Lee Heidhues 7.7.2023

It is beyond depressing and mind numbing that President Biden has authorized the use of American cluster bombs in Ukraine.

This evil weapon of war is banned by 120 nations. The impact of cluster bombs is devastating and long lasting. Years after the conflict ends citizens in the war torn nation will be maimed and killed by unexploded cluster bombs.

Equally distressing is the fact that so many American politicians are rallying around President Biden and applauding this appalling decision. America is a warlike militaristic nation whose primary way to resolve conflict is through the use of force.

Excerpted from The Intercept 7.7.2023

Cluster munitions are controversial due to the manner in which “bomblets” are scattered around a targeted area, creating secondary explosions that can cause death and injury even long after a conflict has ceased.

President Biden’s decision to supply cluster munitions to Ukraine would likely be seen as a setback to nonproliferation efforts aimed at stopping use of the weapon.

The bombs are currently at the center of an international campaign to ban their use in armed conflict. More than 100 states have signed an international convention on cluster munitions vowing not to employ them in war, produce them domestically, or encourage their use in foreign conflicts.

Despite public pressure to join, the U.S. has not become a signatory to the convention.

The use of cluster attacks during the 2006 Israeli war in Lebanon killed and wounded hundreds of civilians. A decade later, swaths of southern Lebanon are still dangerous for civilians who are periodically killed or maimed by stray bomblets.

The Russian military has also extensively used cluster munitions during its invasion of Ukraine, including in attacks on populated areas that were said to have killed and wounded hundreds of civilians in the early months of the war.

July 22 last year, a Ukrainian woman living in the town of Izium, then occupied by invading Russian troops, was killed in shelling launched by the Ukrainian military. The bomb that killed her was no ordinary weapon.

 According to investigators from Human Rights Watch, who visited the scene of the attack in Izium the woman’s death was caused by a cluster munition, a weapon much of the world has moved to ban due to the indiscriminate harm that they cause to civilians.

The salvo was allegedly fired from the Ukrainian side, according to witnesses, and detonated near the woman’s home, killing her and her dog.

“The attack was very scary. Very loud. I was outside and there were a lot of explosions. The wife of my ex-husband came and told me to hurry to get inside,” one witness told Human Rights Watch, according to a report released late Wednesday night. Another witness, who viewed the victim’s body in the aftermath and helped bury her in a local cemetery, said that her “face and body were severely mutilated by the explosion.”

The use of cluster attacks during the 2006 Israeli war in Lebanon killed and wounded hundreds of civilians. A decade later, swaths of southern Lebanon are still dangerous for civilians who are periodically killed or maimed by stray bomblets.

The bombs are currently at the center of an international campaign to ban their use in armed conflict. More than 100 states have signed an international convention on cluster munitions vowing not to employ them in war, produce them domestically, or encourage their use in foreign conflicts.

Despite public pressure to join, the U.S. has not become a signatory to the convention.

The Russian military has also extensively used cluster munitions during its invasion of Ukraine, including in attacks on populated areas that were said to have killed and wounded hundreds of civilians in the early months of the war.

https://theintercept.com/2023/07/05/ukraine-cluster-bombs-biden/

Top Photo: American Pentagon official ‘BOMBED by QUESTIONS’ about President Biden’s decision to provide Ukraine with cluster bombs.

Lee Heidhues 7.6.2023

Brooke Jenkins in her own words:

“The previous administration’s poor management and ideologies caused immeasurable harm to the public,” she wrote. “This office saw an exodus of experienced and talented attorneys after years of prosecutorial negligence.” – Written statement to SF Gate after one year as SF DA.

Brooke Jenkins will not let herself be interviewed. A tough reporter would question her seriously and, perhaps, unearth some unpleasant truths about this grifter politician on the make.

Jenkins can’t let it go. She needs her scapegoat to validate her precarious perch as The City’s anointed chief law enforcement officer.

Jenkins scapegoating statement says it all about the treacherous political creature who clawed her way into office by destroying a decent honest Progressive District Attorney, Chesa Boudin. Calling herself a “volunteer” only to disclose after she was safely ensconced in office by the equally treacherous Mayor London Breed. Brooke Jenkins disclosed she was paid over 150K for her treachery in the political coup d’etat of June 7, 2022.

This woman has no shame. She refuses to take responsibility for the State of Crime in San Francisco. Continuing to cast aspersions on the Man who promoted her career. Only to turn on him in an act of evil political opportunism.

Brooke Jenkins will pay the political price as crime in San Francisco spirals with no end in sight.

Excerpted from SF Gate 7.6.2023

Taken altogether, how can Brooke Jenkins’ first year in office best be described?

In a statement to SFGATE on Thursday — two days ahead of her first full year  in office — Jenkins said, “I believe we have and are making progress every day to improve conditions on our streets. It was years of prosecutorial neglect that contributed to the conditions in our neighborhoods, but we have set a new direction and tone in San Francisco that brazen drug dealing will be prosecuted.”

Evaluating whether street conditions are improving is largely subjective; noted Boudin detractors believe things are getting better, while others who’ve long documented their public safety observations seem to disagree. 

Data shows fatal overdoses are rising, and Jenkins’ office is currently struggling to obtain convictions for drug crimes. It also shows violent crime is up under Jenkins, while property crime is down, as first reported by Mission Local. But those data points have caveats, too: The COVID-19 pandemic brought life to a halt in 2020, leading to a decrease in criminal reports that year and in the first half of 2021.

If crime rates are directly linked to DA policy, as Jenkins suggested when she was campaigning against Boudin, then she failed to deliver on her promises in year one. But after taking office, she offered a different benchmark for success.

https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/brooke-jenkins-1-year-in-office-blames-boudin-18188064.php?IPID=SFGate-HP-CP-Spotlight

Lee Heidhues 7.5.2023

We are going back to Berlin for the first time in five years later this year.

A good way to get the feel for how the spoken German sounds and explore what attracts the German viewer is to stream.

Two series.

One about the underside of the German banking system. Bad Banks.

Another about German law enforcement and its intersection in politics and the migrant community. Sleeping Dog.

Watching these German dramas is also a nice way to escape the hum drum offered by the American entertainment industry.

Viewing the photography of Berlin and Frankfurt (in Bad Banks) shows me places we saw on previous visits and puts on display sites we may want to visit later this year.

Bad Banks

Excerpted from Goethe Institut USA

MONEY MAKES THE WORLD GO ROUND… AND DOWN THE TUBES.

The opening of Bad Banks comes on like a disaster movie, only the calamity here is financial: as a TV news broadcast warns of a banking collapse that’s “five times worse than the fall of Lehman Brothers,” an angry crowd swarming around an ATM discovers there’s no cash left and starts rioting in the streets of Frankfurt’s financial district, the Wall Street of Germany. Anyone in a suit and tie is assumed to be a banker and a fair target for the enraged mob. Even with tear gas and barricades, the police can’t contain the uprising.

A lone figure in a hoodie skirts the violence to slip into a side entrance of an office high-rise. This is young investment banker Jana (Paula Beer), and as she navigates the debris-strewn hallways of her firm, a shell-shocked colleague blames her for causing the disaster.

The show then backtracks eight weeks to the day Jana is fired from her gig at a prestigious Luxembourger firm, apparently for upstaging a grossly sexist executive. In a milieu where getting fired is akin to death, she’s humiliated, devastated. But then comes a surprise offer to work at a powerhouse investment bank in Frankfurt, the rival to her previous employer. The near-apocalyptic opening teaser thus sets up an intriguing mystery: how could quietly competent Jana be the one to cause so much havoc? Millions of viewers have succumbed to this irresistible narrative hook and binge-watched the first season of Bad Banks.

 https://www.goethe.de/ins/us/en/kul/tec/sef/21475491.html

Sleeping Dog

Excerpted from Heaven Horror

SLEEPING DOG is a new Netflix series in the crime and thriller genres. It’s from Germany (org. title: Schlafende Hunde) but the series is actually based on the 2016 series The Exchange Principle from Israel. In fact, this is a remake with just a few changes.

There are six hour-long episodes in the series and there’s a huge mystery looming over everyone and everything from the very beginning. It’s very much a character-driven story and it works very well. Nobody seems to be entirely good or bad, which results in many gray areas!

Sleeping Dog – Netflix Series Review

Top photo – Paula Beer takes a star turn as the amoral ethically compromised banker in Bad Banks

Lee Heidhues 7.2.2023

Next door to California is Nevada. The state known for gambling, legalized prostitution and the place to which the Oakland Raiders and, soon, the Oakland A’s will have moved to find greener financial pastures. Translation: Money.

Now, Nevada is becoming rapidly known for something else. A radical right MAGA governor who is putting the torch to any remotely progressive legislation passed by the legislature.

Abortion, voting rights, rent control. It’s all fair game for the radical right Governor of Nevada.

Excerpted from The Nation 6.30.2023

It’s hard to think of a governor who has used his veto power so often and to such destructive effect. Nevada’s legislature is, in many ways, as progressive as those in California, Oregon, and Washington.

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

Yet its efforts to reimagine Nevada’s political priorities are being stymied time after time after time by rookie GOP Governor Joe Lombardo’s uncompromising conservatism and his willingness to use the powers of his office to block popular measures aimed at protecting the rights, and increasing the economic and health care security, of ordinary Nevadans. 

Lombardo, the one time sheriff of Clark County, is way out of step with Nevada’s voting public on many public policy matters which he’s used his red pen.

Roughly 70 percent support broad access to abortion, and, presumably, at least that proportion support guaranteeing the right of access to contraception.

Two-thirds support robust rent control policies.

More than four in five voters tell pollsters they support medically assisted dying options.

When the legislative session ended earlier this month, Lombardo ended up with 75 vetoes in a single session, including 43 on the final day that he could issue vetoes. It was the most annual vetoes that any Nevada governor has ever issued.

Of all the vetoes, however, arguably the most bizarre was that of Assembly Bill 383, codifying the right to contraception in the state. It was, advocates urged, a necessary measure in a post-Dobbs legal landscape in which once-established rights are suddenly seen as vulnerable. The bill passed with bipartisan support, including from Heidi Gansert, the leader of the Republican minority in the state Senate, as well as her deputy, Carrie Buck. More than 7,000 Nevada women wrote letters to the governor in support of the legislation. Lombardo argued that it was unnecessary and vetoed the bill.

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/nevada-lombardo-vetoes/

Top photo – Then Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo announces his gubernatorial candidacy – June 28, 2021 before a cheering crowd of MAGA supporters

Lee Heidhues 6.30.2023

I watched fascinated, appalled and, ultimately, participated in the San Francisco Police Department public review of the fatal shooting in the outer Richmond District the morning of June 22.

https://www.sanfranciscopolice.org/news/sfpd-concludes-virtual-town-hall-june-22nd-officer-involved

Listening to most of the public comments repulsed me. Most callers spent their two minutes praising the SFPD. Insisted the officer behaved correctly. Decried the state of crime in San Francisco. Criticized the district Supervisor.

After I made my comments which were that the officer acted “precipitously” I was called a “Monday morning quarterback” and told by another caller I “should leave” San Francisco.

An SFPD officer shot and killed 37 year old Marc Child who had just murdered his 76 year old mother and a family dog.

The issue for me in watching the disturbing body cam footage was whether or not it was necessary to resort to fatal action within two minutes of arriving at the crime scene.

Equally disturbing was the behavior of the officer prior to the shooting. He yelled and screamed at an obviously mentally distraught man. His action did nothing to defuse a horrific situation.

The trained officer’s ultimate action, within two minutes of arriving at the crime scene, is questionable at best.

Dead men don’t talk. We will never know what was going on in the mind of Marc Child as he took his final breaths in the doorway of his home.

The SFPD officer was a distance away from Marc Child who had a 3 1/2″ knife in his hand.

It is obvious that SFPD shot Marc Child from a distance since the shell casings were found on the curbside a distance from the front door of the house.

https://www.ktvu.com/news/san-francisco-man-fatally-shot-by-police-after-allegedly-killing-mom-dog

Lee Heidhues 6.27.2023

Another incipient environmental disaster in the making is barely causing a ripple in the mainstream media.

Who would have thought that Norway, ancestral home of composer Edvard Grieg and locale of the classic Beatles song “Norwegian Wood,” would be conducting deep sea mining. And, for what?

Dig up the components for electric car batteries among other environmentally destructive uses.

Excerpted from The Financial Times 6.8.2023

“If someone gets there first it should be us,” said Walter Sognnes, chief executive of Loke Marine Minerals, which plans to mine Norway’s metallic crusts and recently took on two UK-sponsored exploration contracts in the Pacific. “We are a big fishery nation, we live by the sea, the ocean is our biggest resource . . . We would not be reinventing the wheel.”

Norway’s government is readying plans to open an area of ocean nearly the size of Germany to deep-sea mining as it seeks to become the first country to extract battery metals from its sea floor. The country’s energy ministry is racing to submit to parliament in the next two weeks a proposal to open the vast area to applications for exploration and extraction. The plan would then face a parliamentary vote in autumn.

But Oslo faces a battle with fishing businesses and environmentalists over the proposals, and risks opening a dispute with other nations as it pushes to enable mining close to Svalbard, the Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic.

Norway argues it commands exclusive mining rights over a larger area of water there than Russia, the UK and the EU contend it does. Volcanic springs up to 4,000m deep that surge from the Earth’s crust on fault lines between tectonic plates in the proposed area contain an estimated 38mn tons of copper, more than is mined around the world each year.

Of the region earmarked for potential mining, the most contentious part would be the area close to Svalbard. The Svalbard Treaty, which gives Norway sovereignty over the islands, also gives other countries the right to mine on land and in the territorial waters around the archipelago. Russia, the EU and the UK are at odds with Norway over how large an area of water this treaty covers.

Amund Vik, state secretary in the Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy, told the Financial Times that deep-sea mining would help Europe meet the “desperate need for more minerals, rare earth materials to make the transition happen”.

The government would take a “precautionary approach” on environmental issues, he added.

The fluid that emerges from hydrothermal vents such as those in Norway’s waters also contains other metals used in electric car batteries, including cobalt.

https://www.ft.com/content/44855d32-82c2-4f4c-b77c-1c21d3c1279f

Lee Heidhues 6.26.2023

Man Kit Lam is a vicious attack dog political operative who has no shame and will continue his slash and burn political vendetta against all those who oppose him.

Just today the San Francisco MSM is trumpeting the settlement of Man Kit Lam’s civil law suit against Jason Kruta. The young man who briefly disrupted his successful campaign to recall three Progressive School Board members in February 2022. An act for which Jason Kruta was fired from his job and was criminally prosecuted. A prosecution which was not enough for vengeful Man Kit Lam. He sued Mr. Kruta in San Francisco Civil Superior Court. A lawsuit which has just concluded.

“This lawsuit was never about money but uncovering the truth of whether there was a collaboration between Kruta and others to subvert the democratic process,” Lam said in a statement. “When I experienced and witnessed anti-democratic behavior and subsequently had my constitutional rights violated, I knew I must stand up for my rights and seek justice.”  

He thanked Kruta for his public apology, acknowledging the case has led to harassment against him, and hopes the settlement will resolve any lingering controversy.

Man Kit Lam quoted in San Francisco Standard 6.26.2023

At the same time Man Kit Lam’s Fake News kumbaya comment hit the press. Man Kit Lam unleashed his Twitter account (@mankitlam4). He launched an incendiary libelous assault on people who were exercising their First Amendment rights. They opposed his efforts to recall elected School Board members and DA Chesa Boudin.

It is a most reprehensible person who can in one breath claim to want a dispute laid to rest. And in the next breath fan the flames. Abusing and terrorizing his foes.

Top photo: Man Kit Lam shouts down former San Francisco Supervisor Rev. Amos Brown at meeting of the San Francisco School Board in 2022.

Lee Heidhues 6.24.2023

Are Americans paying attention to this fast breaking evolving crisis?

Excerpted from Moscow Times 6.24.2023

“The U.S. government is not able to coordinate evacuation of private U.S. citizens from the Russian Federation. As underscored in longstanding U.S. travel advisories for Russia, we continue to urge U.S. citizens to not enter Russia at this time, and that U.S. citizens remaining in Russia depart immediately if it is safe to do so.

The United States Embassy in Moscow has sent out a security alert to U.S. citizens in Russia, advising them to “prepare for any security developments” that arise.

“The U.S. Embassy in Moscow is aware of the reports of fighting between Wagner Group forces and the Russian Armed Forces in southwest Russia. The security situation in Russia continues to be unpredictable. We will continue to monitor the situation, but U.S. citizens should be aware that the Embassy has limited ability to assess security conditions in Moscow and other locations in the Russian Federation in real time,” the embassy said in an emailed advisory.

It urged U.S. citizens to “monitor local conditions and be prepared for any security developments.”

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/06/24/live-wagner-chief-rebels-against-military-leadership-a81618

Top photo: Wagner fighters in position outside of a circus in Rostov on the Don

Lee Heidhues 6.23.2023

It’s difficult to discern what is really happening in Putin’s Russia.

Reporters who tell the story may end up in jail. Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich has been imprisoned since late March for his honest reporting from Russia.

Reporters aren’t the only ones threatening Putin’s ironclad rule. Now the head of the mercenary Wagner Group Yevgeny Prigozhin has pledged retaliation after the Russian military allegedly attacked his forces. The Kremlin denies the charges and said he is attempting a “mutiny.

“This is not a military coup. This is a march for justice,” Prigozhin said. 

Naturally the Western media is falling all over itself to advertise what it hopes is Russian fratricide which could damage, if not destroy Vladimir Putin.

Excerpted from Deutsche Welle 6.23.2023

The Russian Prosecutor General’s Office said on Telegram that Yevgeny Prigozhin’s actions could see him sentenced behind bars for 12 to 20 years.

Prigozhin is a Wanted Man in both Russia and the United States.

The office said Prigozhin was charged under Article 279 of the Russian Criminal Code for organizing an armed insurrection.

“His actions will be given a proper legal assessment,” the office added.

https://www.dw.com/en/wagner-chief-accuses-russian-army-of-deceiving-putin/video-66018741

https://www.dw.com/en/live-russias-wagner-chief-faces-mutiny-charges/a-66018647

Lee Heidhues 6.21.2023

The San Francisco Police Department has guidelines for engaging in high speed pursuit.

Looking at the photographic evidence on display from today’s smash up into a former Italian Restaurant in the heart of the Mission leaves one wondering if the cops read their own rule book.

Excerpted from Mission Local 6.21.2023

In the midst of a high-speed car chase, a San Francisco police SUV ran a stop sign, clipped a motorcycle it appeared to be trying to avoid and injured a child as it crashed into the front of the storefront that was formerly Lucca’s deli on the corner of Valencia and 22rd Street, witnesses said. 

Witnesses saw two people transported by ambulance, one of whom was a child. A witness said he aided both the victims after the crash and that their injuries did not appear life-threatening.

Neither the police department nor San Francisco General Hospital, the city’s go-to trauma center, responded to requests for comment. The victims’ conditions are unknown.

“I was just sitting next to the stop sign and a red car was flying through the stop sign, and the second after that I saw a police cruiser going just as fast,” said Chris, who said he was on 22nd Street west of the intersection and that the speeding red car was going “50 to 60 miles per hour” towards Valencia.

The car sped down 22nd Street, Chris said, followed by “a police cruiser chasing it with lights on.”

Chris ran down 22nd following the chase and saw the police SUV had crashed into Lucca’s facade, he said. The red car, witnesses said, sped off westbound on 22nd.

Robert Reyes, who lives on the corner directly opposite the store and was standing on the corner, said he saw the entire incident. He was waiting to cross the street when he saw a maroon Mercedes-Benz run a red light on Valencia Street, followed by the police SUV.

He said that the red car “slowed down” when it approached the intersection before speeding up and fleeing down 22nd Street. The police car, sirens on, followed and ran the red light, striking a motorcyclist cruising on Valencia.

San Francisco police officers are permitted to engage in vehicle chases under certain conditions.

San Francisco Police Department
GENERAL ORDER
5.05
Rev. 05/22/13
Eff. 06/26/13
EMERGENCY RESPONSE AND PURSUIT DRIVING

IV. VEHICLE PURSUITS
A. PURSUIT GUIDELINES

1. WHEN A PURSUIT IS AUTHORIZED. Except as otherwise provided in this order,
   an officer in an emergency vehicle may initiate a pursuit of an individual:
   a. Suspected of a violent felony; or
   b. When there is an articulable reasonable belief that the individual needs to be
   immediately apprehended because of the risk that individual poses to public
   safety.

Two hit, hospitalized by SFPD squad car in high-speed chase