Lee Heidhues 6.13.2022

Take a look at the genuinely “Progressive” county. Right next door. Alameda.

San Francisco is the faux “Progressive” town which saw Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk gunned down in City Hall.

That’s the Real San Francisco. Intolerant of change.

It proves once again that all the nonsense about San Francisco being “Progressive” is totally misplaced and potentially dangerous for those who believe it.

San Francisco is Conservative Law and Order at its core.

Controlled by a political establishment which will hold onto its power by any means necessary. The Coup d’etat which drove District Attorney Chesa Boudin from office is the latest example. Chesa has never been considered one of the “The In-Crowd”.

People want to believe Hippies, Herb Caen, Fisherman’s Wharf, The Greatful Dead and The Castro are San Francisco.

The 7MM Reactionary funded Coup d’etat resulting in Chesa Boudin’s ouster is emblematic of the Real San Francisco. Chesa will be just fine getting out of this law and order swamp. There are plenty of places and institutions which will welcome him.

San Francisco doesn’t deserve such an honest, ethical and intelligent District Attorney

San Francisco will be much the worse for Chesa’s overthrow in what amounts to a political lynching.

Excerpted from The San Francisco Chronicle 6.13.2022

“The city (San Francisco) has become very, very different from the rest of the Bay Area, in my view, and has been for a long time. I can remember trying cases there in the late ‘90s, early 2000s, and it was just a lot of overt racism...”

“… In contrast, Oakland remains a center of Black activism”, Civil Rights attorney and first place finisher in the race to become the next Alameda District Attorney, Pamel Price put it bluntly.

The civil rights attorney and community activist Pamela Price continued: “San Francisco has become a city of billionaires. … poor people have been forced out of the city, particularly the dwindling number of Black residents.”

Anybody who thinks Boudin’s recall is somehow indicative of the entire region, she says, “doesn’t know anything about the Bay — the Bay Area is a lot bigger than San Francisco.”

“I think that it’s wrong just to look at what happened in San Francisco and say … people don’t want criminal justice reform,” said Nicole Lee, the executive director of Urban Peace Movement, a youth-focused, grass-roots racial justice organization in Oakland. “We can’t let what happened in one city — as much attention as that city gets in the Bay Area — overshadow the bigger picture.”

Over the weekend, Yesenia Sanchez jumped above the 50% threshold in her bid to become Alameda County’s next sheriff. If her lead holds, she’ll claim the job and avoid a November run-off, beating a long-time incumbent on a reform-minded platform that included more programs and job training for prisoners, increased transparency and new approaches to crisis intervention and de-escalation.

Her potential win would be another sign that criminal justice reform is alive in the Bay Area despite San Franciscans ousting progressive District Attorney Chesa Boudin. In the East Bay, voters rallied behind Sanchez as well as two progressive district attorney candidates: Diana Becton won a second term in Contra Costa County, while civil rights attorney and community activist Pamela Price held a commanding lead in Alameda County and will head to a run-off. If elected, Price would be the county’s first non-white district attorney.

Lee Heidhues 6.12.2022

Stop Crime SF has its sites set on political office in San Francisco.

District Attorney and Board of Supervisors.

Nancy Tung who ran for District Attorney against Chesa Boudin in 2019 and finished third in the four person race is now angling to be appointed as the Puppet DA by Mayor London Breed.  Tung is on the Board of Directors of Stop Crime SF.

Make no mistake the so called 501(C)(3) non profit Stop Crime SF is a virulent law and order organization whose goal is to destroy Progressive Justice in San Francisco. Its take down of District Attorney Chesa Boudin in last week’s MAGA funded $7,000,000 Recall is its perverse shining moment.

https://stopcrimesf.com/

https://www.causeiq.com/organizations/stop-crime-sf,833063545/

Nancy Tung  was a constant campaigner in the DA Recall.  She is an Assistant District Attorney in Alameda County. As an Officer of the Court her active participation in the Recall raises issues of ethics and propriety.

Tung was featured in SF Standard earlier this year. She spoke of her intention to run, again. Now she may achieve her goal without having to step foot on the campaign trail and will become San Francisco’s Puppet District Attorney.

In 2020 Mayor Breed attempted to appoint Tung to the Police Commission. An appointment which was rejected by the Board of Supervisors.

https://sfstandard.com/criminal-justice/chesa-boudin-recall-nancy-tung-looks-to-take-another-shot-at-running-for-da/

Joel Engardio is a founder and The Executive Director of Stop Crime SF. He just announced his candidacy for District 4 Supervisior and will try to unseat Gordon Mar next November.

https://engardio.com/about-joel

It must be noted in reading the PAR piece that Heather Knight, the San Francisco Chronicle award winning columnist, has spent three years trying to destroy Chesa Boudin.  Her law and order reportorial credentials were firmly established with Stop Crime SF.  A political agenda Knight utililized to full effect in waging her campaign against Boudin.

Lee Heidhues 6.11.2022

Growing up in Sausalito in the 1960’s I lived up the Road from Julia “Girl” Dreyer. 

One of her several brothers was my close friend in high school and college. I spent a lot of time in her spacious house. I always enjoyed my time in the Dreyer’s household overlooking Richardson Bay from high in the Sausalito hills.

It was my refuge. Julia was always very personable and outgoing with me. In a house filled with boys and young men she stood out as independent and assertive.

The memories of the Dreyer home are some of the most pleasant of my formative years.  The atmosphere, the music, the people, the ’60’s culture and the many good meals served up by Julia’s mom, Sylvia Dreyer.

I look forward to reading “Girl’s” memoir.

Santa Rosa Press Democrat 11.30.2019

Throughout her childhood, and well into her adult years, Julia Dreyer Brigden was known as simply “Girl.” As a photogenic ’60s Bay Area hippie – and the wife of guitarist David Freiberg of Quicksilver Messenger Service, Jefferson Airplane and Jefferson Starship – she traveled within the inner circle of rock royalty and wandered the world.

The Byrds celebrated her in a 1967 Chris Hillman tune titled “The Girl Who Had No Name.” Photos taken of her and her friends during a legendary Grateful Dead party at Olompali State Park were among the iconic images of the time.

Ultimately, folk music star Joan Baez asked her when she was going to stop calling herself “Girl.”

The nickname was hardly a counter-culture affectation, instead dating from her childhood in South Africa, where “girl” was a common term of endearment for a daughter, Brigden, 70, explains in her self-published memoir, “Girl: An Untethered Life.”

“I thought, ‘I’m gonna make this for my kids,’ but then it morphed into more than I planned,” Brigden said during an interview at her hilltop home north of Santa Rosa. She and her second husband, music producer and manager Mick Brigden, have lived in Sonoma County since 2001.

She wrote the book over a period of two years, including in a memoir-writing class at Santa Rosa Junior College.

But the result is not a tell-all expose of wild times during the Age of Aquarius, although Brigden is frank about her own misadeventures, including her yearlong struggle with cocaine addiction in the early ’80s.

“That was not my finest hour. I was so disgusted and mortified with myself,” she said.

“Then that was it. I was done.”

On the subject of free love, however, the book is demure.

“The one abiding mantra was ‘love one another,’” Brigden wrote.

“What that meant was not always clear. What were the rules on monogamy, for instance? Often the ethics were situational; whatever was most convenient at the time was cool.”

The book drops many famous names but reveals no specifics about torrid affairs.

“I didn’t want to throw people under the bus,” Brigden said.

“My husband said, ‘There’s no sex in the book. It’s more like softball, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll.’”

Her mother was the daughter of a prominent Cleveland family and her father a Dutch South African seaman who served in the British Navy during World War II.

The couple eventually settled in Marin County, where Brigden spent her teen years.

“It was a different time. If my child did the things I did, I would be panicky,” Brigden said.

“My parents were pretty laissez-faire. My mother was usually overwhelmed. She had five kids.”

As a teenager, Brigden began hanging out in Sausalito with poets and musicians, including young minstrel David Crosby – later of the Byrds and Crosby, Stills and Nash – who became her friend.

Early on Brigden, who had traveled with her family in Europe as a child, began to exhibit a lifelong and insatiable wanderlust.

She ran off to Mexico with a boy from Monterey while she was still a high school student. In the years that followed she trekked through India, Japan, Turkey and elsewhere.

“I don’t know how I got by,” Brigden said.

“I was too naive to be worried, I guess. I got by on innocence. People were generally nice to me. I wasn’t fearful of people. I probably should have been.”

She married Freiberg at age 16 after landing briefly in juvenile hall for her runaway ways. Together they had a daughter, Jessica, who now lives in Novato with her own son, David.

Although Freiberg achieved success in the music business, the early years were lean, the book recalls.

“The first paying job Quicksilver played was at a private party,” Brigden wrote.

“I believe the band was (paid) ?$100 for that night, which seemed like a big deal at the time.”

Brigden remembers Freiberg as a kind and tolerant man, who was patient with her restless nature, but eventually the couple parted. After her divorce from Freiberg in 1979, she married Mick Brigden in 1986. Through their music friends, she and Brigden had known each other since 1967. Their adopted son Jack now lives in Fairfax.

I had no expectations when I wrote this. To be honest, I am astonished people bought my book,” she said.

“I got a few reviews, and one bad one. It said the book was a ‘waste of time, full of narcissistic rambling.’ I figured that was written by a spurned boyfriend of mine,” she joked.

https://www.sonomanews.com/article/entertainment/santa-rosa-woman-recalls-traveling-inner-circle-of-1960s-rock-royalty-in-ne/?artslide=1

Top photo: “Girl” with David Freiberg. daughter Jessica, Quicksilver Messenger Service members and family – circa mid 1960’s

June 9, 2022

I wrote the following the night before the June 7 vote. As the polls were closing at 8pm on election day I cycled out to Sutro Heights Park and took a walk around the grounds as the sun set on Chesa Boudin’s time as San Francisco District Attorney.

Ousted in a political Coup d’etat.

A moment of shame which San Francisco will never live down. It will rank up there with the assassinations of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk in November 1978. Sadly George Moscone’s widow, Gina passed away on election day.

George Moscone was sworn into office as Mayor on January 8, 1976.

Chesa Boudin was sworn into office as District Attorney on January 8, 2020.

Lee Heidhues 6.6.2022

Tomorrow at this time it will be an Obit or Valedictory of Chesa’s time as San Francisco District Attorney.

In my mind there’s no doubt that the $7,000,000 spent destroying Chesa is going to payoff for the MAGA Fascists and Reactionaries who have been sucked into their Swamp. San Francisco will now be able to align itself with the most Reactionary elements in Amerika. I know it’s going to happen and I want to believe I’ve resigned myself to this terrible outcome.

The past year I have campaigned so much for Chesa on my Blog and Twitter, talked with people, attended events.

His brief shining moment as a Progressive District Attorney will come crashing down. Facilitated in San Francisco with millions of dollars in MAGA money and supported by cadres of self-serving selfish politicians. What comes next nobody knows. But whatever it is the future will be without our Progressive District Attorney.

The amazing thing is that so few people are turning out to vote. I thought an election like this, combined with all the local and statewide ballot measures, would result in a huge turnout.

An odd part of this, and something I didn’t realize is, there will be an election for District Attorney next November. Whoever wins must run again in November 2023 for a four year term. There will be total chaos and this is why those close to The Recall are going to receive The Big Payback. It’s the Law of Unintended Consequences.

Today I took a walk around the neighborhood . A number of houses are adorned with the “No on H” signs and only one favoring the Recall. I don’t think it means anything except to show Chesa’s got a fair amount of support and the vote will not be a blowout.

But it will be a defeat. I wonder how Chesa will take it. Today there’s a photo of him voting at City Hall. Chesa looks very tired. Perhaps it’s the camera angle. In any event he looks tired.

Lee Heidhues 6.6.2022

The $7,000,000 plus temper tantrum lie and distortion campaign paid for by the wealthiest reactionaries America can dredge up out of the MAGA Swamp forgot to take a look at the ramifications.

These reactionaries don’t care.

They are content to Con the voters of San Francisco with a Tsunami of television advertising playing to baseless assertions of rampant crime. A total fabrication and lie.

1. In case anyone forgot – the regularly scheduled election for District Attorney is just 17 months away in November 2023.
2. Should the June 7 Recall succeed there will be a Special Election for DA in five months.
3. Whoever prevails in November 2022 will have to run for a full four year term in November 23.

BOTH ELECTIONS WILL BE RANKED CHOICE VOTING. SOMETHING THE RECALL REACTIONARIES DETEST

A portion of the malleable electorate in San Francisco can aptly be labeled with this description. It’s genuinely Orwellian that presumably intelligent San Francisco is succumbing to MAGA lies and distortions.

“If you say that someone is malleable, you mean that they are easily influenced or controlled by other people. “ $7,000,000 will get you just about anything you want with a gullible electorate.

The Standard 6.6.2022

The long-awaited recall election of San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin is nearly here, as the final votes must be cast by 8 p.m. Tuesday. It doesn’t look good for the progressive prosecutor if nearly all available polling is to be believed.

If the recall measure is successful, two things happen: Mayor Breed appoints an interim DA and an election to fill the DA position will appear on the November ballot, Arntz said. 

The interim DA would be prevented from running in November 2022 if Proposition C also passes on Tuesday. Whomever wins the November 2022 election would serve the remainder of the current term, which ends in January 2024.

The regularly scheduled election for the next DA term in San Francisco will occur in November 2023. Anyone would be eligible to appear on the ballot for the DA’s office in November 2023.

But what comes next if Boudin is recalled is still very much up in the air. 

The Standard reached out to John Arntz, the director of the San Francisco Department of Elections, to get a better idea of what would happen if the recall succeeds, when Mayor London Breed would be allowed to appoint an interim DA and when an election would likely take place to appoint a permanent successor.

If the recall measure passes, a vacancy in the DA’s office would occur 10 days after the Board of Supervisors declares the election results.

After each election for local offices or measures, the director of elections—aka Arntz—certifies the results and then provides the certified results to the clerk of the board. The clerk’s office would then include an item for the board to declare the results on the next meeting agenda.

“I expect to certify the election at the end of June and could possibly send the certified results to the board to declare during its June 28 meeting,” Arntz told The Standard.

Explainer: What Happens Next If DA Chesa Boudin Is Recalled?

EVERY PICTURE TELLS A STORY -RECALL INSURRECTIONISTS EXPOSED EDITION

Lee Heidhues 6.5.2022

The Whole World’s Watching

The anti-democratic insurrectionists attempting to overthrow District Attorney Chesa Boudin on June 7 are no better than  street brawlers whose real goal is to destroy Democracy.

The top photo show  two people on the left handing in petition signatures last Fall.  Signatures obtained by paid mercenaries who were paid $1,400,000.  Funded by extremist wealthy MAGA supporters in America.

MAGA supporters who have now spent over $6,000,000 to destroy Chesa Boudin, Progressive Justice, and all for which it stands.

The following photos show this duo disrupting DA Boudin’s campaign event at Alamo Square Park on March 5, 2022.

In case anyone needs a reminder.

One needs only look at the cover of George Orwell’s 1984 and some quotes. 

War is Peace.

Freedom is Slavery

Ignorance is Stength

Top photo – San Francisco Chronicle – 6.5.2022

Liz and Lee Heidhues 5.4.2022 Alamo Square Park – San Francisco

THE WHOLE WORLD’S WATCHING.

A New Poll shows No on H in a dead heat with Boudin Recall reactionaries – three days to go. The side which gets their supporters to the Polls on June 7 will prevail.

GOTV. GET OUT THE VOTE.

Team Boudin is working non stop to crush the $6,000,000 effort to oust San Francisco’s Progressive District Attorney.

DA Boudin rallied his supporters on a foggy San Francisco morning. Spirits were high. Neither the summer fog nor the MAGA crowd spending over $6,000,000 to date to destroy Chesa will curb the People’s determination and enthusiasm.

Chesa Boudin, Supervisor Dean Preston, and Civil Rights activist Shane Harris, who flew from San Diego to San Francisco for the rally, implored the crowd to Get Out the Vote.

Chesa, thanking the many Unions standing at his side, recounted his 29 months in office and reminded his supporters the fight for Progressive Justice is a Work in Progress.

DA Boudin must prevail against the Republican war chest and reactionary forces who emphasize the failed and discredited War on Crime.

The time of these reactionaries and their supporters is over.

Photos – Lee Heidhues

Photo editor – Liz Heidhues

Lee Heidhues 6.3.2022

The attempted political Coup d’etat to overthrow San Francisco’s Progressive District Attorney is based on the false tune that Chesa Boudin’s administration has become a Public Defender’s office.

 This is a blatant falsehood.

The MAGA crowd and its $6,000,000 can’t sway the voters to engage in this Coup next Tuesday and oust the democratically elected DA.

The following commentary by an Assistant District Attorney sets the record straight.

He rebuts yet another advertising falsehood being pitched by the multi-millionaire right wing anti-democratic insurrectionists.

San Francisco cannot allow itself to be conned.

The Recall is anti-democratic. Chesa has administered the District Attorney’s office exactly the way he pledged during his successful 2019 campaign. From Day One the Losers have gone after Chesa. Now, aided by Trump like MAGA millionaires, the Recall collaborators have spent over $6,000,000 to subvert Democracy.

These law and order screamers are going to reap a whirlwind for their treacherous self serving behavior. It is one of the most disgraceful events in the history of San Francisco. There will be an accounting for all those who joined in the subversion of Democracy in this international City.

The Whole World’s Watching.

Just wait.

RYAN KHOJASTEH

San Francisco Assistant District Attorney

Proponents of the “Yes on H” campaign have labeled us prosecutors under District Attorney Boudin as soft on crime.

The recall campaign yearns for the era of tough on crime policies.

I’d like for us to step back from the tough on crime vs. soft on crime (or “progressive”) dichotomy. The work we do is much more nuanced than that. I’d like to introduce a different term—and what I personally subscribe to—into the political discourse. And that is: fair and balanced. I am a fair and balanced prosecutor.

What does that mean?

The job of a prosecutor is to balance all the competing interests within the system. We have to balance the need to protect the public and do right by the harm done in the community with the rehabilitative goals of the defendant.

It’s not an easy job and there isn’t a one size fits all approach. It’s a case-by-case review of a lot of information—from the victim, from our partners in law enforcement, and from the defense attorney. This is a heavy responsibility and we need to have the right people in these roles making these decisions.

Following is a link to the entire article.

Critics say the DA’s Office is run like the Public Defenders Office. That’s not true

Top photo:  DA Chesa Boudin in Superior Court

Lee Heidhues 6.2.2022

America is proud of its exports.  For the most part.

There is one American export which should not be available in this country.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ku_Klux_Klan

It should not be available in any country.

Unfortunately Racism, Hate, anti-Semitism and Violence have no boundaries.

I blogged about the rise of the Ku Klux Klan in Germany in early 2019.

https://leesperspective.com/2019/01/16/german-police-raid-suspected-kkk-homes/

Deutsche Welle 6.2.2022

After spending years investigating a far-right group that sought to establish a German branch of the extremist Ku Klux Klan (KKK), German prosecutors said on Thursday the probe has been dropped.

The case first came to light in January 2019 following raids against members of the group, which called itself the “National Socialist Knights of the Ku Klux Klan Deutschland” — a name indicating the group also had neo-Nazi roots.

Public prosecutors in Stuttgart opened an investigation into 57 alleged members of the German KKK group in 2019, suspecting them of founding a criminal organization.

After three years of investigations, however, authorities weren’t able to establish that the group intended to commit crimes “with a degree of certainty necessary for an indictment,” a spokesperson told the dpa news agency.

During police raids across Germany, authorities seized over 100 weapons — including knives, machetes, swords and air guns. Cell phones and data storage devices were also seized.

The suspected members, who at the time ranged in age from 17 to 59 years old, were suspected of glorifying Nazis. In some cases, chats between members showed some harbored “violent fantasies.”

Investigators were unable to definitively prove, however, that the group sought to take action on their extremist beliefs by committing acts of violence or other crimes, the spokesperson told dpa.

While the main case has been dropped, investigations are still continuing into 23 members of the group.

Several are still suspected of violating Germany’s weapons and drug laws. Others are facing accusations of incitement and the illegal use of symbols from anti-constitutional and terrorist groups — likely a reference to their use of the banned swastika Nazi symbol.

The KKK has its roots in the United States and is known for a white-supremacist, racist ideology and violent crime, particularly targeting Black and Jewish people.

The group is well known as a hate group in the US, but has not caught on as a mass movement in Germany. Research from recent years, however, shows that there are activities by similar groups in Germany, and the KKK’s symbols are also used by other far-right and white-supremacist groups in Germany.

https://www.dw.com/en/german-prosecutors-halt-probe-into-kkk-group/a-62011518

Lee Heidhues 5.31.2022

The vicious political coup d’etat will reach its denouement on June 7 when the multi-million dollar campaign to overthrow Progressive DA Chesa Boudin meets its fate at the polls.

The latest local politician to align himself with the MAGA reactionaries is  Supervisor Matt Dorsey.  

The same Matt Dorsey who, until two weeks ago, spent his time shilling for the San Francisco Police Department and by extension its Union, The Police Officers Assocation.

The very same POA which spent over $700,000 to defeat candidate Boudin in 2019.

The same POA which has spent the past  29 months attacking and excoriating DA Boudin.  Now this Cadre of repressive law and order have a mouthpiece on the Board of Supervisors.

Matt Dorsey is wasting no time in carry out the desires of his ultimate masters.  Law enforcement and those City Hall politicians who are actively collaborating in this attack on Democracy.

Matt Dorsey – Interim San Francisco Supervisor and former PR talking head for San Francisco Police Department 

“I’m convinced, personally and professionally, that San Francisco needs to do better. That’s why I’ll vote yes on Prop H in the June 7 election.”  

https://www.sfgate.com/politics-op-eds/article/Matt-Dorsey-endorses-Chesa-Boudin-recall-17210485.php?IPID=SFGate-HP-CP-Spotlight

Top Photo – Matt Dorsey and Mayor London Breed