SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 9.16.2024

San Francisco, the one time City of tolerance, is rapidly descending down the rabbit hole of Orwellian surveillance.

What makes this all the more disturbing is the fact the San Francisco Chronicle, rather than critically analyze this totalitarian State activity and its impact on civil liberties, is acting as cheerleader. Raising none of the profound issues at stake and simply mouthing the words of Mayor London Breed and the San Francisco Police Department.

Excerpted from The San Francisco Chronicle 9.16.2024

The burst of new technology comes after voters in March approved the Mayor London Breed-authored Proposition E, which expanded the powers of police to use new surveillance systems. 

District Attorney Brooke Jenkins and Police Chief Bill Scott also cheered the latest devices. 

“We are excited to add another tool in our department’s tool belt,” SFPD boss Scott said in a statement. “Our officers are already eagerly embracing other technologies like (automated license plate readers) and drones to make significant arrests. I can’t wait to see what they will do with assistance from these security units.” 

The sort of pole-topping, mobile security cameras best known for looming over the parking lots of big-box stores are now getting a government job in San Francisco, where they will monitor the city’s high-crime zones when police officers are away. 

Mayor London Breed unveiled the new fleet of camera trailers Monday as the latest addition in a wave of high-tech crime-fighting tools. The initial three cameras are launching weeks after city officials announced a new system of police-operated drones and automated license plate readers.

“New technology has been a game-changer for public safety in this city,” Breed said in a statement. “As we continue to fill our academy classes with new recruits, this technology not only helps our existing officers be more efficient today, but it means as our ranks grow we will see even more impact.” 

https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/police-cameras-mobile-19768593.php?utm_source=marketing&utm_medium=copy-url-link&utm_campaign=article-share&hash=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuc2ZjaHJvbmljbGUuY29tL3NmL2FydGljbGUvcG9saWNlLWNhbWVyYXMtbW9iaWxlLTE5NzY4NTkzLnBocA%3D%3D&time=MTcyNjU0NjcyNTg5MQ%3D%3D&rid=OTJhM2RhZWItNDMzYy00ZjMxLTgyMTQtZTU2ZjE2NDIzNDRl&sharecount=Mw%3D%3D

Fortunately the San Francisco Standard has taken a deeper dive into the illegal activities being committed by the leadership of San Francisco all in the name of fighting crime.

Excerpted from The Standard 9.16.2024

San Francisco police have been using drones to catch car break-in suspects and investigate sideshows for months but internal emails show they knowingly broke the law by buying the crime-fighting tech.

Now the San Francisco Police Department is asking city leaders to approve the drones after it ignored warnings from within its ranks that it should have held off. Newly unearthed SFPD emails show the first call for caution came months ago from one of its own policy experts. 

About a week before the March 5 election, the SFPD was planning what drones to buy if voters expanded police powers by passing Proposition E. But a department analyst noted that Prop. E alone did not give police authority to unilaterally add drones to its arsenal.

Asja Steeves, SFPD policy division manager, said that even if voters passed the law, it doesn’t excuse the department from abiding by Assembly Bill 481. Authored by then-Assemblyman David Chiu, the 2021 law requires police to get the blessing from city electeds before using new surveillance tools.

“Prop. E does not supersede state law,” Steeves wrote in a Feb. 28 email to department leaders obtained by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and shared with The Standard. 

https://sfstandard.com/2024/09/16/san-francisco-police-bought-drones-illegally-emails-warned/?utm_source=copy_sitebutton&utm_medium=site_buttons&utm_campaign=site_buttons

September 11, 1973. A Day of Shame for America. Sponsored Coup d’etat in Chile

https://www.npr.org/2023/09/10/1193755188/chile-coup-50-years-pinochet-kissinger-human-rights-allende

Top photo: The Flag is Bleeding – Faith Ringgold 1967

SAN FRANCISCO WITH A BOW TO MIESAU, GERMANY

Liz and Lee Heidhues – September 7th 2024

UPDATED – September 8th 2024

“We’ll Meet Again.” That’s what I told Liz on September 8th 1969 when I left Liz and departed for Europe 55 years ago. The anniversary of when I flew from San Francisco to Paris and planted my feet on European soil.

I was correct when I promised Liz “We’ll Meet Again.”

Fast forward to December 22nd, 1971, when Liz and I landed on American soil in New York City aboard an Icelandic flight from Luxembourg. We then embarked on a three day Greyhound bus trip across the country feeling like vagabonds in a strange land. Arriving in San Francisco on Christmas night. With little cash, backpacks purchased in the mountain town of Ronda, Spain, and enough memories to unpack from traveling through Europe and Morocco together to last until our dying day.

Little did I know about the indelible impact of culture shock 55 years ago. But now I know a lot. I made a mistake in returning to the USA. Our iconoclastic politics have never been a good fit in America. The fact Liz and I spent a large part of our formative adulthood learning to eat healthy foods and utilize the bicycle as our main form of transport was transformative.

Most importantly, we lived in a place where gun violence is not a systemic part of the society.

Liz and I re-connected in Germany during the summer of 1970.

After fits and starts, intervening interim relationships and mutual couplings between Amsterdam, Holland, and Miesau, Germany, we’ve been together as one Since May Day 1971.

Why did Liz ask me to return? Liz missed the soul music and streets of her childhood (San Francisco and Oakland). Liz wanted to finish her education. President Nixon’s carpet bombing of Cambodia and the National Guard murder of four students at Kent State University in May 1970 had been a major push for Liz to leave San Francisco State University to roam abroad. Liz wanted to pick up where she had left off.

Since returning to America 53 years ago, we have survived a lot of Shit together in the USA that would have torn less resolute couples apart.

In May 2017 we made the first of several trips back to Germany. During that incredible way-back machine trip to Miesau and surrounding towns, our first time there in 46 years, we made a photographic chronicle.

Top photo: The view from high in the hills in Southern Germany near Miesau, Germany

SAN FRANCISCO

Liz and Lee Heidhues 9.5.2024

The blatant censorship being exhibited by the Publisher of a local community newspaper to silence articulate voices is shocking.

Publisher Michael Durand has boasted his newspaper The Richmond Review is a vehicle for citizens and organizations to share diverse points of view and ideas. The opinions currently being published fall in line with his Old Boy Network well suited to 1950’s San Francisco.

In a frenzied effort to silence opposing views in the heated ballot measure to make The Great Highway a permanently car free area the Richmond Review is censoring vocal advocates.

Michael Durand and former publisher Paul Kozakiewicz, currently a contributor, have selectively locked our voices out of the Richmond Review’s “Comments and Replies” section in an act of unprofessional and discriminatory journalism.

This censorship of two individuals reminds us of the censorship the Nixon Administration tried to impose to stop the publishing of the Pentagon Papers in 1971.

Attached are several “Comments and Replies” submitted by Liz and Lee Heidhues which Michael Durand has refused to publish.

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 9.2.2024

Buried in the second section in a recent Wall Street Journal is the news that Exxon Mobil predicts, “the world isn’t on pace to make dramatic emissions reductions needed to stem climate change.”

And it’s fair to say the world won’t reach its climate change goals because companies like Exxon can’t afford to do what’s necessary. The Exxon profit margin is at risk

Exxon gross profit for the quarter ending June 30, 2024 was $22.478B, a 18.98% increase year-over-year. Exxon gross profit for the twelve months ending June 30, 2024 was $85.406B, a 18% decline year-over-year. Exxon annual gross profit for 2023 was $85.657B, a 24.99% decline from 2022. https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/XOM/exxon/gross-profit#:~:text=Exxon%20gross%20profit%20for%20the,a%2024.99%25%20decline%20from%202022.

Wall Street Journal 8.26.2024

Exxon Mobil says humans will use roughly as much crude oil in 2050 as they do today and that the world isn’t on pace to make dramatic emissions reductions needed to stem climate change.

In its annual energy outlook, the Houston-based fossil-fuels producer said it expects carbon emissions to drop for the first time in 2030. But the world will need policy changes, breakthroughs in technology and market solutions if governments want to keep global temperatures on pace to meet the goals of the Paris climate accords set out in 2015.

The company said it believes oil and natural gas will continue to top the world’s energy sources a quarter century from now, even as renewable energy grows and coal use falls sharply. But Exxon says passenger cars will consume less fossil fuel and chemical plants will use more oil.

The company expects the world’s natural-gas demand to rise 21% by 2050, and oil 2%, with most of that growth in industrial sectors to fuel manufacturing and as chemical feedstock. Meanwhile, it sees consumption of biofuels, solar and wind rising exponentially and coal dropping off 39%.

Last year, Exxon also said the global effort to curtail greenhouse-gas emissions isn’t on track to keep the planet’s temperature from rising by more than 2 degrees Celsius by 2050.

Exxon said carbon capture and the use of hydrogen-based fuels need to expand rapidly for the world to meet Paris climate goals. The company plans to invest billions over the next few years in both technologies. It faces dozens of lawsuits across the U.S. accusing it of climate-change deception.

https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/stock-market-today-dow-sp500-nasdaq-live-08-26-2024/card/exxon-says-oil-and-gas-to-remain-top-energy-sources-in-2050-gNXtW6mTNUpc0f3GrfPQ?mod=Searchresults_pos1&page=1

SAN FRANCISCO – SUTRO HEIGHTS PARK

Lee Heidhues 9.2.2024

It’s no Labor Day in America for the marginalized unhoused in San Francisco.

The United States Park Service Police are seen handcuffing and tossing a shirtless homeless person into the paddy wagon. This is America in the post ‘Grants Pass’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Grants_Pass_v._Johnson Supreme Court decision last June.

A decision due in large part to the advocacy from Mayor London Breed and the San Francisco City Attorney.

America’s cops at all levels and in all jurisdictions have been unleashed to abuse the most marginalized amongst the population.

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 8.27.2024

The shameless felon Donald Trump’s push to be President has no ethical limits.

The felon guy is classless and clueless.

This is a felon awaiting sentencing who has ridiculed and disrespected veterans. Including the late Senator and presidential candidate John McCain. Who spent several years in a prisoner of war camp during the Vietnam war.

His latest sunken morality stunt was to bring a personal photographer to a wreath laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery. To commemorate the deaths of 13 American soldiers in Afghanistan three years ago.

National Public Radio (NPR) reported what happened.

https://www.npr.org/2024/08/27/nx-s1-5091154/trump-arlington-cemetery

Two members of Donald Trump’s campaign staff had a verbal and physical altercation Monday with an official at Arlington National Cemetery, where the former president participated in a wreath-laying ceremony, NPR has learned.

A source with knowledge of the incident said the cemetery official tried to prevent Trump staffers from filming and photographing in a section where recent U.S. casualties are buried. The source said Arlington officials had made clear that only cemetery staff members would be authorized to take photographs or film in the area, known as Section 60.

When the cemetery official tried to prevent Trump campaign staff from entering Section 60, campaign staff verbally abused and pushed the official aside, according to the source.

“Federal law prohibits political campaign or election-related activities within Army National Military Cemeteries, to include photographers, content creators or any other persons attending for purposes, or in direct support of a partisan political candidate’s campaign,” according to the statement. “Arlington National Cemetery reinforced and widely shared this law and its prohibitions with all participants.”

Trump participated in an event to mark the third anniversary of a deadly attack on U.S. troops in Afghanistan as U.S. forces withdrew from the country; 13 U.S. service members were killed in the attack. The Trump campaign has blamed President Biden and Vice President Harris, now the Democratic presidential nominee, for the chaotic withdrawal.

In a statement to NPR, Steven Cheung, the Trump campaign’s spokesman, strongly rejected the notion of a physical altercation, adding: “We are prepared to release footage if such defamatory claims are made.

“The fact is that a private photographer was permitted on the premises and for whatever reason an unnamed individual, clearly suffering from a mental health episode, decided to physically block members of President Trump’s team during a very solemn ceremony,” Cheung said in the statement.

The Trump campaign declined to make that footage immediately available.

In a statement to NPR, Arlington National Cemetery said it “can confirm there was an incident, and a report was filed.”

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 8.24.2024

Opponents of Proposition K staged a car rally on Market Street to decry the measure as a threat to San Francisco’s largely residential Westside. The Standard 8.24.2024

These people should get out of their cars and get some exercise.

Maybe, they wouldn’t be so uptight and stop their bloviating.

The Standard says it all about their political idiocy. Entitled motorists didn’t even know where to protest. On Saturday they polluted the atmosphere with their climate killing hunks of junk downtown.

Seven miles from the site of Ocean Beach Park.

These bitter people believe that cars come first. Forget it. They have lost at the Board of Supervisors, the ballot box and the courthouse Yet, they refuse to give up their misguided birth right. And continue this fight against the environment. It’s over.

Excerpted from The San Francisco Chronicle 8.24.2024

Two rallies Saturday presented dueling visions for the fate of the Great Highway, San Francisco’s coastal boulevard at the center of a debate about how the city uses its streets and whether parks or cars should dominate.

About 80 community members at a Panhandle Playground rally listened as Sunset resident Josh Kelly called the campaign to create a Great Highway park “part of a long tradition of San Franciscans reclaiming space in their city for people and not for vehicles.”

“Closing (the highway) is not feasible, is not a good idea, and it wasn’t brought as a community-led compromise,” Sunset District resident Albert Chow, owner of Great Wall Hardware, said to a crowd of about 35 community members on Market Street.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/great-highway-closure-19670535.php?utm_source=marketing&utm_medium=copy-url-link&utm_campaign=article-share&hash=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuc2ZjaHJvbmljbGUuY29tL3NmL2FydGljbGUvZ3JlYXQtaGlnaHdheS1jbG9zdXJlLTE5NjcwNTM1LnBocA%3D%3D&time=MTcyNDU1ODc3NjA0NA%3D%3D&rid=OTJhM2RhZWItNDMzYy00ZjMxLTgyMTQtZTU2ZjE2NDIzNDRl&sharecount=MQ%3D%3D

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 8.22.2024

It’s a proud night in San Francisco.

Oakland native, San Francisco District Attorney, California Attorney General, Vice President and now officially the Democrats’ presidential candidate possesses a big smile and contagious laugh.

Make no mistake this veteran prosecutor is all business when it comes to convicted Felon, sexual abuser, bankrupt businessman and pathological liar Donald Trump.

Kamala Harris told the world that she intends to expose the real Trump and win the election November 5th.

Liz and I had a watch party for two in our San Francisco Richmond District neighborhood. The streets were uncommonly quiet this evening as our neighbors wanted to view this historic moment. An Oakland/San Francisco native sister stepping onto the stage in Chicago to introduce herself to the world.

Excerpt from The New York Times 8.22.2024

Vice President Kamala Harris ceremonially accepted the Democratic Party’s nomination for president on Thursday night in a speech that alternated between calls for unity and stinging rebukes of former President Donald J. Trump as an “unserious man” whose return to the White House could have devastating consequences for the United States.

“With this election, our nation has a precious, fleeting opportunity to move past the bitterness, cynicism, and divisive battles of the past,” she said, casting herself as someone who can bring a deeply divided country together.

Like a prosecutor making a closing argument, Ms. Harris denounced Mr. Trump point by point, repeatedly accusing him of preparing to systematically erode the democratic values of the country if he returns to the White House.

“Consider what he intends to do if we give him power again,” she said, her voice rising. “Consider his explicit intent to set free violent extremists who assaulted those law enforcement officers at the Capitol. His explicit intent to jail journalists, political opponents, and anyone he sees as the enemy. His explicit intent to deploy our active duty military against our own citizens.”

“Just imagine,” she said, “Donald Trump with no guardrails.”

https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2024/08/22/dnc-live-updates-coverage/kamala-harris-trump-narcissist-00176091