SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 1.22.2024

Last week one of Donald Trumps’ lawyers bailed on his client.

Now we have been enlightened as to why Joe Tacopina may have decided he’s representing a Loser. And doesn’t want to be sitting next to Trump in the courtroom when he goes down.

Excerpted from The Hill 1.24.2024

When pressed in an interview with Al Sharpton if it is possible Trump could end up convicted in one of his criminal cases, Joe Tacopina said, “Oh, is it possible? Absolutely.“

Joe Tacopina, one of former President Trump’s New York trial lawyers, offered an unfavorable prediction for his former client’s ongoing legal battles and contended it is “absolutely possible” Trump will be convicted in one of his federal criminal cases.

In an interview with MSNBC’s the Rev. Al Sharpton on Saturday, Tacopina called some of Trump’s federal cases “serious” and “not to be taken lightly.”

The former president faces 91 felony counts across four federal and state indictments. This includes 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in New York City in connection with alleged hush payments to cover up an alleged affair.

Tacopina previously represented Trump in the hush money case, along with his appeal of a sexual battery civil lawsuit brought by longtime advice columnist E. Jean Carroll, but confirmed earlier this month he would withdraw from both cases.

Tacopina: I left the team because it was just my time. I had to follow my compass. My compass told me it was my time there was done. There are a lot of personal reasons that went into that. Things that I can't and won't discuss. pic.twitter.com/B1u2z9vHSA

— Acyn (@Acyn) January 20, 2024

“You have a jury of 12 who’s going to ultimately decide this,” Tacopina continued. “Jack Smith is a federal prosecutor who I knew from his days in Brooklyn. … They’re serious prosecutors, and these are federal cases and you have a jury here.”

Trump faces four felony counts in Washington, D.C., over allegations he was involved in a conspiracy to defraud the U.S. and stood at the center of a campaign to block the certification of votes for President Biden on Jan. 6, 2021.

In a follow-up question, Sharpton asked Tacopina to clarify if he believed they are “good cases” and “not just politics.”

“Look, do I think there’s a political bent to some of this, some of the way this was gone about? Yes, I do,” Tacopina responded. “Do I think these cases are invalid cases? Look, the grand jury voted to indict, and he’s going to have to face a jury in Washington, D.C.”

Former Trump lawyer says it’s ‘absolutely’ possible former president will be convicted

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 1.21.2024

There will be plenty of ink spilt and sports talk in the coming week about Jared Goff. The Detroit Lions quarterback who will make a big time return on the national stage to his native territory 

Jared will be making a homecoming. Leading his Lions to battle the San Francisco 49ers next Sunday at Levi’s Stadium.

Trying to best the favored Niners. The team he grew up following. His hero, according to media reports, 49er Hall of Fame quarterback Joe Montana. Number 16. The number worn today by Jared Goff.

Jared was born in Marin County. Attended Marin Catholic HS in Greenbrae.

Played two years at UC Berkeley before turning pro in 2016. First with the Los Angeles Rams. The last three seasons with the Detroit Lions.

The last time Detroit won a championship was 1957. Back then there were only 12 teams in the National Football League. That year the 49ers were instrumental in the Detroit march to the championship. That season the Niners and Lions ended the season with identical 8-4 records. There was a playoff game at the old Kezar Stadium at eastern edge of Golden Gate Park. Before 60,000 fans in the rickety arena the Niners led 27-7 early in the third quarter. Improbably, the Lions roared back and beat San Francisco 27-31.

I was at Kezar Stadium with my step-father and remember the 49ers epic collapse to this day.

The following week the Lions devoured the Cleveland Browns 59-14. That win in Kezar Stadium was the last time the Detroit Lions have won a playoff game on the road.

https://www.profootballhof.com/football-history/1957-playoff-game/

Jared Goff looks to change all that next Sunday.

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

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 1.20.2024

The Israelis have killed nearly 25,000 Palestinian children, women and men since its military began its retaliatory onslaught in Gaza last October. In retaliation for the brutal Hamas attack in Israel which killed 1200 people on October 7.

This week the Palestine national football team played its first match at the Asian Cup games in Qatar. The players received a joyous welcome and overwhelming support.

Excerpted from Deutsche Welle 1.17.2024

Palestine have never won an Asian Cup match, but the usual laser focus of professional athletes is impossible for players like Mohammed Saleh. The defender told news agency AFP that he had not heard from his family for days.

“They are living in a tent on open land… May God help them,” he said after the match, explaining that his home in Gaza City had been destroyed and his family constantly had to relocate during over 100 days of fighting in the Palestinian territory.

Shortly before the tournament kicked off, the defender was told that his uncle, his aunt and their children had been killed in the conflict. “We play football for them… for Gaza… for our cause,” he added.

Palestine men’s national football team coach Makram Daboub admitted it had been difficult to control his players’ emotions for their opening game at the Asian Cup, a match that coincided with the 100th day of the Israel-Hamas war.

Captain Musab Al-Battat took to the stage for the players’ oath and Palestinian music at the beginning and end of the opening ceremony, while shouts of “free Palestine” were heard during the Iran match.

“In the previous game the focus at the start was not what we intended,” Daboub said on Wednesday ahead of the country’s second group-stage game vs. the United Arab Emirates.

“No coach would want the scenario we had against Iran, but the game against UAE is different because we have the same chances and it is important for us to get the three points.”

In purely sporting terms, Tamer Seyam’s strike in the 4-1 loss was a mere consolation, but Palestine’s first goal of the Asian Cup was greeted with a huge roar from the stands.

Palestine started their Asian Cup with their domestic league suspended amid the war in Gaza and the support for them was clear from the off in Qatar.

In addition, fans of a number of nationalities in Qatar came dressed in Palestine shirts or draped in its flag and keffiyehs.

https://www.dw.com/en/asian-cup-emotion-high-for-palestine-football-team/a-67997968

Top photo: Palestine team on the pitch in Qatar

SAN FRANCISCO DE YOUNG MUSEUM

Liz and Lee Heidhues – photos and text -1.18.2024

Fashioning San Francisco – A Century of Style had its members preview today. On display are the finery worn by the aristocracy of San Francisco during the past 100 years.

Liz was born in San Francisco. Both of us were raised in neighborhoods close by the homes of the women who wore these gowns and ensembles. A Century of Style is a fashion show only a genuine San Francisco native can truly appreciate.

Liz has always been interested in fashion. She designed and sewed her own clothing. And to this day has her Bernina sewing machine.

An influence on my life was my grandmother Mimi. A genuine fashion plate. She subscribed to VOGUE Magazine. A periodical I occasionally thumbed through as a boy.

I worked for Levi Strauss & Co. in the international division over 10 years. While the Levi’s brand is not on display at the Fashioning San Francisco it reminded me that clothing is an integral part of the history of this City.

https://www.famsf.org/exhibitions/fashioning-san-francisco

SAN FRANCISCO

Liz and Lee Heidhues 1.17.2024

Connie Chameleon Chan’s 2024 reelection political revisionism. 

The same Connie Chan who eked out a 125 vote victory in 2020 after making promises to Sunrise Bay Area and gaining their endorsement. Once in office in 2021 Connie turned her back on the environmentalists. Became arguably the biggest foe of JFK Promenade, The Great Walkway and Slow Streets on the Board of Supervisors.

San Francisco progressives cannot allow themselves to be duped again by the election season campaign promises of Connie Chan. Actions must have consequences.

Almost singlehandedly Connie destroyed JFK Promenade, the now permanently car free sanctuary in Golden Gate Park. Supe Chan met nearly 30 times with lobbyists for the DeYoung Museum, whose deep pockets and political influence waged a vicious battle to bring cars back to JFK Promenade. Connie was their front person at City Hall.

Now, it’s election season. Connie wants the voters to forget about and ignore her chameleon like behavior. Joining up with San Francisco Bike Coalition in Street Audit under the guise of advancing pedestrian safety.

Where were Connie’s Audits during the fight Motorists waged on pedestrian sanctuaries of Slow Streets, Car Free JFK Drive, The Great Walkway’s Car Free corridor between Connie’s District and car drenched District 4?

Answer: Connie wasn’t leading Pedestrian Audits! Connie was leading the Motorists’ war to destroy car free areas in San Francisco.

Lee uncovered Connie’s use of her political office in attempt to destroy JFK Promenade. Connie’s July 27, 2021 text to De Young Museum’s lobbyist, Ryan Blake, from Platinum Advisors, Calif’s Premiere Gov’t Relations and Lobbying Firm to arrange a meeting with CEO Thomas Campbell. “She will be reaching out to chat about everyone’s favorite subject, JFK Drive.”

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 1.15.2024

The Zone of Interest is a sobering tale of the horror of Nazi Germany. Depressingly portrayed in mundane fashion. The family of the Auschwitz commandant lives life seemingly oblivious to the genocide going on just yards away from their palatial home.

The viewer witnesses everyday scenes of family life. A family which is served by Auschwitz inmates acting as The Help. Interrupted only by smoke billowing from the Auschwitz incinerator chimneys, the occasional gunshots and screams of the doomed Jews behind the walls.

Yet, despite this seeming ability to ignore the human disaster being perpetrated in their name, there is a pervasive unease which permeates their cloistered existence.

The Zone of Interest is a surreal viewing experience. It starkly illustrates how people can mentally bury the genocide around them and go about their daily lives. For example:

• Auschwitz commandant meeting with his associates dispassionately planning the murder or 12,000 Jews each day.

• Wife of the Auschwitz commandant trying on a mink coat confiscated from a doomed Jewish woman.

• Wife of the commandant distributing clothing taken from gassed Jews.

• The children of the commandant examining teeth extracted from gassed Jews.

• The Commandant and his wife casually talking about their next vacation to Italy.

• Family members enjoying a picnic by the river which flows behind the Auschwitz crematorium.

• The Auschwitz commandant, criminally responsible for the murder of tens of thousands of Jews, petting his favorite horse. Telling the horse, “I love you.”

We sit transfixed through the 105 minute film on slain American civil rights leader Martin Luther King’s annual birthday commemoration.

The Zone of Interest is grim story which has not one scene of Jewish people being murdered in the Auschwitz killing factory. It’s all in the mind’s eye. Made all the more remarkable because the primary location of the story is the Auschwitz commandant’s palatial family home right on the other side of the killing compound.

The Zone of Interest has won numerous awards.

Inexplicably, some critics have criticized the film as trivializing The Holocaust. One reviewer even going so far to call it “Holocaust kitsch.” The critics who are disparaging the film tend to be American. Which is depressing. Yet no surprise.

America historically has never come to terms with its own history of slavery, racist and criminal war actions. Against Native Americans and people of color. Waging war around the globe all in the name of protecting American hegemony.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Zone_of_Interest_(film)

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 1.15.2024

A lawyer can’t abandon a client during litigation for not paying his bills.

So, we will probably never learn the true reason Joseph Tacopina walked away on the eve of Trial.

Still it would be interesting to learn how soon Trump, notorious for manipulating and hiding his finances, settles his account with Mr. Tacopina.

Perhaps The New York Post will dig up the dirt and post a scoop on Mr. Tacopina’s sudden departure.

Excerpted from The New York Times 1.15.2024

Joseph Tacopina, the trial lawyer on Donald J. Trump’s legal team with the most successes defending high-profile clients, will no longer represent the former president in his criminal trial in Manhattan, according to a notice sent to the court on Monday.

The withdrawals came a day before jury selection is set to begin in a second trial stemming from the allegations brought by E. Jean Carroll, who accused Mr. Trump of raping her in a department store dressing room in the 1990s.

Mr. Tacopina also withdrew on Monday from another case in which he was still legally representing Mr. Trump: an appeal of the verdict in a lawsuit brought by the writer E. Jean Carroll. Mr. Trump was found liable for sexual abuse and defamation last year and was ordered to pay Ms. Carroll $5 million.

It was not clear why Mr. Tacopina decided to withdraw, and he declined to comment.

His departure from the two cases comes as Mr. Trump enters a year of legal uncertainty. He faces four criminal indictments, and trials with dates that are up in the air. The trial in Manhattan, in which he is accused of falsifying business records to hide hush-money payments to a porn star during the 2016 election, could begin as early as March.

Top photo: Donald Trump in New York courtroom with Joseph Tacopina at is arraignment in the Stormy Daniels hush money prosecution. 2023

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 1.24.2024

I just spent much of Sunday being entertained by National Football League (NFL) playoff games on network television. The games are interspersed with commercials which tout America’s most beloved assets: Cars. Junk Food. Wireless communication companies. Mindless mind numbing television programs.

However there is one product I did not see amongst all the noise and bombast on network television. An American export which has come to prominence since Donald Trump entered the blood stream of American politics.

AMERICAN HATRED GOES GLOBAL.

Excerpted from Foreign Affairs Magazine – 9.19.2023

In its decades-long fight against terrorism, the United States regularly criticized countries such as Iran, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia for exporting extremist ideologies and violence. Ironically, today the United States stands accused of doing the same.

The spread of homegrown American conspiracy theories, beliefs in racial superiority, antigovernment extremism, and other manifestations of hate and intolerance has become such a problem that some of the United States’ closest allies—Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom—have designated both American groups and citizens as foreign terrorists.

Although little reported by the U.S. press, the October 2022 killing of two people at a gay bar in Bratislava, Slovakia, by a man espousing racist and homophobic views is an example of the pernicious effects of this “made in America” ideology.

In a now all-too-common pattern, the gunman posted a manifesto explaining his intent just before the attack. Written in English, the document displayed all the racist, anti-Semitic, and homophobic justifications that have become de rigueur for this type of hate-filled violence. More significant, the manifesto expressed a solidarity and affinity with a U.S.-centric white supremacist ideology that has gained greater currency in both the United States and other countries in recent years. “The number of non-White invaders in America continues to grow and grow, unchecked,” the killer wrote.

The gunman also cited a white supremacist terrorist attack earlier that year on a supermarket in a Black community in Buffalo, New York, as having inspired him. After decades of insufficient and ineffective efforts to suppress a racist antigovernment fringe, the United States has become the exemplar of far-right extremism and terrorism.

Far-right violence today is increasingly fueled by a deadly combination of ideology and strategy imported from the United States.

The “great replacement” theory, which claims that nonwhite individuals are purposefully being brought into Western countries to undermine the political power of white voters, got its start in France, but this kind of thinking has long been a fixture of American white supremacism.

These days, it is making its way into mainstream rhetoric in the United States and is acquiring an increasingly international audience.

These American extremists have also adopted from Marxism the strategic goal of “accelerationism,” meaning hastening the collapse of society by fomenting chaos and bloodshed. The United States’ exportation of these two ideas is radicalizing men and women across the globe, prompting foreign governments to take steps to protect their citizens. But at base, this is an American problem, and it therefore requires American leadership to solve it.

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/guest-pass/redeem/6cOlo7Ocd1A

JFK PROMENADE – GOLDEN GATE PARK – SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 1.12.2024

EVERY PICTURE TELLS A STORY- SPOILED MOTORISTS EDITION.

It’s sad but true.

Some motorists still don’t get the message and continue to believe they can drive their cars on JFK Promenade in Golden Gate Park.

Fortunately the authorities are keeping watch on this voter approved car free oasis in San Francisco.

Cycling by on Friday afternoon I came upon a posse of Golden Gate Park officers, two of whom were on bicycles, citing a miscreant motorist.

I hope the amount of the fine is sufficient to deter this obnoxious behavior.

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 1.11.2024

Today’s post comes under the “Better late than never” category.

Just today Liz pointed out an article which appeared in The New Yorker last October which took Mayor London Breed to the political woodshed. Blasting her “cynical” right wing turn as a political ploy to gain favor with the ascendant law and order venture capital crowd burrowing its way into Breed’s City Hall with deep pockets. Into the political life of San Francisco.

The Lede in the piece came at the end.

It’s something San Franciscans who watch the action know all too well.

Excerpted from The New Yorker 10.2.2023

There is no question that homelessness and addiction in the state should be the top priorities for any elected official—not just because voters care but because the crises deserve real solutions.

Blaming people battling addiction and threatening them with potential financial ruin might satisfy someone like Elon Musk, but the game that San Francisco Mayor London Breed is playing now is both cynical and a waste of everyone’s time.

Maybe all of this will teach Breed the lesson that she should have learned when she cheered on the recall of Chesa Boudin: if the problems—homelessness, crime—stay the same once you’ve disposed of your political enemies, the next backlash is coming straight for you.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/london-breeds-cynical-swing-to-the-right

Top photo: San Francisco Mayor London Breed takes a knee for eight minutes and 46 seconds in honor of George Floyd at City Hall, Tuesday, June 9, 2020, in San Francisco, Calif. Black Lives Matter demonstrations in the Bay Area and protesters in the nation continued following the death of George Floyd, who died after being restrained by Minneapolis police officers on Memorial Day. Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin is charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter for the death of Floyd. Chauvin had kept his knee on Floyd’s neck for eight minutes and 46 seconds. Santiago Mejia / The Chronicle