of a journalist whose only crime is exposing war crimes, abuses of power and state criminality.”
SAN FRANCISCO – GOLDEN GATE PARK EQUESTRIAN STABLES
Lee Heidhues 5.17.2024
It’s unfathomable that years of animal cruelty has been taking place less than a 10 minute bike ride from my home in the outer Richmond District of San Francisco.
A group contracted with by the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department has engaged in years of ongoing mistreatment and cruelty toward horses. The abuse came to light because of angry employees, the public and a whistleblower.
The San Francisco Standard just released its findings after a three month investigation.
The top echelons of San Francisco government beginning with the Mayor’s officer and the Recreation and Parks Department have a lot of explaining to do.
The San Francisco Standard 5.17.2024
A horse named Beamer exhibited declining health during its time at Chaparral, according to employees. | Source:Courtesy Rori Greene
In July 2020, a woman named Carole Holt emailed Animal Care and Control with pictures of a horse she saw in Golden Gate Park with an open wound.
“Please help these poor horses,” she wrote. “It breaks my heart.”
Nestled within the greenery of Golden Gate Park and just a short trot to the Pacific Ocean lies a bucolic portal to the past. At Bercut Equitation Field, horses are the primary form of transport and the smell of manure overpowers the park’s usual eucalyptus scent.
But the idyllic setting masks an uglier reality, as revealed by a three-month investigation into Chaparral Corporation, the horseback riding company based out of San Francisco’s most beloved park.
After the Standard uncovered long-standing evidence of mistreatment of animals and workers and injuries that, in one instance, resulted in an ongoing lawsuit, the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department said this week it had revoked Chaparral’s permits to operate in Golden Gate Park and Camp Mather, the family summer camp near Yosemite run by the department.
Chaparral will cease operations at Camp Mather following The Standard’s inquiries about injuries and horse care. | Source:San Francisco Chronicle/Hearst Newspapers via Getty Images
In interviews with The Standard, employees and volunteers described inadequate care and a grueling work environment for horses that may have endangered both the animals and riders at the sites run by Chaparral.
Workers and concerned members of the public said they tried to alert city agencies about problems with Chaparral and were baffled that the company was allowed to continue operating, even after employees submitted a 41-page whistleblower report to the city describing unsuitable conditions at the site and claims surfaced that the company could be putting children at risk.
Complaints about the company did not stop Recreation and Parks from renewing Chaparral’s permit multiple times over about five years until The Standard reached out in May to the city with questions about the company’s track record.
In response to The Standard’s inquiries about Chaparral, the parks department said this week it revoked the company’s permit. On Friday, the company informed its customers in an email that it will vacate the property within 10 days.
Chaparral will also be kicked out of Camp Mather and will no longer be considered for plans to bring horseback riding to McLaren Park, the department said. The city says it will try to find a new horseback-riding company starting in June.
Chaparral, which offered camps, lessons and trail rides at Bercut Equitation Field, was accused of providing inadequate care for its horses and running an unsafe operation. | Source:Morgan Ellis/The Standard
“While an investigation determined Chaparral met the minimum standards for horse care under the law, we no longer believe they meet the high standards we expect from our park operators,” parks department spokesperson Tamara Aparton wrote in a statement.
Patricia Hontalas, who grew up riding horses with her sisters in Golden Gate Park, took a job helping run Chaparral’s camp in April 2020, early on in the pandemic, when her day job as a real estate agent became difficult.
Chaparral, which began operating in the city in 2019, was the first horseback riding company to enter the park in years.
Soon after starting the job, however, Hontalas observed filthy stalls, high employee turnover and punishing work schedules for the horses. In addition to long days carrying riders, many of whom were children, the horses were often taken out during the evenings and for private lessons, Hontalas said.
“Honestly, the horses never got a day off,” she said. “And these are the end-of-life kind of horses, the ones that should be turned out and not ridden, you know, six days a week.”
In September 2020, Hontalas was riding a horse named Beamer when a tree branch fell on a nearby car, spooking the horse and causing it to rear up. The animal fell on top of Hontalas, landing her in the hospital for three days with an injured ACL and leaving her with a $6,400 bill and pain that lingered for months.
Animal Care and Control said it inspected Chaparral’s Golden Gate Park location following complaints about the site. | Source:Morgan Ellis/The Standard
Adding insult to injury, Hontalas said Chaparral stiffed her on her final paycheck—a claim echoed in a class-action lawsuit filed in 2022 by former employees who accused the company of wage violations. (That lawsuit was settled in March for about $151,000. Chaparral denied the claims in the filing and told The Standard it had settled to avoid expensive legal fees.)
Hontalas is one of 11 current and former Chaparral employees and volunteers—many with years of experience in the equestrian industry—who spoke with The Standard and painted a disturbing picture of a company that prioritized the bottom line above the care of its horses, staff or riders.
Some of the employees’ claims were documented in an anonymous whistleblower report that was shared with the Recreation and Park Department and Animal Care and Control in 2021.
The 41-page report, which includes photographic evidence and screenshots of emails, raised concerns that included a lack of shelter, equipment, hoof care and health care at the Golden Gate Park site. Among other issues, the document said that the horses were sleep-deprived and physically exhausted, sometimes falling asleep in the middle of riding lessons.
Pictures included in the document show horses with fungal infections on their foreheads and hindquarters, sores on their bodies from ill-fitting saddles and hooves that were chipping away.
“They were cheap,” said Sunny Hibbits, who worked for Chaparral for about a year starting in July 2020, in an interview. “They didn’t care.”
Chaparral CEO Shawn Mott denied the allegations of inadequate horse care at its San Francisco sites. | Source:Paul Chinn/SF Chronicle/Getty Images
Some of the former employees and volunteers who spoke with The Standard said they resigned because of what they saw as neglect of the horses’ well-being.
“The animals were there to make money,” said Sara Esquivel, who worked at one of Chaparral’s South Bay locations for about five months in 2021 after about two decades of experience managing private barns, “and that’s it.”
Employees who resigned from Chaparral as recently as last month said conditions haven’t improved.
Sierra Healy, who joined the company in April 2023 as an instructor and said she has been working with horses her entire life, called Chaparral’s practices “really unethical.”
“They were forcing us to use these horses four to five hours straight very regularly,” Healy said. “And when I say working, I mean lessons with kids and rides on Ocean Beach. Intense work.
“Because of that, the horses weren’t able to keep any weight on. You can see their ribs. They have no muscle mass,” Healy continued. “We had a couple of horses that would lie down and start rolling with a kid on their back. It’s mind-boggling that they’ve continued to operate like this for so long.”
Chaparral’s owners, Susan Pennell and Shawn Mott, maintained that they tried their best to operate in a park that can sometimes present chaotic or difficult situations for an equestrian company.
“I don’t feel like fighting for it anymore,” said Mott about his business dealings with the city. “I’ve been doing it for 50 years. I know what I’m doing. All the professionals, veterinarians, doctors, animal control people, government agencies, entities, they asked us to be at these places.”
After its permit was revoked, Chaparral told customers that it will vacate the San Francisco property within 10 days. | Source:Morgan Ellis/The Standard
In a roughly hour-and-a-half-long interview, Pennell and Mott pushed back against the allegations levied against them, asserting that they have offered their horses adequate medical treatment and a caring environment with enough food, water and shelter.
Longtime employee Jenny Bryant backed Chaparral’s owners, saying the company gives the utmost attention to its animals.
“We treat these horses like the employees that they are,” she said. “They deserve care. They deserve food. They love being ridden.”
‘The video, honestly, was quite disturbing’
Chaparral was co-founded by Mott and Pennell in 2009. Both of them said they have been around horses since their childhoods: Pennell’s father got her a horse when she was just 5 years old, while Mott has been in the business since he was 10.
The company oversees a variety of riding experiences, including trail and pony rides, lessons and children’s camps. Aside from its soon-to-be-closed operations at Golden Gate Park and Camp Mather, Chaparral has three locations in the South Bay and one near Monterey Bay.
In San Francisco, the company operated out of the circular field just off Martin Luther King Jr. Drive and housed its animals inside stalls just a quick walk to the west. Rides and lessons can cost up to $125, depending on length and type. Camps cost up to $750 for the week. In San Francisco, the city collected 5% of the company’s revenue under the terms of the permit.
Not long after Chaparral began operating in Golden Gate Park in 2019, problems arose. Emails unearthed through a public records request show that multiple members of the public reached out to the city with concerns about the operation in 2020.
Sue Pennell, co-founder of Chaparral Ranch, started the company with Shawn Mott in 2009. | Source:Jungho Kim for The Standard
By 2021, a veteran animal cruelty investigator named Jennifer Hack was in touch with the city about Chaparral’s track record after the whistleblower complaint came to light and a video surfaced involving a horse named Jack.
In the video, which was obtained by The Standard, Jack is seen repeatedly struggling to get up after lying down and defecating on himself. The videos and a two-page memo from a volunteer were sent to the city’s Animal Care and Control department.
“The video, honestly, was quite disturbing,” said Hack, who has been involved in animal cruelty investigations for over 40 years. She noted that Jack’s elevated respirations, which are apparent in the video, indicate a horse in pain.
“I mean, there are some things—and I go back to Jack again—that definitely, in my opinion, fall within the animal cruelty laws,” she said.
Health issues documented by Chaparral employees in 2023 included a wound on the leg of a horse named Rex, left, and a saddle sore on a horse named Stetson, right. | Source:Courtesy Sierra Healy
Documents show that Chaparral kept Jack working despite concerns about his health.
On Aug. 5, 2021, an unnamed animal control officer visited Chaparral and reported finding Jack wearing a saddle, indicating that he was working. They instructed an employee on-site to remove the horse from any duties. After the officer ordered Jack to receive veterinarian care, they inquired with Chaparral’s Pennell about any of the other animals needing care.
“[Pennell] said, ‘I don’t know!’ and told me how busy she is doing payroll,” the animal control officer wrote in their report.
On Aug. 8, 2021, emails show animal control officer Rebecca Fenson writing to Hack, “I am in touch with San Jose Animal Services and Peninsula Humane Society about Chaparral’s Milpitas and Woodside facilities. My first concern is ensuring that Jack is not working anywhere.”’
Emails show that both Fenson and Brian DeWitt, a property manager at the Recreation and Park Department, expressed concerns about Chaparral after discovering Jack’s condition.
On Aug. 13, 2021, Fenson wrote that she was “alarmed” to hear that Chaparral was trying to get permits to run a horse-drawn carriage operation in Golden Gate Park. A couple weeks later, Fenson emailed DeWitt saying she had unsuccessfully tried to get Jack’s veterinarian records from Chaparral, describing the situation as “suspicious” and “absurd.”
Sue Pennell said that Chaparral tried its best to operate in a park that sometimes presented difficult situations. | Source:Jungho Kim for The Standard
The city eventually received veterinarian records about Jack in September. The parks department also implemented a reporting system in which Chaparral was required to submit monthly health assessments.
Those assessments, which were reviewed by The Standard, included checklists for each of Chaparral’s horses that were completed by the company’s own staff.
When asked whether the self-evaluation system posed any conflict of interest, a spokesperson for Animal Care and Control said the department had provided the company with the University of California Davis Center for Equine Health’s horse care guide.
“It is entirely appropriate for facilities to use for self-evaluation,” wrote Animal Care and Control spokesperson Deb Campbell. “[The agency] refers to this document, for example, when scoring body condition. As a reminder, these guidelines are not laws, so we cannot enforce them.”
When asked by The Standard about Jack, Chaparral’s management said they did not recall putting the horse to work after the video of him on the ground was taken.
“What happened with Jack is this sand [at Golden Gate Park] is very deep,” said Bryant, the longtime Chaparral employee. “So when he lays in it, sometimes it was hard for him to find footing to get up. All you have to do is kind of give him an extra pull. He was born in ’87. So he was older than me.”
Both Fenson and DeWitt deferred questions to their department spokespersons.
Animal Care and Control spokesperson Campbell said her department had visited Chaparral a total of 14 times between 2019 and 2023, most of the inspections unannounced. She said the department never found evidence that would result in a referral for an animal cruelty case to the District Attorney’s Office.
Recreation and Parks spokesperson Tamara Aparton said her agency “immediately” got in touch with Animal Care and Control after the 41-page whistleblower complaint emerged and implemented the monthly health reporting system.
“We were aware they had some issues, but our understanding was deepened by the documents you sent and some of your reporting,” Aparton told the Standard.
A horse stands by the fence of an enclosure at Bercut Equitation Field operated by Chaparral Ranch in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco on Wednesday. | Source:Jungho Kim for The Standard
‘It could have been so much worse’
It wasn’t just employees raising concerns about the condition of horses in Golden Gate Park.
Since at least 2020, records show that members of the public lodged additional complaints about Chaparral after observing animals seemingly in distress and alarming incidents involving children riders.
In February 2020, an email with pictures attached from a resident claiming to be a former horse owner told Animal Care and Control they saw “inches of feces and urine” at Chaparral’s Golden Gate Park stables and animals’ food covered in their own waste.
Top photo: Chaparral employees alleged that the company’s horses were being overworked and underfed. | Source:Jungho Kim for The Standard
The Richmond Sunset Review is a longtime neighborhood newspaper which serves an area of San Francisco which Timeout calls the 27th best neighborhood on the planet.
Sadly The Richmond Sunset Review is not keeping up with the times.
Richmond District in 1922
Feeling its primary role is to promote feel good stories. With a pronounced editorial slant towards political views better suited to the 1950’s Leave it to Beaver America.
Law and Order and strident opposition to a more pedestrian/bicycle friendly San Francisco.
“Comments” we have submitted for publication are frequently ignored and not published.
Just today the owner/publisher wrote me explaining that my “comments” are redolent with “negativity.” Firmly suggesting that we put them on our blog. http://www.leesperspective.com.
Richmond Review – Meet the Editor
We are following this advicefrom The Editor of The Richmond Review.
Michael Durand should publish his 📰 in a country w/nominal Freedom of the Press. He’s adept at censorship. He REPRESSES readers disagreeing w/his views. He PROMOTES well-known extremists like @markdietrichsf He EXILED @Dogrunner47 from @RichmondSunset News for speaking the Truth pic.twitter.com/Emob7XMzKM
Disagree with Hillary Clinton if you will. There is no doubt she has something worthwhile to say. Always.
America and the world would have been a better place had the archaic American electoral college not kept her from becoming President in January 2017.
Hillary received nearly 3M more votes than Trump in November 2016. Because the American founding fathers created the Electoral College to protect the wealthy slave owners this anachronism has been with us since 1787.
The Electoral College was settled-on as the means of electing president towards the end of the Constitutional Convention due to pressure from slave states wanting to increase their voting power (since they could count slaves as 3/5 of a person when allocating electors) and by small states who increased their power due to the minimum of three electors per state.[31] The compromise was reached after other proposals, including to get a direct election for president (as proposed by Hamilton among others), failed to get traction among slave states.[31] Levitsky and Ziblatt describe it as “not a product of constitutional theory or farsighted design. Rather, it was adopted by default, after all other alternatives had been rejected.”[31] – Excerpted from Wikipedia
I recently finished the book Hillary wrote in 2017, What Happened. It should be must reading today.
Cover The New Yorker would have published had Hillary Clinton been elected President in 2016
Excerpted from The New York Times 5.9.2024
Hillary Clinton on Thursday criticized campus protesters, saying young people “don’t know very much” about the history of the Middle East.
“I have had many conversations, as you have had, with a lot of young people over the last many months now,” she said on the MSNBC show “Morning Joe” on Thursday. “They don’t know very much at all about the history of the Middle East, or frankly about history, in many areas of the world, including in our own country.”
Former Secretary of State and U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton
Ms. Clinton then went on to imply that young people “don’t know” that had Yasir Arafat, the former leader of the Palestinian Authority, accepted a deal brokered by her husband, President Bill Clinton, the Palestinians would already have a state of their own. “It’s one of the great tragedies of history that he was unable to say yes,” she said.
“For Clinton to say this is really disingenuous,” Osamah F. Khalil, a professor of history and Middle East expert at Syracuse University, said in an interview. He noted that in the lead-up to the summit at Camp David in 2000, where negotiations ultimately faltered, Mr. Arafat had warned former president Bill Clinton that “the two sides were not ready.” To lay blame squarely on the Palestinians was unfair, he added, noting that there had been other missed opportunities for a solution.
“Diplomacy is not a one-time mattress sale,” Prof. Khalil said.
Ms. Clinton’s comments about the students failed to give them, or the elite institutions at which many are protesting, due credit, he said.
The comments come after students walked out of Ms. Clinton’s class in November to protest what they perceived as the school’s role in publicly shaming students who had signed a statement saying the Israeli government bore responsibility for the war. Last month, others disrupted Ms. Clinton’s visit to her alma mater, Wellesley College.
Top Photo: Undergraduate Hillary Clinton at Wellesley College – 1969
The murderous Israeli government of Bibi Netanyahu is engaged in a blatant policy of targeting journalists. Censoring them and killing them.
The repressive Israeli leader Bibi Netanyahu continues his war against all things Palestinian and Arabic. His latest target, Al Jazeera. The prestigious media conglomerate based in Qatar.
The Israeli cabinet, doing Bibi’s bidding has shutdown the Al Jazeera broadcast center in Jerusalem. Bibi doesn’t like its reporting about the Israeli atrocities being inflicted on the children, women and men of Gaza. Nearly 35,000 of whom have been slaughtered by American provided weapons of war since last October.
The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have murdered and maimed Al Jazeera journalists in what can only be described as wanton fashion. Most insidious was the targeted assassination of Shireen Abu Akleh by the IDF in the West Bank on May 11, 2022.
Shireen Abu Akleh murdered in cold blood by the Israel Defense Force (IDF) doing her job in the West Bank – 5.11.2022.
More than 100 journalists and media workers, the vast majority Palestinian, have been killed in the first seven months of war in Gaza, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ).
Gaza’s media office has the number at more than 140 killed, which averages to five journalists killed every week since October 7.
Since the start of the war, at least 34,596 Palestinians have been killed and 77,816 others injured in Gaza. More than 8,000 others are missing, buried under the rubble.
The largely compliant American media need not worry. It will never be punished by Bibi. It’s credulous reporting and cheerleading on behalf of Israel enables the continued devastation of Gaza.
Excerpted from The New York Times 5.5.2024
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said on Sunday that his cabinet had voted to shut down the Israeli operations of Al Jazeera, the Qatari-based network that is a major source of news in the Arab world and has often highlighted civilian suffering in Gaza during Israel’s war with Hamas.
Al Jazeera. Banned by Bibi
Journalism organizations denounced the closure, which had been under discussion in Israel for weeks, as a blow to press freedom. Reporters Without Borders said in a statement in Arabic that it strongly condemned the decision, which it called repressive. The Foreign Press Association said Israel had joined “a dubious club of authoritarian governments” that have banned the station.
Shireen Abu Akleh. Murdered by Israel
Mr. Netanyahu accused Al Jazeera, which has long had a tense relationship with Israel, of harming Israel’s security and inciting violence against its soldiers. Israeli officials did not immediately provide examples of Al Jazeera content it believed posed a threat.
In a statement in Arabic, Al Jazeera called the decision a “criminal act.” “Israeli’s suppression of the free press to cover up its crimes has not deterred us from performing our duty,” the network said.
The initial shutdown order is for 45 days, with an option of an extension of another 45 days, according to an official at the Ministry of Communications. The order focuses on halting Al Jazeera’s ability to transmit from and be seen within Israel; it was not immediately clear whether the closure could affect the network’s reporting in Gaza and the West Bank.
Mr. Netanyahu has previously called the network a “mouthpiece” for Hamas, the armed group that controls Gaza and that led the cross-border attacks on Oct. 7 that set off the war.
The view from our back deck near the Pacific Ocean on a rainy day in May.
Looking south from Sutro Heights Park along the Pacific Coast shoreline.
I took the opportunity to take a walk to Sutro Heights Park and ended up at the Golden Gate National Recreation Center (GGNRA) Visitor Center. Where I purchased a birthday gift for my sister in law and, unable to resist temptation, another coffee mug for our burgeoning collection.
The pathway from Sutro Heights Park leading to the Visitor Center
Beautiful Sutro Heights Park as the rain subsides.
The wilderness of San Francisco.
The iconic white house in Sutro Heights Park
The Pacific Ocean at the northwest corner of San Francisco
The Lions watch over Lands End Lookout
The guardian of the coastline
The scenic view looking west at the Pacific Ocean from inside The Visitors Center.
A birthday dish towel emblazoned with California poppies and California quail resting nearby the coffee mugs.
Sisters belong to each other.
Who can do anything but smile when standing by the Pacific Ocean after the rainstorm?
There was a lot of action in the Bay Area as the people speak out on behalf of the people of Palestine. Subjected to the Israeli onslaught in Gaza which has taken the lives of nearly 35,000 children, men and women since last October. An onslaught which has been supplied with weapons of death supplied by the American government.
Perhaps the most quiet demonstration was sponsored by Bay Area Museums for Palestine. Many of the participants in the rally at the Music Concourse in Golden Gate Park are employees of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF) and the California Academy of Sciences.
A main speaker at the event was Dr. Aleks Liou (Phd. Columbia), currently Program Manager of Youth Action for the Planet at the California Academy of Sciences. Dr. Liou told the gathering about the devastation and death rained on the people of Gaza. He also talked about the cultural institutions of San Francisco which are major benefactors to the government of Israel which continues its murderous assault.
Dr. Aleks Liou – Pgm. Mgr. Youth Action for the Planet – California Academy of Sciences
Occupation is a Crime. Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine
Bay Area Museums for Palestine – sponsor of the May Day event in Golden Gate Park
FREE PALESTINE NOW
May Day 12 p.m.: Bay Area Museums for Palestine
May Day participants on a sun drenched day listen to Dr. LiouDON’T NORMALIZE GENOCIDEFREE GAZA70% OF GAZA’S INFRASTRUCTURE HAS BEEN DESTROYED (BY ISRAEL SINCE OCTOBER 2023)
No rally is complete without the family dog and purple hair attired attendee
May Day kites send a message – FREE PALESTINE. THESE ROOTS RUN DEEP
A kite maker unfurls her work
FREE Palestine till it’s backwards
De Young Museum nearby the event supporting the people of Gaza
Condemning the Israeli assault on the people of Gaza. Supplied with American weapons of war. Nearly 35,000 children, men and women have have been killed since October 2023.
The Israeli ongoing leveling of Gaza. In response to the Hamas terror attack on Israel last October 7. A brutal assault which resulted in the deaths of over 1200, mostly Israelis. Over 100 of whom are still in captivity.
It will be important to see how the local mainstream media reports the burgeoning protest at San Francisco State. KTVU Fox News Channel 2 has one of the first reports.
San Francisco State students and faculty Palestine rally at Cesar Chavez Student Center – 4.29.2024
Lee's Perspective 