2019 Cultural News from Back in the USSR

Excerpted from Deutsche Welle 8.1.2019

In support of Russia’s LGBTQ community, two male members of the German heavy metal group kissed in front of a massive crowd in Moscow. Under a so-called gay propaganda law, the kiss could be considered illegal.

During a concert Monday night in Moscow, Rammstein guitarists Paul Landers and Richard Kruspe kissed onstage in front of a crowd of 81,000 at Luschniki stadium, Russia’s largest football stadium.

The band then posted a picture on Instagram and Facebook with the caption, “Russia, we love you.”

The gesture from the German heavy metal band was in defiance of Russia’s “gay propaganda” law, which makes it illegal to display or promote “non-traditional sexual relations.” The law was passed in 2013, ostensibly to protect minors.

Attacks against members of the LGBTQ+ community are a regular occurrence in Russia. Perpetrators are rarely prosecuted, according to human rights activists.

The kiss in Moscow was not the first time the band members have smooched while performing their song “Ausländer” (foreigner), nor was it the first sign of support for the LGBT community from Rammstein during their current tour.

Read more: Rammstein: Sons of East German punk

At a concert last week in Chorzow, Poland, Rammstein drummer Christoph Schneider was hoisted above the crowd in an inflatable raft waving a rainbow pride flag.

https://www.dw.com/en/rammstein-band-members-kiss-onstage-in-moscow-in-support-of-lgbt-rights/a-49837727

 

San Francisco cops. Mindless and cruel.  C’mon.  A dog. Where’s the common sense and accountability? Another graphic example of quick draw behavior by law enforcement.

San Francisco Examiner 7.31.2019

Police shot a dog in downtown San Francisco late Wednesday afternoon.

An officer opened fire after the canine “advanced” on him near Cyril Magnin and Market streets at around 3:45 p.m., according to Sgt. Michael Andraychak, a San Francisco police spokesperson.

A witness who declined to give her name said she was walking down Market Street when she saw the officer shoot the dog “for no apparent reason.”

Andraychak said the officer retreated before shooting the dog once.

The dog was taken to an emergency animal hospital and euthanized, Andraychak said.

He said police detained the person “responsible for the dog” but did not say why.

An hour after the shooting, officers had the area outside the Carl’s Jr. fast food restaurant cordoned off. About four police cars and more than a dozen officers were at the scene.

Deb Campbell, a spokesperson for the San Francisco Animal Care and Control, confirmed that animal control officers responded to the scene.

https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/police-shoot-dog-on-market-street/

 

Every Picture Tells a Story – Ongoing Series – 7.30.2019

Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders formed a tag team on the debate stage to defend their liberal policies against moderates on the attack.   New York Times

Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren at the CNN sponsored Presidential debate in Detroit.  

The “Progressives” should be smart enough to avoid a self-immolation by internecine warfare.  Only one person will benefit.

 

 

 

San Francisco government will do everything possible to keep its police officers from being disciplined. 

Excerpted from San Francisco Examiner 7.30.2019

A dispute over whether San Francisco has run out of time to fire two of the officers implicated in exchanging racist and homophobic text messages could result in the cops avoiding discipline.

Sgt. Michael Wibunsin and Officer Angel Lozano have asked a judge to dismiss the disciplinary charges that the Department of Police Accountability filed against them last November over the bigoted text messages.

City records show that the officers remain on the force.

Wibunsin and Lozano were among the 14 officers allegedly connected with the text messages that federal authorities made public in early 2015 after discovering them during an investigation into police corruption.

The messages were discovered on the phone of a former police sergeant at the center of the corruption probe. The texts included the frequent use of the n-word, a homophobic slur and phrases such as “cross burning lowers blood pressure.”

At issue is whether a one-year statute of limitations had expired by the time the DPA sought to fire Wibunsin and Lozano.

Attorneys for the officers say The City missed the deadline. But the City Attorney’s Office argues that separate litigation over the text messages effectively stopped the clock from running for several years.

San Francisco Superior Court Judge Ethan Schulman appeared to side with the officers earlier this month when he temporarily blocked the Police Commission from holding a disciplinary hearing for Wibunsin.

Though he has not made a final decision in the case, Schulman indicated that he believed the limitations period had expired.

The DPA sought to fire the two officers after an apparent technicality prompted the San Francisco Police Department to withdraw its long-pending charges against them last May.

When former Police Chief Greg Suhr filed the initial charges in April 2015, attorneys for Wibunsin and Lozano argued that he did not sufficiently notify the officers about what discipline they were facing.

“The fact that the complaint was later withdrawn in light of a procedural defect does not call for tolling of the limitations period until DPA could file its complaint several years later,” Schulman wrote in his July 8 ruling, approving a preliminary injunction against The City.

“Having dismissed its initial disciplinary complaint, The City is not entitled to essentially refile its complaint through a different agency long after the limitations period ran,” Schulman continued.

The ruling marks the latest roadblock that city officials have faced while attempting to punish nine of the officers involved in the scandal, which plainly showed for many that racial bias existed within the SFPD.

https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/two-accused-cops-seek-to-have-charges-against-them-dismissed/

In Germany there are limits on what is considered free speech,  when it comes to espousing Nazi philosophy.  It is  a slippery slope when curtailing speech. The Germans understandably have drawn a line in what is protected speech. 

This article was originally published in February 2018

Deutsche Welle 2.8.2018

A court in Stuttgart sentenced the 29-year-old creator of the banned neo-Nazi websiteAltermedia to 30 months in prison. The site published content that denied the Holocaust and targeted Jews, refugees and foreigners.

A 29-year-old IT specialist and driving force behind the neo-Nazi “Altermedia Deutschland” websitewas given a prison sentence by a court in Stuttgart on Thursday, two years after authorities shut the site down.

Presiding Judge Herbert Anderer said the defendants’ actions left him “speechless” and “at a loss.” Although the trial came to an end, it remains unclear what motivated the defendants to create, contribute to and moderate the neo-Nazi website.

The man, identified as Ralph Thomas K. in accordance with German privacy laws, was found guilty of inciting racial hatred and being the ringleader of a criminal organization. He was sentenced to two years and six months behind bars.

Users used Nazi slogans to greet one another on the site and certain posts also contained statements denying the Holocaust — which is a crime in Germany.

Prior to its ban, the website was one of Germany’s most popular far-right sites and attached around 5 million visitors. Altermedia was also tied to US white supremacist and former Ku Klux Klan member David Duke.

Read more: Five questions about banned neo-Nazi website ‘Altermedia’

Three women were also on trial for their roles in maintaining the right-wing extremist internet platform. One of them, a 48-year-old woman who worked in a call center, was identified as a key player in the website and she was given a two year suspended sentence.

A 64-year-old woman was given a 15-month suspended sentence for several charges of incitement and a 62-year-old woman received an eight-month suspended sentence for taking part in a criminal organization and abetting incitement to hatred. The two women moderated forums on the Altermedia site.

The German government shut down the site on Holocaust Remembrance Day in 2016 after a series of police raids.

The court in Stuttgart found that the site published content that incited violence against foreigners living in Germany and “propagated hate” towards refugees and Jews. Prosecutors presented a sample of 30 posts on Altermedia to the court that included slander and death threats.

Read more: Germany implements new internet hate speech crackdown

https://www.dw.com/en/german-gets-jail-time-for-running-neo-nazi-website-altermedia/a-42509155

US President seeks to to label anti-fascists as Terrorists.  Red Meat for his base. A campaign tactic to further  alienate the opposition.

Excerpted from Deutsche Welle 7.29.2019

“I am Antifa” began trending in Germany after Trump said he might label the group a terror organization. Left-wing politicians hit back at the US president, while far-right politicians expressed support for the proposal.

The hashtag #IchbinAntifa (“I am Antifa”) began trending on Twitter in Germany on Sunday after US President Donald Trump said he was considering labeling the group a terrorist organization.

The Anti-Defamation League, a leading Jewish group in the United States focused on hate crimes, describes Antifa as “a loose collection of groups, networks and individuals who believe in active, aggressive opposition to far right-wing movements.”

Early anti-fascist groups in Europe fought against Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. The modern Antifa movement began to take shape in the 1960s and became active in the US in the 1970s.

Antifa, which is short for anti-fascists, is a loose network comprised of radical left-wing activists that confront right-wing extremists, neo-Nazi groups and white supremacists.

On Saturday, the US president said that the new classification “would make it easier for police to do their jobs,” and dubbed the anti-fascist group “gutless radical left wack jobs.”

Read more: Antifa rise to prominence in Donald Trump’s United States

In response, German social media users and some politicians pushed back against Trump’s remarks, with the “I am antifa” hashtag taking the number one spot on Twitter’s trending list.

“I am Antifa always and every time. German history compels us to stand up against racism and fascism. On the street and in parliament,” wrote Bernd Riexinger, co-chairman of the Left party.

Sven Lehmann, a Greens MP and the party’s spokesperson for social and queer policy, wrote on Twitter that he supports Antifa because the group “often looked closely when people were devalued or attacked, where others looked away.”

Although many Antifa members participate in peaceful protests, they have been criticized for believing violence is justified to combat racist or fascist groups.

Recent clashes between left-wing and right-wing protesters in the US prompted conservative Republican lawmakers to propose classifying Antifa as a terrorist organization.

https://www.dw.com/en/trumps-threat-to-label-antifa-terrorist-group-triggers-row-in-germany/a-49780400

The American President is an embarassment and disgrace to the country upon which he has foisted his warped, misguided and destructive persona. The people who voted for this abomination are responsible for the ongoing daily disaster.

The President’s latest scrurrilous attack on the City of Baltimore and its Black Congressman Elijah Cummings is nothing more than red meat to fire up his base.

Excerpted from The Guardian 7.28.2019

The creator and star of the seminal TV series The Wire have blasted Donald Trump, after the president described Democratic congressman Elijah Cummings’ Baltimore-centered district as a “disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess”.

Series creator David Simon, who worked as a police reporter on the Baltimore Sun before turning to script-writing, called Trump a “simplistic, racist moron” and “a permanent stain on our land”.

In an email to the Guardian on Sunday, the actor Dominic West, who played Detective Jimmy McNulty in all five seasons of The Wire, asked: “What would a lonely hysterical neurotic who uses hand cleanser all day understand about a vibrant community like Baltimore?
On Sunday, he also quoted Michigan congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, another target of Trump’s racist invective, when he added: “Impeach the motherfucker!”

The president triggered another racism-tinged firestorm with his attack on Cummings. Simon was not the only famous Baltimorean to comment.

The filmmaker John Waters told ARTnews: “Give me the rats and roaches of Baltimore any day over the lies and racism of your Washington, Mr Trump. Come on over to that neighborhood and see if you have the nerve to say it in person!”

In tweets on Saturday, Simon described the president as an “empty-suit, race-hating fraud” who would “wet himself” if he spent five minutes in West Baltimore.

He expanded on his theme, saying Trump would be terrified if he “stepped out of his limo and found himself suddenly a racial minority”.

If Trump dared to visit Baltimore – a city with an African American majority, according to the US census – Simon said he would find the “humanity of those he encountered could not matter to him; only their lack of whiteness and his discomfort”.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/jul/28/david-simon-donald-trump-simplistic-racist-moron

The brutal interrogation of a suspect is abhorrent. 

Given the world wide shock and outrage evident in the global media it is understandable why this suspect  in the murder of an unarmed Italian officer is being treated brutally.

The Italian authorities, representative of the nation, are angry and mortified.

Excerpted from Los Angeles Times, New York Post and CNN 7.28.2019

ROME — 

The two young men, who were high school classmates in Mill Valley near San Francisco and were reportedly vacationing in Rome, had purchased what they thought were drugs from a street dealer hours earlier, authorities said, only to find that instead of cocaine they had been sold ground-up aspirin.

To get even they allegedly stole a bag from a man they believed was an accomplice of the dealer, demanding 100 euros and a gram of cocaine for its return, police said.

The man, however, informed the police, who sent two plainclothes officers to the rendezvous.

The two officers, including Cerciello Rega, announced they were police, but Elder allegedly stabbed Cerciello Rega eight times before fleeing with Natale Hjorth, authorities said. The police said Elder later confessed after the knife was found in the hotel room the teens were sharing.

 

My City  has enough problems for all the world to witness in person,  view and read about 24/7.

Ever expanding downtown expansion, exorbitant housing prices, over-burdened public transit, traffic congestion, pedestrian and bicycle fatalities and an intractable Homeless problem have given San Francisco a Dystopian image.

Worst of all, San Francisco has become a political and cultural punching bag for the Right wing media machine.

Now the City’s reputation will  be tarnished further by a crime committed near  The Vatican, allegedly by two young San Franciscans.

The San Francisco Chronicle reports that the two accused of the murder graduated from Tamalpais High School in Mill Valley. This is the same school from which I graduated long ago.  This factoid makes the whole affair even more depressing on a personal level.

San Francisco Examiner 7.27.2019

Two 19-year-old US citizens have confessed to a fatal knife attack on a Carabinieri police officer in Rome, police said on Saturday.

The alleged perpetrators, identified in a report by ABC as San Franciscans Gabriel Christian Natale Hjorth and Finnegan Lee Elder, were arrested after they were located in a hotel room hiding behind a ceiling panel. They both confessed to the attack during an interrogation after being taken into police custody.

Police officer Mario Cerciello Rega, 35, was fatally stabbed eight times overnight into Friday in Rome’s central Prati district near the Vatican.

Cerciello Rega was among several officers involved in a plain clothes operation against two thieves who had stolen a backpack from an Italian man. The thieves had offered to return the backpack to the victim in exchange for 100 euros and a gram of cocaine.

After reporting the crime to police, the man arranged a meeting point with the thieves. When the Carabinieri showed up instead, they were attacked with a knife.

Police had previously said that the perpetrator of the stabbing was “probably an African citizen,” a description that unleashed caustic commentary from the ruling far-right League party.

A police statement did not clarify which of the two teens carried out the attack.

https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/san-francisco-teens-confess-to-fatal-stabbing-of-italian-policeman/

Hitler’s grip on Germany was cemented following the Reichstag Fire in February 1933. Hitler blamed Communists, Jews, labor unions and used his newly won position as Chancellor to destroy the opposition and begin the 12 years of Nazi terror.

Ninety climbers, 100,000 square meters of silvery tarpaulins and 5 million enchanted visitors — the wrapping of the Reichstag Building in the summer of 1995 is considered the most spectacular work by artist couple Christo and Jeanne-Claude. From then on everything seemed possible, including the choice to once again make the Reichstag the seat of a democratically elected German parliament. (Photo above)

Excerpted from Deutsche Welle 7.26.2019

A newly discovered witness account by an ex-Nazi officer has cast fresh doubt on claims a Dutch communist was behind the 1933 Reichstag fire. The blaze was used by the Nazis to crack down on their opponents.

https://www.dw.com/en/ex-nazi-testimony-sparks-fresh-mystery-over-1933-reichstag-fire/a-49765704