Lee Heidhues 11.17.2021

If Pacific Heights Supervisor Catherine Stefani really cares about the state of Justice in San Francisco she would work constructively with District Attorney Chesa Boudin to make sure his office receives adequete funding.

Supervisor Stefani has been going after DA Chesa Boudin since the day he assumed office on January 8, 2020. As the blog post reprinted below clearly shows Stefani leaves no political stone unturned. A year ago she scolded the DA for not living within his budget, even though it is common knowledge in City Hall the DA is historically underfunded.

Most recently, Stefani is using television news reporting to push legislation to force the District Attorney’s office and the Police Department to provide the public with quarterly reports that include never before-released details about how the city prosecutes domestic violence offenders and how often.

“The requested statistics outlined in the ordinance overlook the wide array of victim services and advocacy that my office provides to survivors of domestic violence, irrespective of whether a criminal case is being pursued,” Boudin wrote. “These services include but are not limited to, assistance applying for civil protective orders, crisis support services and counseling, guidance to navigate the criminal justice system, referrals to local resources and services, support at court hearings, and a wide variety of both short term and ongoing support.”

During the hearing, Stefani brushed aside the the District Attorney’s remarks.

Just today Stefani got herself splashed all over page one of The San Francisco Chronicle with her proposed ballot measure to create The Office of Victim and Witness Rights, envisioned as a one-stop shop outside of law enforcement where survivors can go to navigate a currently complicated system.

When asked whether the ballot initiative was motivated by dissatisfaction with the district attorney’s victim services, Stefani told The Chronicle her criticism of Boudin was “no secret,” but pointed to a larger problem.

“Many victims of crime aren’t even served through the D.A.’s office, because either the crime isn’t reported or no arrest is made or no charge is filed,” Stefani said. “This will be a place where all victims of crimes can go … and to bring together a myriad of different victim services in the city.”

Stefani knows her proposed office will not be able to make arrests. Stefani knows this office will not be able to charge those arrested. Her entire proposal is just a crass political publicity stunt to squeeze the District Attorney as the June 7, 2022 recall approaches.
BLOG POST – ORIGINALLY POSTED NOVEMBER 13, 2020

San Francisco Supervisor Catherine Stefani representing the toney Pacific Heights neighborhood tells DA Chesa Boudin to deal with it.

His office, overwhelmed in its case load, particularly in a year of increasing domestic abuse during the pandemic is getting short shrift. Supervisor Stefani, herself a one time Assistant District Attorney in a neighboring county, told the DA to “budget within his means to deliver public safety for all San Franciscans.” Stefani knows, absent adequate funding, it’s an impossible task.

If DA Boudin does not prosecute crime he will be pilloried for neglecting the citizenry. It takes money and personnel to do the job. Stefani knows this all too well.

Stefani’s comments are just typical San Francisco political posturing.

San Francisco Chronicle 11.13.2020

San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin said his office is inadequately funded and unable to fully staff units that investigate homicides and domestic violence cases — a situation, he said, that has reached a “tipping point.”

In an Oct. 29 letter, Boudin told Mayor London Breed and the Board of Supervisors that his office is understaffed and overwhelmed by their caseloads. In the General Felonies Unit, for example, Boudin said his staff is handling between 185 and 229 cases a year, far more than the national standard of 150.

Boudin said the lack of adequate staffing impedes his office’s “ability to provide constitutionally required services.”

The letter came shortly after the city closed a massive, $1.5 billion budget deficit largely caused by the pandemic, and a few weeks before City Hall learned they had another $116 million deficit to contend with. As many departments faced budget cuts this year, the District Attorney’s Office received a slight increase in its budget from $73.59 million to $73.72 million.

Despite the slight increase, Boudin said his office has still been strained amid the pandemic as “COVID-19 has impacted staffing capacity due to illness, family leave and court closures” that have caused delays in processing court cases. He added that the department’s staffing issues existed long before he took over in January.

Additionally, he said, the short-staffed Domestic Violence Unit has seen a 60% increase in demand for services related to children witnessing domestic violence during the pandemic. The issues have also been “aggravated” by the need to investigate alleged misconduct of a forensic laboratory analyst from the Office of Chief Medical Examiner.

Supervisor Catherine Stefani, the most fiscally conservative member of the board, said Boudin should “be budgeting within his means to deliver public safety for all San Franciscans.”

At the beginning of the pandemic, Breed placed a hiring freeze on vacant city positions in an attempt to stave off layoffs and service cuts. Any department that wanted to fill a vacancy had to convince the mayor and board that such a position was essential. The District Attorney’s Office was allowed to hire four of the eight positions they requested, but David Campos, Boudin’s chief of staff, said that was not enough.

“People have to understand that this is serious and we all have obligations and responsibilities,” he said. “But we need the resources.”

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/S-F-DA-Chesa-Boudin-says-department-is-15726636.php

Lee Heidhues 11.16.2021

The controversial Nord Stream 2 Russian pipeline built under the Baltic Sea to carry gas to Europe has been mired in political controversy for years.

Opponents of the gas pipeline fear Moscow will use the pipeline as a political cudgel to regulate the flow of gas to European countries. In addition Russia’s nemesis Ukraine stands to lose revenue when gas stops flowing through that nation bordering Russia.

Now  German regulators have put a  monkey wrench into Nord Stream 2 with a ruling that the company did not follow the law when seeking approval for the pipeline to transmit gas through Germany. The Green Party which is about to become part of the ruling coalition in the next government has long opposed Nord Stream 2.

The decision will further delay the project and further embolden critics.

Excerpted from Deutsche Welle 11.16.2021

 

 Lee Heidhues 11.15.2021

An American tragedy  played out in a Brunswick, Georgia courtroom. 

The attorney for one of the three white men accused of murdering Ahmaud Arbery demanded civil rights icon Rev. Jesse Jackson be removed from the courtroom.

This racist demand is all too symptomatic of the white privilige still felt in America when it comes to attitudes towards black people.

The Civil War ended over 156 years ago. The attitudes which were responsible for the four year war between 1861-1865 have not diminished.

The Judge thankfully was having none of it.

The Guardian 11.15.2021

A judge has denied mistrial requests at the trial of three white men charged with murdering Ahmaud Arbery after defense attorneys claimed jurors were tainted by weeping from the gallery where Arbery’s parents sat with the Rev Jesse Jackson.

Monday morning’s testimony was interrupted by arguments in the jury’s absence over Jackson’s appearance. The judge said he found one defense lawyer’s complaints last week about Black pastors to be “reprehensible” and no group would be excluded from his courtroom.

Greg and Travis McMichael, a father and son, armed themselves and pursued the Black 25-year-old in a pickup truck after spotting him running in their neighborhood on 23 February 2020. Their neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan joined the chase and took cellphone video of Travis McMichael shooting Arbery three times with a shotgun.

Tensions flared in the courtroom on Monday morning soon after Jackson sat in the back row of the courtroom between Arbery’s parents. The defense attorney Kevin Gough asked the judge to make the civil rights leader leave to avoid unfairly influencing the jury.

Gough, an attorney for  William Bryan, also complained last week when the Rev Al Sharpton joined Arbery’s mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones, and father, Marcus Arbery Sr, inside the Glynn county courtroom. Gough told the judge on Thursday: “We don’t want any more Black pastors coming in here.”

“There is no reason for these prominent icons in the civil rights movement to be here,” Gough said Monday. “With all due respect, I would suggest, whether intended or not, that inevitably a juror is going to be influenced by their presence in the courtroom.”

The superior court judge, Timothy Walmsley, declined the request. Courtrooms are generally open to the public, although the judge has limited seating in the public gallery because of the coronavirus pandemic.

“The court is not going to single out any particular individual or group of individuals as not being allowed into his courtroom as a member of the public,” Walmsley said. “If there is a disruption, you’re welcome to call that to my attention.”

Jackson told reporters outside the courthouse that he had come to coastal Brunswick to support justice for Arbery’s family, not in response to the attorney’s previous remarks about Black pastors.

“As the judge said, it was my constitutional right to be there,” Jackson said. “It’s my moral obligation to be there.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/nov/15/ahmaud-arbery-killing-jesse-jackson-trial

Today’s example of People Behaving Badly during the Pandemic.

The behavior of some travelers during the Pandemic defies the imagination.  

A Texan on a United Airlines lines assaulted a flight attendant who asked her husband to put on his mask to comply with Federal requirements.

The flight attendant was assaulted for doing her job.

The assailant has been indicted and will now pay the price for her arrogance and stupidity. The State of Texas has been one of the most strident about ignoring and disobeying Covid-19 safety mandates. It should come as no surprise that the accused hails from the Lone Star State.

San Francisco Chronicle 11.14.2021

A Texas woman accused of assaulting a flight attendant who told the woman’s husband to put on his face mask while en route to San Francisco was charged with interfering with aircraft operations, and faces a potential 20-year prison term if convicted.

Debby Dutton, 50, of Cypress, Texas, who is out of custody, appeared before a federal magistrate judge in Houston on Friday in the case involving the incident on a June 29 United Airlines flight from Anchorage to San Francisco, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Northern District of California. Prosecutors were pursing a judge’s order to require she face the charge in federal court in San Francisco.

The alleged assault was among a string of recent violent incidents reported on aircraft, a number of them confrontations over pandemic mask rules. Mask requirements, meant to stop the spread of COVID-19, are fueling a dramatic increase in reports of unruly passengers interfering with air crew duties, putting staff and passengers and employees at risk, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. The federal government this month reported that 5,114 unruly passenger reports have been filed this year, a fivefold increase from 2020.

Dutton and her husband had been in the air about 3½ hours when the flight attendant walked down the aisle to collect trash and check for mask compliance, officials said.

The attendant tapped the shoulder of Dutton’s sleeping husband and asked him to replace his mask, which had slipped down his face, according to a release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

The husband complied, but Dutton appeared to become enraged, getting up from her seat and yelling, “You don’t touch my husband, why you wake him!” according to the criminal complaint.

Dutton followed the flight attendant down the aisle, shouting and pushing the attendant multiple times, according to the complaint. She finally returned to her seat at her husband’s request, according to prosecutors. The flight attendant reported the incident to the captain.

The altercation left bruises on the flight attendant’s bicep, prosecutors said.

After landing, San Francisco International Airport police officers interviewed the flight attendant and several passengers.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Texas-woman-charged-with-assaulting-flight-16621106.php

 

Lee Heidhues 11.13.20921

I thought the Biden Administration has a goal to protect endangered gray wolves.

It is thoroughly disheartening to read that the Biden administration is in Federal Court defending Trump’s decision to end endangered species protection for these animals which have roamed North America for centuries.

This is today’s example of the foxes running the chicken house. Translation. The all talk and no action Biden administration is advocating the slaughter of a protected species.

Shame. Shame. Shame.

Excerpted from Courthouse News Service 11.12.2021

Conservationists urged a federal judge Friday in Oakland, CA to overturn a Trump administration rule that ended endangered species protections for gray wolves, arguing the decision was based on a flawed legal interpretation and junk science.

“A decision that an already listed species is no longer listable must be based on a valid reason, and Fish and Wildlife doesn’t have a valid reason here,” Earthjustice lawyer Kristen Boyles said during a virtual court hearing Friday.

The dispute stems from the Trump administration’s decision in October last year to end Endangered Species Act protections for most gray wolves in the lower 48 states, an outcome critics say was based on flawed analyses and a failure to consider the best available evidence.

More than 6,000 gray wolves roam prairies and mountainous regions in the United States today, a population that wildlife officials said last year “exceeded all conservation goals for recovery.” But groups like Defenders of Wildlife, which filed one of three federal lawsuits challenging the decision, say gray wolves still face serious threats to their survival, especially as states like Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan authorize new trophy hunting seasons.

During a Wisconsin wolf-hunting season this past February, at least 218 gray wolves were killed in a 48-hour time span, about 100 more than the legal limit. The number of wolves in Wisconsin declined about 30% in April 2021 from one year earlier, according to a peer-reviewed study cited in court briefs.

Despite fierce opposition by conservations groups, President Joe Biden’s administration has defended the decision to delist gray wolves, a move that had reportedly been planned for years before it was finalized under President Donald Trump.

Representing conservation groups, Boyles said that reasoning contradicts the text of the final rule published on Nov. 3, 2020, which states the delisting decision was based on analyses of threats to the population, not a finding that gray wolves are no longer eligible for protection.

“Fish and Wildlife cannot simply designate and then delist a distinct population segment,” Boyles said. “To delist based on a finding that a distinct population no longer qualifies as a species.”

Boyle said the agency has a long history of misapplying the law, citing its prior attempts to end protections for certain gray wolf population segments in 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2011, all of which were rejected by federal courts.

Boyle urged U.S. District Judge Jeffery White, a George W. Bush appointee overseeing the case, to abolish the delisting rule and order the agency to reevaluate its decision based on the best available evidence and science.

After an hour of debate, Judge White took the arguments under submission.

Groups suing to restore Endangered Species Act protections for gray wolves include Defenders of Wildlife, Center for Biological Diversity, Sierra Club, National Parks Conservation Association, Oregon Wild, Humane Society of the United States, WildEarth Guardians, Western Watersheds Project, Cascadia Wildlands, Environmental Protections Information Center, Klamath Forest Alliance, Klamath Siskiyou Wildlands Center, The Lands Council, Wildlands Network, Kettle Range Conservation Group, Natural Resources Defense Council, and other groups that intervened in the lawsuits to support the plaintiffs’ position.

Defendants who intervened in the case to oppose gray wolf protections include the National Rifle Association, Safari Club International, Michigan Bear Hunters Association, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, Sportsmens Alliance Foundation, Wisconsin Bear Hunters Association and the state of Utah.

Judge asked to restore endangered species protections for gray wolves

Lee Heidhues 11.12.2021

Team USA and Mexico played a very aggressive and physical match before a packed house on a cold night in Cincinnati.

Things got very tense in the second half as the referee assessed several Yellow cards against both teams and one Red card against Team USA member Miles Robinson.  Even  American goal keeper Zack Steffen was handed a Yellow card when he dashed across the pitch to join in one of the  second half scrums.

Christian Pulisic scored the first goal in the 73rd minute when he headed in a goal which sent the USA fans into a state of flag waving delirium.

When the match ended Team USA prevailed 2-0 and looks like a solid bet to be a participant in the Qatar World Cup in 2022.

The Guardian 11.12.2021

For the third time this year Concacaf’s fiercest rivals faced each other. On Friday night in Cincinnati the stakes were at their highest, with crucial World Cup qualifying points on the line. And, as ever when the two neighbors meet, so was pride, dignity, and the future of both teams.

For an hour before kickoff on a frigid November night, the rain poured down. Fans in the sold-out stadium chanted “U-S-A” and “Mex-i-co” back and forth. Fireworks marked the start. The teams took to the field in a familiar formation: 4-3-3 on either side.

Mexico had experience, an aging staff and a formidable front line. The US had two 18-year olds, potential, athleticism and speed.Mexico dominated possession in the opening minutes of the first-half, and their pass completion eclipsed that of the United States. As the clock ticked toward half-time, the US fought their way to parity in possession. They also took more shots, and created far more chances.

But for all the improvements, they couldn’t finish their chances. They didn’t capitalize on the set-pieces they won, many of which were thanks to Timothy Weah and Yunus Musah moving the ball forward from the right. Meanwhile, Mexico’s threatening forward line poked holes in the US defense. Zack Steffen, starting in goal over Matt Turner, needed to be at his best and came up huge with a pair of big saves.

In the second-half, the USA had the possession and momentum. The match became scrappier, and the fouls and shoving that are often a defining characteristic of this rivalry started to break out.

Intensity reached a fever pitch just past the 60th minute when Brenden Aaronson was flattened. A scuffle ensued and Steffen, Weston McKennie and Luis Rodriguez were booked as a result. Aaronson was soon subbed off and replaced by Christian Pulisic, who ran on the field to the uproarious approval of a fanbase that hadn’t seen their star since his injury in the September qualifiers.

Within five minutes of his introduction, Pulisic provided the answer to his team’s inability to finish chances. A beautiful run and well-timed cross from Weah found Pulisic in front of goal and he knocked home the header. The decibels from the home crowd increased and the US upped their tempo. Eleven minutes later, McKennie’s cool finish ended Mexico’s hopes of a comeback. The crowd sang out the familiar Dos A Cero chant, a long-time fixture of this rivalry – and World Cup qualifiers in Ohio.

It was a deserved victory for Gregg Berhalter’s team. They ended the match with 18 shots to Mexico’s eight. They also created more chances, won more challenges and again strengthened the argument that the US are the superior footballing nation of the two at the moment. The one blemish for the USMNT came when Miles Robinson was sent off after a second booking in the final minutes. Both he and McKennie will now miss Tuesday’s qualifier against Jamaica through suspension, the latter’s coming after picking up his second booking of the qualifiers.

Mexico, meanwhile, have questions to answer, and have lost all three of their matches against the United States in 2021. The Americans’ victory put them top of the Concacaf qualifying table – both the US and Mexico have 14 points from seven games, but the USMNT lead due to their superior head-to-head record. Canada occupy the third automatic qualifying spot after they beat Costa Rica on Friday night.

The US can now head to Kingston for Tuesday’s match with heads high and their tickets to Qatar looking ever more secure.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2021/nov/12/christian-pulisic-returns-with-goal-as-usa-secure-crucial-win-over-mexico

Lee Heidhues 11.11.2021

The loonies and crazies in the anti-vaxx brigades have landed in San Francisco.

One likes to think that “progressive” San Francisco is immune from the madness being spewed by the social media MAGA brain addled hordes of anti-vaxxers.

It’s a disconcerting and scary reality that the mob of semi-literate luddites, losers, clowns and morons have established a beachhead in this historic City.

It’s time to rise up and educate these mindless nihilists. This loathsome anti common sense behavior must be called out for what it is.  A Clear and Present Danger to the majority of intelligent people.

Excerpted from San Francisco Chronicle 11.11.2021

A vehicle struck five people — two California Highway Patrol officers and three Golden Gate Bridge workers — on the bridge Thursday as they attempted to control a large crowd of protesters who were rallying against vaccine mandates.

Christine Rich of Sacramento said she attended the rally to support people’s right to choose what kinds of treatments they use to fend off illness. For Rich, an organic diet feels like enough protection, she said.

“I’m actually trying to catch COVID so that I can develop the antibodies,” she said.

A couple hundred people were at the demonstration on the San Francisco end of the bridge, angry at and skeptical of authorities who say they need to be vaccinated to do their jobs.

Rich and others at the protest repeated debunked conspiracy theories about the vaccines, their effectiveness and the coronavirus itself. The federally approved COVID-19 vaccines, Rich said, are a “bioweapon” that the government is trying to activate by putting it in people’s arms, she said.

Leigh Dundas, an attorney and anti-vaccine advocate, helped organize Thursday’s rally at the Golden Gate Bridge and said it was the culmination of a four-day nationwide walkout among employees of businesses or industries that have mandated that their workers get vaccinated against COVID-19.

“Conditioning your job in a jab that is still experimental … is not just unconstitutional, it’s unconscionable,” Dundas told The Chronicle.

She and other rally-goers denounced COVID-19 vaccines and mandates as ways to control the population, bankroll pharmaceutical companies or shape the country’s politics.

Many carried signs bearing slogans such as “Show us the science” and “Our kids are not lab rats.” Some inaccurately compared vaccine mandates to communist or Nazi policies.

At about 6 p.m., two CHP officers and three Golden Gate Bridge personnel were struck by a vehicle in the traffic lane just north of the toll plaza, located northbound on the way out of San Francisco, CHP Off. Andrew Barclay told The Chronicle. Two CHP officers and one bridge representative were taken to a local hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, Barclay said. The incident appeared to be accidental. The driver stayed at the scene and was cooperating with the investigation, Barclay said.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Protesters-gather-near-Golden-Gate-Bridge-to-16614033.php

Lee Heidhues 11.10.2021

How can Planet Earth ever hope to ween itself from toxic fossil fuels when the leading industrial nations refuse to get with the program?

The refusal of these nations to work towards a zero emissions in their production of cars gives the lie to all the rhetoric about a cleaner environment.

Just look at all the glitzy car ads on American television.

Don’t cast all blame on the government and car manufacturers who happily follow the will of the citizens and watch their profits soar.

It’s the car addicted consumers who equally share in the guilt. Motorists absolutely refuse to look at alternatives to the environment killing automobile.

Laziness, inertia, sloth are what drives most people to continue driving themselves to environmental oblivion.

Excerpted from Deutsche Welle 11.10.2021

Around 30 countries, cities and car manufacturers are planning a total shift to emission-free vehicles by 2040. But a number of major auto making countries — including China, the US and Germany — are not on board.

Climate-friendly mobility was one of the priorities of the UN climate conference in Glasgow according to this year’s COP host, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson. The participants should focus on “coal, cars, cash and trees,” he said.

Statements have already been made about coal and trees. Today cars are under the microscope as 24 countries, six major auto manufacturers as well as some cities and investors set the tone at a day dedicated to transportation.

“Together, we will work towards all sales of new cars and vans being zero emission globally by 2040, and by no later than 2035 in leading markets,” said their statement published in Glasgow. They want to “support efforts to achieve the road transport breakthrough.”

Among the automakers who signed on are Daimler’s Mercedes-Benz, the Swedish manufacturer Volvo, China’s BYD, Jaguar Land Rover, a unit of India’s Tata Motors and the American automakers Ford and General Motors (GM).

In addition to the UK, EU countries like Denmark, Poland, Austria and Croatia as well as a number of other industrialized states including Israel and Canada joined the agreement. Emerging and developing countries such as Turkey, Paraguay, Kenya and Rwanda are also taking part.

The US state of California and cities like Barcelona, ​​Florence and New York are also involved. Additionally, companies that invest in the auto industry or have their own large vehicle fleets, such as utility company E.ON, Ikea and Unilever, signed the declaration.

Jennifer Eison, campaign manager for US NGO Action for the Climate Emergency welcomed the declaration.

Eison added that it was disappointing that the US had not signed up to the pledge.

“I think it’s great to hear that there are people who are committing to finally ending their use of fossil fuels,” she told DW. “We’ve known for a very long time that fossil fuels are driving climate change. And so to be able to have so many countries to commit to that, I think is bold and the type of action that we need right now.”

https://www.dw.com/en/cop26-germany-fails-to-sign-up-to-2040-combustion-engine-phaseout/a-59777202

Lee Heidhues 11.9.2021

It was two long years ago today that Chesa Boudin was declared winner in the fiercely conducted election for San Francisco District Attorney.

Fast forward to today.

The Trump MAGA crowd fueled by 1.4MM, much of it right wing PAC dark money, a legion of mercenaries paid on average $17.08 per signature and shamefully aided by San Francisco pols who have resented his election, progressive District Attorney Chesa Boudin will face a recall election on June 7, 2022.

This is all about the incestuous insider politics of San Francisco. Shamelessly so called moderate Democrats are allowing themselves to be used by the most reactionary elements in America.

The Recall must be smashed to send a message to the world from San Francisco.

San Francisco must let these legions of local and imported collaborators know their treachery will not go unpunished.

DA Boudin ran on a “progressive” platform of changing the way the Courts and cops look at Justice in America. The obscenely reactionary San Francisco Police Officers Association spent over $700,000 in 2019 to defeat candidate Boudin. The POA has worked non stop to destroy Chesa Boudin since he assumed office.

Despite the unceasing mainstream media attacks, opposition from the POA and other political groups, Chesa has stayed true to his campaign commitments during his nearly two years in office.

Beginning on Day One on January 8, 2020 when DA Boudin was inaugurated at the Herbst Theater across the street from City Hall, the political knives have been unsheathed. Finally, the reactionary forces have found their mark.

Two of the leading proponents of the Recall are close allies of Mayor London Breed.

Andrea Shorter was a major figure in Breed’s 2018 election. Mary Jung, a Moderate Democrat, was formerly Chair of the Democratic County Central Committee until she was ousted by more Progressive elements in 2016.

London Breed has yet to take a position on the DA Recall. It’s fair to say she is still smarting over Chesa’s defeat of her hand picked successor interim DA Suzy Loftus. A former legal counsel in the San Francisco Sheriff’s Department Loftus was handed the “interim” title by Breed three weeks before the November 5, 2019 election after DA George Gascon resigned to take the job of DA in Los Angeles.

It will be all hands on deck to fight for the “progressive” soul of San Francisco. The whole world’s watching.

New York Intelligencier 11.9.2021

San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin, one of the nation’s most prominent progressive prosecutors, is officially going to have to defend his seat in a recall election next June.

Boudin — the son of a Weather Underground member whose sentence was commuted by former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo in August — is the latest target in the recall fever sweeping California. As New York’s Ed Kilgore explains, the process to initiate a Golden State recall is pretty easy to execute, requiring as little as 10 percent of the number of voters in the last election for the office in question; recall efforts serve as an outlet for the intense backlash to pandemic restrictions; and Republicans see the exercise as one of their better chances to unseat a Democrat in an overwhelmingly blue state. In September, Governor Gavin Newsom beat a recall effort by a 30-point margin; the entire operation was estimated to cost $450 million.

On Tuesday, the San Francisco Department of Elections certified a petition to add a special recall election to the midterm primary held on June 7, after organizers hoping to remove Boudin delivered 83,000 signatures in favor of the recall — well over the required 51,325-person threshold.

If voters do want to get rid of Boudin, San Francisco Mayor London Breed would appoint an interim DA until the regular election in 2023.

In 2019, Boudin won by less than 3,000 votes in the second round of a ranked-choice election. After campaigning on police accountability and the decriminalization of poverty, he has faced adversaries on his right flank, as fears of rising crime have resulted in calls for a traditional crackdown.

“We don’t need two public defenders,” public safety advocate Andrea Shorter told New York in August. “And right now, we have two public defenders: one that’s the public defender, and one that is a public defender in the district attorney’s office.”

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/11/san-francisco-da-chesa-boudin-faces-recall-election-in-june.html

Lee Heidhues 11.8.2021

Who  would have thought that the Wall Street Journal could publish such an entertaining and interesting piece on the 50th anniversary of Led Zeppelin IV with its classic song Stairway to Heaven.

It goes to show that even these arch capitalists have rock ‘n roll in their bones.

What were Liz and I doing on November 8, 1971?

Liz and I were in Algeciras, Spain enroute to Tangier, Morocco. That was our Stairway to Heaven as we were concluding a two year journey through Europe and the Mediterranean.

Shortly thereafter we made the fateful decision to return to Amerika. Big mistake.

Excerpted from Wall Street Journal – Andy Kessler – 11.8.2021

“It’s been a long time since” . . . 1971. Fifty years ago on Nov. 8, the album “Led Zeppelin IV” was released, which included the eight-minute classic “Stairway to Heaven.” It was a year of transition from turmoil to modernity, a songwriter’s paradise. And yes, I’m a sucker for anniversaries.

Back in 1971 we listened to music on LP records—for the uninitiated, 20 or so minutes of music pressed into vinyl, spun at 33 1/3 rpm and amplified from a scratchy needle to giant speakers. Without TikTok, my generation wasted time poring over album-cover art in search of hidden meaning and reading the liner notes printed on the album sleeves.

So what did “Stairway to Heaven” even mean? Trippy lyrics are usually over my head, but I’ve had 50 years to think about this song. “There’s a lady who’s sure all that glitters is gold.” The obvious interpretation is that you can’t buy your way into heaven, but that’s too easy. “Sometimes all of our thoughts are misgiven” captured the malaise of relatively immobile times. “There’s still time to change the road you’re on,” meant changing from Timothy Leary’s “Turn on, tune in, drop out” to “Plug in, turn out, ramp up.” And especially relevant given today’s dictionary hijackers: “ ’Cause you know sometimes words have two meanings.”

The final bridge of the song ends with “When all are one and one is all . . . to be a rock and not to roll.” Maybe that is about the dreamy collectivism still percolating in 1971, not unlike today.

Top photo:

PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES

John Paul Jones, Robert Plant and Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin performing in Hiroshima, Japan, Sept. 27, 1971.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-long-time-since-zeppelin-iv-music-era-70s-1971-classic-rock-stairway-to-heaven-11636303100?mod=opinion_featst_pos3