While most folks focus on local news and think little, if anything,  about what is going on outside the American border, Russia policy has international ramifications.

Afterall America engaged in an over 40 year Cold War with Russia which resulted in billions upon billions in wasteful military spending and destroyed countless reputations during the absurd Red Scare era.

The widely held consensus during the Trump regime was that Vladimir Putin (pictured above with President Obama) was being given a pass to conduct Russian affairs without interference from the USA.

President Biden entered office in January promising to take a tougher stand towards our long time competitor. The merit of this policy is being debated. Its consequences are already being felt.

Regrettably, the Successful Campaign to Block Matthew Rojansky’s Appointment Is Ominous for Biden’s Russia Policy

The Nation 4.27.2021 – Katrina vanden Heuvel (Publisher)

When a new administration comes to Washington, the flowery rhetoric and springtime promises are often less revealing than who is put where to run the place. That’s why many of Washington’s most scurrilous campaigns are backstage fights over potential appointments.

 That’s why the successful campaign to block the appointment of Matthew Rojansky as Russia director on the National Security Council is not only a sad reflection of the poisonous state of the debate on Russian policy today, but also an ominous sign for Biden’s foreign policy going forward.

As director of the Kennan Institute at the Woodrow Wilson Center, Rojansky has been an articulate advocate of a commonsense realism on US relations with Russia. Facing what President Biden calls “cascading crises”—the pandemic, economic collapse and growing inequality, racial upheaval, catastrophic climate change—the United States needs to avoid draining conflicts abroad to rebuild its strength at home and focus on meeting the real security challenges of our time.

With China becoming a “near-peer competitor,” according to the administration, we should be trying to divide Russia from China, not drive them together. As Rojansky wrote, “America’s task is not to replace enmity toward Russia with a partnership…. It is to manage the current competition in ways that protect vital US interests while minimizing risks and costs, and allowing space for selective cooperation.” The United States has real interests in cooperating with Russia in reviving nuclear arms controls, helping to stabilize Afghanistan after US withdrawal, addressing climate change and more. This would suggest more dialogue and engagement with Russia and less posturing and confrontation.

Read the full text of Katrina’s column here.

Katrina vanden Heuvel is editorial director and publisher of The Nation, America’s leading source of progressive politics and culture. She served as editor of the magazine from 1995 to 2019.

https://www.thenation.com/article/world/the-successful-campaign-to-block-matthew-rojanskys-appointment-is-ominous-for-bidens-russia-policy/

“District Attorney (Ann Marie) Schubert has always been committed to a failed, tough-on-crime approach where the powerful, and especially police who commit acts of violence, are never held accountable,” SF District Attorney Chesa Boudin said .

Boudin said Schubert is clinging to outdated views that increased incarceration numbers and exacerbated racial disparities in the justice system.

San Francisco’s progressive DA wasted little time and minced no words when asked to comment about the Attorney General candidacy of “Independent” (ex-Republican) Anne Marie Schubert, the Sacramento County District Attorney.

Schubert has been a prosecutor for 25 years. She will have the heavy financial backing of law enforcement PACs. Schubert’s campaign will be total slash and burn. A non stop attack on currentAG Rob Bonta and ‘progressive’ District Attorneys such as Boudin in San Francisco and George Gascon in Los Angeles.

Excerpted from San Francisco Chronicle 4.26.2021

SACRAMENTO — Anne Marie Schubert, the Sacramento County district attorney, said Monday that she will run for California attorney general next year and lashed out at progressive advocates of criminal justice reform such as San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin.

Boudin said Schubert is clinging to outdated views that increased incarceration numbers and exacerbated racial disparities in the justice system.

“District Attorney Schubert has always been committed to a failed, tough-on-crime approach where the powerful, and especially police who commit acts of violence, are never held accountable,” Boudin said in a statement.

Schubert has long clashed with criminal justice reformers over her handling of police use-of-force cases and support for longer sentences for some crimes.

In 2018, Schubert was criticized by some justice groups after she received campaign contributions from police unions days after Stephon Clark, a 22-year-old unarmed Black man, was shot to death in his grandmother’s backyard by two Sacramento police officers.

Schubert later decided not to charge the officers with any crimes. She said they believed that Clark, who was holding a cell phone, was armed with a gun and that they were in imminent danger. (See photo above)

Schubert, a conservative-leaning career prosecutor, said she will run against recently sworn-in state Attorney General Rob Bonta, a former Bay Area state legislator, because cities like San Francisco are “in chaos” due to liberal policies that endanger public safety.

“In San Francisco, you have a district attorney … who is letting violent criminals out with little oversight or consequences, criminals who go on to victimize again,” Schubert said.

Although Bonta is her opponent, Schubert focused much of her attention Monday on Boudin and other progressive local prosecutors including George Gascón, a former San Francisco district attorney who now holds the same position in Los Angeles County.

Schubert, a Republican-turned-independent, evoked harsh descriptions of crime in San Francisco as she announced her candidacy in a hotel conference room in downtown Sacramento, surrounded by relatives of murder victims.

“Major conventions are pulling out of San Francisco because their executives are worried that their guests’ safety is at risk,” she said. “Tourists think it’s too dangerous to visit that beautiful city. … It is true and it is tragic that San Francisco is suffering.”

Schubert said she fears that Bonta, who was one of the most progressive state lawmakers as an Assembly member from Alameda, will bring the same type of polices to the rest of California if he wins a full four-year term.

Schubert entered the race just three days after Bonta was sworn in Friday following his confirmation by the Legislature. Gov. Gavin Newsom nominated him to replace Xavier Becerra, who resigned to become President Biden’s secretary of health and human services.

Schubert is perhaps best known for prosecuting Joseph DeAngelo, the Golden State Killer. DeAngelo was sentenced to life in prison last year after admitting to 13 murders and 13 kidnappings for robbery across California in the 1970s and ’80s.

Dana Williamson, a senior adviser to Bonta’s campaign, called Schubert a “tremendously flawed” candidate and noted that she is treasurer of a prosecutors group that is under investigation by the state attorney general for its use of funds.

The California District Attorneys Association siphoned $3 million that was supposed to be used for public-advocacy litigation, such as environmental cases, and instead spent it on training and lobbying, according to an audit conducted by an accounting firm the group hired.

“Now she wants to lead the Department of Justice, the same entity that is investigating her organization’s misdeeds,” Williamson said.

Schubert has been Sacramento County district attorney since 2015, and was a prosecutor in the county for 25 years before taking elected office. She left the Republican Party after she was re-elected in 2018 and registered as a “no party preference” voter.

She is the second person to announce a challenge to Bonta, after Nathan Hochman, a Republican and former assistant attorney general in the George W. Bush administration.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/California-attorney-general-candidate-assails-16130442.php

It’s reprehensible that the Chinese government feels so threatened by the 39 year old Director and now Oscar winner Chloé Zhao.  Government censors have obliterated her achievement from all its social media platforms.

This is the same government which is engaging in a ruthless crackdown in Hong Kong, with its crackdown on free speech and the recent imprisonment of media mogul Jimmy Lai.

This is the same government which continues its brutal campaign against  The Uyghurs:  A Turkic-speaking Muslims from the Central Asian region. The largest population live in China’s autonomous Xinjiang region, in the country’s north-west. The Uyghurs are one of a number of persecuted Muslim minorities in Xinjiang, including the Kazakhs, Uzbeks, Tajiks, Kyrgyz and Hui.

Wall Street Journal 4.26.2021

After filmmaker becomes first Chinese woman to win top honor at Academy Awards, news disappears from search engines, social media and state outlets

“Nomadland” director Chloé Zhao made history on Sunday by becoming the first woman of color and first Chinese woman to win the Oscar for best director. Official media, major search engines and internet censors in her home country are making as if it didn’t happen.

Ms. Zhao’s win, just the second time a woman has walked away with best director, unleashed a flurry of congratulatory messages on Chinese social-media sites when it was announced Monday morning Beijing time. By midafternoon, nearly all of the posts had been erased.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-censors-nomadland-director-chloe-zhaos-oscar-win-11619440550?mod=hp_lead_pos11

Filmed in Berlin, Counterpart is partial sci-fi, spy story,  crime saga. I was hooked within minutes. 

Perhaps the reasons for my interest is its locale.  Berlin.  A place I have been and where many Cold War novels and films have taken place.

Counterpart definitely grabs your attention and forces the viewer to pay attention, particularly the dual role played by J.K. Simmons (pictured above)

The Atlantic 1.21.2018 – Sophie Gilbert

The Starz show (now streaming on Amazon Prime) is a twisty spy thriller with endless layers.

What also makes Counterpart work is the Oscar-winner J.K. Simmons, who brings gravitas and emotional heft to a project that could easily careen off the rails toward crazytown.

Simmons plays Howard Silk, a mild-mannered civil servant late in his career who’s completely oblivious, like most citizens of Earth, to the mind-bending secret in the basement of the organization where he’s spent 30 years as a pencil pusher. Howard clocks in early every day and visits his comatose wife, Emily (Olivia Williams), at night.

But his innocence is shattered when he’s confronted by Alternative-Howard, a defector from the other dimension who will only work with  himself.

It’s a smorgasbord of different concepts in one. The Berlin setting, the espionage plotlines, and the deceptively ineffectual protagonist bring to mind the novels of John le Carré, but there are also elements of Homeland, Harry Potter, and Stieg Larsson thrown into the mix. Information, as any intelligence agency knows, is currency, and Counterpart is precise in what it reveals, eking out twists in each episode, but keeping the larger narrative under wraps.

 

Howard and Alt-Howard are revealed in the first episode to be shockingly different: One is a gentle but  unremarkable soul while the other is a hulking, James Bond–style enforcer. Simmons embodies them perfectly, playing two totally distinct characters who somehow look identical. It’s a bravura performance that throws yet another question into the mix: What on either Earth happened to these two Howards to make them so different?

It’s notable that Counterpart borrows so heavily from existing tropes and yet feels so fresh. The first episode, directed by Morten Tyldum (The Imitation Game, Passengers), establishes that this is ambitious, expensive television—Howard’s workplace has the pallid, monochrome vibe of an adults-only Ministry of Magic, and the aesthetic of Alt-Berlin, an uber-modern city with hints of dystopia, is enthralling. It’s obvious early on that the two Howards are going to upend each other’s realities while also influencing one another. In the meantime, both are charged with investigating a larger conspiracy between the two worlds, and finding a stowaway in original-Howard’s reality—an assassin (Sara Serraiocco) who’s murdering agency employees one by one.

Serraiocco’s character has palpable shades of the fictional hacker Lisbeth Salander, and the Italian actress brings surprising vulnerability to the role. The supporting cast also includes Homeland’s Nazanin Boniadi as a mysterious wrangler, Ulrich Thomsen (Banshee) as the grizzled director of operations at Howard’s agency, and Richard Schiff (The West Wing) as a diplomat who represents his world in negotiations with its double. These are the moments when the show is at its most riveting, when the infinite questions its premise presents are answered. How do the two worlds differ? How do they get along? Why does one look like Berlin and the other like 22nd-century Shanghai? Why are smoking and hand-shaking illegal?

There are enough loose threads in Counterpart to make a tapestry, but the series seems committed to tying them together. Plus, for a show whose episodes run around 55 minutes, the pace is gratifyingly propulsive. It’s Simmons, though, who steals it, doing double duty as a milquetoast accountant and a braggadocious intelligence operative who wouldn’t be out of place in the Expendables lineup. Rather than turn either into a stereotype, he imbues both with a kind of emotional depth that insinuates they’re not as different as they seem.

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2018/01/counterpart-review-starz/550970/

France has long been chronicled for its history of anti-semitism.

Perhaps most prominent was the Dreyfus Affair which I blogged about March 13 under the title, “The Dreyfus Affair: A French complex miscarriage of misjustice and antisemitism.”

Now we have a  contemporary case of the casual application of law when it comes to Jewish victims of violence in France.

The Guardian 4.25.2021

Decision not to try Kobili Traoré over 2017 killing of Sarah Halimi, 65, has provoked international outrage.

Thousands of protesters have rallied in Paris and across France after the killer of a Jewish woman was declared unfit to stand trial because he was judged to have suffered a psychotic episode caused by cannabis use.

Kobili Traoré is accused of beating 65-year-old Lucie Attal – better known as Sarah Halimi – and throwing her from the balcony her Paris apartment in 2017.

French courts have recognised the killing as an antisemitic crime but declared that 32-year-old Traoré, currently in a psychiatric hospital, could not be tried as he was in the grip of a drug-induced “delusional fit” and not in control of his actions.

The decision made 12 days ago by France’s highest court, the cour de cassation, to uphold the ruling has prompted anger among Halimi’s family and the wider community.

The family described the decision as an “injustice”; her sister Esther Lekover announced after the court’s decision that she would bring a separate legal case in Israel, where she lives.

Demonstrations were organised in Paris, Bordeaux, Marseille, Lyon, Strasbourg and Nice, as well as in Rome, Tel Aviv, London, Los Angeles, Miami and New York.

Frank Tapiro, a political communications expert who organised the Paris rally, said protesters wanted justice. “We want a trial whatever the outcome. [Traoré] chose to smoke cannabis. The experts made their reports, but the judges are not obliged to accept them. This problem affects all French people, not just the Jewish community,” Tapiro told BFM TV.

Traoré entered Halimi’s apartment at 4am on 4 April 2017 while she was asleep. He allegedly beat her while crying “Allahu Akbar” and reciting Quranic verses, before throwing her over the balcony of her third-floor council flat in the 11th arrondissement of Paris where she had lived for 30 years.

Neighbours told police they heard Traoré shout “I killed the sheitan” – the Arabic word for “devil” – from Halimi’s balcony.

Traoré later told investigators he knew Halimi was Jewish but denied his actions were antisemitic, saying he had acted while in a psychotic episode triggered by cannabis.

It took 10 months and an outcry from Jewish organisations for French authorities to accept an element of antisemitism in the killing of the retired doctor and nursery director.

François Molins, the general prosecutor at the cour de cassation, denied the justice system had been too lax in the Halimi case.

“Of course the legal system isn’t giving anyone permission to kill,” Molins told Le Monde.

The cour de cassation confirmed the antisemitic nature of the crime, but upheld earlier court decisions that it was impossible to try Traoré for murder because his heavy cannabis use meant he was not in his right mind at the time. According to five out of seven psychiatric experts who examined him, Traoré was in the grip of a “delusional fit” when he killed Halimi.

Emmanuel Macron has called for a change of law. On Sunday, the justice minister, Éric Dupond-Moretti, issued a statement saying new legislation to allow courts to consider whether an accused had “voluntarily taken toxic substances … leading to a loss of responsibility” would be presented to parliament at the end of May.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/25/protest-in-france-as-man-accused-of-killing-jewish-woman-avoids-trial

Following is my email to SF Chronicle reporter Heather Knight responding to her hit piece story on San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin and his handling of domestic abuse prosecutions.

Heather is an award winning reporter who does good, solid work. This compounds the disappointment I feel right now.

Looking back in history it was William Randolph Hearst whose publication sensationalized and promotedAmerican involvement in the Spanish-American War in 1898. This style reporting, which was prominent in the 1890’s, was often referred to as Yellow Journalism. It was a forerunner to the current era of Fake News and Nightcrawler journalism.

Heather

The lede is buried in your story.

The number of misdemeanors prosecuted in 2020 was unchanged. Felonies were down slightly. By the time the normal reader saw the blaring headlines (which someone else probably wrote) and read the opening graphs they were, “Like, Wow!!!!”
Mission accomplished by The Chronicle.

I know folks have a morbid fascination with this subject. Last night I posted on this site about Ghislaine Maxwell. Over 500 people have looked, already in less than 24 hours.

I am disappointed there is little or any nuance in the story.I expect this type reporting from Dion Lim on Channel 7 ABC News.

I like your work and am disappointed.

Lee Heidhues🤨

San Francisco Chronicle 4.24.2021

https://www.sfchronicle.com/local/heatherknight/article/After-death-of-baby-S-F-domestic-violence-16125362.php

The Jeffrey Epstein saga is ongoing.

Epstein is  dead. But his longtime companion and consort Ghislaine Maxwell is the woman who will  bear the brunt of what is coming in the Courts of law and public opinion.

Deutsche Welle 4.23.2021

The socialite is accused of helping her former partner, late financier Jeffrey Epstein, groom and abuse underage girls over a 10-year period.

British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell pleaded not guilty to new sex trafficking charges in a court appearance in New York on Friday.

It was the first time the 59-year-old had faced a judge in person since her arrest at her New Hampshire home last July.

She has been charged with six counts, including sex trafficking conspiracy and sex trafficking of a minor. The offenses were listed in a new indictment unveiled last month. Maxwell is also facing two separate counts of perjury.

What are the alleged crimes?

Maxwell is accused of helping disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein recruit and sexually abuse underage girls. Epstein, her one-time boyfriend, killed himself in 2019 while awaiting trial.

Prosecutors had previously charged Maxwell with grooming and recruiting three girls, including a 14-year- old, for Epstein to abuse between 1994 to 1997.

Last month’s superseding indictment added a new victim and stretched the timespan of the charges from three years to a decade. It alleged that Maxwell had recruited another 14-year-old girl in the early 2000s to give Epstein nude massages and engage in sex acts with him.

Prosecutors allege Maxwell also sometimes participated in the abuse. She has denied all the charges against her.

What happens next?

Maxwell is being held at a federal lockup in Brooklyn and has been denied bail three times since her arrest last year.

Her trial is scheduled to begin on July 12. But her lawyers say the new charges mean they need more time to prepare their case. Prosecutors have opposed any delay, saying a lengthy postponement could also harm the four alleged victims.

Maxwell faces up to 80 years in prison if she is convicted on all charges.

https://www.dw.com/en/ghislaine-maxwell-pleads-not-guilty-to-new-sex-trafficking-charges/a-57319961

A Wikipedia link to much more about Ghislaine Maxwell is attached

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

The Netflix Documentary series Filthy Rich took a detailed look at Jeffrey Epstein, a documentary in which Ghislaine Maxwell is a major figure.

The news may be generally gloomy and a much needed big rainstorm is headed our way reports the Weather Channel.

Someone in my Richmond District neighborhood is smiling.  Or maybe not, yet.  The lucky person has yet to step forward and cash in the Mega Millions lottery ticket worth $1,800,000.

I hope the winner didn’t leave the winning ticket in the clothing and threw it in with the wash.

San Francisco Chronicle 4.21.2021

Somebody in San Francisco is holding a little piece of paper worth $1.8 million.

It’s a Mega Millions lottery ticket and, even though $1.8 million does not technically count as “millions,” it’s still a lot.

The winner has not yet come forward and Huynh has no idea which of his customers it is. But the store and its employees are very happy because the store owner gets a $9,000 bonus for selling the ticket and often store owners share the wealth in the form of bonuses to employees.

“I hope so,” said Huynh. “I hope the boss does something.”

The winning numbers were 6, 23, 43, 49 and 52. In Mega Millions, the idea is to pick five numbers between 1 and 70 that match the 5 numbers drawn from the machine. The odds against doing that are 12.6 million to 1. And the odds against picking the 5 winning numbers along with the Mega number are 302 million to 1.

Huynh said about half of the store’s customers buy lottery tickets with their groceries and about half of his customers buy lottery tickets without their groceries.

The other big winner in the Mega Millions draw on Tuesday is the IRS, which will get 24% of the prize.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/local/article/Somebody-in-S-F-is-holding-a-1-8-million-16118773.php

Congresswoman Maxine Waters has never minced words.The California legislator is one of the most high profile members of Congress, a black woman and relentless advocate for what she believes in.

Now she is being harshly criticized for her comments made during the just ended Trial of Derek Chauvin. Republicans are in a state of apoplexy and the right wing news media is beside itself.

Maxine can Deal with it. Following is a 2019 feature published when she assumed the Chair of the Financial Services Committee in the House of Representatives.

Excerpted from Associated Press – 5.8.2019

WASHINGTON (AP) — She’s been called “Kerosene Maxine” and gaveled off the House floor for accusing Republican men of badgering women. She dismissed President Donald Trump and his allies as thugs and predicted his impeachment before he was sworn into office.

No one, Maxine Waters once observed, should be surprised by her. But after nearly three decades in Congress, the 80-year-old California lawmaker is in an eye-opening role as the highest-ranking African American woman in the country. She’s wielding the gavel of the bank-regulating Financial Services Committee with the power to investigate Trump where some say it counts most: his business dealings.

The role makes Waters a model for many, but notably for the outspoken freshmen Democrats who have drawn as much scrutiny — and as many threats — for what they’ve said as for the barriers they are breaking. Waters, known by some of them as “Auntie Maxine,” has been there. And her unique ascent offers lessons in how to balance activism with work and prudence.

″@RepMaxineWaters always tells it like it is like our favorite auntie,” tweeted Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib, one of the first Muslim women in Congress. She, like Waters, called for Trump’s impeachment, though in more profane terms .

Waters, the only woman and the only African American to hold that chairmanship, has offered instruction by example of how to survive as a “first” in the most diverse House in U.S. history.

“Her preparedness and her concentration on getting something done, and her ability to get along with us, allows her to get the policy done, too,” said House Oversight and Reform Committee Elijah Cummings, D-Md., whose panel is also investigating Trump. “She can fire folks up, but she also does her homework. She also has a game plan in the end.”

Tlaib and a dozen other Democratic freshmen on the panel had front row seats for what became a class in what House Speaker Nancy Pelosi calls “knowing your power.” When Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin complained about how long Waters was questioning him, she glared down from the dais.

“This is a new way and it’s a new day and it’s a new chair and I have the gavel at this point,” Waters said levelly.

Mnuchin suggested she drop the “gravel” and dismiss him. She did not. “Please do not instruct me as to how I’m to conduct this committee,” she said. Mnuchin departed when Waters was ready. He promised to come back if called.

Chairmanship granted, Waters’ portfolio includes overseeing the government’s banking, housing and consumer protection agencies, as well as investigating Trump. On policy, she’s got the background, including helping write the Dodd-Frank Act, which imposed new oversight on the banking industry. Even on impeachment, she’s got experience, should the House ever proceed in that direction against Trump. Waters was one of President Bill Clinton’s staunchest supporters on the House Judiciary Committee when it anchored proceedings against him.

Waters also has been through the grinder of public scrutiny. In 2012, a House committee cleared her of wrongdoing following allegations she steered a $12 million federal bailout to a bank where her husband owned stock.

A sense of humor inside Congress’ ivory tower helps, too.

“I have a picture of her hanging on my wall,” said Rep. Steve Chabot, a Republican from Ohio who sparred with Waters on the Clinton impeachment committee. It immortalizes a moment in which he told Waters that even though she’s not a lawyer, he’d call her to advocate for him if ever he got in trouble. “She laughed,” he recalled.

“There’s different levels of Maxine. She really is a tough fighter,” Rep. Peter King, a New York Republican said, recalling a skirmish he had with her in 1994 in which she told him to “shut up” in a committee hearing and the fight spilled out onto the House floor. She was gaveled down for her “demeanor” and her words stricken from the record.

“On the other hand,” King added, “there’s the Maxine Waters who knows how to get things done, who knows how to make alliances, who can work with people in (banking) industry if she has to.”

No longer does anyone ask the leaders to answer for Waters’ words, as happens with some of the freshmen — Rep. Ilhan Omar, for example, for her remarks on Israel.

“She doesn’t care who she might offend,” said House Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., one of the other chairmen on the call who’s served alongside Waters in the House since she arrived. “She cares more about the policy and getting from A to B.”

https://apnews.com/article/12ddaca673d24c05b508932ebd5761b8

Every Picture Tells a Story – Justice Prevails Special Edition

April 20. 2021

In this image (above) from video, former Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin, center, is taken into custody as his attorney, Eric Nelson, left, looks on, after the verdicts were read at Chauvin’s trial for the 2020 death of George Floyd, Tuesday, April 20, 2021, at the Hennepin County Courthouse in Minneapolis, Minn. (Court TV via AP, Pool).

A mural of George Floyd is shown in the intersection of 38th St & Chicago Ave on March 31, 2021 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Community members waited during  the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who was convicted April 20, 2021 on multiple counts of murder in the death of George Floyd in May 2020. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)