Until the Democrat convention this summer I am solidly supporting Elizabeth Warren. I think she is the most credible and qualified candidate.

Should Bernie Sanders gain the Democratic Party nomination I will enthusiastically support him. It is appalling that the Mainstream Media is pounding on Bernie for making a favorable comment about Fidel Castro’s Cuba.  This line of attack will continue unabated all year.

Senator Warren is someone against whom the Bloviation Crowd will have a tough time destroying. The question for Elizabeth Warren, “Will she brawl with the Red Meat crowd?”

Perhaps Senator Warren is too decent a person to withstand the vicious state of American national politcs.   In the latest issue of the New York Review of Books is an article titled “Warren in the Trap.” The gist of the article is that Senator Warren is too much the academe and not the brawler.   Plus, she’s woman.  The last sentence in the article reads,

“When you’re in a knife fight you don’t ask to be liked.”

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2020/03/12/elizabeth-warren-in-the-trap/

 

San Francisco Chronicle 2.25.2020

Now that Sen. Bernie Sanders has the inside track for the Democratic presidential nomination, his rivals are attacking him for being a democratic socialist — warning that he wouldn’t just lose to President Trump, but could destroy Democrats’ campaigns up and down the ballot.

Pete Buttigieg and Mike Bloomberg, both running to the right of Sanders, have been especially vocal since the Vermont independent’s victory in the Nevada caucuses Saturday. Bloomberg likened Sanders’ views to communism, and Buttigieg said he could water down the Democratic Party’s perceived stance against dictatorships.

“There will be a lot of Democrats — from statehouse to Senate — who are on the ticket with him that would distance themselves from his ideology or some of his positions,” Addisu Demissie, who managed New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker’s presidential campaign, told The Chronicle’s “It’s All Political” podcast. “This biggest challenge with a Sanders nomination will be, how does the party come together?”

Still, Demissie said, “I think he can beat President Trump.”

While the attacks coming from the Democratic presidential field on Sanders may be new, more than 6 in 10 voters know that Sanders is a socialist, according to a survey this month by Yahoo News/YouGov.

But the survey found that many didn’t know the difference between the “socialism” of Fidel Castro’s Cuba and Sanders’ version of “democratic socialism,” which he says is the modern extension of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal programs. The survey found that 38% of respondents said the two were the same and 38% said they were different. The rest weren’t sure.

The bigger challenge for Sanders: Only 35% of respondents said they would consider voting for a socialist.

The Cold War version of socialism in Castro’s Cuba is one of total government control over industry and the media. Sanders’ form of democratic socialism is more like that found in Scandinavian countries, where the government provides health care and free college.

“Most proponents of social democracy see it as a way of smoothing capitalism’s rough edges,” according to “Socialism: A Short Primer” from the Brookings Institution, “making it more humane, egalitarian, and protective, rather than replacing the market outright.”

“The important word in “democratic socialism” isn’t socialism, it’s democratic,” wrote 1988 presidential candidate and civil rights activist Jesse Jackson. “Sanders isn’t talking about making America into Cuba or Venezuela; he’s talking about extending social guarantees like those offered in most other advanced industrial states, invoking Denmark or Sweden.”

Sanders added the caveat that he condemned Castro for imprisoning political dissidents. “Unlike Donald Trump,” he said. “I do not think that Kim Jong Un is a good friend. I don’t trade love letters with a murdering dictator. Vladimir Putin, not a great friend of mine.”

Still, Buttigieg said Sanders’ praise of Castro’s literacy campaign glossed over the late Cuban leader’s atrocious record on human rights.

At Tuesday’s debate in South Carolina, Buttigieg said, “We’re not going to win these critical, critical House and Senate races if people in those races have to explain why the nominee of the Democratic Party is telling people to look at the bright side of the Castro regime.”

Bloomberg’s campaign points to a survey of voters in 42 battleground House districts conducted for his campaign. It found that “a plurality of voters (39%) say they will be less likely to vote for a Democrat for Congress if Sanders is the Democratic nominee for president and his socialist ideas are in the Democratic platform.”

Rep. Harley Rouda, D-Laguna Beach, who won a Republican-held Orange County district in 2018, told The Chronicle on Tuesday that “I’m a little concerned that anybody that far left is going to help me in my district — unless we can overcome the votes lost by additional ones he can bring in.”

Rouda, who has endorsed Bloomberg, said “it was hard to say” if Sanders could make up that difference in his district, where Republicans outnumber Democrats.

There are signs, however, that many Democrats don’t think Sanders is out of bounds. In a national Washington Post/ABC News survey of Democratic-leaning adults, 62% found Sanders to be “about right” ideologically — roughly the same as Buttigieg and former Vice President Joe Biden.

Some top California Democrats say they aren’t worried that Sanders’ ideology will drag down the party in November.

“As a strong supporter of Joe Biden, I have never bought that narrative,” Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said last week while campaigning with Biden in Las Vegas. “He’s always matched up second best (against Trump), and in some of the key states he matches up almost as well as Joe.

“When people say, ‘We need a centrist,’ or ‘We need a lefty person,’ this isn’t about where in that narrow band of Democrats they are,” Garcetti said. “It’s more about, ‘Who gives a feeling of hope to people who feel left behind?’ Joe does that, absolutely. I think Bernie does that for a lot of people, too.”

California Democratic Party chairman Rusty Hicks isn’t concerned about losing down-ballot races should Sanders be the party’s standard-bearer.

“I’m more focused on other things,” Hicks told The Chronicle.

Four first-term Democratic House members are up for re-election in Orange County districts that they took from the GOP in 2018. But the county’s Democratic chairwoman, Ada Briceño, said she didn’t think Sanders would hurt their chances. The county party has not endorsed a presidential candidate.

“I’m not of that opinion,” said Briceño, who is backing Sanders. “There is a certain energy that his candidacy brings. I’m seeing that among Latinos and among young people.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi steered clear of the controversy during a visit Monday to San Francisco. “I wish everyone well in this presidential race,” she said. “Whoever wins will be heartily embraced.”

https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/Rivals-rip-socialist-Bernie-Sanders-It-may-15083567.php#photo-19088159

Julian Assange is in the crosshairs of the American government because he made public the reality of how American leadership conducts its affairs.

The American government wants to imprison Julian Assange for life.

Julian Assange is someone who should be receiving accolades and not be the subject of prosecution and persecuation.

Hopefully the Brits will ignore the Americans extradition request and let Julian Assange continue to bring the goings on of government to the light of day.

Deutsche Welle 2.24.2020

A London court on Monday began hearing the case for the extradition of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange to the United States, a day after hundreds of protesters marched through the British capital demanding his release.

Hundreds of people including Roger Waters, the co-founder of the rock band Pink Floyd, marched through London on Saturday in a show of support for Assange. A number of prominent German politicians and intellectuals also signed an open letterappealing for his release earlier this month.

In their opening remarks, both the defense and the prosecution teams laid out their cases.

Assange’s lawyer, Edward Fitzgerald, said his client should not be extradited as he would not get a fair trial and would be a suicide risk. Fitzgerald said sending him to the US would expose Assange to inhumane and degrading treatment, as well as disproportionate sentence and prison conditions.

Fitzgerald added the extradition request was motivated by politics. The indictment was brought, “not on the basis of new revelations, but because it had become politically expedient and desirable,” Fitzgerald said.

He said the United States’ attitude to Assange had changed when Donald Trump came to power and that the president wanted to make an example of his the 48-year-old.

Fitzgerald said in 2013 the US government under former President Barack Obama had decided that Assange should not face any action. But that in 2017, after the 2016 election of Trump, an indictment was brought against Assange.

Why the change? “The answer is President Trump came into power with a new approach to freedom of speech and a new hostility to the press amounting effectively to declaring war on investigative journalists,” Fitzgerald said.

The prosecution opens

The US government began outlining its case against Assange on Monday by arguing that the WikiLeaks founder is not a free-speech champion but an “ordinary” criminal who put many lives at risk with his actions.

Lawyer James Lewis, representing the US government, called WikiLeaks’ 2010 document deluge “one of the largest compromises of classified information in the history of the United States.”

“Reporting or journalism is not an excuse for criminal activities or a license to break ordinary criminal laws,” he added.

Washington has sought his extradition for years. Assange has fought being transferred to the US since he was arrested in April last year.

A decision by the London court is not expected before May 18.

Read more: Opinion: I am Julian Assange

‘Journalism is not a crime’

In 2010, Wikileaks published hundreds of thousands of secret papers on the internet, mainly pertaining to the Iraq war.

The papers contained sensitive information about US operations in the country, including the killing of civilians and the mistreatment of prisoners.

Assange, his lawyers, and supporters argue that the whistleblower activist would not receive a fair trial in the US.

The Council of Europe’s human rights commissioner Dunja Mijatovic has also urged Britain not to hand him over, saying that press freedom and the rights of whistleblowers are at stake.

“The broad and vague nature of the allegations…are troubling as many of them concern activities at the core of investigative journalism in Europe and beyond,” Mijatovic said.

Protesters carried signs that said, “Free Julian Assange,” and “Journalism is not a crime.”

Assange’s father John Shipton addressed the crowd. He said the long confinement had damaged his son’s health and that extraditing him the US would be the same as a death sentence.

https://www.dw.com/en/julian-assanges-extradition-hearing-begins-in-london/a-52496559

February 23, 2020

Trump v Bernie

I am at peace with myself

If a Fascist can destroy a Democratic Socialist in November it is the unwavering message that this is what Americans want.

The mainstream media is in “full blown freak out mode.” This is just part of the upcoming campaign to destroy Bernie Sanders and ensure Trump’s four more years.

During Weimar Germany (1918-1933) the mainstream Media facilitated the rise of Nazism. History repeats itself in America nearly 100 years later.

👽

Common Dreams 2.23.2020

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/02/23/msnbc-full-blown-freakout-mode-bernie-sanders-cements-status-democratic-frontrunner

Now that Bernie Sanders is beginning the inexorable march toward being the Democrats nominee it will be fascinating to read and view the treatment he is given by the Mainstream Media.

Excerpted from New York Times 2.22.2020

His triumph will provide a burst of momentum that may make it difficult for the still-fractured moderate wing of the Democratic Party to slow his march to the nomination.

LAS VEGAS — Senator Bernie Sanders claimed a major victory in the Nevada caucuses on Saturday that demonstrated his broad appeal in the first racially diverse state in the presidential primary race and established him as the clear front-runner for the Democratic nomination.

In a significant show of force, the progressive Mr. Sanders was leading his nearest rivals by a significant amount in early tallies, and The Associated Press named him the winner on Saturday evening.

His triumph in Nevada, after strong performances in Iowa and New Hampshire, will propel him into next Saturday’s primary in South Carolina, and the Super Tuesday contests immediately thereafter, with a burst of momentum that may make it difficult for the still-fractured moderate wing of the party to slow his march.

Mr. Sanders’s success, and the continued uncertainty over who is his strongest would-be rival, makes it less clear than ever how centrist forces in the party can organize themselves for a potentially monthslong nomination fight. The moderate wing is still grappling with an unusually crowded field for this late in the race, no clear alternative to Mr. Sanders and no sign that any of those vying for that role will soon drop out to hasten a coalescence.

The Guardian far away in London has this report about the Black homeless population in San Francisco famous for its cable cars, Fisherman’s Wharf and Boudin French bread.

There is also a hungry underbelly which escapes the notice of most San Franciscans.

The Guardian 2.21.2020

In a city where the homeless population is 37% black, having a job doesn’t mean you can afford housing

When Tracey Mixon walks out her door in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood, she is more likely to meet another black person than in most places in the city.

 

Americans are fixated on the sentencing of Trump’s Fool Roger Stone and the Bloviator in Chief’s dismantling of America’s legal framework.

And well they should be.  

What is happening in America is occuring in Germany, too in a very nihilistic and violent level. When the Nazis are in the ascendancy violence and mayhem are the order of the day.

Watch out America. Your turn to Fascism is rapidly approaching.

Deutsche Welle 2.20.2020

German Officials have said a deadly shooting was the result of deep-seated racism, which the suspected perpetrator had posted about online. The attack came hours after the German government approved an online hate speech bill.

 

The strongarm tactics by Federal authorities arresting people in a State courthouse invasion is an assault on the rights of States to protect the undocumented.

Chesa Boudin ran on a platform of changing the criminal justice system.  He is keeping his campaign vows. He condemned the Federal authorities strongarm tactics.

Excerpted from San Francisco Chronicle 2.19.2020

Federal immigration officials said they arrested two people Tuesday at Sonoma County Superior Court, a move that infuriated immigrant rights activists and local officials who said the action will have a chilling effect on undocumented communities coming forward when crimes are committed.

San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin  issued a statement slamming the arrests. “ICE actions at courthouses undermine our ability to hold defendants accountable by deterring undocumented victims and witnesses from cooperating with the justice system,” he said. “These actions make all of us less safe.”

“We want to remind all of our residents that the city and county of San Francisco is a sanctuary city,” Mayor London Breed said in a video statement, which also featured Police Chief Bill Scott. “We will continue to do everything we can to support our immigrant communities.”

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE, informed the county Sheriff’s Office around 7:45 a.m. Tuesday that federal agents would be present at the courthouse. By the time the court’s morning sessions were under way after 9 a.m., ICE had made its arrests, according to the office of county District Attorney Jill Ravitch.

The district attorney’s office said ICE arrested “at least three” individuals in and around the courthouse. But ICE on Wednesday said it arrested two people: Antonio Hernandez Lopez and Pedro Romero Aguirre, both undocumented immigrants from Mexico.

The arrests mark the latest episode in the standoff between federal immigration officials and local authorities that adhere to city, county and state sanctuary policies. Elected officials in Sonoma County and the Bay Area at large condemned Tuesday’s arrests, which they say put communities at risk by creating an environment where people fear going to court or cooperating with law enforcement.

“Public safety partners have worked with the immigrant community to foster trust. This action will impact that effort,” Ravitch’s office said in a statement Wednesday. “It is essential that victims and witnesses feel safe to report their experiences so that we can hold the guilty accountable.”

In a joint statement several officials released, Sonoma County Public Defender Kathleen Pozzi said, “ICE operations have no place in the court building.”

ICE defended the arrests Wednesday, arguing it has the legal authority to detain the men, who have criminal convictions and several previous encounters with immigration authorities, the agency said.

The agency condemned California’s sanctuary policies and vowed to continue arresting immigrants who are in the country illegally.

“Our officers will not have their hands tied by sanctuary rules when enforcing immigration laws to remove criminal aliens from our communities,” said David Jennings, head of ICE’s San Francisco office, in a statement Wednesday.

The agency also said local jusridictions that choose not to cooperate with ICE “are likely to see an increase in ICE enforcement activity” because immigration officials will conduct a larger number of enforcement operations.

Santa Rosa Police arrested Lopez on Dec. 24 on suspicion of inflicting corporal injury to a spouse, driving under the influence and preventing a witness from reporting a crime, ICE said. The charges are pending. He has a 2005 DUI conviction and was arrested by ICE officers four times between 2004 and 2007, according to ICE. At some point, Lopez voluntarily left for Mexico and returned.

Aguirre has five criminal convictions spanning more than a decade, ICE said, including misdemeanor trespassing, driving without a license, driving under the influence, illegal entry and misdemeanor battery. The agency arrested him six times in 2010 — he returned voluntarily to Mexico three of those times and was ordered removed the remaing three times, ICE said.

Both men are in deportation proceedings.

Defense attorney Martin Woods said a client of his was scheduled to enter a plea for a misdemeanor DUI and domestic violence case Tuesday morning but never made it inside the building. Instead, his client was arrested in the parking lot around 8:30 a.m. Woods did not disclose the name of his client.

“He was on his way to court,” Woods said. “I really don’t know exactly what happened.”

Woods said he told the judge, who continued the case to March and asked for verification of the arrest. Woods said he had not spoken to his client.

Court officials in San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, Napa and Contra Costa counties said they had not heard of similar arrests in their jurisdictions. Alameda and Marin counties court officials did not immediately respond to inquiries.

But concerns still mounted about the potential impact the arrests could introduce.

A spokesman for the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office said the agency did not work with immigration officials on the arrests and it heard of the activity only when ICE called a dispatcher.

The arrests could affect all aspects of the judicial proceedings, Woods said, potentially resulting in defendants unwilling to go to courthouses and prosecutors who won’t be able to conclude cases because people won’t show up for their court appearances or to testify.

“It’s chaos,” Woods said. “Everybody at the courthouse is quite taken aback.”

 

Bernie Sanders terrifies corporate America, much of the Democratic Party and the mainstream media. Should he become President on January 20, 2021 the days of business as usual will be over.

It could be that Bernie Sanders will become the Democrats nominee. People who fear he can’t win the election are really afraid of what he would accomplish as President.  A massive shift in government priorities.

The American political campaign will be a brutal, nasty affair. Bernie will lay to waste the Trump administration, corporate America and the priviliged class. The Wall Street Journal is the best barometer in voicing the fears of the ruling class.

The Guardian 2.18.2020

 

San Francisco Outer Richmond District 2.16.2020

Kuan Yin, the beautiful statue of the goddess of compassion, rises tonight like the ancient Greek “Phoenix.” The new headless Kuan Yin obtains life from the ashes of her predecessor, the old complete Kuan Yin. The neighborhood has spoken. Vandals and degradation shall not remove the Peace of our neighborhood.

Several weeks ago mindless vandals destroyed the beautiful statue which has sat on the corner just three blocks from land’s end of San Francisco overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

The vandalism was akin to an unlawful assault on a neighborhood citizen.

The willful abuse provoked a heartfelt response of the mistreatment visited upon one of its neighborhood icons.

Kuan Yin is almost human in the adoration it draws from the citizenry.

Whether it be a vandalized work of art or a member of the neighborhood who is mistreated the people will speak out.