Lee Heidhues 8.21.2022

(UPDATED with link to video report by Deutsche Welle)

The Dogs of War are relentless and uncompromising.

There are no innocent bystanders in War.

Darya Dugina, daughter of Vladimir Putin’s hard line adviser, was killed in a car bombing on the outskirts of Moscow. War has many collateral victims. It eventually impacts those who are responsible for the carnage.

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

2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine (excerpted from Wikipedia)

Dugina was an outspoken supporter of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. In particular, she claimed that the war crimes against Ukrainian civilians by the Russian army during the invasion were staged.^[15][16] In June 2022, she visited occupied Donetsk and Mariupol.^[8] On 4 July 2022, she was sanctioned by the British government, which accused her of being a “frequent and high-profile contributor of disinformation in relation to Ukraine and the Russian invasion of Ukraine on various online platforms”.^{[17][18][8][19]} She responded by saying that she is an ordinary journalist and should not have been sanctioned.^[6]

Excerpted from Moscow Times 8.21.2022

The daughter of Alexader Dugin, a hardline Russian ideologue close to President Vladimir Putin, has been killed in a car bombing on Moscow’s outskirts, authorities said on Sunday.

Dugin, sometimes called  “Putin’s Rasputin” or “Putin’s brain,” is an outspoken Russian ultra nationalist intellectual.

Dugina has long advocated the unification of Russian-speaking territories in a vast new Russian empire and wholeheartedly supported Moscow’s operation in Ukraine. 

According to family members quoted by Russian media, Dugin — a vocal supporter of Kremlin’s offensive in Ukraine — was the likely target of the blast as his daughter borrowed his car at the last minute.

Darya Dugina was killed when a bomb placed in her Toyota Land Cruiser went off as she drove on a highway near the village of Bolshie Vyzyomy, some 40 kilometers (25 miles) outside Moscow, Russia’s Investigative Committee said in a statement.

Dugina, a journalist born in 1992 who herself openly supported the offensive, died at the scene and a homicide investigation has been opened, said the committee, which probes major crime cases in Russia.

In July Britain put her on a list of sanctioned Russians for allegedly spreading online disinformation about Ukraine.

He was put on a Western sanctions list after Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, a move he also backed.

The head of one of Ukraine’s breakaway separatist regions blamed the blast on Kyiv authorities. “The Ukrainian regime terrorists tried to liquidate Alexander Dugin, but blew up his daughter,” DNR chief Denis Pushilin wrote on Telegram.

Ukrainian presidential adviser, Mykhailo Podolyak denied that Kyiv authorities were behind the bombing.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova wrote on Telegram that “if the Ukrainian theory is confirmed… and it must be verified by competent authorities, it will amount to state terrorism on the part of the Kyiv regime.”

Top photo – The Dogs of War – Wall Street Journal

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/08/21/car-bomb-kills-daughter-of-kremlin-hardline-ideologue-a78619

Attached is a link to video report by Deutsche Welle 8.21.2022

https://www.dw.com/en/daughter-of-putin-ally-alexander-dugin-killed-by-car-bomb/av-62881831#spark_wn=1

Lee Heidhues 8.20.2022

How quaint to learn that a Prime Minister’s attendance at a dance party rises to the level of scandal.

How reassuring to read that not every country and city sinks into the political cesspool of law and order extremism which is the current State of Play in San Francisco.

The story about Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Martin, who assumed office at the age of 34 in 2019, seems to be a real person with a life outside politics. Not caught up in the politics of destruction consuming much of America and San Francisco in particular.

Excerpted from Deutsche Welle 8.20.2022

Once again, Finland’s Prime Minister Sanna Marin made international headlines. But this time it was with a video showing her at a private party, dancing with friends.

What ensued was a very classic “Finnish scandal,” which is actually not a scandal at all, but because Finnish politics tend to be so uptight and slightly boring, you have to get creative to stir things up every once in a while.

It is at the same time indicative of the very high moral standards that are applied to politicians and that they are expected to live up to. Consequently, the threshold is very low for Finnish politicians to resign over what seem like rather insignificant incidents elsewhere.

For example, in 2008 then-Foreign Minister Ilkka Kanerva was sacked over a text message scandal: he had been sending text messages to a controversial female celebrity. Sanna Marin herself became prime minister after her predecessor Antti Rinne resigned over a scandal related to a post office strike.

Some of the more memorable Sanna “scandals” were “breakfastgate” over her breakfast expenses or the controversy over the revelation that she likes cleaning, even the official residence, herself.

Much of the rather absurd domestic controversies smack of misogyny, as Marin has been leading Finland steadfastly through several exceptionally difficult situations, starting with the pandemic and now the NATO membership process. It is a lot to take in that a competent prime minister can be a 36-year-old woman, mother of a small child, who despite having one of the toughest jobs in the country, also manages to have a social life, go to festivals, and even to party occasionally.

Usually, the domestic “scandals” do not make international headlines. What was different this time was the allegation that she would have possibly been doing drugs.

It was based on a sentence in the leaked party video that was misheard as “jauhojengi” (“flour gang”) and interpreted to mean drugs. In fact, Marin and her friends seem to be singing along to the lyrics of a Finnish pop song that mentions “jallu,” a Finnish alcoholic drink. No one would call drugs “flour” anyway in Finland, which makes the whole business even sillier.

Top Photo – Time Magazine cover March 1, 2021

https://www.dw.com/en/opinion-much-ado-about-nothing-sanna-marin-and-a-very-finnish-scandal/a-62873009

Lee Heidhues 8.20.2022

Puppet District Attorney Brooke Jenkins is nothing more than Mayor London Breed’s servant and protector, a cheerleader for the San Francisco Police Department, the Police Officers Association and the increasingly law and order paranoid citizenry of San Francisco.

For the sake of honest and ethical government she should resign immediately.

A ‘Quintessential Grifter’.

The $153,000  Jenkins collected as a “Volunteer” from MAGA billionaires, and failed to report until after she was anointed as acting DA by Mayor London Breed, ethically compromises her and disqualifies her from serving as the chief law enforcement officer of San Francisco.

Acting District Attorney Brooke Jenkins of San Francisco should not remain in office another day.

Her record as an assistant district attorney is already the subject of potential prosecutorial misconduct. 

• Withheld exculpatory evidence from criminal defense counsel
• attempted to send a legally insane defendant to prison
• coached a four year old to testify in a criminal trial

Brooke Jenkins, seeking to advance her career, turned on District Attorney Chesa Boudin who had advanced her career and spent eight months to destroy him in the June 7, 2022 Recall.

Her ruthless well paid gambit worked. She has been handsomely rewarded financially and politically for her treachery. The voters must remove Brooke Jenkins on November 8 and restore credibility to the District Attorney’s office.

 

 

Lee Heidhues 8.18.2022

Yesterday was my birthday and our wedding anniversary.  It was a foggy, windy, cool Wednesday. Perfect summer weather in San Francisco.

Liz and I celebrated the occasion by having lunch in the Cafe followed by an hour tour of the Guo Pei fashion exhibit at the Legion of Honor.

A fixture since 1922 in the beautiful northwest corner of San Francisco overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

Guo Pei fashion is stunning, artistic, edgy, intricate and a feast for the eyes.

Photos – Liz and Lee

https://legionofhonor.famsf.org/guo-pei

 

 

Lee Heidhues 8.14.2022

There is nothing funny about the O.J. Simpson saga.

The native San Franciscan turned Professional Football star, who murdered his ex-wife and her boyfriend on June 17, 1994.

The tawdry violent saga riveted the world. I felt O.J. was Guilty of murder when I read the first hard news story in The San Francisco Chronicle.  

Thereafter I paid scant attention to the arrest and subsequent Trial in which O.J.’s “Dream Team” secured an innocent verdict on October 3, 1995. A verdict which shocked the World with it’s most memorable line by O.J.’s attorney Johnny Cochran, “If the glove don’t fit, you must acquit.”

Which is exactly what the star struck Jury did.

Now we fast forward 27 years to New York Magazine which draws some apt comparisons between O.J. and Donald Trump 

Excerpted from New York Magazine – Margaret Hartman – 8.13.2022

This is what it was like to live through the O.J. Simpson story.

Americans talked about little else from June 17, 1994, when O.J.’s Bronco chase riveted us to our grainy 4:3 television sets, to October 3, 1995, when the nation was so stunned by Simpson’s acquittal that not a single Domino’s pizza was ordered for five minutes.

There are actually a lot of similarities between the Trump-raid story and the Simpson “Trial of the Century.” If you’re looking for a hit of nostalgia, this is your big chance to obsessively follow and mock a serious crime story, then feel weird about it decades later. There’s really nothing more ’90s than that.

On the night of the murders, Simpson flew from L.A. to Chicago for a promotional golf tournament, and later a young Kim Kardashian searched his golf bag for a murder weapon. Trump likes to golf when he visits Mar-a-Lago (though the resort itself is not a golf club), and he once met with Kim Kardashian in the Oval Office.

Attorney Alan Dershowitz was part of Simpson’s “Dream Team,” and he defended Trump in his first impeachment trial. Simpson was known as a Heisman Trophy winner and record-setting pro-football player prior to the murders. The FBI was reportedly looking for documents on nuclear weapons in Trump’s home, and … the bag containing the codes to launch a nuclear strike is known as a football?

Okay, I’ll admit those are all just red herrings. But the overlapping terms do give the two sagas similar vibes, and I hear we’re now all about vibes

Are you so sick of hearing about Trump that you’re having a hard time forcing yourself to care about this absolutely wild moment in American history? Is everyone you know divided into two camps: one that believes a certain celebrity is getting away with brazen crimes and another that thinks he’s being unfairly persecuted?

It is impossible to truly replicate the Simpson trial’s media dominance since we had only a limited number of live-TV-viewing options rather than an endless supply of fresh streaming content. Although I was only in elementary school at the time, I consumed an appalling amount of information about the double-murder trial; I even had an O.J. Simpson Pog slammer.

We can all draw our own conclusions about the two stars’ relationship with the truth. But regardless of whether we believe them, both men insist they’ve been unjustly targeted by law enforcement — and at times they’ve backed each other up on this point.

Simpson and Trump were once close enough friends that the football star attended the mogul’s 1993 wedding to Marla Maples. This was about six months before Simpson was charged with the murder of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ron Goldman. Simpson was acquitted in 1995 but found liable for their deaths in a 1997 civil suit.

Similarly, just this week, Simpson urged people not to jump to conclusions about his former pal. In this Mar-a-Lago-raid commentary nobody asked for, he recalled that the FBI raided his Florida home, too, saying, “My point is the FBI can be wrong, even though it’s hard to believe that Merrick Garland and some federal judge signed off on this.”

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/trump-raid-o-j-simpson-scandal.html

Lee Heidhues 8.12.2022

There’s a tried and true axiom in politics. “Follow the money.”

Puppet DA Brooke Jenkins assertion that she was simply a “Volunteer” in the Coup d’etat against her former boss, DA Chesa Boudin is a flat out lie.

The disclosure of Jenkins being paid over $100,000 to promote the Recall of her former boss ads fuel to the fire surrounding the chief law enforcement officer in San Francisco.

When Jenkins was a City employee she lived in Union City. After she quit her job and became a “Volunteer” Jenkins moved into a $6,000 a month Condo in San Francisco.

If this assertion is true the question is “How could a “Volunteer” afford such a pricey rent?”

This is just another of the questions swirling around Brooke Jenkins. Her record of prosecutorial misconduct as an Assistant District Attorney is a matter of public record.

The San Francisco Chronicle took a dive into the available public records. Jenkins quit her job as an Assistant District Attorney last October. Shortly thereafter Jenkins went to work on the campaign to oust Chesa Boudin.

Her salary as a City employee was approximately $170,000 yearly.

According to the public records Jenkins was paid approximately $115,000 between October 2021 and June 2022. That comes out to approximately $15,000 monthly. The same amount she made as an Assistant District Attorney.

None of this was reported in the months before the June 7 Recall vote.

Was “Volunteer” Jenkins promised financial compensation in return for working on the Recall before she quit her job with DA Chesa Boudin?

Excerpted from The San Francisco Chronicle 8.12.2022

San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins is under scrutiny after disclosing she was paid more than $100,000 by a nonprofit organization linked to the recall campaign of her predecessor and former boss, Chesa Boudin — a campaign for which she was the most prominent spokesperson.

Jenkins maintains she was a volunteer for the campaign.

Her critics say this characterization, and her prior failure to disclose the payment, amounts to a misrepresentation of her role in the recall.

This information was listed in a routine public document known as a Form 700 that Jenkins filed after her appointment by Mayor London Breed. That appointment, and Jenkins’ pledge to increase punishments for criminal defendants, has pleased many recall backers while infuriating many progressives who favored Boudin’s push to decrease reliance on incarceration.

Prominent city employees, including most elected officials, are required to file Form 700s, also known as Statements of Economic Interest, with the San Francisco Ethics Commission. The form contains multiple “schedules,” or sections, that cover the official’s personal investments (like stocks), investments or income from their businesses or trusts, real estate holdings, personal income and loans, gifts and travel payments and reimbursements.

The organization that attracted the most controversy for Jenkins was the third nonprofit, Neighbors for a Better San Francisco, from which she reported more than $100,000 in income.

Neighbors for a Better San Francisco is a 501c-3 organization advocating for good governance and improved public safety. It’s related to but distinct from the similarly named Neighbors for a Better San Francisco Advocacy, a political action committee that spent millions on the Boudin recall effort. Jenkins was a key part of this effort, regularly appearing in advertisements and messaging campaigns and media statements.

The two groups were formed on the same day, share the same address in San Rafael, and are supported by the right-of-center San Francisco billionaire William Oberndorf, who is on the board of each group.

The revelation that San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins was paid six figures by a nonprofit organization founded by a top donor to the Chesa Boudin recall has put a spotlight on the man behind the nonprofit and the campaign: San Francisco billionaire Bill Oberndorf.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Who-is-Bill-Oberndorf-the-Boudin-recall-backer-17365405.php

Oberndorf made headlines as one of the big Republican donors who bucked the party in 2016 and supported Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump. He donated more than $1.5 million to boost former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush’s bid for the Republican nomination that year, according to federal campaign contribution records.

He was registered as a Republican as recently as 2017 but has since registered without party party preference. Voter records from 2019 show he was registered with the the American Independent Party, a far-right political group that many people mistakenly select when trying to register as political independents.

(The American Independent Party was formed in California in 1968 by supporters of Racist Reactionary Alabama Governor George Wallace in support of his presidential campaign).

Representatives for Oberndorf initially declined to comment or did not respond to calls for this story, but his assistant, Kathy Daly, contacted The Chronicle after this story was first published and provided a record showing he is registered without party preference. She said he was never registered with the American Independent Party.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2022/brooke-jenkins-payment/

Lee Heidhues 8.10.2022

After maintaining a diplomatic silence for two months following the political coup d’etat which ousted him from office as San Francisco’s Progressive District Attorney, Chesa Boudin has had enough.

News that former staff member Jenkins quit, spent eight months attacking him and was named Puppet DA by Mayor London Breed earned over $100,000, despite calling herself a “Volunteer”, compelled Chesa Boudin to speak out.

News of Jenkins well paid “Volunteer” chores on behalf of the Recall comes at the same time The San Francisco Chronicle has a piece on the Reactionary MAGA money behind the Recall. Too bad The Chron didn’t publish four months ago what…

Everyone fighting the vicious Recall knew to be Fact. (see attached link).

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Who-is-Bill-Oberndorf-the-Boudin-recall-backer-17365405.php

Excerpted from The SF Standard 8.10.2022

District Attorney Brooke Jenkins doesn’t appear to have broken any laws by netting more than $100,000 from a nonprofit closely tied to the recall effort against her former boss Chesa Boudin.

Boudin issued a terse Twitter comment that went as far as to accuse Jenkins of “lying” in a social media post, saying “integrity is central to the job of District Attorney.”

“If jurors can’t trust your word, they won’t convict,” Boudin wrote. “The relationships with judges and defense counsel and victims are all built on integrity. Lying to get ahead destroys the trust we need to make SF safer.”

But her previously undisclosed six-figure salary, accrued while the recall campaign touted Jenkins as an unpaid volunteer, could raise issues of public perception for the district attorney as her political viability is put to the test in November when Jenkins will run for election for the first time.

As The Standard first reported Tuesday, Jenkins made upward of $100,000 as a consultant for the nonprofit Neighbors for a Better San Francisco, an organization that appears to be the nonpartisan counterpart of another nonprofit that was largely behind the Boudin recall.

The revelation, which the top prosecutor disclosed this week on a statement of economic interests after Mayor London Breed appointed her to office July 8, has prompted allegations that Jenkins misrepresented herself as a volunteer for the recall.

Matt Gonzalez, a top attorney with the Public Defender’s Office and leading figure in the local progressive faction, said the situation looks “terrible” for Jenkins from a political perspective because of the “exorbitant” amount of money she earned and the fact that her pay was only now disclosed.

“She’s basically trying to say, ‘I’m a Good Samaritan volunteer over here, out of the goodness of my heart trying to alert you to problems with the Boudin administration,’” Gonzalez said. “But then you learn that she’s being paid for it. … That gives me a lot of concern.”

Gonzalez said Jenkins could face a tough race in the coming months if a progressive-backed candidate jumps into the race. Boudin has bowed out of running against Jenkins in the coming election. Friday is the deadline for any other contenders to formally enter the contest.

“She’s never held elective office, she’s never run a campaign and she had never been under personal scrutiny,” Gonzalez said. “She’s been in office a very short amount of time and has attracted probably more negative press than Boudin did in the same amount of time.”

Brooke Jenkins’ $100K Pay May Have Been Legal, But Was It Ethical?

Lee Heidhues 8.9.2022

It’s bad enough that Puppet DA stabbed The Real District Attorney Chesa Boudin in the back politically.

It now turns out, that after calling herself a “Volunteer” in the vicious lie filled 7.2MM Recall of Chesa Boudin, The Puppet DA pocketed some of that MAGA money.

Brooke Jenkins described herself as a “volunteer” for eight months, destroyed her former boss and was selected as the Mayor’s enforcer, then forced by San Francisco law to disclose the fact she was paid $115,000 for her treachery.

The Puppet DA needs to resign immediately to save whatever credibility she may have.  And, trust me, The Puppet DA has none.

Excerpted from San Francisco Standard 8.9.2022

Brooke Jenkins didn’t just quit her job as a local prosecutor to volunteer for the recall against her former boss Chesa Boudin.

Newly filed ethics records show she also raked in more than $100,000 as a consultant for Neighbors for a Better San Francisco, a nonprofit that shares an address and virtually the same name as the organization behind the district attorney’s recall but is legally a separate entity. A board member for both groups was also one of the biggest funders supporting the recall.

Though legally separate, the nonprofits are both registered at the same address belonging to a law firm in San Rafael, according to IRS records.

The Neighbors advocacy nonprofit is listed as the sponsor for the big spending political action committee by the same name that raised some $4.8 million of the $7.1 million contributed to oust Boudin from office.

The committee, Neighbors for a Better San Francisco Advocacy PAC, is known for supporting moderates and bankrolling campaigns opposing candidates from the progressive faction of city politics.

Records show the PAC received hundreds of thousands in the months leading up to the Boudin recall from wealthy donors including billionaire investor William Oberndorf as well as Shorenstein Realty and Kilroy Realty. (Disclosure: Michael Moritz, venture capitalist and initial investor in the The Standard, also contributed to the committee in September 2020, nearly two years before the Boudin recall.)

Oberndorf also served as a board member for both of the Neighbors nonprofits.

On its website, Neighbors for a Better San Francisco describes itself as a “civic-minded group of San Franciscans committed to improving public safety, public education, and quality of life for our city.”

Representatives for the Neighbors nonprofits and PAC did not return requests for comment via phone and email.

The organization appears to be the nonpartisan counterpart of the group behind the recall, Neighbors for a Better San Francisco Advocacy, which as a 501(c)(4) nonprofit can legally get involved in political campaigns and causes.

Attempts to reach representatives for both Neighbors for a Better San Francisco and Neighbors for a Better San Francisco Advocacy—the latter of which supported the recall—to clarify their relationship to one another and connections to the campaign to oust Boudin were not successful.

Jenkins earned the six-figure salary in the roughly six months before Mayor London Breed appointed her district attorney on July 8, according to a spokesperson for the DA and a form she filed this week reporting her economic interests. During that period, Jenkins was volunteering as a spokesperson on the recall campaign.

This marks the first time Jenkins publicly disclosed the earnings from Neighbors for a Better San Francisco.

The revelation comes a day after Jenkins officially declared her candidacy in the November election to complete the term Boudin did not finish. While other candidates are in the running, Boudin has decided not to challenge her.

Jenkins came into the public spotlight last fall after resigning from office to become a spokesperson for the recall, slamming Boudin in the press and accusing him of prioritizing criminal justice reform over public safety.

Her appointment last month came as a surprise since Jenkins was a political newcomer compared to other potential Boudin replacements. She has since positioned herself as a crime fighter who will tackle drug dealing as her main issue.

Neighbors for a Better San Francisco is among several nonprofits Jenkins disclosed working for in the 12 months preceding her appointment. She also reported earning between $10,000 and $100,000 from the nonprofit GlobalSF and also from Sister’s Circle Women Support Network.

While the exact dollar amounts are unclear because the form only asked for a range, a spokesperson for Jenkins said she took home about $115,000 from all the nonprofits after taxes between December 2021 and this July.

DA Jenkins Pocketed Six Figures as Consultant for Nonprofit Linked to Boudin Recall Backers

Top photo:  Puppet DA Brooke Jenkins no longer a smiley face