Tag: history

Death of CBS radio news is a victory for Trump over free speech

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 3.21.2026

The blogger has listened to radio news for a lifetime. One of the first stations was KCBS-740AM in San Francisco. Long before the days of National Public Radio.

The omnipresent CBS Radio News sign on

Make no mistake the shutdown of CBS radio news has nothing to do with money despite what corporate management insists.

Donald Trump has railed against mainstream media which fails to bow down. The death of CBS radio news is another victory over mainstream media free speech for Trump.

The Trump administration approved Mr. (David) Ellison’s purchase after Paramount paid $16 million to settle a suit brought by President Trump against “60 Minutes.” – NYT 3.20.2026

Excerpted from The New York Times 3.21.2026

It transported Americans onto the rooftops of London in the Blitz and into the bleak embers of concentration camps in liberated Nazi Germany, an aural atlas to world events thousands of miles away.

Edward R. Murrow broadcast from Buchenwald Concentration Camp April 1945

In more recent years, it transmitted eyewitness dispatches from world capitals to hundreds of local stations in rural and sparsely populated parts of the country.

CBS News Radio was a pioneer and stalwart of the mass media century, the proving ground of star journalists like Edward R. Murrow, with a distinctive five-tone chime that became synonymous with breaking news — long before the rise of 24-hour cable and the internet.

Now, its venerable airwaves are crackling to a close. Paramount Skydance, the parent company of CBS, announced on Friday that the radio news network would sign off, after 99 years, near the end of May.

Excerpted from the New York Times 3.20.2021

CBS News came under the control of David Ellison, a billionaire tech heir, after his Hollywood studio Skydance absorbed the media giant Paramount last year. The Trump administration approved Mr. Ellison’s purchase after Paramount paid $16 million to settle a suit brought by President Trump against “60 Minutes.”

Mr. Ellison said he wanted CBS News to appeal to a centrist audience, and he installed Bari Weiss, an opinion journalist and critic of the mainstream news media, as its new leader.

CBS News eliminated its century-old radio division, which broadcast Edward R. Murrow’s World War II dispatches from London, amid a round of layoffs on Friday announced by the network’s editor in chief, Ms. Weiss.

CBS radio news journalists on election night November 1936

More than 60 employees, or roughly 6 percent of the news division, are set to be laid off under the plan, according to a person who requested anonymity to share internal details.

“Certain parts of this newsroom need to get smaller in order for us to make room for the things that we need to build to remain competitive in the future,” Ms. Weiss, who started her job in October, said during a newsroom-wide conference call on Friday, according to a recording.

CBS News Radio, which has roots in the Jazz Age, was once among the premier news broadcasters in the country. “CBS News Radio served as the foundation for everything we have built since 1927,” Tom Cibrowski, the president of CBS News, wrote in a memo.

Original CBS Radio news headquarters in New York City- circa 1939

Shades of 1930’s Germany. Trump accuses critics of ‘Treason’

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 3.16.2026

Does this look familiar?

There’s the old saying made famous by Wes ‘Scoop’ Nisker. “If you don’t like the News. Go out and make some of your own.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wes_Nisker

Donald Trump is using all the tools of power to bend the media to pervert the news.

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

Censorship in Nazi Germany was extreme and strictly enforced by the governing Nazi Party, but specifically by Joseph Goebbels and his Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda. Similarly to many other police states both before and since, censorship within Nazi Germany included the silencing of all past and present dissenting voices. In addition to the further propaganda weaponization of all forms of mass communication, including newspaper, music, literature, radio, and film, by the State,[1] the Ministry of Propaganda also produced and disseminated their own literature, which was solely devoted to spreading Nazi ideology and the Hitler Myth.

Book burning in 1930’s Germany – May 1933

Excerpted from The New York Times 3.16.2026

The president and his allies have sought to vilify the news media since the start of his political rise a decade ago. But this recent denigration of news organizations — including The New York Times — comes as Mr. Trump has appeared at pains to depict his Middle East military effort as a smashing success, despite some facts to the contrary and opinion polls that have revealed widespread doubts among Americans about the war.

In particular, Mr. Trump has zeroed in on accusing American news organizations of disloyalty to their country, as in an official White House news release declaring that CNN had sought “to undermine our decisive victories in Operation Epic Fury.”

Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said in a statement on Monday: “The media has been undeniably biased and negative in its coverage of President Trump and Operation Epic Fury. Anybody with eyes and ears can see this.”

Racism is the sad reason why the SF former Mayor still out of work

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 1.25.2026 UPDATED

People in supposedly tolerant and enlightened San Francisco may be loath to admit it. The harsh reality is that former Mayor London Breed is still out of work because of systemic racism all pervasive in America.

LURIE & LONDON – SF Standard Power Play 1.25. 2026

If the former Mayor was a white guy or gal he/she would have been swept up by a political action committee or consulting firm the day after leaving office. Not only was London Breed Mayor for over six years, she was twice elected Supervisor and was President of the Board of Supervisors.

London Breed is a black woman raised in the Western Addition housing projects just blocks from City Hall who worked her way up through hard work and political smarts.

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

Breed definitely didn’t enjoy the privileged upbringing of the white man who defeated her in November 2024, having spent millions of his own money to capture City Hall. The billionaire scion of the Levi Strauss & Co. family fortune, Daniel Lurie.

Mayor Breed on the City Hall steps at a rally decrying hate and bigotry

As Mayor Breed was definitely a fighter for the issues she believes in, mainly funding the police department and pushing for housing development. Breed brawled consistently with San Francisco White progressives whom she looked down at with thinly veiled disdain.

Perhaps Mayor Breed’s most crowning achievement was her advocacy for car free spaces. This advocacy resulted in the voter approved car free JFK Promenade in Golden Gate Park, Sunset Dunes Park along the Pacific Coast shoreline and numerous car free streets throughout the city. That will will be her environmental legacy. One for which Breed has not received enough credit.

Then Mayor London Breed talks with Liz Heidhues at the 4th anniversary of JFK Promenade – 4.28.2025 – photo Lee Heidhues

Philosophical and political positions which one would think would be a calling card amongst the billionaire class for future employment.

Not, yet. Heather Knight, former columnist for The San Francisco Chronicle, and now New York Times reporter took a look at London Breed one year removed from office.

Excerpted from The New York Times 1.16.2026

London Breed has said little in the year since she left office. She has thoughts on the praise that the current mayor, Daniel Lurie, has received.

Mayor Breed and her most vigorous Progressive antagonist, then Supervisor Dean Preston, who represented the District she represented and catapulted her into the Mayor’s office in 2018. Both were voted out of office in November 2024.

Ms. Breed said that she wanted Mr. Lurie to be successful. It’s just that it has been hard for her to see him get so much credit, she said, and she wondered if race was a factor.

London Breed needs a job, and she wants you to know that.

A year ago, she left her post as the 45th mayor of San Francisco — and its $383,000 salary — after losing her re-election bid to Daniel Lurie, the heir to the Levi Strauss fortune.

London Breed puts on a smiling face with Daniel Lurie, the billionaire who defeated her, on his inaugural day – January 8th 2025

Past mayors have used the office as a springboard. San Francisco’s 38th mayor, Dianne Feinstein, became a longtime U.S. senator who once chaired the Senate Rules Committee. The 42nd mayor, Gavin Newsom, is finishing his second term as California governor and has his sights on running for president.

Ms. Breed, 51, is still unemployed. She didn’t serve long enough to qualify for a municipal pension and health care benefits, and is living off her savings.

“I need to get myself out there,” she said in an interview with The New York Times.

Mr. Lurie, a political neophyte, has reaped the benefits of strong poll numbers and praise for the city’s turnaround.

It is common for former elected officials to resent their successors, especially if a prosperous stretch follows. And in the glow of San Francisco’s recovery, Ms. Breed has been largely forgotten as she has retreated to the political wilderness.

Top photo: Mayor Breed with a group of San Francisco Police Department officers

5 years since 1.6.2021. America suffers from political Amnesia

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 1.7.2026 UPDATED

Straight out of the 1930’s Nazi Germany playbook
Wall Street Journal – 1.7.2021
Wall Street Journal 1.7.2026

It is nearly five years since Donald Trump led the insurrection and tried to violently overturn the November 2020 election.

The place Trump belongs. Prison

As rebellion flared up in the nation’s capitol America failed its biggest test. Putting this criminal insurrectionist back in the White House a year ago. He should be in prison.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_6_United_States_Capitol_attack

The American sheep like people continue to suffer from Amnesia and are all too willing to let this abhorrent event fade into the historic background.

On this New Year’s Day I went into the PBS FRONTLINE archives. Resting there for all who care to view is the graphic documentary originally broadcast on January 26, 2021. Reasonable people thought this criminal would land in jail. Wrong.

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/documentary/trumps-american-carnage/

As rebellion flared up in the nation’s capitol America failed its biggest test.

There is one Hero amongst the somnolent lazy American public. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Smith_(lawyer)

Excerpted from The New York Times 12.31.2025

Jack Smith, the former special counsel, defended his decision to twice indict President Trump, accusing him of “exploiting” violence on Jan. 6, 2021, to overthrow the 2020 presidential election, according to a transcribed interview released by House Republicans Wednesday.

Mr. Smith, a former prosecutor vilified by Mr. Trump as a partisan, spent much of the eight-hour, closed-door session on Dec. 17 before the House Judiciary Committee rebutting a range of Republican claims, including the accusation that he had improperly obtained metadata on phone calls involving Trump-allied lawmakers.

“Our investigation developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 election and to prevent the lawful transfer of power,” Mr. Smith said, according to the transcript.

Bloviating mindless January 6th insurrectionists were pardoned by Donald Trump the first day he returned to office 1.20.2025

In the interview, Mr. Smith sought to undermine the narrative that the president was an innocent figure persecuted by partisans who weaponized federal law enforcement, a core belief among many Trump supporters.

True reporters, like Sy Hersh, dare to expose what they’re told not to.

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 12.9.2025

I have followed Seymour Hersh writing for decades. I became transfixed when I read his classic “The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House” published in 1984. A compendium of the treacherous foreign policy instituted by President Nixon and carried out enthusiastically by Henry Kissinger. Countries in the Western Hemisphere to the near East and Asia, specifically Vietnam and Cambodia, were in their Machiavellian sights.

Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet who overthrew the democratically elected President Salvador Allende on 9.1.1.1973 shakes hands with Henry Kissinger. The story of Nixon and Kissinger’s involvement in the coup is written about in detail in Sy Hersh’s book.

The soon to be released documentary “Cover-up” is must viewing for those who want to know what genuine, honest investigative reporting is all about in the era of Donald Trump and his relentless assaults on the media. A mainstream media which has been cowed and compliant. Enabling this liar to attack the core of American democracy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seymour_Hersh – An American journalist icon

Excerpted from Variety 8.25.2025

As “Cover-Up” reveals, the key lesson of Seymour Hersh’s career is that when it comes to crucial stories of corruption, just about every situation is layered, booby-trapped, woven with deception. The movie is called “Cover-Up” because cover-up is the metaphysical state we live in. The true reporters, like Hersh, are those who dare to expose what they’re told not to.

When Hersh, in the documentary, talks about how American media works, how it’s too cozy with power, he can sound a lot like the Noam Chomsky of “Manufacturing Consent.” But part of what’s so compelling about “Cover-Up” is that Hersh, in his heyday, wasn’t a pie-in-the-sky purist agitator like Chomsky; he was a regular guy who simply wanted the truth to get out there.

The film captures how he sort of fell into journalism, after helping to run his family’s dry-cleaning business on the South Side of Chicago. He was originally a crime reporter, and got his big break in 1963, when he went to work for the Associated Press. Assigned to cover the Pentagon, he would walk out of the scripted press briefings and, instead, wandered the halls and used his sports chatter to befriend high-ranking officers.

That’s how he got wind of the My Lai story, when an officer referenced what was going on with Lt. William Calley (without actually naming him). “Cover-Up” takes us inside the process of how this complex story was brought to light.

That’s how he got wind of the My Lai story, when an officer referenced what was going on with Lt. William Calley (without actually naming him). “Cover-Up” takes us inside the process of how this complex story was brought to light.

A false mythology of the massacre lives on to this day (that American soldiers went “crazy” with violence in the jungles), but the far uglier truth is that the murder of Vietnamese civilians had been ordered as a way to inflate the casualty numbers (which was the Army’s yardstick of success). My Lai wasn’t the only My Lai — far from it.

The story, which Hersh broke in 1969, made his name.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/cover-review-laura-poitras-enthralling-121321596.html?fr=yhssrp_catchall

https://screenanarchy.com/2025/09/toronto-2025-review-cover-up.html

U.S. Flips History by Casting Europe—Not Russia—as Villain

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 12.6.2025

Looking afar from the West Coast of America to most Americans Europe seems far away and inconsequential. Only as a tourist destination and photo op.

The reality is that Europe is an integral bastion economically and culturally for the United States.

It’s shocking to read that Donald Trump is striving to turn this centuries long relationship on its head as he seeks to solidify his indecipherable relationship with Vladimir Putin. Trump’s not so secret goal is to let Europe fend for itself while he withdraws into Fortress America.

Excerpted from The Wall Street Journal 12.6.2025

Nathalie Tocci, director of the Institute for International Affairs in Rome and a former EU diplomatic adviser, said the document lays out a fairly coherent vision of a world dominated by three big powers—the U.S., China and Russia—who have areas of cooperation and zones of influence.

“I think it’s fairly clear that Europe is seen by the administration as being on the colonial menu” for domination by either the U.S. or Russia, she said. “So to me, the real question is: ’What else needs to happen for us Europeans to wake up to this?’ ”

For years, the U.S. government has published an annual National Security Strategy that lays out how Washington sees the world and its approach to dealing with looming threats, from China to Russia to drug-traffickers in Latin America. 

Flags of the European Union.

This week, the Trump administration’s version seemed to reserve its harshest tone for a new target: America’s closest allies in Europe.

The 30-page document painted European nations as wayward, declining powers that have ceded their sovereignty to the European Union and are led by governments that suppress democracy and muzzle voices that want a more nationalistic turn.

It says the continent faces “civilizational erasure” through immigration that could render it “unrecognizable” in two decades—as well as turning several North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies into majority “non-European” countries. It concludes the region could grow too weak to be “reliable allies.”

Trump has castigated the European countries for not spending sufficiently on the military. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_Germany. The German government now is considering reinstituting compulsory military service. Germans are protesting.

The document underscores how radically the Trump administration is reshaping traditional American foreign policy, and it is likely to deepen divisions in the trans-Atlantic alliance, which has largely kept the peace in Europe since World War II and promoted Western values across the world.

The document landed like a bucket of cold water in European capitals. European leaders reading the document need “to assume that the traditional trans-Atlantic relationship is dead,” said Katja Bego, a senior researcher at Chatham House, a think tank in London.

https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/u-s-flips-history-by-casting-europenot-russiaas-villain-in-new-security-policy-cbb138fa?st=5dzpKf&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

A genuine Nazi. Trump dropped a flamethrower on the News Media.

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 12.5.2025 – UPDATED 12.9.2025

More seriously—more sinister—the White House has just put up a wall-of-shame webpage tracking media outfits and reporters who “misrepresent” or “lie” about the administration. Names are named, outfits identified and shamed. All this is meant to intimidate; it institutionalizes attacks on the media and, considering the broader context, potentially prompts and gives permission to unstable people who might want to act in the president’s supposed defense. The webpage, paid for by taxpayers as part of the White House website, looks not like an insult but part of a sustained campaign. It is a threat. It should be taken down. Peggy Noonan in Wall Street Journal 12.6.2025 – https://www.wsj.com/opinion/were-in-an-era-of-political-violence-cc359449?mod=hp_opin_pos_3

Donald Trump is a Clear and Present Danger to democracy.

I don’t know what’s more distressing.

The White House launching a Media Offenders Website titled ‘Hall of Shame’ https://www.whitehouse.gov/mediabias/ or the general silence with few exceptions from the American media whose First Amendment rights are being trampled.

The shock of all this is that the publishers should be at the proverbial barricades. Press freedom and the First Amendment are under attack. Journalists, editors and publishers must be aware that when Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933 he destroyed the free press in Germany. If they’re not unaware they’re deluding themselves.

‘Art of Catastrophe’ – Charlotte Salomon

Trump will never get that far. But his intimidation tactics using the power of the Federal government is sending a chilling message

Trump’s genuine Nazi like assault on the media. Utilizing the White House to intimidate journalists

Excerpted from Deutsche Welle 12.5.2025

A new government website lists journalists and media outlets that Donald Trump’s administration considers liars. Experts say the move endangers free media ― and thus erodes democracy in the US.

The website set up by the Trump White House amounts to threatening media outlets, Jonathan Katz, a fellow in governance studies at the think tank Brookings Institution, says, too.

“It can have a chilling effect on free speech, on independent media,” Katz told DW. “We’re watching carefully to see how this affects press freedom in the United States.”

It’s no secret that the current US administration doesn’t have too high an opinion of journalists. President Donald Trump recently called a female reporter asking him about his involvement in the Jeffrey Epstein scandal “piggy.”

And in a press briefing on Monday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt talked about how much of her job is taken up by dealing with what she labeled inaccurate characterizations published by White House correspondents.

“The fake news that we see pumped out of this building on a day-to-day basis — it’s honestly overwhelming to keep up with it all,” she said.

In response to what Leavitt said were “fake news and … attacks” being spread by reporters, the White House has created a website that lists media outlets and reporters who, according to the government, publish false, biased or misleading stories.

The new “Media Offenders” website includes featured “Offenders of the Week” as well as a “Hall of Shame” that consists of four pages (at time of publication) of media reports the White House has sorted into the categories bias, lie, false claim, malpractice, omission of context, mischaracterization, circular reporting, failure to report and left-wing lunacy.

In a statement released on December 1, the White House said by creating the website, it “dropped a flamethrower on the Fake News Media.”

Adolf Hitler addressing fellow Nazis – The crushing of the press in Nazi Germany is something Donald Trump would like to do in America

https://www.dw.com/en/how-white-house-attack-on-journalists-affects-us-press-freedom/a-75040640

Top photo: Donald Trump only wants to hear what makes him look good. He closes his ears to everything else.

Media control. Trump launches tracker. Calls out ‘media offenders’

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 11.30.2025 UPDATED 11.9.2025

More seriously—more sinister—the White House has just put up a wall-of-shame webpage tracking media outfits and reporters who “misrepresent” or “lie” about the administration. Names are named, outfits identified and shamed. All this is meant to intimidate; it institutionalizes attacks on the media and, considering the broader context, potentially prompts and gives permission to unstable people who might want to act in the president’s supposed defense. The webpage, paid for by taxpayers as part of the White House website, looks not like an insult but part of a sustained campaign. It is a threat. It should be taken down. Peggy Noonan in Wall Street Journal 12.6.2025 – https://www.wsj.com/opinion/were-in-an-era-of-political-violence-cc359449?mod=hp_opin_pos_3

Donald Trump is now utilizing the extensive power of the federal government to clamp down on First Amendment free speech rights. Make no mistake. Trump is a master of the media. Now, with all the levers of power at his disposable, this convicted felon, racist, misogynist is shredding the media.

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

People need only to look at Hitler’s Germany, Putin’s Russia for guidance on how to suppress the media. Dictators are Trump’s favorite leaders and he is utilizing their perverse playbook to quash free speech.

Where is the American media in reporting this real threat to First Amendment and its own livelihood?

Deutsche Welle 11.30.2025

The Trump White House launched a new page on its website on Friday called “media offenders,” listing news sites, reporters, and stories it claims misled the public.

US President Donald Trump calls lawmakers’ actions “seditious” and “treason.”

This week, Trump called a female reporter from The New York Times “ugly” after she co-wrote a data-driven report about the president showing signs of aging.

The president, who is 79, drew fire two weeks ago after telling a Bloomberg reporter to be “quiet, piggy” when she tried to ask a follow-up question about disgraced financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s emails.

The top publications cited as “media offenders of the week” were the Boston Globe, CBS News, and the Independent. Reporters from those outlets were singled out for stories about a controversial video released last week by six Democratic lawmakers.

The lawmakers, all of whom are military veterans or former intelligence officials, reminded service members they are not obligated to follow illegal orders.

In a video posted online last week, the lawmakers said, “Right now, the threats to our Constitution aren’t just coming from abroad, but from right here at home.”

“Our laws are clear: You can refuse illegal order. … You must refuse illegal orders. No one has to carry out orders that violate the law or our Constitution,” they added.

What the ‘media offenders’ page looks like

The page included an “offender hall of shame” with a list of stories the White House considers mistruths.

Each story is explained and categorized under labels such as “lie,” “omission of context,” or “left-wing lunacy.”

The White House described the site as “a record of the media’s false and misleading stories flagged by The White House.”

The page also features a leaderboard of news sites the administration claims reported stories incorrectly.

The Washington Post tops the list, followed by MSNBC (recently rebranded as MS NOW), CBS News, CNN, The New York Times, Politico, and The Wall Street Journal.

There’s also a section with “repeat offenders” with outlets that the Trump administration objects to.

Trump administration escalates fight with media outlets

All outlets on the leaderboard, along with others, turned in their Pentagon press badges last month after rejecting new rules imposed by the Department of Defense.

The rules would leave journalists vulnerable to expulsion if they reported information, classified or otherwise, that had not been approved by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for release.

Trump has also been involved in court battles against The New York Times, CBS News, ABC News, The Wall Street Journal, and the Associated Press over the past year.

Trump widens hostilities against female reporters

The administration’s broader conflict with media outlets has also taken a personal turn. In recent weeks, Trump has faced criticism for insulting female reporters.

The Associated Press contributed to the report.

https://www.dw.com/en/white-house-launches-media-bias-tracker/a-74954883

NYC Homegrown fascism. DHS cops handcuff Democrat rep aide

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 5.31.2025

I can’t believe what I am reading and seeing. I should.

Who said, “It can’t happen here.”?

Well, less than five months into the oligarchy of Felon Donald Trump the feds have been unleashed to terrorize and abuse. Even congressional aides are not exempt from the Police State tentacles of the wannabe American dictator.

Excerpted from The Gothamist and Politico 5.30.2025

Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NYC) slammed both DHS and President Donald Trump in a statement Saturday afternoon for demonstrating “aggressive and heavy-handed tactics” and “sowing chaos” not only in his district, but across the country, as the Trump administration escalates its crackdown on immigration.

“President Trump and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) are sowing chaos in our communities, using intimidation tactics against both citizens and non-citizens in a reckless and dangerous manner. In the most recent and deeply troubling incident, DHS agents forcefully entered my Congressional office and handcuffed a member of my staff,” Nadler said, adding that he was “alarmed by the aggressive and heavy-handed tactics DHS is employing in New York City and across the country.”

The New York representative also cautioned that the incident showed a “deeply troubling disregard for proper legal boundaries,” and warned that “if this can happen in a Member of Congress’s office, it can happen to anyone — and it is happening.”

In a dramatic incident captured on video, U.S. Department of Homeland Security police Wednesday handcuffed one of Rep. Jerry Nadler aides in the congressmember’s Manhattan office, which is in the same federal office building as an immigration courthouse.

In the video, which was shared with Gothamist and filmed by a person who was monitoring activity in immigration court, DHS officers entered Nadler’s district office and accused staff members of “harboring rioters.” A Nadler staffer is seen crying and being handcuffed. Another officer is at a door trying to enter a private area of the office while a staffer asks for a warrant.

DHS later said in a statement that “one individual” — the woman seen being handcuffed — had blocked police from performing a security check they intended to do based on information there were protesters in the lawmaker’s office. Later that day, protesters gathered outside of the federal building, demonstrating against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

https://gothamist.com/news/homeland-security-cops-handcuff-one-of-rep-nadlers-aides-in-chaotic-day-at-ny-fed-building

Brazen acts of free speech. “Speech alone cannot be a crime.”

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 3.18.2025

Flying the Hamas flag may be reprehensible to many. Before becoming too outraged don’t forget that the Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan right to brandish the abhorrent swastika is protected speech in America.

Nazi flag waving Americans on the march. Protected free speech.

Excerpted from The San Francisco Chronicle 3.18.2025

“There’s nothing illegal about it,” said San Mateo County District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe. 

The First Amendment protects even speech that advocates for unlawful action, said First Amendment Coalition Legal Director David Loy. Speech turns into a crime only when it involves a threat to commit harm, he said. 

“Speech alone cannot be a crime,” David Loy said. 

A San Carlos resident’s decision to fly a Hamas flag outside their home in recent days has stirred outrage among some residents of the Peninsula city, who said they viewed the flag’s display as an endorsement of terrorism. 

Some residents said they reported the flag to federal law enforcement officials and their counterparts in San Mateo County. The flag displays the Islamic oath and creed in white calligraphy on a green background.

Flying the flag is protected under free speech laws, legal experts said. It’s unclear whether the flag, flown atop a pole in front of a house on Crestview Drive on and off in the past two weeks, has triggered any kind of government investigation. 

Despite the uproar, experts said the display of the flag amounts to symbolic speech protected under the First Amendment. 

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/hamas-flag-san-carlos-20228183.php?utm_source=marketing&utm_medium=copy-url-link&utm_campaign=article-share&hash=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuc2ZjaHJvbmljbGUuY29tL2JheWFyZWEvYXJ0aWNsZS9oYW1hcy1mbGFnLXNhbi1jYXJsb3MtMjAyMjgxODMucGhw&time=MTc0MjM1NzE4ODU3MQ%3D%3D&rid=OTJhM2RhZWItNDMzYy00ZjMxLTgyMTQtZTU2ZjE2NDIzNDRl&sharecount=MA%3D%3D