MAGA friendly New York Post – 9.30.2026The morning after The Hill – 9.30.2026The New Republic – 9.30.2026
Did a clueless MAGA senator think he could humiliate veteran war crimes prosecutor Jack Smith by calling him a “dirt bag” after thoroughly embarrassing himself and the Republican party on national television?
Jack Smith is the man who brought Federal charges against Donald Trump only to have his work torn apart after Trump returned the White House in January 2025.
Now Trump’s toady MAGA allies in Congress have used their power to discredit Jack Smith. It’s not working.Jack Smith is familiar with criminals of all types,. Kosovo war criminals included.
Jack Smith at the Senate Judiciary Committee – 9.29.2026
Excerpted from The Daily Beast 9.29.2026
MAGA Senator Eric Schmitt dramatically accused former special counsel Jack Smith of perjury and being a “dirtbag” on Tuesday—only to learn he got his reveal entirely wrong.
Smith appeared confused at first by the line of questioning, but it turned out that Schmitt completely mixed up the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks with the Hawkeyes from the University of Iowa.
Instead Schmitt was publicly humiliated, just as D.C. was gossiping that he could be a running mate for JD Vance in 2028.
The cringeworthy exchange came when the Missouri Republican started asking Smith about attending a basketball game in Atlanta in 2024.
He appeared to be trying to tie the former special counsel to the separate election interference case with Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.
The question I have is the following. “Why has San Francisco engaged in a Sister City for 10 years with the German port City of Kiel which is building lethal hardware for the Israeli navy?
Submarines which are believed to be nuclear armed though Israel never admits to possessing nuclear weapons.
Such an action does not fit international city San Francisco long known for its involvement in the peace movement and antiwar activities going back to the Vietnam War era?
At this Sunday’s German Day well attended celebration in Golden Gate Park the blogger had an instructive conversation with a representative from Kiel, Germany Kiel – Wikipedia A sister city of San Francisco.
I learned that the port City of Kiel in Northern Germany is a major supplier of weaponry to the Israeli navy. On September 1st six submarines left Kiel for the port of Haifa.With more scheduled for delivery.
Sister Cities of San Francisco at Powell and Market Streets. Kiel is 5484 miles away.
Excerpted from The Times of Israel 9.27.2026
Israel’s newest, largest submarine arrives, deepening Navy’s stealth capabilities
Twelve years and one scandal in the making, the INS Drakon completes its 23-day journey from Germany with a ToI reporter aboard, carrying secret tech and powered by a system that will allow it to stay underwater for longer
The Israeli Navy’s INS Drakon submarine sails in the Mediterranean Sea, early September 24, 2026. (Israel Defense Forces)Jane’s Defence Weekly reported that the Dolphin-class submarines are believed to be nuclear armed, offering Israel a sea-based, second strike capability.[18][19] In adherence to Missile Technology Control Regime rules[48] the US Clinton administration rejected an Israeli request in 2000 to purchase Tomahawk long range SLCMs. The U.S. Navy has deployed nuclear armed and conventional Tomahawk missiles for its submarine fleet which are launched from standard heavy 533 mm torpedo tubes.[52] The Federation of American Scientists and GlobalSecurity.org reported that the four larger torpedo tubes are capable of launching Israeli built nuclear-armed Popeye Turbocruise missiles (a variant of the Popeye standoff missile), and the U.S. Navy recorded an Israeli submarine-launched cruise missile test in the Indian Ocean ranging 1,500 km (930 mi).[10][14][53]
ABOARD INS DRAKON — Just a few nautical miles west of Haifa, the Israeli Navy’s sixth submarine was approaching Israel’s coast on Thursday morning after a 3,792-nautical-mile (around 8,000-kilometer) voyage over the past 23 days from Germany.
At dawn, reporters had boarded a small Defender-class patrol boat and headed out to greet the INS Drakon — or Dragon — on the final leg of her maiden journey to the Haifa Naval Base, where a ceremony was planned in the vessel’s honor.
Before we departed the naval base, the military took away all our electronic devices, from cellphones to key fobs, due to security concerns
One of the busiest streets in the western section of San Francisco is Clement Street. A multi-cultural with a substantial Asian enclave near where the blogger has lived much of his lifetime.
The blogger took a walk on recent foggy morning on a portion of Clement Street and memorialized his excursion with a number of photos.
This public street runs from Arguello Boulevard westward through the Richmond district for three miles, ending on a hill at 45th Avenue just before Lands’ End. The street was built as part of the development of the Richmond district, previously sparsely populated terrain known as the “Outside Lands,” a vast stretch of sand dunes beyond city limits.Eager for customers to reach his seaside attractions, including the Sutro Baths, Sutro Gardens, and Cliff House resort, Adolph Sutro underwrote an electric trolley line in 1896 that ran the length of Clement Street, catalyzing its development as a major commercial corridor. A new wave of development followed the 1906 earthquake and fire, as refugees flooded into the area. After World War II, Southeast Asian immigrants began moving to the district en masse, earning it the name of “New Chinatown” among locals. Clement Street’s cultural diversity has long been a defining characteristic of its identity, with demographics shifting over the past century from predominantly Irish-American to Russian, Middle Eastern Jewish, and, later, Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, and Thai residents.
Clement Street was spared the widening that neighboring Geary Boulevard underwent in the late 1940s, preserving the former’s pedestrian scale. A vibrant, two-way thoroughfare, the street is densely lined by two- and three-story, mixed-use buildings housing a variety of locally owned restaurants, produce markets, shops, and community organizations. Examples of the Classical Revival, Mission Revival, and Italianate architectural styles that once dominated the neighborhood can still be seen, interspersed with twentieth-century buildings.
Gold Star Discount Store where the blogger’s wife has shopped for years.
NO on G SAVE SUNSET DUNES PARK! banner on Clement Street alerts the voters to a crucial November ballot measure
The produce assortment at the Yin Xing Food Co.
The Recology containers stacked for the Monday morning collection
The Donuts shop at 10th Avenue. Years ago it was an ice cream parlor
The Asian food selection piled high at a Clement Street grocery shop
FOR SALE. The hyper real estate market in San Francisco on Clement Street
A dangerous crossing. A mother yacks on her phone while crossing 7th Avenue with her toddler in tow
Green Apple Books was founded by Richard Savoy in 1967 in a pre-1906 building at the corner of Clement Street and Sixth Avenue.[2] In 1996, Green Apple Books acquired its long-time neighbor, Revolver Records.[3] By 2005, the store housed over 250,000 titles, as well as 60,000 available online.[4]Green Apple Books & Music – Wikipedia
An art studio on Clement Street
The now abandoned building at 9th Avenue. It was formerly the Coliseum Theater where the blogger spent many Saturday afternoons during his youth watching movies, munching on popcorn and candy. Later it was a Walgreens outlet. Now shuttered
The foggy Monday morning foot traffic on Clement Street
See’s Candies a Richmond District sweet tooth staple for decades at the corner of 9th Avenue
Hamburger Havenat the corner of 9th Avenue feeding the neighborhood for years
Waiting for the San Francisco Muni bus number 44 at nearby 6th Avenue and Geary Blvd
The brick house. The Richmond District Police Station on 6th Avenue. A block south of Clement Street
Another nearby Clement Street resident
Sign of the times. Sky high fuel prices at the pump on Geary Blvd and Park Presidio. One block south of Clement St.
Opening theme to the movie Beyond Rangoon – conducted by Hans Zimmer
Donald Trump is in the wrong country in his dangerous attempt to stifle a free press.
The banishment of CNN, Politico and MSNOW from the White House has unleashed a firestorm.
The most transparent response came today when five networks who share a “pool” to report on Trump pulled the plug. No longer will Trump be able to enjoy unfettered media coverage. The video and audio have been disconnected.
The media organizations have gone into Federal Court seeking a Temporary Restraining Order to block Trump’s childish and petulant action. The hearing is Wednesday.
This is a moment when the American media on all sides of the political spectrum need to stand up and fight and uphold the First Amendment of The Constitution.
PBS News Hour with Committee to Protect Journalists Jodie Ginsberg – 9.21.2026
News outlets Trump banned from White House seek Restraining Order
POLITICO, CNN and MS NOW are seeking a restraining order to restore reporters’ access – 9.21.2026
Three news organizations whose journalists were banned from the White House last week are suing President Donald Trump and three top advisers, calling the abrupt lockout a “direct assault on the First Amendment.”
The organizations filed the suit Monday in U.S. District Court in Washington, which assigned the case to Judge Timothy Kelly, a Trump appointee. The news outlets are asking Kelly to quickly rule Trump’s ban unconstitutional and prevent his aides from enforcing it.
“This morning, we notified the government that we are filing a lawsuit today to protect our First Amendment rights and defend the principle that the government does not decide what the press reports or publishes,” the news organizations said. “Without notice or process, the White House revoked our journalists’ credentials because it objected to our reporting. Left unchallenged, this threatens press freedom and the public’s right to independent journalism free from government interference.”
South Tower of The World Trade Center collapsed at 9:59AM on 9.11.2001. The North Tower collapsed 29 minutes later.
San Francisco Chronicle – 9.12.2001
SAN FRANCISCO
Lee Heidhues 9.10.2026
On September 11th 2001 the blogger heard the news on NPR Morning Edition. Not realizing the severity and impact he set off for work downtown. Midway there he received a call from Liz telling him the office had called and told him not to come to work that day. And as it turned out for several days thereafter.
25 years laterthe media is busy commemorating the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Deutsche Welle is reporting the now well known fact that several of the 9/11 hijackers lived in Hamburg prior to the assault on America.
Predictably this historic event has been compared to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor December 7th 1941.
Predictably,it was also inevitable that the film industry would offer its interpretation of 9/11. Two films illustrated the cinematic effort. “Zero Dark Thirty” recounted the years long effort to locate and kill Osama Bin Laden. “A Most Wanted Man”, a John Le Carre novel put to film, is the story of post 9/11 Germany’s anti-terrorist campaign. Scenes from these films are posted below.
New York City firefighters. 363 died that day. – 9.11.2001
Excerpted from Deutsche Welle 9.9.2026
The 9/11 plot, including the twin tower attacks, was partly planned by the so-called Hamburg cell. A look at how Germany’s national security was reshaped.
German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder addressed parliament the following day.
“Yesterday, September 11, 2001, will go down in history as a dark day for all of us,” the Social Democrat said.
He said he had expressed to the American president the deeply felt condolences of the entire German people.
“I also assured him of Germany’s unconditional — I emphasize: unconditional — solidarity,” Schröder said.
The Twin Towers in New York City – 9.11.2001
“This day has changed the world,” German President Johannes Rau said. He had watched in shock as the burning twin towers of the World Trade Center collapsed in New York.
Germany’s head of state struggled to find the right words: “We do not know what political or social consequences what happened today will have — what we have watched unfold on our television screens in shock, barely able to comprehend or even reflect on it.”
Germany, he added, would offer the US any assistance they requested, “of course, also by identifying and pursuing those responsible for and behind these despicable attacks.”
It soon emerged that the victims include people from 92 countries, among them 11 Germans.
Mohammed Atta and the Hamburg cell
The following day, a rapidly spreading rumor was confirmed: Three of the four suspected hijackers had recently lived in Hamburg. The Islamist terrorists were thought to have been led by Egyptian-born Mohammed Atta, who had come to the northern German city in the early 1990s to study.
The so-called Hamburg cell played a key role in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the US: Zakariya Essabar, Abdullah Binalshibh, Said Bahaji, Mounir El Motassadeq, Mohammed Atta and Abdelghani Mzoudi (from top left to bottom right) Image:dpa/picture alliance
At some point, the young man became radicalized, particularly at Hamburg’s Al-Quds Mosque, which was later closed by German security authorities. He spent the final three years of his life in an apartment shared with two other suspected attackers in the Harburg district.
Schröder’s remarks set the tone and opened the door for a series of tougher laws. Just weeks after the attacks, the governing coalition of Social Democrats and Greens unveiled its first so-called security package, involving more funding, more personnel as well as greater powers for police and intelligence agencies.
Religious organizations that had previously been granted special protection could now be banned like other associations if their activities were directed against the Basic Law, Germany’s constitutional order based on freedom and democracy, or if they pursued other criminal aims. Less than four months after the terrorist attacks in the US, Germany’s Anti-Terrorism Act took effect.
Intelligence agencies were given access to personal data held by banks, airlines and telecommunications companies. Immigration laws were tightened.
Through data-mining searches, in which large amounts of data were cross-checked without any specific suspicion, authorities sought to identify so-called sleeper agents — people like Mohammed Atta from the Hamburg terrorist cell, who had not been identified by security agencies in time.
The Federal Constitutional Court brought an end to the legally questionable practice. Such searches were permissible only when there was a specific threat, the court said in a 2006 ruling. Seven years later, Germany’s highest court also ruled that parts of the country’s anti-terrorism database were unconstitutional.
Nearly 3,000 people were killed on September 11, 2001, when Islamist terrorists hijacked four passenger planes and turned them into deadly weapons.
Top photo: First responders at Ground Zero
Wall Street Journal – September 12th 2001
Jeffrey Goldberg and his four panelists talk about the memories of September 11, 2001
The blogger posted the results of the Sunday election in which the extreme right wing AfD harvested nearly 44 percent of the vote in the state election for Saxony-Anhalt.
A result which has created a political firestorm in Germany and beyond.
In the blog is included a piece of art by Charlotte Salomon “30.1.1933”. January 30, 1933. The day The Nazis swept into power.The blogger wanted to learn more about this ill-fated artist who came from a wealthy Jewish family and was murdered by the Nazis at Auschwitz in 1943. Her artwork lives on forever. Were she alive today Charlotte Salomon may have updated the painting with an AfD banner and the date 6.9.2026. (September 6th 2026).
Not since the Nazi Thousand Year Reich ended in Hitler’s bunker in May 1945 and Germany climbed out of the ashes has a far right, some would say Neo-Nazi party, gained such popularity.
Charlotte Salomon (16 April 1917 – 10 October 1943) was a German-Jewish artist born in Berlin. She is primarily remembered as the creator of an autobiographical series of paintings Leben? oder Theater?: Ein Singspiel (Life? or Theater?: A Song-play), the largest known artwork made by a Jewish person who died in the Holocaust,[1] consisting of 769 individual works painted between 1941 and 1943 in the south of France, while Salomon was in hiding from the Nazis. In October 1943 Salomon, 5 months pregnant at that time, was captured and deported to Auschwitz, where she was murdered by the Nazis soon after her arrival.[2][3][4][5] In 2015, a 35-page confession by Salomon to the fatal poisoning of her grandfather, kept secret for decades, was released by a Parisian publisher.[6]Charlotte Salomon – Wikipedia
Charlotte Salomon’s life was recounted in an animated feature film released in 2021. Appropriately titled CHARLOTTE. It is a beautiful piece of cinematic animation.
Not enough to take over political power of this state with 2.3M people in the former East Germany – Wikipedia. But definitely sending a grim dispiriting message to the rest of the World. This extreme Right MAGA like surge is not going to end anytime soon. I remember visiting Germany in 2017 and seeing a STOPPT AFD poster. I took a photo and have used it countless times in my blog.
STOPPT DIE AFD – Lubeck, Germany May 2017 – Photo Lee Heidhues
It’s incredible to know that 93 years after the Nazis took power in January 1933 this type of extreme reactionary, racist, anti-immigration party is now so powerful.
I watch the coverage on Deutsche Welle and the correspondents make only brief mention of the political transformation of the Saxony-Anhalt population. A now older generation raised in the totalitarian intolerant Russian governed East Germany. A subjugated population in a police state which was probably, actually, definitely not exposed to multi-culturalism and an influx of immigration and people from different countries. So, when the Wall fell in late 1989 and the open society of the West began to impact the now former East Germany there was a lot of resentment and fear.
That’s what our host Stefan, who owned the Tiergarten Hotel in Berlin, told us in 2017. He is from East Berlin and encouraged Liz and me to visit the former East Berlin and tour the Stasi Museum. Stasi – Wikipedia Stefan told us East Berlin in 2017 looked nearly the same as it did when it was part of East Germany. Old, boring architecture and quiet streets.
Liz walking to the Stasi Museum –Photo Lee Heidhues
I wonder what Marion thinks of all this. I’m sure she is shocked. After all Marion is definitely the leftist German native who was the reason we went to Germany in in 2017. Then returned in 2018 and 2023. I will always remember our night with Marion at the Women’s Center in Hamburg. The women were East German born. They told us the East German regime guaranteed education, housing, health care and jobs. But there was a price to pay.
Living in a totalitarian Stasi run state. When the Wall came down in 1989 and the West German ways took over the country the resentment surfaced. Here we are 37 years later and the AfD has been spawned and is now on the precipice of power. It is incredible. I am just totally transfixed and appalled by all of this. The surge of right wing populism continues to grow. I’m sure Trump loves all of it as his MAGA movement continues to steamroll its way forward!!!
Art of Catastrophe – Charlotte Salomon (16 April 1917 – 10 October 1943) was a German-Jewish artist born in Berlin. She is primarily remembered as the creator of an autobiographical series of paintings Leben? oder Theater?: Ein Singspiel (Life? or Theater?: A Song-play), the largest known artwork made by a Jewish person who died in the Holocaust,[1] consisting of 769 individual works painted between 1941 and 1943 in the south of France, while Salomon was in hiding from the Nazis. In October 1943 Salomon, 5 months pregnant at that time, was captured and deported to Auschwitz, where she was murdered by the Nazis soon after her arrival.[2][3][4][5] In 2015, a 35-page confession by Salomon to the fatal poisoning of her grandfather, kept secret for decades, was released by a Parisian publisher.[6]Charlotte Salomon – Wikipedia
Breakdown of vote nationwide for German national election – February 2025
Donald Trump’s six years long insane ranting that the 2020 presidential election was “rigged” and stolen from him unsupported by a shred of reality has now reached Germany.
In Sunday’s German election the ultra right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is projected to win to close to a majority in at least one of three State elections.
It’s no secret that Trump is infatuated with the AfD. In the 2025 national election Trump’s cohort Elon Musk actively supported the AfD which ended up winning 152 seats in the German Bundestag.
In Saxony-Anhalt, the AfD’s lead candidate Ulrich Siegmund has called for postal voting to be restricted to justified exceptional cases.
During the 2020 US presidential election, President Donald Trump repeatedly claimed that expanded mail-in voting would lead to widespread fraud. Fact-checkers documented and debunked repeated false and exaggerated claims about the security of mail ballots.
Ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, the Trump administration is again seeking to impose new restrictions on mail-in ballots, measures that have faced repeated legal challenges.
In the 2025 national election Trump’s cohort Elon Musk actively supported the AfD
Excerpted from Deutsche Welle 9.5.2026
As Germany heads into three elections in September, rumors are circulating on social media claiming that postal voting is not secure — claims that have also been made about other elections. Here’s why they’re wrong.
Stakes are high in Germany’s three September state elections. In Saxony-Anhalt, where voters go to the ballot boxes on Sunday, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) could make history in by winning an outright majority.
Mail-in voting, or “Briefwahl,” has become an increasingly common feature of German elections. But the rise in mail-in ballots has been followed by a renewed wave of speculation and claims questioning the security and integrity of postal vote.
DW Fact check examined a sample of claims circulating online and assessed what the available evidence shows.
Does postal voting manipulate election results?
Claim: Cases of fraud involving postal ballots prove that postal voting is unreliable.
DW Fact check: Misleading. Individual cases of fraud, errors or violations do not demonstrate that the entire postal voting system is unreliable or that it has affected the outcome of an election.
Postal voting easy to manipulate?
Claim: Postal votes are easily manipulated during counting.
DW Fact check: False. Germany has detailed procedures governing the handling and counting of postal ballots. Postal votes are transported, stored and opened according to established rules, and their counting takes place publicly.
“Leaders of an extremist, far-right party in Germany have quietly borrowed pages from President Trump’s playbook to cast doubt on the integrity of absentee voting — alleging without evidence that residents of nursing homes have had their ballots manipulated and calling for an end to postal voting,” the Los Angeles Times reports.
“The attack on mail ballots comes as Germany approaches a potentially historic state election that could shatter one of the taboos of its postwar political order by opening the door to a far-right government.”
“Politicians across the ideological spectrum, mindful that polls show Trump to be widely unpopular, don’t invoke his name. But the specter of the American president nevertheless hangs over the election that could have reverberations across Europe if the Alternative for Germany, or AfD, party — tacitly echoing Trump’s attacks on migrants, the media and the integrity of elections — pulls off an unprecedented political shock in postwar Germany.”
Norway certainly is ready, willing and able to assert its territorial rights and is willing to enforce an international Court order even if the defendant is the mighty Russian power at its border.
Excerpted from The New York Times 9.3.2026
Norway Seizes Russian Ship, Testing Moscow in the High Arctic
Empowered by an international court order, Norway captured the vessel as part of a global effort to seize Russian assets. The Russians called it “piracy.”
For the past several days, Norwegian security services had been tracking a Russian research ship.
Armed with a court order that is part of a global effort to recover Russian assets, Norwegian police officers boarded the ship while it was docked in Barentsburg, a tiny Russian outpost in Svalbard. The officers confronted the captain of the ship, a somewhat clunky, 200-foot-long oceanographic vessel, and announced that they were “arresting” it.
The seized ship was part of a broader effort to enforce an international court judgment ordering Russia to pay a Ukrainian energy company, Naftogaz, more than $4 billion for expropriating that company’s assets in Crimea. The ship, owned by the Russian government and called Professor Molchanov, after a famous Russian scientist, is now prohibited from leaving Barentsburg until Norwegian courts decide what to do next.
“We have only acted as a messenger,” said Lars Fause, the governor of Svalbard.
The Governor of Svalbard has today, following an order from the Nord-Troms District Court, seized the Russian ship “Professor Molchanov” which is docked in Barentsburg. The seizure was implemented after the Nord-Troms District Court granted the Ukrainian company Naftogaz the right to seize the Russian ship.
In a ruling on August 31, 2026, the Nord-Troms District Court granted the Ukrainian company Naftogaz the right to seize the Russian ship “Professor Molchanov”, which is now docked in Barentsburg on Svalbard.
The legal process and ruling are part of the company’s fight to recover funds that were expropriated by Russia in 2014.
The Governor of Svalbard is the bailiff and, following an order from the Nord-Troms District Court, has seized the ship on Wednesday, September 2, 2026.
The ship has been ordered by the District Court to berth at a location determined by the Governor and it has been decided that the vessel will berth at Barentsburg until the Governor or the Nord-Troms District Court decides otherwise.
The governor will take care of the crew and passengers on board the vessel in collaboration with Trust Arcticugol.
Occupied (Norwegian: Okkupert) is a Norwegian political thriller TV series that premiered on TV2 on 5 October 2015.[2] Based on an original idea by Jo Nesbø, the series is co-created with Karianne Lund and Erik Skjoldbjærg.[3] Season 2 premiered on 10 October 2017.[4] The third and final season started airing in Scandinavia on 5 December 2019,[5] and was released in many countries via Netflix on 31 December 2019.Occupied – Wikipedia
Who would have imagined a far right immigrant bashing German political party could rise from the ashes of Nazism in less than 15 years and be on the verge of seizing power in a German State? It could happen this weekend in the German State of Saxony-Anhalt (see below).
STOPPT DIE AFD – May 2017 – Photo Lee Heidhues
Nearly 10 years ago the blogger was in Germany.
At that time the Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) was simply another newly formed political entity trying to gain traction. The AfD immigrant bashing received a lukewarm reception. Now, after nearly 10 years the AfD is on the precipice of a major victory. Achieving a majority in a German State election on September 6th.
During the last German election Trump’s comrade Elon Musk actively campaigned for the AfD.
The AfD is polling above 40% ahead of Saxony-Anhalt’s election on September 6. What is driving support for the far right in this predominantly rural eastern German state?
Just before the election, the AfD is polling at more than 40% in Saxony-Anhalt. The conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), which has been the dominant governing party in the state since German reunification in 1990, trails far behind, with support ranging between 23% and 26%.
The state office for the protection of the constitution has classified the AfD as a “confirmed right-wing extremist” organization, but this has done little to dent its popularity among voters. The Left Party is polling at 13%, while support for the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) stands at between 6% and 7%. It remains uncertain whether the Greens and the pro-business Free Democratic Party (FDP) will succeed in returning to the state parliament.
