West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin staunch anti-environmentalist, bought and paid for by the fossil fuels industry, must have sprung a leak this past Monday.
The US Fourth Circuit put the brakes, at least temporarily, on Pipeline Joe’s climate killing crusade to construct the Mission Valley Pipeline.
Pipeline Joe wants to believe he’s rid himself of those meddling Federal judges and environmentalists after he strong armed Congress to get the judiciary out of his pet project.
OPEN SECRETS.ORG BREAKS DOWN JOE MANCHIN’S POLITICAL CONTRIBUTIONS
Not so fast, Joe.
Excerpted from The New York Times 7.12.2023
A federal court in Richmond has halted construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline, setting off a battle with Congress that could end up at the Supreme Court.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, in Richmond, released a pair of rulings on Monday and Tuesday to stop work on the project, which is intended to carry natural gas about 300 miles from the Marcellus shale fields in West Virginia across nearly 1,000 streams and wetlands before ending in Virginia.
Environmentalists, Democratic members of the Virginia congressional delegation and some constitutional law experts argue that by directing a change in courts, Congress has violated the separation of powers clause in the Constitution.
That was notable because Congress had moved jurisdiction over the pipeline last month from the court in Richmond, where environmentalists have found some success in their decade-long fight, to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. It was a highly unusual provision that was tucked into legislation that had nothing to do with pipelines — the law to raise the debt ceiling.
Congress also included provisions to expedite construction of the pipeline and insulate it from judicial review. Those elements were added as a concession to Senator Joe Manchin III, the West Virginia Democrat whose vote has been crucial to President Biden’s domestic agenda.
Nazi Germany had many evil aspects of its persecution and annihilation of its Jewish population.
One which has received scant attention is the ruination of its one time thriving fashion industry.
Deutsche Welle has taken a long look into the fabric of Hitler’s Third Reich and its destruction of yet another Jewish cultural art form.
I have had a long time interest in fashion having worked 11 years in the international division of Levi Strauss & Co. The Haas family, descendants of the founder Levi Strauss, being long time prominent members of San Francisco’s Jewish community.
Excerpted from Deutsche Welle 7.10.2023
Even though Berlin Fashion Week takes place twice every year, in January and from July 10-13, the German city doesn’t exactly hold the title of the capital of fashion.
“What I find scary is that since 1945, nobody wants to remember this fashion culture. There’s no commemoration of the many Jewish fashion designers. This stands in stark contrast to many German companies that were deeply involved in the Nazi state and have tried to make good since then,” explains Uwe Westphal, a freelance journalist and author of “Fashion Metropolis Berlin 1836 – 1939. The Story of the Rise and Destruction of the Jewish Fashion Industry.”
In the early 90s, Westphal’s frustration led to campaigning for a memorial at Hausvogteiplatz with the support of the Jewish community in Berlin. In 2000, the memorial was inaugurated with funding by the Berlin government.
That’s why even Berliners are surprised when they find out that their city used to be a thriving fashion hub before World War II. And it was mainly thanks to Jewish entrepreneurs who were pioneers of modern fashion in Berlin.
1932: Designer Erwin Scharlinki with models working for Leopold Seligmann’s company, one of the largest clothing manufacturers in Berlin at the timeImage: Uwe Westphal
The clothing industry took off in Berlin in the 1830s. Industrial sewing machines introduced in the 1850s were a game changer: A shirt could be made in one hour instead of eight.
Amid this industrialization process, Germany’s social and political context allowed Jewish entrepreneurs to set the tone.
For centuries, Jewish people living in Germany had been suffering from legal restrictions that affected their ability to make a livelihood and pushed most of them into poverty. Many were peddlers trading in haberdashery and second-hand clothes, while wealthy Jews traded in fine fabrics, explains Westphal.
Antisemitism and envy of the Jews’ success in the industry existed from early on. But with Hitler’s rise to power in 1933, the Jewish-owned businesses suffered massive blows, starting with the boycott against Jewish stores established on April 1 that same year.
Cover of a magazine boasting the ‘Aryanized’ German clothing industry, from 1938
The companies of Jewish fashion manufacturers were then systematically taken over by members of the Nazi party: “Jews were soon forbidden to take out bank loans. For the clothing companies, this was a disaster. You couldn’t have fashion shows without bank guarantees,” explains Westphal, which is why Jews were forced into making Nazi party members partners in their companies to have access to funds, and finally transferring ownership at ridiculously low prices.
In the Kristillnacht of November 9-10 1938, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kristallnacht groups of Nazi supporters stormed hundreds of companies on Hausvogteiplatz in the Berlin district of Mitte, which was the city’s center of Jewish fashion. They destroyed everything they could get their hands on: “Of the 2,700 Jewish fashion companies, only 24 were left, and they too were confiscated by 1940 at the latest,” says Westphal.
Germans pass by the broken shop window of a Jewish-owned business that was destroyed during Kristallnacht.
Did the SFPD military style presence provoke The Saturday Night Riot in the Mission District?
The San Francisco Standard reports what undoubtedly is the SFPD narrative of events. What the Standard needs to do is ask the right questions.
The mainstream media too often takes the easy way out and regurgitates the official version of events.This allows the MSM to maintain its cozy with relationship the cops.
SFPD take aim at Mission District skateboarders
A totally unleashed San Francisco Police Department has taken to terror in the streets of the City’s Mission District.
The premediated assault on the City’s teenagers and young adults who were skateboarding will be another stain on the sordid history of officially sanctioned violence in The City of St. Francis.
Chief of Police Bill Scott, in response to press queries, made a comment which applies to his own police force in what can arguably be called a police riot.
“This behavior will not be tolerated in our city and I thank our officers for taking action to hold those accountable who brazenly engaged in reckless and dangerous behavior and violated the law. Thankfully, there were no serious injuries.”
Well armed SFPD face off with Mission District skateboarders
Hapless Mayor London Breed with her law and order bloviating has opened the flood gates of this police misconduct by actively and encouraging their abusive behavior.
Pathetically, some elected officials are already making excuses for the cops abhorrent behavior.
The Mayor’s anointed District Attorney Brooke Jenkins will now have to decide if these arrests, acts of harassment by the cops, are worth prosecuting. Or, will she do the right thing and toss them immediately?
Excerpted from The San Francisco Standard 7.9.2023
San Francisco police arrested more than 100 people—32 adults and 81 juveniles—Saturday night in wake of a skateboarding gathering near Dolores Park. The incident sparked shock, outrage and umbrage Sunday among members of the public and some elected officials.
On Sunday morning, San Francisco Supervisor Dean Preston expressed his displeasure at police’s response to the incident, calling it an “abuse of power, waste of money, and trauma inflicted on our young people.”
Skateboarders United Will Never be Defeated
“I’m ashamed of our City leadership for this type of militarization of our streets and attack on our youth,” Preston said in a tweet. “People deserve answers.”
Thirty-two adults were arrested and booked into San Francisco county jail on suspicion of inciting a riot, remaining present at an unlawful assembly and conspiracy, with one adult cited and released for resisting arrest, remaining present at an unlawful assembly and conspiracy. Eighty-one teens were also arrested on similar charges, with one teen later hospitalized for treatment of intoxication.
It is reprehensible. San Francisco cops have nothing better to do than harass and traumatize scores of young people engaged in skateboarding.
The bullying fascist tactics displayed by the San Francisco Police Department are actions people have come to expect in Putin’s Russiaas he cracks down on anti-war protestors.
Local cops from the City’s Mission District station harassed, bullied, handcuffed and loaded into police vans scores of young skateboarders.
These young adults have been unnecessarily traumatized by the agents of the State. Who knows what impact this fascist type treatment will have on their psyches as they mature into adulthood and form opinions about Authority.
Excerpted from Mission Local 7.8.2023
San Francisco police officers in riot helmets rushed into and blockaded intersections this evening near Dolores Park to shut down the annual “hill bomb” where hundreds of people gather to watch skaters and bikers zoom down Dolores Street.
Mission District Hill Bomb absent the bullying San Francisco Police Department – 2020
The hill bomb is an annual event that sees skaters from across the Bay Area come into the Mission to skate down Dolores Street.
As of 8:45 p.m., SFPD had kenneled dozens of skaters and young people, keeping them trapped between two rows of police officers armed with batons and riot helmets.
“Those are just kids!” standers-by shouted.
“We don’t have rights!” said someone else.
SFPD bullying terror tactics. Surrounding scores of young people prior to arrest. What’s their alleged offense? Skateboarding.
A sergeant on the scene said they will arrest between 50 to 60 of the skaters and viewers.
Sabir, a 14-year old who was in the group before it was corralled, said the police trapped the group between Dolores and Guerrero streets.
They were “trying to trap us, I ran away, and someone tried to hit me,” he said. “He swung [the baton] at me and said ‘Move!’ and now all of them are under arrest.”
Sabir said the majority of the group are teenagers.
“In a statement, Jenkins also blamed defense attorneys for her office not having more to show for her prosecutions against drug dealers.”
– San Francisco DA Brooke Jenkins quoted in San Francisco Standard 7.6.2023
Does it fight crime to arrest the user?
Carefully reading The Standard it’s evident the State of Crime has not changed appreciably since Brooke Jenkins was anointed DA a year ago today.
It’s no surprise that the San Francisco Police Department and their cheerleader DA are unhappy with The San Francisco Standard for calling out their ineptitude.
It is demonstrably pathetic that Brooke Jenkins lashes out at defense attorneys, most of whom are public defenders, for doing their job. Represent their clients.
Brooke Jenkins continues to blame “progressive ideology” embedded in her own office rather than take responsibility for her abject failure.
SAN FRANCISCO, CA – JANUARY 26, 2022: At the intersection of Leavenworth and Golden Gate Streets people all walk to work and hang out in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco, California. (Photo Melina Mara/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
Now that Chesa Boudin has been gone a year, Brooke Jenkins no longer has her scapegoat to blame. The target of her incompetence are defense attorneys Brooke Jenkins must battle in the court of law. Where bloviating rhetoric is not the coin of the realm.
The streets of San Francisco
And the cops. What can I say?The SFPD is still in full Chesa scapegoat mode and refuses to acknowledge their role in the ouster of Chesa Boudin. Having spent over 700K to try and defeat Chesa in 2019, the cops went full throttle to bring him down through proactive sloth and incompetence on the job.
It was common knowledge on the street that the SFPD, egged on by its reactionary Police Officers Association, engaged in the most obvious dereliction of duty. They refused to make arrests because Chesa Boudin was their sworn foe. The job objective was to take him down by ignoring criminal acts. They succeeded.
Even law and order loving Chronicle columnist Heather Knight. Who contributed regularly in her columns to Chesa’s ouster. Felt compelled in a brief moment of journalistic integrity to call out the cops for their dereliction and incompetencewhile Chesa was DA.
People on the Street. Often the target of The failed War on Drugs
Excerpted from The San Francisco Standard 7.6.2023
DA Brooke Jenkins quickly adopted a more punitive approach to crime than her progressive predecessor both in tone and substance, homing in on repeat narcotics offenders and drug dealers, whom she targeted with more stringent policies and harsher rhetoric.
She threatened to charge dealers with murder if their drugs lead to overdoses, said she’d add years to sentences for those who deal near schools and revoked what she termed “lenient” plea offers made by Boudin.
SFPD war on crime
But there is little evidence on the streets that these tactics are working, and many say they are merely a return to a failed “war on drugs.” Instead of focusing on diversion and treatment, which were part of Boudin’s approach, Jenkins has put more of her tools toward jailing drug dealers and punishing users.
Jenkins blamed defense attorneys for her office not having more to show for her prosecutions against drug dealers.
Jenkins said her approach to running the District Attorney’s Office will simply take more time to bear fruit.
What are the cops searching for? Is this a pretextual stop?
Reports of drug offenses have increased 41% since she took office.
Overdose deaths driven by the fentanyl epidemic are on pace to hit a record high, having hit 268 as of the end of April. Things have become so dire that Gov. Gavin Newsom sent in state law enforcement to help patrol the epicenter of the drug crisis in the Tenderloin as numerous local operations have sprouted to tackle the issue.
While data provided by the DA’s Office shows that Jenkins is beginning to differentiate herself from Boudin—she is charging more drug cases and sending far fewer people to diversion programs, which offer alternatives to conviction—her increased caseload has yet to lead to a sizable change in drug convictions.
In fact, in her first 11 months in office, she convicted fewer drug dealers than Boudin over the last 11 months of his time as district attorney.
SFPD faces down The People on the Street
Cases can take years to yield convictions, and righting an office that was driven more by a progressive ideology than the law cannot happen overnight, she said in emailed statements.
Lee Heidhues with editorial assistance from Liz Heidhues 7.8.2022
Mayor London Breed, who was behind-the-scenes leader in the political Coup d’etat, has rewarded Brooke Jenkins by anointing her the chief Law Enforcement official in San Francisco.
July 8, 2022 will go down as one of the most abhorrent and desultory days in San Francisco’s political history.
It is a vile and disgusting travesty seeing City Hall hacks and hangers-on cheer on a Puppet District Attorney who was a shameless agent in the ousting of Progressive DA Chesa Boudin.
Mayor London Breed with Puppet DA Brooke Jenkins during her swearing in Ceremony – Looking over Breed’s shoulder is Man Kit Lam, vicious opponent of DA Chesa Boudin 7.8.2022
The swearing-in of Puppet District Attorney Brooke Jenkins, a leader in the political coup d’etat ousting Progressive DA Chesa Boudin, ranks right up with the worst travesties in the City’s history.
It is beyond depressing and mind numbing that President Biden has authorized the use of American cluster bombs in Ukraine.
This evil weapon of war is banned by 120 nations. The impact of cluster bombs is devastating and long lasting. Years after the conflict ends citizens in the war torn nation will be maimed and killed by unexploded cluster bombs.
Equally distressing is the fact that so many American politicians are rallying around President Biden and applauding this appalling decision.America is a warlike militaristic nation whose primary way to resolve conflict is through the use of force.
A photograph taken on July 3, 2022 shows an tail section of a 300mm rocket which appear to contained cluster bombs launched from a BM-30 Smerch multiple rocket launcher embedded in the ground after shelling in Kramatorsk, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (Photo by Genya SAVILOV / AFP) /
Excerpted from The Intercept 7.7.2023
Cluster munitions are controversial due to the manner in which “bomblets” are scattered around a targeted area, creating secondary explosions that can cause death and injury even long after a conflict has ceased.
President Biden’s decision to supply cluster munitions to Ukraine would likely be seen as a setback to nonproliferation efforts aimed at stopping use of the weapon.
The bombs are currently at the center of an international campaign to ban their use in armed conflict. More than 100 states have signed an international convention on cluster munitions vowing not to employ them in war, produce them domestically, or encourage their use in foreign conflicts.
A Ukrainian citizen walks cautiously past the remnants of a cluster bomb
The use of cluster attacks during the 2006 Israeli war in Lebanon killed and wounded hundreds of civilians. A decade later, swaths of southern Lebanon are still dangerous for civilians who are periodically killed or maimed by stray bomblets.
The Russian military has also extensively used cluster munitions during its invasion of Ukraine, including in attacks on populated areas that were said to have killed and wounded hundreds of civilians in the early months of the war.
July 22 last year, a Ukrainian woman living in the town of Izium, then occupied by invading Russian troops, was killed in shelling launched by the Ukrainian military. The bomb that killed her was no ordinary weapon.
According to investigators from Human Rights Watch, who visited the scene of the attack in Izium the woman’s death was caused by a cluster munition, a weapon much of the world has moved to ban due to the indiscriminate harm that they cause to civilians.
The salvo was allegedly fired from the Ukrainian side, according to witnesses, and detonated near the woman’s home, killing her and her dog.
“The attack was very scary. Very loud. I was outside and there were a lot of explosions. The wife of my ex-husband came and told me to hurry to get inside,” one witness told Human Rights Watch, according to a report released late Wednesday night. Another witness, who viewed the victim’s body in the aftermath and helped bury her in a local cemetery, said that her “face and body were severely mutilated by the explosion.”
Cluster bomb embedded in the Ukrainian earth in winter
The use of cluster attacks during the 2006 Israeli war in Lebanon killed and wounded hundreds of civilians. A decade later, swaths of southern Lebanon are still dangerous for civilians who are periodically killed or maimed by stray bomblets.
The bombs are currently at the center of an international campaign to ban their use in armed conflict. More than 100 states have signed an international convention on cluster munitions vowing not to employ them in war, produce them domestically, or encourage their use in foreign conflicts.
The Russian military has also extensively used cluster munitions during its invasion of Ukraine, including in attacks on populated areas that were said to have killed and wounded hundreds of civilians in the early months of the war.
“The previous administration’s poor management and ideologies caused immeasurable harm to the public,” she wrote. “This office saw an exodus of experienced and talented attorneys after years of prosecutorial negligence.” –Written statement to SF Gate after one year as SF DA.
Brooke Jenkins will not let herself be interviewed. A tough reporter would question her seriously and, perhaps, unearth some unpleasant truths about this grifter politician on the make.
Jenkins can’t let it go. She needs her scapegoat to validate her precarious perch as The City’s anointed chief law enforcement officer.
Jenkins scapegoating statement says it all about the treacherous political creature who clawed her way into office by destroying a decent honest Progressive District Attorney, Chesa Boudin. Calling herself a “volunteer” only to disclose after she was safely ensconced in office by the equally treacherous Mayor London Breed. Brooke Jenkins disclosed she was paid over 150K for her treachery in the political coup d’etat of June 7, 2022.
This woman has no shame. She refuses to take responsibility for the State of Crime in San Francisco. Continuing to cast aspersions on the Man who promoted her career. Only to turn on him in an act of evil political opportunism.
Brooke Jenkins will pay the political price as crime in San Francisco spirals with no end in sight.
District Attorney Brooke Jenkins at an event in San Francisco on Tuesday, August 19, 2022. | Camille Cohen/The Standard
Excerpted from SF Gate 7.6.2023
Taken altogether, how can Brooke Jenkins’ first year in office best be described?
In a statement to SFGATE on Thursday — two days ahead of her first full year in office — Jenkins said, “I believe we have and are making progress every day to improve conditions on our streets. It was years of prosecutorial neglect that contributed to the conditions in our neighborhoods, but we have set a new direction and tone in San Francisco that brazen drug dealing will be prosecuted.”
Evaluating whether street conditions are improving is largely subjective; noted Boudin detractors believe things are getting better, while others who’ve long documented their public safety observations seem to disagree.
DA Brooke Jenkins. Opportunistic political operative parrots the law and order line
Data shows fatal overdoses are rising, and Jenkins’ office is currently struggling to obtain convictions for drug crimes. It also shows violent crime is up under Jenkins, while property crime is down, as first reported by Mission Local. But those data points have caveats, too: The COVID-19 pandemic brought life to a halt in 2020, leading to a decrease in criminal reports that year and in the first half of 2021.
If crime rates are directly linked to DA policy, as Jenkins suggested when she was campaigning against Boudin, then she failed to deliver on her promises in year one. But after taking office, she offered a different benchmark for success.
We are going back to Berlin for the first time in five years later this year.
A good way to get the feel for how the spoken German sounds and explore what attracts the German viewer is to stream.
Two series.
One about the underside of the German banking system. Bad Banks.
Another about German law enforcement and its intersection in politics and the migrant community. Sleeping Dog.
Watching these German dramas is also a nice way to escape the hum drum offered by the American entertainment industry.
Viewing the photography of Berlin and Frankfurt (in Bad Banks) shows me places we saw on previous visits and puts on display sites we may want to visit later this year.
Bad Banks
Bad Banks Trailer
Excerpted from Goethe Institut USA
MONEY MAKES THE WORLD GO ROUND… AND DOWN THE TUBES.
The opening of Bad Banks comes on like a disaster movie, only the calamity here is financial: as a TV news broadcast warns of a banking collapse that’s “five times worse than the fall of Lehman Brothers,” an angry crowd swarming around an ATM discovers there’s no cash left and starts rioting in the streets of Frankfurt’s financial district, the Wall Street of Germany. Anyone in a suit and tie is assumed to be a banker and a fair target for the enraged mob. Even with tear gas and barricades, the police can’t contain the uprising.
Tobias Langhoff, left, and Barry Atsma, center. Two of the central characters in Bad Banks. Sadly, Tobias Langhoff died November 28, 2022 at the age of 60. He was born on the same day in 1962.
A lone figure in a hoodie skirts the violence to slip into a side entrance of an office high-rise. This is young investment banker Jana (Paula Beer), and as she navigates the debris-strewn hallways of her firm, a shell-shocked colleague blames her for causing the disaster.
The show then backtracks eight weeks to the day Jana is fired from her gig at a prestigious Luxembourger firm, apparently for upstaging a grossly sexist executive. In a milieu where getting fired is akin to death, she’s humiliated, devastated. But then comes a surprise offer to work at a powerhouse investment bank in Frankfurt, the rival to her previous employer. The near-apocalyptic opening teaser thus sets up an intriguing mystery: how could quietly competent Jana be the one to cause so much havoc? Millions of viewers have succumbed to this irresistible narrative hook and binge-watched the first season of Bad Banks.
Christelle Leblanc (Désirée Nosbusch) portrays the aggressive and calculating Chief of Investment at Deutsche German Investment in Bad Banks
SLEEPING DOG is a new Netflix series in the crime and thriller genres. It’s from Germany (org. title: Schlafende Hunde) but the series is actually based on the 2016 series The Exchange Principle from Israel. In fact, this is a remake with just a few changes.
Carlo Ljubek and Antonio Wannek survey a crime scene in Sleeping Dog
There are six hour-long episodes in the series and there’s a huge mystery looming over everyone and everything from the very beginning. It’s very much a character-driven story and it works very well. Nobody seems to be entirely good or bad, which results in many gray areas!
Next door to California is Nevada. The state known for gambling, legalized prostitution and the place to which the Oakland Raiders and, soon, the Oakland A’s will have moved to find greener financial pastures. Translation: Money.
Now, Nevada is becoming rapidly known for something else. A radical right MAGA governor who is putting the torch to any remotely progressive legislation passed by the legislature.
Abortion, voting rights, rent control. It’s all fair game for the radical right Governor of Nevada.
Excerpted from The Nation 6.30.2023
It’s hard to think of a governor who has used his veto power so often and to such destructive effect. Nevada’s legislature is, in many ways, as progressive as those in California, Oregon, and Washington.
Clark County Sheriff turned MAGA radical Governor Joe Lombardo
Yet its efforts to reimagine Nevada’s political priorities are being stymied time after time after time by rookie GOP Governor Joe Lombardo’s uncompromising conservatism and his willingness to use the powers of his office to block popular measures aimed at protecting the rights, and increasing the economic and health care security, of ordinary Nevadans.
Lombardo, the one time sheriff of Clark County, is way out of step with Nevada’s voting public on many public policy matters which he’s used his red pen.
Roughly 70 percent support broad access to abortion, and, presumably, at least that proportion support guaranteeing the right of access to contraception.
More than four in five voters tell pollsters they support medically assisted dying options.
When the legislative session ended earlier this month, Lombardo ended up with 75 vetoes in a single session, including 43 on the final day that he could issue vetoes. It was the most annual vetoes that any Nevada governor has ever issued.
Of all the vetoes, however, arguably the most bizarre was that of Assembly Bill 383, codifying the right to contraception in the state. It was, advocates urged, a necessary measure in a post-Dobbs legal landscape in which once-established rights are suddenly seen as vulnerable. The bill passed with bipartisan support, including from Heidi Gansert, the leader of the Republican minority in the state Senate, as well as her deputy, Carrie Buck. More than 7,000 Nevada women wrote letters to the governor in support of the legislation. Lombardo argued that it was unnecessary and vetoed the bill.
Mayor London Breed with Puppet DA Brooke Jenkins during her swearing in Ceremony – Looking over Breed’s shoulder is Man Kit Lam, vicious opponent of DA Chesa Boudin 7.8.2022 
Lee's Perspective 