Lee Heidhues 4.17.2023

The Red Scare has taken on a new dimension with The New York Times reporting in the best New York Post tabloid fashion.

The Times breathlessly reported on the arrest of two Chinese nationals for running a Cop shop in lower Manhattan to keep tabs on their fellow countrymen in the United States.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/two-arrested-operating-illegal-overseas-police-station-chinese-government

It all sounds like something out of a Grade B Spy vs. Spy television show better suited for the era of anti-Communist hysteria. Only this time the presumed bad guys aren’t the Russians.

Excerpted from The New York Times 4.17.2023

For years, thousands of New Yorkers and tourists have walked past an unassuming office building in Lower Manhattan.

On Monday, federal prosecutors unsealed criminal charges accusing two men of helping run an unauthorized Chinese police outpost there, one of more than 100 around the globe used to intimidate and control China’s citizens abroad, and to stamp out criticism of the ruling Communist Party.

The case represents the first time criminal charges have been brought in connection with such a police outpost, according to the U.S. attorney’s office in Brooklyn.

The charges against the men, Lu Jianwang, 61, also known as Harry Lu, and Chen Jinping, 59, grew out of an investigation by the F.B.I. and the U.S. attorney’s office into the outpost, which conducted its operations without jurisdiction or diplomatic approval.

The two men were arrested on Monday and charged with conspiring to act as agents of the Chinese government, and with obstructing justice. They are said to have used the police outpost to intimidate Chinese dissidents living in the United States, on China’s behalf.

Charges were also unveiled in two related cases: one against 34 Chinese police officers accused of harassing Chinese nationals who lived in the New York area, and another against eight Chinese officials accused of directing a Zoom employee based in China to remove dissidents from the platform.

The Manhattan police outpost, court papers say, was overseen by the Fuzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau, a branch of China’s Ministry of Public Security. It is one of scores of such operations around the world that have unnerved diplomats and intelligence officials.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/17/nyregion/fbi-chinese-police-outpost-nyc.html

Top photo – A police officer wearing a pair of “smart glasses” with a facial-recognition system at Zhengzhou East Railway Station in China (AFP / Getty / The Atlantic)

Lee Heidhues 4.16.2023

The captioned colloquy above sums up in a few words the mysterious brilliance of Three Colours Red.

Favorite movie of all-time edition.

I watched this film twice during its cinematic release in 1994 and have viewed it too many times to remember since.

It’s really no contest. It’s fascinating, deep and thought provoking every time.

The third in the classic Three Colors trilogy by Krzysztof Kieslowski.

Three Colours Red

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Colours:_Red

Three Colours: Red (French: Trois couleurs: Rouge, Polish: Trzy kolory: Czerwony) is a 1994 romantic mystery film co-written, produced and directed by Polish filmmaker Krzysztof Kieślowski.

It is the final installment of the Three Colours trilogy, which examines the French Revolutionary ideals; it is preceded by Blue and White. Kieślowski had announced that this would be his final film, which proved true with the director’s sudden death in 1996. 

Red is about fraternity, which it examines by showing characters whose lives gradually become closely interconnected, with bonds forming between two characters who appear to have little in common.

Red was released to universal critical acclaim and was nominated for three Academy Awards, including Best Director for Kieślowski. It was also selected as the Swiss entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 67th Academy Awards, but was disqualified for not being a majority-Swiss production.

As of 2022, it is one of only two films to receive perfect ratings on both Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, along with Fanny and Alexander.

Lee Heidhues 4.14.2023

Photos – Liz Heidhues and Lee Heidhues

Today Liz and I went to see the incendiary political messaging film “How to Blow Up a Pipeline.” The story of a group of young adults who have been physically and psychologically damaged by the ravages of the oil industry.

They come together and do something about the grievances they’ve suffered.

The director has successfully conveyed the story without being judgmental either about the cause the protagonists espouse or about the individuals themselves. It’s a fascinating, well done piece of political film making.

Liz and I were the only ones at the mid morning screening. So, we had the luxury of being able to literally take screen shots throughout the 100 minute film.

The landscape of the movie is beautiful. It was filmed in New Mexico, directly adjacent to West Texas where the story takes place.

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

Lee Heidhues 4.14.2023

I couldn’t say it better myself.

Liz Heidhues (@simbagirrl) put this on Twitter for all the World to See and Hear with a soundtrack provided by San Francisco’s own homegrown Steve Miller Blues Band.

Livin’ in the USA . Brooke Jenkins, London Breed, Emilio Ruiz-Garcia edition

Liz Heidhues 4.14.2023 as seen on Twitter @simbagirrl

Good Grief!!

Notorious San Francisco MAGA Mouthpieces

Emilio Garcia-Ruiz – San Francisco Chronicle editor in chief

San Francisco Chronicle went into overdrive. Selected dramatic atypical crime to sensationalize and publicize the puppet DA

Brooke Jenkins – San Francisco District Attorney and her band of political groupies

Mayor London Breed

San Francisco Police Department – Emotion dominates reason, sells papers

IT’S LIVIN’ IN THE USA

Top photo – Police make arrest in Lee stabbing death – SF Chronicle page one – 4.14.2023

Lee Heidhues 4.13.2023

The blazing hypocrisy coming from the mouths of San Francisco officialdom boggles the mind at its level of audacity.

These very same people beginning with Mayor London Breed and her handpicked District Attorney have raised the false flag of rampant crime in San Francisco for two years.

DA Jenkins Brooke, who rode to office through a campaign of lies, innuendo and fabrications about the state of crime in San Francisco is excoriating Elon Musk for parroting the lament about crime she shamefully and falsely utilized to con the paranoid driven gullible voters of San Francisco.

It was incendiary rhetoric and complete misrepresentation of the facts that led to the 9MM funded recall of Chesa Boudin in June 2022.

A successful political coup d’etat, whose MAGA donors paid Jenkins over 150K for her work and, ultimately, made Jenkins the prime beneficiary when she was handpicked by Breed to be the new DA.

Now, this very same conniving politician has completed a 180 degree turn. Acknowledging that San Francisco does not have a crime problem.

It’s Jenkins 2023 world. The rampant crime story is all fake news drummed up by the mainstream media.

This same mainstream media Mayor Breed, her City Hall hacks and Brooke Jenkins relied on to oust Chesa Boudin.

Excerpted from The San Francisco Standard 4.13.2023

San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins has slammed Twitter CEO Elon Musk over his tweet attributing the killing of tech executive Bob Lee to perceived rampant violent crime in the city.

At a Thursday press conference following the arrest of a suspect in Lee’s killing, Jenkins said that Musk’s remarks were “reckless and irresponsible.” 

Police say Lee and his alleged assailant were acquainted and the crime was not random.

Musk’s statements, which implied otherwise, “served to mislead the world in their perceptions of San Francisco and also negatively impact the pursuit of justice for victims of crime,” Jenkins said, because they spread “misinformation at a time when the police are trying to solve a very difficult case.”

“Since waking up to Elon Musk’s tweet, my office has worked hard to tell people not to make assumptions about this case,” told told journalists. 

Lee was stabbed to death in the early morning hours on April 4 in San Francisco’s Rincon Hill neighborhood. His killing made headlines around the world.

Numerous tech entrepreneurs took to Twitter to blame the stabbing on supposedly runaway violent crime in the city. 

Musk was among them, directly calling out Jenkins on Twitter: “Violent crime in SF is horrific and even if attackers are caught, they are often released immediately,” he wrote. “Is the city taking stronger action to incarcerate repeat violent offenders @BrookeJenkinsSF?”

https://sfstandard.com/criminal-justice/bob-lee-killing-elon-musk-slammed-for-reckless-tweets-by-san-francisco-da/

Top photo – DA Brooke Jenkins a master at parroting the false law and order talking points.

Lee Heidhues 4.12.2023

The vicious media attacks on the first black woman District Attorney in Alameda County have begun.

Kudos to SF Gate for calling out the mainstream media which is trying to light the match to yet another political lynching of a progressive district attorney.

It worked in San Francisco. Backed by much of the spineless MSM and with billionaire MAGA funders waiting in the wings they’ve set their sites on another progressive.

Excerpted from SF Gate 4.12.2023

Barely three months into Price’s term, a handful of media members have fixated on new Alameda DA Pamela Price, posturing as if they’re doing objective, community-oriented journalism — and even worse, adopting the holier-than-thou stance that their beliefs and biases aren’t shaping whom they choose to interview and how they choose to report stories.

Price might turn out to be an abject disaster for any number of reasons, but there’s nothing tangible to base that on yet. You don’t have to be a supporter of criminal justice reform to acknowledge the scary implications of already knowing, after barely three months, that a politician who won their race fair and square, who hasn’t even fully instituted their suggested policies yet, seems to be on a collision course for a media-backed recall.

They’re using loaded, pro-punishment rhetoric about “public safety,” boldly assuming the very constituency that just elected Price would of course immediately find her policies to be out of step; they’re acting like it’s newsworthy that a selection of Alameda County prosecutors — some of whom donated to both Nancy O’Malley and Terry Wiley — would choose to resign from office when a DA with radically different politics became their new boss; and they’re also highlighting gruesome anecdotes, thrusting vulnerable families of brutal crimes into the limelight to cynically dissuade the public from thinking critically about the larger impacts of criminal justice reform.

ABC7 reporter Dan Noyes, who, as far as I can tell, would bristle at the idea of publicly admitting to his political ideologies, including on issues like criminal justice. But his editorial choices, and his sources list, speak for themselves.

Reporter Emilie Raguso, who’s guilty of many of the same one-sided reporting techniques as Noyes, took a similar stance at her publication, the Berkeley Scanner, which is dedicated to writing up the grisly details of neighborhood crimes. 

Both Noyes’ and Raguso’s reporting on the triple-homicide case has relied on the disgust of Alameda County Judge Mark McCannon, who denied Price’s 15-year plea deal. Since McCannon’s move, Price has announced that she’s moving to disqualify him from overseeing her cases. Noyes called Price’s decision an “extraordinary action,” but Price’s predecessor, O’Malley, took the same action with a judge less than a year ago.

What neither Noyes nor Raguso bothered mentioning in their coverage is that O’Malley’s office left this triple-homicide case floundering for years, dating back to 2015, because there are questions about whether the evidence would sustain a conviction. And McCannon is not some apolitical figure. In fact, he was an Alameda County deputy district attorney for 16 years under Tom Orloff and then, yes, O’Malley. He even donated to O’Malley’s campaign in 2009. He’s an elected official and someone who was once deeply involved in the office Price is attempting to reform.

Noyes has the ideal mentor for these self-absorbed shenanigans in his colleague, Dion Lim, who perfected the routine of chasing around a progressive DA (in her case, Chesa Boudin).

Lim has waded into Price’s tenure as well, recently interviewing the family of Jasper Wu, a 23-month-old who was killed by gunfire on Interstate 880 in Oakland. Lim explained in her report that Wu’s alleged killers might — keyword might — receive a lesser sentence because Price is against sentencing enhancements; one of Wu’s parents responded by telling Lim that they do not “believe in second chances” and they disagreed with the idea of eliminating those enhancements.

https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/media-coverage-of-alameda-county-da-pamela-price-17891024.php

Top photo: Then-Alameda County DA candidate Pamela Price speaks during a rally hosted by the Peoples Park Council in Berkeley, Calif., on July 27, 2022. MediaNews Group/East Bay Times v/MediaNews Group via Getty Images

Lee Heidhues 4.10.2023

The MAGA war against progressive district attorneys continues.

It has moved across the Bay to Alameda County where it is setting its sights on that County’s first black female district attorney, Pamela Price.

At least one of the usual suspects whose bullhorn disruptive tactics was instrumental in the political lynching of San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin last year has made her way to Oakland.

Leanna Louie, who famously disrupted a Chesa Boudin rally in March 2022 with her bullhorn, is at it, again. Standing on the stairs of the Alameda County courthouse hoping to politically lynch another progressive District Attorney. Showing a little respect for the Court, Leanna wasn’t wielding her bullhorn today.

This is the same Leanna Louie whose candidacy for a Supervisor seat in San Francisco was tossed out by a Superior Court judge due to her illegal residency.

This is the same Leanna Louie who called Mission Local investigative reporter Joe Eskenazi a “Nazi” after he exposed her illegal residency in a feature article last summer. Joe Eskenazi is Jewish.

Excerpted from The Standard 4.10.2023

A crowd of protesters turned out in Oakland on Monday to voice their anger at Alameda County district attorney Pamela Price over her handling of the homicide case of Jasper Wu, a 2-year-old Chinese American boy who was shot in 2021.

Elaine Peng, an activist in Oakland’s Chinatown and a mental health advocate, defended Price, pointing out that the DA has not said she would seek a lower sentence or zero jail time in the Wu case. Peng has worked with the Wu family since the beginning.

“She was just hoping to work with AAPI organizations to find alternative punishment solutions to make the community safer,” Peng said.

Pamela Price, the progressive DA who was elected in 2022, is drawing strong criticism from members of the Chinese American community who fear she may not prosecute the alleged killers to the fullest extent. Protesters cited a recent emailed statement addressed to the “Chinese communities” in which Price sought possible “non-carceral form” of solutions to criminal offenses, triggering the backlash.

Price’s letter, which was sent to multiple Chinatown community members and Chinese-language media reporters, also received condemnation from National Asian Pacific Islander Prosecutors Association for its perceived condescending tone.

“Some people don’t know about the basic principles of constitutional law that govern our office and the justice system,” Price said in the letter.

Price’s office sent out a statement emphasizing it has not yet made any decisions regarding the charges in Wu’s killing and will make decisions directly in accordance to the evidence.

“Our hearts continue to go out to the family and to this entire community regarding this horrific crime,” the statement said. “We will be transparent about this case as it proceeds through the justice system.”

Bob Yee, one of the rally organizers, said the goal for the rally was to empower the community to hold Price accountable.

“Price had an opportunity to unify us and provide leadership,” Yee said. “Instead, she chose to divide us.”

Top photo – Alameda District Attorney Pamela Price

https://sfstandard.com/criminal-justice/progressive-alameda-da-faces-backlash-over-toddler-killing-case/

Lee Heidhues 4.9.2023

“SAN FRANCISCO’S SUCH A HARD CITY TO LIVE IN. PEOPLE CYCLE THROUGH EVERY TWO YEARS.”

Talking about my City.

Standing on my front porch in a quiet part of town this evening I heard someone proclaim loudly as he walked by.

Perhaps we’ve been here too long and we fail to realize it.

Does this make us survivors?

Top photo – Distraught cyclist at memorial for fellow cyclist killed by a speeding motorist April 4, 2023

Lee Heidhues 4.7.2023

San Francisco Supervisor Connie Chan has been the worst of the worst trying to Destroy JFK Promenade, the Great Walkway and Slow Streets. 

Now she is exploiting the death of beloved cyclist Ethan Boyes near her District to call for bike enhancements in the area where he was cut down by an irresponsible motorist on April 4, 2023.

The Supervisor is disparaged by many cyclists for her strenuous well documented opposition to bike lanes and pedestrian car free thoroughfare.

Three years into her four year term Connie Chan wants to make amends.

No way… During her successful election bid in November 2020 Connie stood with environmentalists and received the endorsement of Sunrise Bay Area. A commitment she completely drove away from once safely parked in office.

This is nothing more than a crass political stunt to boost her reelection bid in 2024. Advocates for car free spaces in San Francisco have not forgotten and will never forget or forgive her well documented car centric advocacy.

Articles excerpted from San Francisco Chronicle 4.7.2023

https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/s-f-officials-look-protected-bike-lanes-near-17884950.php

As friends mourned the death of an elite cyclist struck by a car in San Francisco’s Presidio park, Supervisor Connie Chan called for protected bike lanes on roads leading up to the park’s entrance.

“No one should suffer or die from traffic violence,” Chan said in a statement Friday, days after a USA Cycling Champion Ethan Boyes was stuck and killed by a motorist near Inspiration Point — the latest bike fatality to convulse the city.

“We must be proactive in preventing these tragedies from occurring in the first place, Chan continued. “To that end, I have also requested a District 1 Mobility Study to improve traffic safety and transit connectivity in the District, and I am urging SFMTA to explore the possibility of protective bike lanes on Arguello between Geary and the entrance to the Presidio.”

The U.S. Park Police said Friday that they are still investigating what happened. Officers responded to a collision between a cyclist and a vehicle at Arguello Boulevard, south of Washington Boulevard, at about 4 p.m. Tuesday, public information officer Thomas Twiname said. Medics transported the cyclist to a hospital with life-threatening injuries. He was later pronounced dead. The driver was also transported to a hospital for treatment of non-life-threatening injuries.

U.S. Park Police declined to say whether the driver was arrested or whether drugs or alcohol were involved in the collision.

Jean Fraser, CEO of the Presidio Trust, said the organization’s leaders were heartbroken to learn of Boyes’ death. 

https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/ethan-boyes-death-adds-s-f-s-bicycle-fatalities-17884671.php

The death of elite cyclist Ethan Boyes this week angered San Francisco’s cycling community, in part, because it marked the latest tragedy in the growing list of bicyclists killed in the city over the past decade.

Since 2010, there have been 34 bike fatalities in San Francisco — with many of them taking place in the city’s northeast quadrant. A motorist struck and killed Boyes Tuesday while he was cycling on a federally owned stretch of Arguello Boulevard south of Washington Boulevard in the Presidio.

Supervisor Catherine Stefani, whose district includes the Presidio, said in a statement to The Chronicle that she was “devastated” by Boyes’ death and that the corridor “needs to be made safer for all those who use it.”

“This senseless act of traffic violence was totally avoidable, and I urge the U.S. Park Police to hold the driver accountable to the fullest extent of the law,” Stefani said.

Bicyclists, for years, have raised safety concerns traveling along Arguello Boulevard and say they often must navigate speeding traffic. Hundreds of cyclists travel along the corridor’s painted bike lanes which stretch from Golden Gate Park to the Presidio.

Top photo:

A mourner bows during a vigil for Ethan Boyes on Friday at the spot where the cyclist was fatally struck by a car Tuesday. Noah Berger/Special to The Chronicle

Lee Heidhues 4.7.2023

I just read about this film opening today and was immediately riveted watching the Trailer.

My first reaction was to think about the Nord Stream 2 pipeline which was blown up last September and continues to be the subject of much speculation as to the perpetrators.

But, no, this is a homegrown fictionalization placed in the category of Art imitates Life.

Definitely not your normal American mall movie nonsense.

Excerpted from The New York Times 4.6.2023

“How to Blow Up a Pipeline” is at its best when it functions as a kind of roughed-up caper movie; it has a degree of suspense and efficiency that are becoming all too rare in the mainstream.

Daniel Goldhaber makes the most of potential complications at the pipeline site: a fraying belt, unexpected visitors, a bloody injury that might leave DNA. These are the sort of tactile details on which heist films thrive.

Discussions of the 2021 book “How to Blow Up a Pipeline” inevitably note that it does not really contain instructions for blowing up a pipeline, although its author, Andreas Malm, a Swedish academic who has pressed for radical action on the climate crisis, hardly opposes the idea. He argues that the status quo has grown so dire that activists would be foolish not to turn to sabotage, and that peaceful protest alone is unlikely to achieve results quickly enough.

Movies, though, are more of a show-don’t-tell medium, so the screen version of “How to Blow Up a Pipeline,” directed by Goldhaber (“Cam”), turns Malm’s ideas into the basis for a propulsive heist thriller. Instead of busting into a vault or a museum, the characters conspire to commit an incendiary act that will wreak havoc on oil prices.

Is the film itself, by having heroes some might call eco-terrorists, playing with fire? It certainly has the veneer of being daring. Then again, given the imagination that movies routinely apply to crimes of all sorts, it scarcely seems fair to object to the depiction just because the target is novel or has real-world implications.

Review: You don’t have to be an eco-terrorist to enjoy ‘How to Blow Up a Pipeline’

Whether or not it convinces you that eco-terrorism is the way to fight climate change, “How to Blow Up a Pipeline” is masterfully entertaining propaganda.

While the ethics of what they’re doing gets a bare minimum of lip service, don’t expect too much moral soul-searching on any of their parts.

These activists are either certain of the cause’s righteousness, jacked up on the thrill of doing damage, or a combination of both. Despite that, they’re full-bodied personalities for the most part. If our mad world has taught us anything, it’s that true believers are as human as anyone else, and this movie takes that to heart.

Shot with a gritty immediacy on 16mm film (cinematographer Tehillah De Castro has done notable Bruno Mars and Olivia Rodrigo videos) and energized by Gavin Brivik’s electro-percussive score, “Pipeline” applies styles and attitudes from rebellious 1960s and ’70s films to contemporary concerns. Most effectively, the movie is true to that era’s commitment to credible onscreen behavior. 

These people seem real, even if their primary motivations are ideological.

Perhaps more than they intended to, Daniel Goldhaber and the actors make the political personal. That’s a triumph of craft over appetites for destruction.