SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 3.25.2024

Donald Trump’s strategy to avoid his criminal reckoning is delay delay delay.

Trump has failed in his home town New York. It is all too familiar with this man who has evaded accountability for decades.

Trump’s strategy in his effort to stop prosecution of his payoff to porn performer Stormy Daniels just before the 2016 election has wilted.

Excerpted from The New York Times 3.25.2024

Donald J. Trump’s Manhattan criminal trial on charges that he covered up a sex scandal will start on April 15 after a judge on Monday denied the former president’s attempts to delay it further.

The flurry of activity is unfolding nearly a year to the day after the Manhattan district attorney’s office filed an indictment of Mr. Trump, accusing him of falsifying business records related to a hush-money deal with a porn star, Stormy Daniels.

The judge, Juan M. Merchan, appeared unmoved by Mr. Trump’s request for more time to prepare for his criminal trial on charges linked to conduct that could have derailed his stunning victory in the 2016 presidential election.

For roughly an hour, he slammed arguments from Mr. Trump’s lawyers that his case should be delayed further because of newly disclosed documents from a related federal investigation, saying that he found no harm had been done to the former president by the delay. After a 45-minute break, he returned with the new trial date.

Justice Merchan suggested that Mr. Trump’s lawyers were dragging their feet and scolded them for accusing Manhattan prosecutors of misconduct without seeming to substantiate their allegations.

Arrogance personified

“You are literally accusing the Manhattan D.A.’s office and the people assigned to this case of prosecutorial misconduct and trying to make me complicit in it,” the judge exclaimed incredulously.

He noted that many of the new documents were not relevant to the case. “This court is of the opinion that there are really not significant facts to be resolved,” Justice Merchan said, a sign that he might be close to finalizing a trial date.

The judge also pressed one of Mr. Trump’s lawyers, Todd Blanche, on the number of documents the defense thinks are relevant, saying, “I just want to get a sense of how much time you need.”

A little taken aback, Mr. Blanche consulted papers on the desk before him, and finally came up with “tens of thousands.” Unsatisfied, the judge said that Mr. Blanche was not answering his questions.

One of prosecutors, Matthew Colangelo, estimated that only about 300 documents were pertinent to the trial, and that “99 percent” were irrelevant.

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 3.24.2024

When will it end? The criminal kow towing to motorists in San Francisco.

A City government which pays lip service to safe streets and the goals of Vision Zero.

It’s all just mindless blather. The San Francisco leadership from Mayor London Breed on down does absolutely nothing to stop the carnage caused by reckless criminal entitled motorists.

Coming close on the skid marks of the horrific act by a 78 year old driver and her Mercedes SUV. An entire Brasilian family was wiped out at a bus stop just a week ago. A woman who should be criminally charged. The police may cite these drivers. But, in laissez faire San Francisco the District Attorney will do nothing in the way of pursuing criminal charges.

Now we have yet another reckless criminal motorist crashing into another bus stop. The press will blithely report the fact nobody was killed. Life in San Francisco will go on as normal. Drivers will continue to act in their oblivious criminal entitled manner.

Fortunately an alert citizen was able to capture the scene as a graphic reminder of yet another criminal act by a motorist.

The number of dead will continue to grow on the streets of San Francisco. Caused not by gunshots. But by automobiles.

Excerpted from San Francisco Chronicle 3.24.2024

A pedestrian was injured by a vehicle that crashed near a bus stop near San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park on Saturday, authorities said.

The victim was struck just before 4:50 p.m. near a bus stop at Fulton Street and Park Presidio Boulevard, the San Francisco Police Department said. He was taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

Fabian Skibinski said he was near the bus stop when a fast-moving car “came out of nowhere” and struck a pole with a “loud bang,” trapping a man underneath. He said the pole grazed a young boy and came within inches of a teenage girl and several other people

It was “basically a miracle that no one died or was maimed,” Fabian Skibinski said, adding that the pole prevented others from injury because it stopped the car.

“The man trapped underneath was in shock but seemed like he was going to be basically OK. He was talking and breathing normally … no visible blood,” he said. “The driver was also in shock, but not injured. Police came within a few minutes.”

The driver, identified as a man, was cited for “multiple moving vehicle violations,” police officials said.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/sf-crash-bus-stop-19365853.php

Top photo: A pedestrian suffered non-life-threatening injuries Saturday when he was stuck under a pole near a bus stop after a crash near San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. Courtesy of Fabian Skibinski

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 3.21.2024

It was 51 years ago the Nixon administration expelled John Lennon from the United States.

Officially it was the Immigration and Naturalization Service which did the deed. In reality it was the Nixon administration which was aghast at John and Yoko Lennon’s political activities.

The story most vividly told in the 2006 documentary ‘The U.S. vs. JOHN LENNON.

Had he left America John Lennon’s fate may not have been his assassination in New York City on December 8, 1980. An event I will never forget. The previous night I had gone to bed with a flu. The next morning I woke up and turned on NPR’s Morning Edition. To hear ‘In My Life’. I knew immediately. Even before Bob Edwards came on the air to announce John Lennon’s death.

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 3.22.2024

San Francisco is on the knife’s edge of unruly civil discourse and District Attorney Brooke Jenkins continues to sharpen terms of the debate.

As San Francisco’s chief law enforcement officer political creature Jenkins was hoisted into office over the political corpse of the man she worked for, Chesa Boudin. Since being named DA by her fellow collaborator Mayor London Breed in the ouster of Chesa Boudin, the current DA has played to the law and order mob in San Francisco.

It may be good for her political future. But it lays waste to any credibility Brooke Jenkins may have as an upholder of justice under the law. Her overheated rhetoric on the steps of the Hall of Justice was nothing more than Red meat for the mob.

Excerpted from The San Francisco Chronicle 3.2.2024

“Get the fuck out of here. This is our protest.”

“She (DA Brooke Jenkins) is rousing up this bloodlust because she’s sucking up every Asian vote that she needs,” said private attorney Rebecca Young, who organized the counter protest. “Every decision that Brooke Jenkins makes about any high profile case is a political decision.”

Young, who worked in both the District Attorney’s Office and the Public Defender’s Office before she was fired by Jenkins, accused Jenkins of politicizing criminal justice issues as she is running for reelection. At one point during the protests, Young asked a sheriff to arrest someone who she felt was threatening her. 

“We want to make sure that our Asian seniors have the ability to walk down the street safely in our city,” said Jenkins, who is running for reelection this year. “If there is no accountability for the people who attack them, if we don’t have adequate consequences for that behavior, it will continue.”

A Chinese American activist faced off against a white defense attorney in one of the tensest exchanges during a protest Friday outside the San Francisco Superior Court.

“Do you care about Asian people?” shouted Jade Tu, who is also the campaign manager for mayoral candidate Mark Farrell. Holding a megaphone to the face of Marc Zilversmit, a San Francisco criminal defense attorney, she continued, “How would you feel if you got stabbed multiple times? Get the fuck out of here. This is our protest.”

Zilversmit yelled back. He’d shown up, he told the Chronicle earlier, to defend the independence of the judiciary.

About 60 mostly Asian American activists and community members, joined by District Attorney Jenkins, were outside the Hall of Justice to protest what they saw as an injustice — a San Francisco judge granting probation and mental health treatment to Daniel Cauich, who pled guilty in November to charges related to the 2021 nonfatal stabbing of Ahn “Peng” Taylor, a Chinese Vietnamese woman in her 90s.

A small counter protest of about a half-dozen defense attorneys stood to the side, interrupting with chants of their own, shaming Jenkins, making this yet another flash point in the politicized debate about how to best treat mentally ill defendants in violent crimes against Asian American residents, particularly older adults.

Lily Ho, one of the protest’s organizers and a newly elected member of the Democratic County Central Committee, said that none of the protesters thought the judge’s decision was right.

“Shame on you,” she said. “This case is exactly the reason why I personally supported new judges,” referring to a largely unsuccessful push by political moderates to elect new tough-on-crime judges in the recent March election.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/stabbing-probation-protest-19362275.php

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 3.21.2024

More often than not the Eyes Tell the Story.

Four photos are illustrative.

Top: Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni buries her eyes when a member of the Green Party in parliament tells her “Don’t Look at Me With Your Disturbing Eyes.”

SAN FRANCISCO – DE YOUNG MUSEUM

Liz and Lee Heidhues 3.20.2024

We went to tour the just opened De Young Museum’s Irving Penn’s retrospective. https://www.famsf.org/exhibitions/irving-penn

Several rooms are packed with the famous Vogue Magazine and celebrity photographer Irving Penn’s work. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irving_Penn

But what indelibly stuck in our minds was a room whose only character was the most inert. Cigarette butts. When Irving Penn’s close friend and collaborator Alexey Brodovitch, a life long smoker, died of lung cancer the fashion photographer took to the streets. Cigarette butts were the subject of his unsubtle campaign to show what Big Tobacco really is. Ugly.

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 3.16.2024

The perfect movie for the return of Trump. Vowing to lay waste to his foes in January 2025.

Days after securing his position as the presumptive Republican nominee, the former president also warned of a “bloodbath” if he is not elected. “Now if I don’t get elected it’s going to be a bloodbath for the whole – that’s going to be the least of it, it’s going to be a bloodbath for the country. That’ll be the least of it.”

Excerpted from The Hollywood Reporter 3.14.2024

A24 revealed its provocative action drama Civil War at the South by Southwest Film & TV Festival on Thursday night.

Civil War has raised eyebrows for its timing, coming amid a contentious election year in which President Joe Biden has claimed “democracy is at stake” given his opponent Donald Trump’s history of attempts to subvert election laws. While the idea of a modern-day civil war might seem far-fetched, a 2022 poll by YouGov and the Economist found that 40 percent of Americans believe a new civil war is “at least somewhat likely in the next 10 years.”

Trump’s troops in 2025 – Civil War in America

Screening to a packed audience at Austin’s Paramount Theater, Civil War was revealed to be a tribute to war journalism that veers away from explaining the politics that led to its central conflict. The movie instead depicts the practicalities and horrors of a civil war in modern-day America. The first-blush audience reactions (below) are raves, with viewers calling the film a riveting and haunting movie, while the first round of critic reviews have the film earning an 83 percent “Fresh” score on Rotten Tomatoes.

When asked about when he wrote the film, Garland said, “It was four years ago. I wrote it back then and sent it to A24 and they just said, ‘Yup, all good,” which was surprising. This is a brave film to finance, so it was super appreciated.” Garland has long been in business with A24, dating back to his directorial debut, Ex Machina. The action film is reportedly the indie studio’s biggest swing to date.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/civil-war-reviews-sxsw-premiere-1235851419

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 3.15.2024

My wife and I have lived in the Richmond District since 1976.

The neighborhood portrayed in this week’s string of media commentary is reflective in no way whatsoever of the Richmond where we raised two children and have been home owners nearly 50 years.

What I read in the Richmond Review and in two recent pieces in the SF Chronicle is cherry picking of the crime stats to achieve a political goal.

Publicizing several tabloid material horrific crimes. Portraying these anecdotal events as representative of the neighborhood atmosphere.

This is incorrect. It is dangerous rhetoric to appeal to fear and paranoia. At play in both the Richmond Review and The SF Chronicle is a hard nosed political campaign to tar  incumbent Supervisor  Connie Chan as being soft on crime. And grease the wheels for her ouster next November. So that the so called “Moderate” well funded law and order GrowSF; TogetherSF; Garry Tan, et al. crowd can hang another “Progressive” trophy on the wall.

Excerpted from San Francisco Chronicle 3.14.2024

Residents of quiet S.F. neighborhood say they’re ‘traumatized’ by break-ins and rising crime

After a lifetime in San Francisco’s Richmond District, Sam Hom is considering moving out of the neighborhood due to a series of unnerving events last year. 

His surveillance camera caught someone trying to pick the lock of his home. Down the street, police shot a man who had stabbed his own mother and her dog. And finally, someone attacked the 66-year-old’s car while he and his wife were driving to the post office on Geary Boulevard. 

“My wife doesn’t feel safe going out without me these days,” said Hom, a captain with his neighborhood watch program. 

The couple are far from alone in worrying that the city’s west side is changing for the worse. Over the past few years, residents of the Richmond District — a residential area bordered by Golden Gate Park, Ocean Beach and the wooded groves of the Presidio — have hardened their homes and garages against potential intruders by installing surveillance cameras and using chicken wire and safety locks. They’ve also flooded community meetings on public safety and posted on social media about crime. A recent jump in burglaries, robberies and homicides and a spate of headline-grabbing incidents have put some residents and businesses even more on edge.

Though the Richmond neighborhood remains one of the city’s safest and reported violent crime is down in the neighborhood so far this year compared with the same period in 2023.

Crime will probably be a major issue in November’s supervisor race for District 1, which includes the Richmond District. 

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/richmond-district-san-francisco-18599211.php

This wealthy San Francisco neighborhood could be deciding factor in hotly contested supervisor race

Sea Cliff resident Rita Williams hasn’t always been a Democrat.

Williams was raised in a “right-wing” Sacramento family, lives in one of San Francisco’s most affluent and conservative neighborhoods (Sea Cliff), and voted for Donald Trump in 2016.

“But in San Francisco, it’s kind of lonely to be a Republican,” Williams said.

Williams isn’t so lonely lately. She’s now a registered Democrat and part of a highly motivated group of Sea Cliff residents hoping to shape the future of the Democratic Party in San Francisco. 

Their main target now is her district’s progressive supervisor, Connie Chan. 

Top photo: Campaign poster hung by Connie Chan’s November foe at busy intersection of 25th and Geary critiquing her record on crime

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues March 14, 2024

Senator Chuck Schumer who, by the way, is the highest ranking elected Jewish official in the United States, just unleashed the furies.

Calling for Israel to have a new election and oust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from office.

The already stormy debate about Israel’s continuing assault on the citizens of Gaza, in response to the October 7, 2023 Hamas terror attack is going to reach cyclone level proportions.

STOP THE INVASION!

Excerpted from Haaretz 3.14.2024

WASHINGTON – Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s watershed speech calling for new Israeli elections and the end of Benjamin Netanyahu’s time as prime minister provoked sharp partisan reaction, demonstrating how the Israeli premier’s standing in Washington is becoming politicized like never before.

Israel opposition leader Yair Lapid commented, saying that “Chuck Schumer’s speech is proof that one by one, Netanyahu is losing Israel’s biggest supporters in the U.S. Even worse – he’s doing it on purpose.”

The Likud party released an statement regarding the speech, that reads: “Israel is not a banana republic, but an independent, proud democracy that elected Prime Minister Netanyahu.”

Jewish Democrats welcomed the speech, putting Schumer’s remarks amid the backdrop of his standing as among the most important pro-Israel advocates in the history of the U.S.-Israel relationship.

Sen. Brian Schatz, a Jewish Democrat critical of Netanyahu’s coalition, praised the speech as “a gutsy, historic speech from Leader Schumer. I know he didn’t arrive at this conclusion casually or painlessly.”

The Jewish Democratic Council of America similarly commended the speech, saying Schumer’s “vision for Israelis and Palestinians is one focused on peace, security and progress. These values are shared by the majority of Jewish Americans as we consider an end to this conflict, which has taken far too many innocent lives.”

Sen. Patty Murray, a key Democrat who represents the party’s center, backed Schumer’s comments. “Netanyahu and his far-right coalition have made clear they oppose a two-state solution, which is the path to lasting peace. Israelis should have the opportunity to choose new leadership through an election,” she said.

https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/2024-03-14/ty-article/.premium/gutsy-and-historic-or-outrageous-and-unacceptable-schumers-speech-stirs-up-a-storm/0000018e-3dcf-d670-a5be-fdcf05700000

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 3.14.2024

Whoever came in after Michael Tilson-Thomas aka MTT was going to have a high musical note to achieve. So, it comes as no surprise that Esa-Pekka Salonen has handed in his resignation.

Frustration with budgetary constraints are given as the reason. The real story will come out in time. It always does in gossipy San Francisco.

Excerpted from The San Francisco Chronicle 3.14.2024

Esa-Pekka Salonen, the acclaimed Finnish conductor and composer who in 2020 succeeded Michael Tilson Thomas as music director of the San Francisco Symphony, will end his tenure with the orchestra when his contract expires at the conclusion of the 2024-25 season.

Board Chair Priscilla Geeslin did not comment on Salonen’s statement about his differences with the board, but praised him for his work with the orchestra. 

CEO Matthew Spivey attributed Salonen’s departure to the financial constraints the orchestra expects to face over the upcoming years.

Esa Pekka-Salonen out as SF Symphony director –

.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/entertainment/article/esa-pekka-salonen-sf-symphony-18941145.php