October 9, 2022
Letter to Chronicle Bill Nagel, Publisher and Emilio Garcia-Ruiz, Editor
ONGOING ARBITRARY VIOLATION OF LEE HEIDHUES’ RIGHTS AS A SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE SUBSCRIBER
Re: Block from @SFChronicle – Twitter site
Sincerely, Liz Heidhues
Lee Heidhues 10.9.2022
I was in High School when the Cuban Missile Crisis totally upended my life. The entire Planet Earth was transfixed with the looming spectre of nuclear war.
It was genuinely terrifying.
Years before the Internet people were glued to their television sets, radios and newspapers as the Crisis unfolded.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis
Now we have Vladimir Putin threatening to use nuclear weapons as his war of aggression falters in Ukraine.
We can only watch and wait.
Perhaps the best cinematic take on the Cuban Missile Crisis is the 2000 film “Thirteen Days.” For those of you who want a quick primer on this terrifying period 60 years ago the movie is a good place to start.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirteen_Days_(film)
Lee Heidhues 10.8.2022
Photos by Liz Heidhues
It was a foggy afternoon in historic Golden Gate Park in the midst of Fleet Week with the Blue Angels flying overhead.
The foggy cool weather did not dampen the enthusiasm of the crowd which came to enjoy Prom on the Prom as advocates for Proposition J fight to preserve the car free oasis JFK Promenade.
There was music, food, a photo booth, free books courtesy of the San Francisco Public Library, and an atmosphere of camaraderie in the air.
Valet parking at Prom on the Prom
Dancing at Prom on the Prom
Luke Bornheimer – longtime advocate for JFK Promenade
Lee Heidhues 10.7.2022
People may be protesting around the Globe the murder by Iran’s “morality police” of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini for violating the strict dress code for women.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Mahsa_Amini
But, back in Iran, it’s business as usual. The government continues its crackdown on protest as The People struggle to have their voice of protest heard.
Excerpted from Deutsche Welle 10.7.2022
Iranian authorities have been struggling to put an end to the demonstrations that have roiled the country for weeks. The protests against the leadership began following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini after her arrest by Iran’s so-called morality police for allegedly failing to observe the Islamic Republic’s strict dress code for women.
The internet is still very slow. I feel cut off from the world;” “VPN connections don’t work this time either;” “Messaging services like WhatsApp or Signal are blocked.” These kinds of messages are rife in Iran amid escalating anti-hijab protests and people in the Islamic country are reporting extensive internet blockades.
Streets in the capital Tehran are quieter during the day. It’s a long weekend in the country, but more protests are planned for the coming days. To prevent this from happening, the country’s police and security forces are arbitrarily arresting civil society activists and journalists.
On Wednesday, Iranian police arrested Amir Mirmirani, one of the country’s best-known bloggers. For a decade, Mirmirani has been producing a tech podcast, “Jadi.” In 2021, it received a national prize for the dissemination of knowledge.
From an award-winning blogger and podcaster, Mirmirani has become a “public enemy,” as his recent podcasts have openly criticized the internet blockades. He is also one of the few tech pros who did not support the government’s plans to “nationalize” the internet. Five of these IT experts have been arrested in the past few days as a result.
Authorities have so far detained people from various walks of life, including football players, singers, students, filmmakers and women’s rights activists.
“The wave of arrests started in Kurdistan, shortly after Mahsa Amini’s funeral,” said Asieh Amini, an author and women’s rights activist who currently lives in exile in Norway.
She has compiled a list of female activists who have been arrested in the past three weeks. Among those on the list is Bahareh Hedayat, who was detained by authorities on October 3. The 41-year-old has been repeatedly arrested over the past 13 years, following the 2009 anti-government protests in the country. She has served a total of seven years in prison during this period for her peaceful advocacy for greater democracy in Iran. She has not commented publicly on the ongoing demonstrations.
https://www.dw.com/en/iran-hunts-down-anti-hijab-activists/a-63373577
Top photo – Mahsa Amini – Murdered by Iran’s “morality police.”
October 7, 2022
The media must continue to dig and expose the blatant ethical dishonesty of San Francisco’s interim District Attorney.
Today The San Francisco Standard published a piece with details about an Ethics Complaint filed with the San Francisco Ethics Commission against interim DA Brooke Jenkins.
Nearly two months ago The San Francisco Chronicle went into detail about the monies paid to Brooke Jenkins as she worked to Recall a democratically elected District Attorney.
Shortly thereafter a Complaint was filed with the California Fair Political Practices Commission, the State watchdog Agency.
The disclosure of the latest Complaint filed with the San Francisco Ethics Commission is another effort to force the interim DA, handmaiden of Mayor London Breed, to come clean about the true nature of her 153K “volunteer” payment.
A payment utilized to politically lynch Progressive DA Chesa Boudin.
A political operative who destroyed her one time boss, DA Chesa Boudin and now seeks to be elected on November 8.
Her treachery must be exposed.
Brooke Jenkins must be driven from office.
Lee Heidhues 8.12.2022
There’s a tried and true axiom in politics. “Follow the money.”
Puppet DA Brooke Jenkins assertion that she was simply a “Volunteer” in the Coup d’etat against her former boss, DA Chesa Boudin is a flat out lie.
The disclosure of Jenkins being paid over $100,000 to promote the Recall of her former boss ads fuel to the fire surrounding the chief law enforcement officer in San Francisco.
Queen of the Puppet DAs – Artwork by Liz Heidhues
When Jenkins was a City employee she lived in Union City. After she quit her job and became a “Volunteer” Jenkins moved into a $6,000 a month Condo in San Francisco.
If this assertion is true the question is “How could a “Volunteer” afford such a pricey rent?”
This is just another of the questions swirling around Brooke Jenkins. Her record of prosecutorial misconduct as an Assistant District Attorney…
View original post 720 more words
Lee Heidhues 10.6.2022
The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco has spent nearly $700,000 to destroy JFK Promenade.
The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco just dumped another $75,000 into its selfish greed driven campaign to destroy Golden Gate Park’s car free Oasis and bring cars back to JFK Promenade. (see attached)
On September 24, 2022 The ‘Access for All, Yes on I, No on J Sponsored by Corporation of the Fine Arts Museums and Open the Great Highway Alliance’ reported TOTAL CONTRIBUTIONS RECEIVED $618,135.65 (see attached)
I have reported earlier that the Corporation of the Fine Arts Museums is using its Staff to work on the attempt to destroy JFK Promenade.
It can be expected that in the next 33 days the Fine Arts Museums will do whatever it takes to destroy JFK Promenade.
Lee Heidhues 10.5.2022
This has been a shameful dismal performance by San Francisco officialdom.
Joshua Klipp, Liz Heidhues and I went through the entire Appeal process to preserve the beautiful New Zealand Christmas Tree at 39th Avenue and Clement Street.
We prevailed. Yet, the City went its own merry way and totally blew off the Decision by its own SFPUC Hearing Officer.
It has been nearly month since we learned that the City and County of San Francisco willfully ignored the Final Decision by an San Francisco Public Utilities Commission Hearing Officer on July 6, 2022. Workers from the Recreation and Parks Department wantonly cut away a 9″ root on the tree.
In that Decision the Hearing Officer ordered the City to preserve the decades old New Zealand Christmas Tree at 39th Avenue and Clement Street.
WD-2852_Decision_on_appeal_Tree_Removal_lyman
On September 26, 2022 after nearly three weeks of imploring the SFPUC, The Department of Public Works, the Bureau of Urban Forestry and the Recreation and Parks Department we received the following on September 26.
It now appears the mission to install a water pipe to accommodate the entitled class of golfers at Lincoln Park Golf Course is complete. The tree has been severely damaged in the process.
Whether it is able to survive only time will tell.
Lee Heidhues 10.5.2022
It’s takes a lot of guts for a journalist to stand up to war mongering thug dictator Vladimir Putin.
There is no freedom of the press in Russia where the media is nothing more than a State owned subsidiary of Putin.
Marina Ovsyannikova says she refuses to comply with a restraint order because she is ‘completely innocent’.
The Guardian 10.5.2022
Marina Ovsyannikova, the former state TV editor who interrupted a news broadcast to protest against the Ukraine war, has said she decided to escape house arrest because she was “innocent”.
“Put a tag like this on Putin,” Ovsyannikova said, pointing to what appeared to be an electronic ankle tag. “It should be him, not me, who has to be isolated from society and prosecuted for committing genocide in Ukraine.”
On Monday, Russia put her on a wanted list after her ex-husband said she had escaped house arrest with her young daughter.
Ovsyannikova’s lawyer, Dmitry Zakhvatov, said she failed to attend a court hearing on Wednesday morning, which was held in absentia after investigators were not able to establish her location.
“I consider myself completely innocent, and since our state refuses to comply with its own laws, I refuse to comply with the measure of restraint imposed on me as of 30 September 2022 and release myself from it,” Ovsyannikova said on Wednesday in a statement posted on her social media channels.
Ovsyannikova also published a short video from an undisclosed location, in which she criticised Vladimir Putin for the war in Ukraine.
The Ukrainian-born Ovsyannikova, 44, gained international attention in March after bursting into a studio of Channel One, her then employer, to denounce the Ukraine war during a live news bulletin, holding a poster reading “no war”. At the time, she was fined 30,000 roubles (£460) for ignoring protest laws.
Ovsyannikova continued protesting against the war after quitting her job at Channel One and was charged in August with spreading false information about the Russian army for holding up a poster that read “Putin is a murderer, his soldiers are fascists” during a solo protest on the Moskva River embankment opposite the Kremlin. She was subsequently placed under house arrest in Moscow to await trial and was facing up to 10 years in prison if found guilty.
Since the start of the war in Ukraine, Russia has launched an unprecedented crackdown on protesters, independent news outlets and foreign social media networks. In early March, Putin signed off on a draconian law imposing a jail term of up to 15 years for spreading intentionally “fake” news about the military, in effect criminalising any public criticism of the war.
Lee Heidhues 10.4.2022
AMERICAN MASSACRES – UC COLLEGE OF LAW SAN FRANCISCO EDITION
The arrogance of White Americans in denying their brutal racist history continues.
No sooner did Governor Newsom sign legislation changing the name of UC Hastings from one which honored a landowner who sponsored massacres against Native Americans did heirs of Serranus Hastings file a lawsuit.
Rather than acknowledge the family’s history in crimes against Californian’s original inhabitants these Entitled people want compensation for the crimes of their forbear.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serranus_Clinton_Hastings
Excerpted from San Francisco Chronicle 10.4.2022
Days after Gov. Gavin Newson signed a bill to reverse an 1878 law requiring that UC Hastings College of the Law forever keep its founder’s name — or the state must repay descendants $100,000 plus interest — six family members sued on Tuesday to get their money back.
Historians say that Hastings, a wealthy rancher who was angry at cattle thieves, petitioned the government for militias to carry out the massacres.
“There’s no denying there were atrocities against the Native people,” plaintiff Scott Hastings Breeze of Oregon, Serranus Hastings’ great-great-great grandson, said at San Francisco Superior Court.
“Serranus Hastings petitioned the government for militias for protection” for his cattle. “There’s no direct proof” that he committed crimes, he said.
Besides, “it was a different world in 1860.”
The suit rejects the claim that the founder was a racist who sponsored massacres of Native people. It says that unless the state keeps the name, it must pay up.
Descendants of the Round Valley and Yuki tribes massacred during the 19th century participated in the process.
“This was done fairly and justly,” said Nikcole Whipple, secretary of the Round Valley Indian Tribes, Yuki Committee formed in 2020 to work with the school on a name change. Although the Yukis chose Powe’ N’om, meaning “one people,” as their preferred name, “we most definitely opposed ‘Hastings,’” Whipple said.
If California persists in removing Hastings’ name from the law school on Jan. 1, the interest rate would be an annual 7%, family and supporters said Tuesday at a press conference outside San Francisco Superior Court.
After 144 years, California would owe Serranus Hastings’ descendants more than $1.7 billion, The Chronicle calculated. That’s a lot of money, even if it were split among countless Hastings descendants. But the family members who filed the lawsuit said they’d be happy just keeping the name “Hastings.”
Their suit accuses the state and the Hastings directors of breaching the 1878 contract and seeks an injunction to stop the name change. One of the Hastings directors is himself a great-great grandson of Hastings, and voted this summer to get rid of the name.
Harmeet Dhillon, the family’s lawyer, said that Hastings, who was also the first chief justice of the California Supreme Court, has been the victim of “hit pieces.”
Top photo – Governor Gavin Newsom, surrounded by California Native Americans signs legislation renaming UC Hastings the UC College of Law
Thanks to Zoe Kelman on Twitter – San Francisco
And, hey “Progressive” San Francisco.
Don’t forget our ethically compromised role models. Interim District Attorney Brooke Jenkins and her equally compromised benefactor, Mayor London Breed.
Arcelia Hurtado is a former Assistant District Attorney fired by Jenkins. She argued earlier that London Breed’s brother, currently serving a 44 year prison sentence for murder, should have his sentence modified. A modification which ousted DA Chesa Boudin approved.
Nonetheless, Breed wants Breed’s brother to remain in prison.
“The mayor’s appointed DA is desperate to make the public believe that she is not a mayoral puppet,” Hurtado said.
Brooke Jenkins crosses her benefactor.
Throws London Breed’s brother to Wolves for political expediency.
The worm turns for Breed.
The Man she drove from office argued to have Breed’s brother’s sentence modified. Jenkins will do anything and throw anyone under the bus to achieve her goals.
Innocent defendants. Chesa Boudin. London Breed. San Francisco’s law and order mob got what it deserved. A totally corrupt, compromised, cunning crook as DA.
Excerpted from The Guardian 10.2.2022
What a fine few weeks for feminism it has been!
First Liz Truss became Britain’s third female prime minister and now Giorgia Meloni is expected to be Italy’s first ever female prime minister.
The former is a deeply unserious person who used to be most famous for a viral rant about cheese before gaining global recognition for helping to crash Britain’s economy in record time.
The latter is the most right-wing Italian leader since 1945: a bigot with a history of homophobic, anti-immigrant and anti-choice views who represents a post-fascist party and hasn’t definitively distanced herself from fascism.
Scrap all those inconvenient facts, though. It’s not their policies or their moral compasses that matter: the most important thing about Truss and Meloni is that they are women. Sisters are doing it for themselves, and all that. (“It” being far-right politics and crashing the economy.)
Like it or not, representation matters: you can’t be what you can’t see. I might not agree with Truss and Meloni’s policies but I can put my lefty political leanings aside for a moment and admit that they are both inspirational trailblazers.
Little girls can finally grow up secure in the knowledge that they have what it takes to help drive the pound to record lows. They can go to sleep at night knowing that authoritarianism isn’t just for the boys. That’s progress, isn’t it? That’s worth celebrating, right?
Top photo – Italy’s new leader. Far right politico Giorgia Meloni
Lee's Perspective 