The litany of sexual misbehavior is unending and reaches into every strata of society. It’s a time of reckoning and settling of scores, too. The rich and famous are having to account for their actions.  In the midst of this revolution in accountability there needs to be an opportunity for targets of these allegations to have an opportunity to respond before Judgment is rendered.

Excerpted from San Francisco Chronicle 8.13.2019

The San Francisco Opera has canceled a concert appearance by Plácido Domingo planned for Oct. 6 in the wake of allegations of sexual harassment leveled against the operatic luminary.

A news story on Monday, Aug. 12, by the Associated Press reported claims by nine women of unwanted sexual behavior by Domingo going back decades. The accusers, eight singers and a dancer, said that Domingo, 78, had pressured them into sexual relationships and retaliated against them professionally if they refused his advances.

A statement from the company said, “Though the alleged incidents reported did not take place at San Francisco Opera, the Company is unable to present the artist on the War Memorial Opera House stage. San Francisco Opera is committed to its strong anti-sexual harassment policy and requires all Company members to adhere to the highest standards of professional conduct. San Francisco Opera places a great priority on creating a safe and secure environment where everyone can focus on their work and art, and in which colleagues are treated with respect, dignity and collegiality.”

In a statement released to the AP, Domingo said, “The allegations from these unnamed individuals dating back as many as thirty years are deeply troubling, and as presented, inaccurate.

“Still, it is painful to hear that I may have upset anyone or made them feel uncomfortable — no matter how long ago and despite my best intentions. I believed that all of my interactions and relationships were always welcomed and consensual.”

The charges have prompted other companies to respond as well. The Philadelphia Orchestra on Tuesday withdrew its invitation to have Domingo sing during its opening-night concert on Sept. 18.

The Metropolitan Opera, where Domingo is scheduled to sing two roles this season, issued this statement: “We take accusations of sexual harassment and abuse of power with extreme seriousness. We will await the results of the investigation into Plácido Domingo’s behavior as head of the Los Angeles Opera before making any final decisions about Mr. Domingo’s ultimate future at the Met. It should be noted that during his career at the Met as a guest artist, Mr. Domingo has never been in a position to influence casting decisions for anyone other than himself.”

https://datebook.sfchronicle.com/music/sf-opera-cancels-domingo-appearance-after-sexual-harassment-allegations

 

 

49 years ago construction of the infamous Berlin Wall began.  For 28 years it was a symbol of oppression. The current American adminstration is replicating the policies of a Police State as it seeks to build its own wall and implement its racist policies.  

Peter Fechter was 18 on August 17, 1962 when he was murdered by East German soldiers as he tried to escape to the West. His murder is the most graphic and horrid symbol of the tyranny of the Berlin Wall.

Excerpted from Deutsche Welle 8.13.2019

Victims of Berlin’s former Soviet-era Wall, whose construction began 58 years ago, are being remembered in the capital. German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier has warned of ‘new walls’ in electoral thinking.

Reunited Berlin’s mayor Michael Müller told a memorial service Tuesday that the Wall’s erection in 1961 and its fall during East Germany’s peaceful demise in 1989 were “both memories that belong together.”

Berlin’s message as a city of freedom was that “the will of people to live freely can never be defeated,” said the center-left Social Democrat (SPD) and head of today’s 3.6-million metropolis.

Despite joy over the Wall’s fall in 1989 — 28 years after its construction — the victims of Germany’s division should not be forgotten, said Müller.

German President Steinmeier, hosting talks Tuesday at his Berlin residence, warned of what he termed “the poison of hate” creating metaphorical new walls — an apparent reference to elections in three eastern German regional states — in September and October — where far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is polling strong.

It was a “perfidious distortion of history” when “political groups today in electioneering” sought to turn the legacy of Germany’s 1990 reunification into slogans of fear, said Steinmeier.

Wall along ‘death zone’

Wall construction began on August 13 1961 under former East German GDR leader Walter Ulbricht in a city then-controlled by four post-World War Two powers — the Soviet Union, USA, Britain and France.

Read more: What Germany was like when the Wall was built

Two months earlier, Ulbricht has professed that “no-one has the intention to build a wall.”

At least 140 persons were subsequently killed while trying to cross the 155-kilometer (100-mile) structure, guarded by East German forces and surrounding West Berlin – then isolated and only reachable by plane and via land corridors.

Outside Berlin, between Magdeburg and Hanover, the GDR also maintained a fortified 1,400-kilometer-long border, where at least 327 more persons are thought to have lost their lives – a figure that is still subject to critical research — while trying to flee.

Tourist magnet

Müller spoke in a memorial chapel erected in 2000  standing among widely-visited Wall remnants at the intersection of Berlin’s Benauer and Acker streets. It was here that a 19th century church was situated inside the former “death zone,” a structure which was demolished in 1985 by the GDR regime.

Pavement plaques mark where would-be escapees were stopped or dug tunnels to reach the West.

The Berlin Wall Memorial site draws hundreds of international visitors daily, many of them young tourists.

Near the former US-controlled Checkpoint Charlie, mourners were also due to remember Peter Fechter, then 18 years old, who bled to death after being shot by East German guards and despite a crowd calling for him to be rescued.

German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer was also due to visit another former Wall checkpoint, the Glienicker Bridge, near Potsdam (on Berlin’s western fringe), where numerous spy swaps took place during the Cold War.

Marathon retracing Wall route

Next weekend, sports enthusiasts hold their eighth 100 mile Berlin Wall Race, a marathon tracing — this time counter clockwise — the former barrier’s more-or less circular route.

The event, first held in 2011 and open to individuals as well as relay teams of two and four, is this year dedicated to Dieter Wohlfahrt,  a West Berlin chemistry student who helped East Germans escape, often through sewers.

Visiting, using his Austrian passport and bolt cutters on December 9 1961, he cut a border fence for escapees on December 9 1961 but was shot dead by GDR forces who hindered rescue bids by West Berlin police and British military police.

https://www.dw.com/en/berlin-honors-victims-58-years-after-the-wall-was-built/a-50004814

The spread of attacks by neo Nazis  is an almost daily occurrence be it in the United States, Europe or Scandanavia.  This pestilence is spreading all too rapidly.

Deutsche Welle 8.12.2019

The 21-year-old man is suspected of opening fire in a mosque and breaching anti-terror laws. He has pleaded not guilty and refused to be interrogated by authorities.

Mohammad Rafiq, 65, (shown above) is being hailed as a hero after he tackled a gunman who attacked a Norwegian mosque.

A man held by Norwegian authorities as a suspect in the shooting at the al-Noor Islamic Centre, outside of Oslo, appeared in court on Monday. The 21-year-old is also suspected to have murdered his 17-year-old stepsister.

No one was killed and one person was injured in the attack. Only three people were present at the house of worship when the suspect opened fire and one of the congregants was able to overpower him until police arrived.

“He is exercising his right not to be interrogated,” his defense attorney, Unni Fries, told Reuters. “He is not admitting any guilt.”

The suspect is said to have held far-right and anti-immigrant views , police said on Sunday.

Faces up to 21 years in prison

The 21-year-old will remain in pretrial detention for four weeks, after the court granted a request from prosecutors.

Authorities were seeking to hold him on suspicion of murder and for breaching anti-terrorism law by spreading severe fear among the population.

“The investigation is still in an early phase and the suspect has not made any statements to the police,” police said in a statement.

If he is found guilty of breaching anti-terrorism laws or for the killing of his stepsister, he would be facing up to 21 years in prison.

https://www.dw.com/en/norway-mosque-shooting-suspect-appears-in-court/a-49994253

Fascist thugs don’t kill innocent birds in America. Neo Nazi sociopaths murder innocent humans whose ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation offend their warped sensibilities.

Give the Germans who dealt with these punks  some credit for responding in an appropriate manner to the wanton murder of a protected species.

Excerpted from Deutsche Welle 8.11.2019

An angry crowd attacked two men suspected of killing a capercaillie, an endangered bird, in southern Germany. The men said the bird had threatened them and they merely defended themselves.

Onlookers were enraged and attacked the men, according to a report released by the police. The angry crowd beat the suspected bird killers and poured beer over them, before detaining the two until police arrived.

Two German men allegedly beat the rare capercaillie to death with a bottle on Saturday afternoon, while making their way home from a party, police in the town of Titisee-Neustadt said on Sunday.

The men, aged 20 and 22, were intoxicated at the time of the alleged incident, which occurred in Germany’s Black Forest region in the south of the country.

Read more: Pigeon caught by speed camera in Germany

The two men told police that the bird had earlier threatened them and that they merely defended themselves.

Police are investigating several of the individuals involved on suspicion of causing bodily harm and other crimes.

The capercaillie is at risk of extinction in Germany and elsewhere in Europe.

Encounters with humans are not uncommon in hilly regions where the birds live and the males are known to be very territorial.

A special action plan is currently in place in Germany’s Black Forest to stabilize the species’ population.

https://www.dw.com/en/angry-mob-attacks-men-for-killing-an-endangered-bird-in-germany/a-49988190

The frenzy of White Supremacist violence is running amok. The situation is beyond the capacity of Democratic institutions to bring under control.

Excerpted from New York Times 8.10.2019

Authorities arrested a Las Vegas man who discussed attacking a local synagogue and charged him on Friday in connection with bomb-making materials found in his home, officials said.

A study by the Kantor Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry said the number of major violent anti-Semitic incidents rose 13 percent to 387 in 2018. The study, which was released in May, said the United States had the highest number of cases, with more than 100, followed by the United Kingdom with 68.

The study found that a feeling of insecurity was prevalent among Jews who said that they sometimes sensed they were facing a state of emergency.

The man, Conor Climo, was charged on Thursday with one count of possession of an unregistered firearm, namely, the component parts of a destructive device, the Department of Justice said in a statement.

Prosecutors said that Mr. Climo, 23, had communicated with people who identify with a white supremacist extremist organization, and had encrypted online conversations in which he regularly used derogatory racial, anti-Semitic and homophobic slurs.

He discussed attacking a Las Vegas synagogue, making Molotov cocktails and improvising explosive devices, officials said. Mr. Climo also discussed conducting surveillance on a bar he believed served the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community in downtown Las Vegas.

During the execution of a search warrant on Thursday, the authorities seized a notebook with hand-drawn schematics for a potential Las Vegas-area attack. Also inside the notebook were drawings of timed explosive devices, the statement said.

 

Determined, methodical, relentless. I have been in the Elizabeth Warren camp since the day of her announcement last winter. The Senator will be the nominee.  The Wall Street Journal and Fox juggernaut will go into Bloviation Overdrive to tear her down.  The above photo montage in a recent WSJ is illustrative. 

Wall Street Journal 8.10.2019

A new national poll of the Democratic presidential primary suggests the race could soon start to feel like a two-way contest between former Vice President Joe Biden and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

Mr. Biden and Ms. Warren lead the latest Quinnipiac University poll of Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters, with 32% and 21%, respectively. That marks a high for Ms. Warren in the poll, which put Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) at 14% and Sen. Kamala Harris (D., Calif.) at 7%—a major drop from the 20% Ms. Harris boasted after the first debates in June.

According to the sample of 807 people contacted for the poll, Ms. Warren was the winner of the July round of debates. Twenty-eight percent of respondents said she did the best job in the debates, ahead of Mr. Biden, with 15%. Mr. Sanders, another leading progressive vying for some of the same supporters, took 8%.

The Massachusetts senator’s debate performance seems to have earned her support in the race: Her 21% in the recent poll taken just after the CNN forum July 30 was up from 15% in a Quinnipiac poll taken just before the debate.

Her strong night at the last debate is not the only—or main—reason to think she and Mr. Biden will begin to dominate the race. The candidates represent two emerging choices for Democratic voters in the primary race: a candidate who can beat President Trump versus one with compelling policy ideas.

Ms. Warren has consistently led on who has the best policy ideas, notching 32% in the latest poll, well above Mr. Sanders’s 16%. And Mr. Biden is without peer on the question of electability: 49% say he has the best chance of beating Mr. Trump. Mr. Biden’s overall support has also appeared to stabilize since dipping after the first debates.

The division between electability and compelling policy is not just an imaginary one. The Quinnipiac survey found that 46% of voters value a candidate who shares their policy views, while 50% want someone who is the “most electable.”

With the Democratic primary so far focusing on the question of finding a candidate with policy bona fides versus a candidate with perceived electability, Mr. Biden and Ms. Warren seem like compelling standard bearers.

 

I was exiting the Department of Public Works and was an eye witness to the immediate aftermath of one more example of Police callous indifference.

10 days ago the SFPD shot and killed a dog just three blocks away on Market Street.

Whether it’s SFPD or BART.. these cops are rogue.

SFPD, BART Police, Homeland Security, the Sheriffs were all there. Must have been at least 100 cops. The street was completely closed off.

Tax dollars being wasted.

Lead Photo – Mira Ingram

Three Photos above – Lee Heidhues

San Francisco Examiner 8.9.2019

A BART police officer shot and wounded a dog Friday in front of Civic Center BART station on Market Street around 1:10 p.m, according to BART.

This is the second time police have shot a dog on Market Street in recent weeks. San Francisco police shot a dog at Cyril Magnin and Market on July 31 after the dog allegedly “advanced” on an officer. The dog was put down after the shooting.

The dog was wounded and taken for veterinary treatment. The severity of its injuries was not immediately clear.

BART police are conducting a use of force investigation and reviewing video of the incident, said BART spokesperson Anna Duckworth.

Duckworth described the dog, which was not on a leash, as a pit bull-type dog and said it “aggressively lunged toward” the officer.

Mira Ingram, who was nearby when the shooting happened, told the San Francisco Examiner she heard the gun shot. When she turned to look at what happened, the police officer was apparently standing about five to seven feet away from the dog.

Ingram could not verify if the dog was on a leash or unleashed.

Ingram said the owner of the dog looked “traumatized” and “shocked.” After the dog was shot, the owner held the dog in his hands for several minutes, Ingram said.

On social media, some witnesses have said the dog was on a leash. A video on Facebook shows a man scooping up the dog into his arms, with a leash visibly dangling from the dog’s collar. It is unclear, however, if anyone was holding that leash when the incident occurred.

https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/bart-police-shoot-dog-in-sf/