Liz aka @simbagirrl has been documenting the political life in San Francisco the past two years.
The Recall of progressive DA Chesa Boudin, three school board members and the fight to save car free JFK Promenade and the Great Walkway along the Pacific Ocean galvanized Liz into artistic political action.
She has now turned her attention to the banking crisis which finds local banks Silicon Valley Bank and First Republic collapsing.
There is definitely a correlation between the political upheaval in San Francisco and the collapse of two local venture capital banks. David Sacks and Garry Tan were both major backers and funders of the 2022 recalls of Chesa Boudin and three school board members.
See RELATED: ‘Ballot box Political Lynching of San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin’ – March 26, 2022.
Silicon Valley libertarian David Sacks discovers the virtues of government action
Garry Tan – The Boy who cried Bail me out!
Liz political art on display
Liz displays her latest work – Rage Against the Machine
James Brown and Rolling Stone Mick Jagger at the TAMI Show
The Rolling Stones also appeared at the TAMI Show. Historically it should be noted that Mick Jagger admitted afterward that James Brown outperformed the Stones.Their performance of Off the Hook is rockin’.
Julian Assange has been the target of the American government over ten years for making public documents and video evidence about American involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The American Department of Justice is continuing to seek his extradition from England where he has been imprisoned.
Despite the world wide outcry from governments, media outlets and tens of thousands of citizens the Biden administration will not drop its extradition request.
The persecution of Julian Assange is an assault on the free press and an attack on human rights.
Most graphic documentation released by Assange is the murder of several civilians by the American military in Iraq which has come to be known as Collateral Murder
A documentary about Julian Assange and his continued imprisonment in England, Ithaka, is being shown at the selected theaters in the United States. Democracy Now interviewed Julian’s father and brother. Interviews which are part of a segment. A link to the Democracy Now segment and the trailer are attached.
What was the editor of The Jewish Press thinking when he participated in the attempted Coup d’etat in Washington on January 6, 2021?
The Feds apparently have video evidence of Elliot Resnick’s participation. The optics are not good.
The 23 page criminal indictment lays out the details in granular fashion. Click the link accordingto access the Department of Justice file.
Excerpted from The Times of Israel and The Guardian 3.16.2023
In a new arrest on Thursday, a former top editor of an Orthodox Jewish newspaper in New York was arrested on charges that he interfered with officers trying to protect the Capitolon January 6.
The former editor of an Orthodox, right-wing Jewish news site was arrested Thursday and charged with assaulting a police officer during the January 6, 2021, storming of the US Capitol by then-US president Donald Trump’s supporters.
Elliot Resnick, a 39-year-old New Yorker who had been the editor of the Jewish Press at the time of the insurrection, was also charged with the felonies of obstructing an officer from performing their duties during an incident of civil disorder, entering and remaining in restricted grounds, disorderly conduct in restricted grounds and demonstrating in a Capitol building, according to a press release from the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia.
Resnick was arrested in New York and was slated to make a court appearance later Thursday.
Videos show Resnick grabbing the arm of a police sergeant spraying a chemical irritant to stop rioters entering the building, the affidavit says. Another officer tried to remove Resnick’s hand from the sergeant’s arm, the agent wrote.
Federal prosecutors in Washington have reportedly told court officials a thousand more people could be charged in relation to the deadly January 6 Capitol attack.
Matthew Graves, the US attorney in Washington DC, sent a one-page letter to the chief judge of Washington DC federal court, apprising her of the potential deluge of defendants, Bloomberg News reported.
The correspondence provides details on what the US attorney general, Merrick Garland, has described as “one of the largest, most complex and most resource-intensive investigations in our history”.
Graves said in the letter that justice department officials estimated that another 700 to 1,200 defendants could face charges. That would nearly double the number of criminal cases relating to January 6, Bloomberg noted.
WASHINGTON D.C., USA – JANUARY 6: Security forces respond with tear gas after the US President Donald Trumps supporters breached the US Capitol security in Washington D.C., United States on January 06, 2021. Pro-Trump rioters stormed the US Capitol as lawmakers were set to sign off Wednesday on President-elect Joe Biden’s electoral victory in what was supposed to be a routine process headed to Inauguration Day. (Photo by Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Elliot Resnick, 39, was chief editor of the Jewish Press when he joined the crowd at the Capitol, according to an FBI affidavit.
Clay Kaminsky, an attorney representing Resnick, declined to comment.
The Jewish Press, based in Brooklyn, bills itself as the largest independent weekly Jewish newspaper in the US.
WASHINGTON DC, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, UNITED STATES – 2021/01/06: Rioters clash with police trying to enter Capitol building through the front doors. Rioters broke windows and breached the Capitol building in an attempt to overthrow the results of the 2020 election. Police used batons and tear gas grenades to eventually disperse the crowd. Rioters used metal bars and tear gas as well against the police. (Photo by Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Politico reported in April 2021 that video showed Resnick inside the Capitol. Resnick later wrote an article defending the riot without acknowledging his presence that day, Politico noted.
At the time, the Jewish Press publisher, Naomi Mauer, told Politico the newspaper believed Resnick “acted within the law”. The editorial board said Resnick had been “covering the rally and the rest of the day’s terrible events”.
News continues to come out about the American MQ-9 Reaper Drone downed in the Black Sea on Tuesday. In addition to the Moscow Times piece below today’s interview with Intercept journalist Jeremy Scahill sheds more light on the subject.
Jeremy Scahill emphatically reminds viewers that Vladimir Putin is totally responsible for the continuing aggression against Ukraine. What his reporting also makes perfectly clear is that the American military consciously engages in these spy games. It is a regular part of the increasingly tense relationship between Washington and Moscow.
Moscow said Wednesday it would try to retrieve the wreckage of a U.S. military drone that crashed over the Black Sea in a confrontation that Washington blamed on two Russian fighter jets.
The United States uses MQ-9 Reapers for both surveillance and strikes and has long operated over the Black Sea keeping an eye on Russian naval forces.
Reapers can be armed with Hellfire missiles as well as laser-guided bombs and can fly for more than 1,100 miles (1,770 kilometers) at altitudes of up to 15,000 meters (50,000 feet), according to the US Air Force.
Russia also warned against “hostile” U.S. flights as tensions simmered and Russia denied its Su-27 military aircraft had clipped the propeller of the unmanned Reaper drone.
Kyiv meanwhile countered that the incident over international waters was evidence the Kremlin wants to draw the United States into the conflict in Ukraine.
“I don’t know whether we’ll be able to retrieve it or not but it has to be done. And we will certainly work on it,” Russian Security Council secretary Nikolai Patrushev said in televised remarks.
NikolaiPatrushev said the incident was further proof that the United States is a direct party to fighting between Moscow and Kyiv and said Russia had a responsibility to “defend our independence and our sovereignty.”
Russia’s Defense Ministry said it had scrambled jets after detecting a U.S. drone over the Black Sea and denied causing the crash.
The Pentagon said the drone was on a routine mission when it was intercepted “in a reckless, environmentally unsound and unprofessional manner.”
Russia said the aircraft had lost control but White House national security spokesman John Kirby said the U.S. “obviously” refuted the denial.
He added the United States was trying to prevent the fallen drone from getting into the wrong hands.
“We’ve taken steps to protect our equities with respect to that particular drone — that particular aircraft,” Kirby told CNN.
Russia’s campaign in Ukraine has led to heightened fears of a direct confrontation between Moscow and the NATO alliance, which has been arming Kyiv to help it defend itself.
Reports of a missile strike in eastern Poland in November briefly caused alarm before Western military sources concluded it was a Ukrainian air defense missile, not a Russian one.
Several U.S. Reapers have been lost in recent years, including to hostile fire.
One was shot down in 2019 over Yemen with a surface-to-air missile fired by Huthi rebels, the U.S. Central Command said at the time.
Why a Russian fighter aircraft would strike an unmanned American drone over the Black Sea raises a lot of questions. Perhaps the Russians believe the drone was conducting surveillance of Russian operations in Ukraine.
Whatever the reason the incident only serves to ratchet up already tense relations between Washington and Moscow.
Deutsche Welle 3.14.2023
The US said it summoned the Russian ambassador on Tuesday, after a Russian fighter jet forced down a US military “Reaper” surveillance drone over the Black Sea.
The US said that a Russian fighter jet struck the propeller of the surveillance drone in “brazen violation of international law.”
Black Sea adjacent to Ukraine where Russian fighter aircraft downed an American drone
Ned Price, the spokesman for the State Department, said, “We are summoning the Russian ambassador to the State Department.”
Moscow said the American drone sharply maneuvered and crashed after an encounter with Russian jets near Crimea, but insisted that Russian fighter jets didn’t fire weapons or hit the drone.
The Russian Defense Ministry said their fighters from air defense forces on duty were in the air to identify the “intruder” over the Black Sea.
The Russian ambassador to Washington, Anatoly Antonov, described the US drone flight as a “provocation,” saying there was no reason for US military aircraft and warships to be near Russia’s borders.
Speaking after meeting US Assistant Secretary of State for Europe Karen Donfried, Antonov added that Moscow wants “pragmatic” ties with Washington and “don’t want any confrontation between the US and Russia.”
US Air Force General James Hecker, who oversees the US Air Force in the region, said in a statement, “Our MQ-9 aircraft was conducting routine operations in international airspace when it was intercepted and hit by a Russian aircraft, resulting in a crash and complete loss of the MQ-9.”
The US military added the incident followed a pattern of dangerous behavior by Russian pilots operating near aircraft flown by the US and its allies, including over the Black Sea.
Spy v. Spy in the Sky – A most dangerous game
US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters they don’t “need to have some sort of check-in with the Russians before we fly in international airspace. There’s no requirement to do that nor do we do it.”
The Black Sea lies between Europe and Asia and is bordered by Russia and Ukraine, among other countries.
The Russian fighter jet on Tuesday (Mar 14) dumped fuel on the American drone over the Black Sea and then collided with it, causing the drone to crash, the US military said, slamming the manoeuvre as “reckless”.
A Russian Su-27 jet fighter similar to the aircraft involved in Tuesday’s incident. PHOTO: VADIM SAVITSKY/TASS/ZUMA PRESS
US European Command said two Russian Su-27 fighters intercepted the unmanned MQ-9 Reaper over international waters and one clipped its propeller.
“Several times before the collision, the Su-27s dumped fuel on and flew in front of the MQ-9 in a reckless, environmentally unsound and unprofessional manner,” it said.
Moscow denied causing the crash of the drone, which the Pentagon said was on a routine ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance) mission.
American MQ-9 ‘Reaper’ drone downed over the Black Sea by Russian fighter aircraft
“As a result of a sharp manoeuvre … the MQ-9 unmanned aerial vehicle entered an uncontrolled flight with loss of altitude and collided with the surface of the water,” the Russian Defense Ministry said, adding that the two Russian jets had no contact with the US aircraft and did not use their weapons.
“We are engaging directly with the Russians, again at senior levels, to convey our strong objections to this unsafe, unprofessional intercept, which caused the downing of the unmanned US aircraft,” spokesman Ned Price told reporters.
Since last Friday I have been trying to sort through all the events surrounding the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, the intervention by the Feds and, now, a blizzard of reporting on what comes next.
It took a column by Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman to clear the air and provide a reality check.
Excerpted in The New York Times – Paul Krugman 3.13.2023
If there is one thing almost all observers of the economic scene have agreed about, it is that the issues facing the U.S. economy in 2023 are very different from those it faced in its last crisis, in 2008.
Back then we were dealing with collapsing banks and plunging demand; these days banking has been a back-burner issue and the big problem has seemed to be inflation, driven by too much demand relative to the available supply.
While the value of bank deposits is federally insured, that insurance extends only up to $250,000. S.V.B., however, got its deposits mainly from business clients with multimillion-dollar accounts — at least one client (a crypto firm, of course) had $3.3 billion at S.V.B. Since S.V.B.’s clients were effectively uninsured, the bank was vulnerable to a bank run, in which everyone rushes to withdraw money while there’s still something left.
And the run came. Now what?
Even if the government had done nothing, the fall of S.V.B. probably wouldn’t have had huge economic repercussions. In 2008 there were fire sales of whole asset classes, especially mortgage-backed securities; since S.V.B.’s investments were so boring, similar fallout would be unlikely. The main damage would come from disruption of business as firms found themselves unable to get at their cash, which would be worse if S.V.B.’s fall led to runs on other medium-size banks.
That said, on precautionary grounds government officials felt — understandably — that they needed to find a way to guarantee all of S.V.B.’s deposits.
It’s important to note that this doesn’t mean bailing out stockholders: S.V.B. has been seized by the government, and its equity has been wiped out. It does mean saving some businesses from the consequences of their own foolishness in putting so much money in a single bank, which is infuriating — especially because so many tech types were vocal libertarians until they themselves needed a bailout.
Indeed, probably none of this would have happened if S.V.B. and others in the industry hadn’t successfully lobbied the Trump administration and Congress for a relaxation of bank regulations, a move rightly condemned at the time by Lael Brainard, who has just become the Biden administration’s top economist.
A notice hangs on the door of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) located in San Francisco, California, U.S. March 10, 2023. REUTERS/Krystal Hu
The good news is that taxpayers probably won’t be on the hook for much if any money.
It’s not at all clear that S.V.B. was actually insolvent; what it couldn’t do was raise enough cash to deal with a sudden exodus of depositors. Once things have stabilized, its assets will probably be worth enough, or almost enough, to pay off depositors without an infusion of additional funds.
And then we’ll be able to return to our regularly scheduled crisis programming.
The Academy Awards would not be complete without at least one political statement.
This year there were three.
It’s a telling statement about the state of political discourse in the United States when the best international film is stridently anti-war German production.
The best documentary film is about a Russian dissident who is imprisoned for standing up to Vladimir Putin.
The best adapted screenplay Academy Award went to Women Talking, written and directed by Sarah Polley.
This is the first win for Sarah Polley, who was nominated for the same award in 2007 for “Away From Her.”
“I want to thank the Academy for not being mortally offended by the words women and talking so close together,” Ms. Polley said in her acceptance speech.
Perhaps those privileged members of the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Science want to send a message that says, “We care.”
It begs the question. Where are the courageous dissidents in the United States?
I am sure there are many who are fighting for environmental justice, civil rights and a fair justice system. You just don’t often read or hear about these people in the mainstream media.
The wealthy are too busy worrying about the their holdings at the failed Silicon Valley Bankand breathing a sigh of relief that Washington has bailed them out of their predicament.
The rest of America is too busy obsessing over the soon to be indicted wastrel Donald Trump and how this criminal charge will impact his run for the White House in 2024.
Excerpted from Deutsche Welle 3.12.2023
All Quiet on the Western Front wins best international film
Midway through the evening, German production All Quiet on the Western Front won the Academy Award for best international film.
The Netflix original film brought audiences a gruesome anti-war message almost a hundred years after the original book by Erich Maria Remarque was published.
Navalny wins best documentary amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
A documentary about jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has won the Oscar for best documentary feature.
Navalny explores the poisoning that nearly killed the Kremlin critic in 2020 and his subsequent detention upon his return to Moscow in 2021.
“My husband is in prison just for telling the truth. My husband is in prison just for defending democracy,” his wife, Yulia Navalnaya, said at the ceremony.
“Alexei, I am dreaming of the day when you will be free and our country will be free. Stay strong, my love.”
Bank failures are akin to a tsunami in the financial world.
The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank is a world wide story receiving major headline coverage.
The collapse of this bank, 16th largest in the United States, holds particular relevancy in the Bay Area.
The Standard, an online publication in San Francisco, was founded by prominent venture capitalists. Its current online edition has eight stories about the collapse of SVB. https://sfstandard.com/ A lead story being headlined ‘Bay Area Investors Clamor for Government to Step up After Silicon Valley Bank Meltdown.’
The Wall Street Journal is playing the story across the front page of its online edition.The last sentence in the editorial is the most telling about what America’s leading financial publication is really thinking.
But nobody, least of all central bank oracles, should be surprised that there are now bodies washing up on shore as the tide goes out. Investors will have to brace for what could be some heavy weather ahead.
Following is the WSJ editorial.
Wall Street Journal editorial 3.10.2023
There’s nothing like a bank panic to make for a relaxing weekend.
Markets took another header on Friday, as regulators closed Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), the 16th largest U.S. bank and the biggest to fail since the 2008 crisis. This came days after Silvergate Capital announced it is liquidating its bank. Cracks in the financial system emerge whenever interest rates rise quickly after an easy-credit mania, and the surprise is that it took so long.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation took over SVB on Friday and may have to collect more bodies by the time the Federal Reserve is done correcting its easy-money mistakes. At least that seems to be the fear of investors, judging by the sharp selloff in regional bank stocks like First Republic Bank (-14.8%) and PacWest Bancorp (-37.9%).
SVB’s customers include leading venture-capital firms and tech startups, including some Chinese firms that need offshore accounts to raise foreign capital. San Diego-based Silvergate is smaller but grew in recent years by serving crypto companies.
What the two have in common is that they lacked diverse deposit bases and fell victim of a classic banking strategy of borrowing short and lending long. Although their liabilities were backed by putatively safe assets like Treasury bonds, when interest rates rise the bonds that banks hold lose value. They have to be held to maturity or incur losses when sold.
SVB and Silvergate incurred steep losses as they sold bonds to compensate for fleeing deposits. A regulatory crackdown on crypto also spurred Silvergate customers to bail, sticking it with even bigger losses.
Silvergate on Wednesday said it would liquidate “in light of recent industry and regulatory developments.” Its crypto ties may have made it too politically toxic for another bank to take over. While regulators will surely flog Silvergate’s failure as a warning not to serve the crypto industry, its concentrated deposit base was the main cause of its demise.
SVB’s business model was more durable but still vulnerable to market shocks. Rising interest rates have made it hard for its startup clients to raise fresh equity. As its customers drew down deposits, SVB had to sell bonds at a loss. SVB disclosed this week that it had lost $1.8 billion on securities sales and would need to raise $2.25 billion in equity.
Cops stand guard over the bankrupt Silicon Valley Bank
This stoked fears of insolvency, which caused customers and investors to bolt. It was reportedly searching for a buyer on Friday, and we hope regulators didn’t pre-empt potential private investors by closing SVB so quickly on the same day.
Bank of America and J.P. Morgan rescued smaller banks during the 2008 crisis. But banks may be reluctant to do that again since regulators last time punished them for the sins of their foster children. The takeover of SVB will presumably cost the FDIC money to repay insured depositors.
But if SVB was doomed, it is better to let it fail than have the government bail it out, despite what one hedge-fund lord suggested this week. Didn’t we learn from the 2008 crisis that the feds’ rescue of Bear Stearns encouraged everyone to believe that Lehman Brothers would be rescued too?
There doesn’t appear to be any obvious systemic risk to the financial system from the SVB and Silvergate failures, and market discipline needs to prevail unless there is danger of a larger financial breakdown. SVB investors and customers benefited from the government’s easy money. Why should they also benefit from a government lifeline after taking risks with that easy money?
This week’s bank failures are another painful lesson in the costs of a credit mania fed by bad monetary policy. The reckoning always arrives when the Fed has to correct its mistakes. That was the story of 2008, and it’s the eternal lesson that economic historian Charles Kindleberger taught in “Manias, Panics, and Crashes.” We saw the first signs of panic in last year’s crypto crash and the liquidity squeeze at British pension funds.
Now it’s hit the U.S. financial system, and there are likely to be more casualties. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Friday that the U.S. banking system “remains resilient,” but that’s what Fed officials Ben Bernanke and Tim Geithner thought before the 2008 panic.
While big banks today are much better capitalized than before the 2008 financial crisis, some regional and small banks with less diverse deposit bases may be vulnerable to shocks. Some may be over-exposed to industries such as commercial real estate that are under stress. The Fed will have to be careful as it continues its anti-inflation campaign.
But nobody, least of all central bank oracles, should be surprised that there are now bodies washing up on shore as the tide goes out. Investors will have to brace for what could be some heavy weather ahead.
Germany has been rocked by a mass shooting at a Jehovah’s Witness center in the port city of Hamburg.
Hamburg’s Mayor called the mass killing “shocking.”
This type violence is a rarity in Germanywhere there are strict gun control laws.
In America where guns are as easy to purchase as hamburgers random mass violence is all too common.
The New York Post 3.9.2023
At least six or seven people were killed and eight others were injured during a shooting inside a church in Hamburg, Germany, on Thursday.
Hamburg police reported that shots were fired inside a Jehovah’s Witness center in the Gross Borstel district at around 9 p.m. local time, resulting in “several” fatalities.
German news sites reported that seven people were gunned down and eight others were wounded. Police officials said the gunman is likely among the dead found at the scene.
“There were about four periods of shooting,” student Laura Bauch told German news agency dpa. “There were always several shots in these periods, roughly at intervals of 20 seconds to a minute.
“We only know that several people died here; several people are wounded, they were taken to hospitals,” police spokesman Holger Vehren said, without confirming an exact number of casualties.
Residents in the area received a shelter-in-place order amid the police investigation, while cops responded to the three-story building.
German police at the scene of the mass shooting in Hamburg
Officers who responded to the mass shooting found people with gunshot wounds on the ground floor and then heard the sound of a gun firing from a floor above. They discovered a person who had been fatally shot upstairs and believe that person may have been the shooter, Vehren said.
Investigators were still attempting to verify that the casualties were the work of a lone gunman, police officials said early Friday.
Nearby residents told local media they heard a barrage of gunshots and saw a person running from floor to floor during the shooting.
Gregor Miesbach, who can see the building from his home, said he heard at least 25 shots in an interview with the German news station NonstopNews.
He said he heard gunshots and then took out his phone and filmed a person entering the building through a window followed by the sound of gunfire. The figure briefly reappears in a courtyard on the property and then re-enters the building and more shots can be heard.
After police arrived on the scene, Miesbach said, he heard one last gunshot about five minutes later.
Heavily armed German law enforcement in Hamburg
The mayor of Hamburg, Germany’s second-largest city, called the shooting “shocking” in a tweet.
“I extend my deepest sympathy to the families of the victims. The forces are working at full speed to pursue the perpetrators and clarify the background,” Mayor Peter Tschentscher tweeted.
Lee's Perspective 