Tag: history

War criminal convicted of genocide Ratko Mladic dead

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 8.27.2026

The blogger knows words cannot describe the horror of the Balkan wars over 30 years ago. The architect is dead. I hope Ratko Mladic does not Rest in Peace. He may have been convicted by the International Criminal Tribunal and perished in Prison.

Being permitted to live out his life in prison was not an adequate punishment for his war crimes.

https://freshairarchive.org/segments/seeking-justice-post-war-serbia Terry Gross interview 7.10.1996

Journalist Chris Hedges. He’s been covering the Bosnian conflict for the New York Times and offers insight to the current political and social atmosphere in the former Yugoslavia. This week marks the anniversary of the slaughter of thousands of Muslims in Srebrenica as they were attempting to retreat from the Serbs. Investigators from the international war crimes tribunal are currently exhuming the graves of that former U.N. “safe area.

Excerpted from The New York Times 8.27.2026

Ratko Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb general whose actions during the Balkan wars of the 1990s led to him being called the “Butcher of Bosnia” and who was held responsible for Europe’s deadliest massacre since World War II, the killing of some 8,000 Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica in 1995, has died in custody in The Hague. He was 83.

The Srebrenica massacre,[a] also known as the Srebrenica genocide,[b][8] was the July 1995 genocidal killing[9] of more than 8,000[10] Bosniak men and boys in and around the town of Srebrenica during the Bosnian War.[11] It was mainly perpetrated by units of the Bosnian Serb Army of Republika Srpska under Ratko Mladić, though the Serb paramilitary unit Scorpions also participated.[6][12] In addition, 25,000 to 30,000 Bosniaks, mainly women and children, were abused and forcibly moved out of Srebrenica. The massacre constitutes the first legally recognised genocide in Europe since the end of World War II.[13] Srebrenica massacre – Wikipedia

The Srebrenica massacre,[a] also known as the Srebrenica genocide,[b][8] was the July 1995 genocidal killing[9] of more than 8,000[10]

His death was announced on Thursday by Serbian state media. The authorities at The Hague said he died while hospitalized there, but did not provide a specific cause of death.

Mr. Mladic was captured on May 26, 2011, in a farming village north of Belgrade, Serbia’s capital, after almost 16 years as a fugitive, ending one of the longest manhunts in modern history. His 2017 conviction by an international tribunal on charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes marked the end of a dark and bloody chapter.

Ratko Mladić (Serbian Cyrillic: Ратко Младић, pronounced [râtko mlǎːdit͡ɕ]; 12 March 1942 – 27 August 2026) was a Bosnian Serb military officer who led the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS) during the Yugoslav Wars. Colloquially referred to as the “Butcher of Bosnia”,[a] he was found guilty in 2017 of committing war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). He served a life sentence for these crimes in The Hague until his death in 2026.[1] Ratko Mladić – Wikipedia

Excerpted from Deutsche Welle 8.27.2026

More than 30 years after the end of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina (1992-1995), Srebrenica remains emblematic of its brutality. And no one is more closely linked to the genocide that took place in the small town in eastern Bosnia than Ratko Mladic, the former commander-in-chief of the Bosnian Serb army.

Although the United Nations had declared Srebrenica a “safe area,” Bosnian Serb forces attacked the town. Within just a few days in July 1995, they expelled women and children, then killed more than 8,300 unarmed Muslim boys and men in the nearby village of Potocari — on Mladic’s direct orders, according to the verdict handed down by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague 22 years later.

At the time, Srebrenica was the largest massacre in Europe since World War II.

At the time, Srebrenica was the largest massacre in Europe since World War II. The ICTY classified it as genocide. Mladic was also held responsible for other war crimes beyond the Srebrenica genocide. Under his command, the years-long siege of Sarajevo began at the start of the war. The city was shelled for more than 40 months, killing around 11,000 people, including more than 1,600 children.

Mladic always claimed that he targeted only military objectives. But numerous reports and intercepted radio communications indicate that civilian facilities and residential areas were also deliberately attacked. Around 100,000 people were killed during the four-year war in Bosnia, while some 2.2 million were driven from their homes in cities and villages across the country, half of its total population at the time.

‘Miss Sarjevo’ from the soundtrack of the film ‘Welcome to Sarajevo’. A beauty contest was held in the midst of the conflict. Welcome to Sarajevo is a 1997 war drama film directed by Michael Winterbottom, written by Frank Cottrell Boyce and is based on the book Natasha’s Story by Michael Nicholson. The film stars Stephen Dillane, Woody Harrelson, Marisa Tomei, Emira Nušević, Kerry Fox, Goran Višnjić, James Nesbitt, and Emily Lloyd. Welcome to Sarajevo – Wikipedia

https://www.dw.com/en/the-man-behind-srebrenica-ratko-mladic-dies-at-84/a-78536491

Top photo: Ratko Mladic – Bosnian Serb General and convicted War Criminal

Last Drive for San Francisco entitled motorists hits the road

SAN FRANCISCO

Text and photos: Lee Heidhues 8.22.2026

Sunset District merchant Albert Chow who tried to blame proponents of Sunset Dunes Park for the 2024 fire and subsequent break ins at his hardware story militantly vowed to a gathering of true believers trying to destroy the twice approved park. He will keep fighting until his cause prevails.

Albert Chow and San Francisco Chronicle photographer Yolanda James

San Francisco voters will be voting on Sunset Dunes Park for the third time in four years this November 3rd. Proposition ‘G’. Car driven  foes of the park were able to qualify for the ballot because of the absurdly low signature requirement. Only 10,000 registered voters in a City with over 500,000 voters are required to qualify a ballot measure. Foes of the Park took advantage of this absurdity and harvested the necessary signatures.

It must be noted that foes of the Park to the point of boredom have tried to destroy Sunset Dunes Park. At the ballot box, in the Courthouse, legislative and administrative bodies.

So if the voters are bored by all this they need not look further than the group of entitled zealots who refuse to admit they’ve lost. The proponents of Proposition G.

“Failed attempts to kill Sunset Dunes” – No on Prop G campaign kickoff – 8.16.2026

It’s no ‘Compromise’. It’s destruction of Sunset Dunes Park

San Francisco Supervisor Alan Wong appointed to office by Mayor Daniel Lurie, whose District 4 contains Sunset Dunes Park, has bet his incumbency on the destruction of Sunset Dunes Park
The crowd at the Yes on Prop G aka Destroy Sunset Dunes Park was generally the older generation
Rich Corriea, former Captain of the Richmond District Police Station, is an outspoken opponent of Sunset Dunes Park.

The blogger has thrown in a little car music for the entertainment of the readers. It hurts too much to cry having to deal with this “for the 500th time” as a Sunset Dunes Park proponent declared recently. A couple of ‘old school’ rock ‘n roll songs may help ease the hurt because ‘old school’ is definitely what the cadres who want to destroy Sunset Dunes Park can correctly be labeled.

‘Drive My Car’ – The Beatles Rubber Soul 1966
A gathering of Barnacles on a Saturday morning

Barnacle. Stay in one fixed spot for life.

‘Drive My Car’ – The Rolling Stones Voodoo Lounge 1994

TOP PHOTO; The Destroy Sunset Dunes Park posse stands before an inflatable romper room

History is made as San Francisco unveils 2 mile Sunset Dunes Park

Bibliocide—attacks on written word—tactic of totalitarians and terrorists.

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 8.18.2026

Censorship and book burning are a sad historical phenomena. Recent history has found this activity in countries around the world. Nazi Germany, the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and Russian obliteration of Ukrainian libraries.

America is not immune. The House Un American Activities Committee (HUAC) strove to ban books in overseas libraries which were deemed “too Communist” and “nonconformist”. Even in the midst of the 21st century certain localities in America have successfully moved to ban books from libraries and schools. Book Bans – PEN America

American Book Banning: Trends, Causes, and Impact

Book banning in the United States has surged in recent years, with both schools and public libraries facing unprecedented levels of censorship.

Scale of the Problem
PEN America’s 2025 report found 6,870 book bans enacted in the 2024–25 school year across 23 states and 87 public school districts, affecting nearly 2,600 authors, illustrators, and translators PEN America. This is the highest number of bans in a single school year ever recorded. The American Library Association (ALA) documented 4,235 unique titles challenged in 2025, with 5,668 books actually banned from libraries, plus 920 restricted through access controls American Library Association. These bans disproportionately target works by authors of color, LGBTQ+ authors, and books addressing racism, sexuality, gender, and history PEN America+1.

Who Is Driving the Bans
ALA data shows that 92% of challenges in 2025 were initiated by pressure groups, government officials, or decision-makers, not individual parents American Library Association. This reflects a coordinated political and activist push to influence school and library curricula.

Excerpted from The Wall Street Journal 8.18.2026

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/russia-burns-books-and-sacks-libraries-in-ukraine-31326e56?st=DMN2Zg&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

Bibliocide—attacks on the written word—is a common tactic of totalitarians and terrorists. The Nazis burned books in Germany in the 1930s, as did the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia in the 1970s. Bosnian Serbs destroyed Sarajevo’s National and University Library in 1992, and in 2015 ISIS devastated Mosul Central Library.

Nazi book burnings – Wikipedia The Nazi book burnings were a campaign conducted by the German Student Union (German: Deutsche Studentenschaft, DSt) to ceremonially burn books in Nazi Germany and Austria in the 1930s. The books targeted for burning were those viewed as being subversive or as representing ideologies opposed to Nazism. These included books written by Jewish, half-Jewish, communist, socialist, anarchist, liberal, pacifist, and sexologist authors among others.[1] The initial books burned were those of Karl Marx and Karl Kautsky,[2] but the burned books came to include other authors, including the works of Albert Einstein, Helen Keller, H.G. Wells, and effectively any book incompatible with Nazi ideology.
During the Khmer Rouge regime (1975–1979), the government carried out a systematic campaign to destroy books, newspapers, and other printed materials as part of its broader cultural and political purge. This was part of Pol Pot’s “Year Zero” policy to erase Cambodia’s pre-1975 history, culture, and intellectual life, replacing it with a Maoist-inspired agrarian socialist society

The Ukrainian Culture Ministry says Russia has damaged or destroyed 906 libraries since 2022. Numerous cases of book burning and library sacking have been documented. Among them: In 2022 the Petro Mohyla Church library was burned in Mariupol. Books were burned in Rovenky in 2023. Yulia Kakulia-Danyliuk, a librarian in Kapytolivka, has described the destruction in that village: “Everything was smashed and broken, books were scattered everywhere. There was filth.”

Books in Ruins: How Russia attacks Ukrainian culture

Kapytolivka holds particular significance, having been home to Volodymyr Vakulenko, a poet and children’s book author, who was abducted and murdered by Russian troops in 2022. When the librarian returned after the village’s liberation, only 4,500 of 16,500 books remained. She found books on Ukrainian culture and history in the toilets, covered in human waste. “All of them had been soiled. That was done deliberately.”

Oleksandra Matviichuk, head of the Center for Civil Liberties (which was awarded the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize), describes the destruction of books as “part of a broader genocidal policy of Russia. We know from history that the burning of libraries accompanied genocides throughout the centuries as an erasure of someone else’s identity. Putin openly says that there is no Ukrainian nation, no Ukrainian language, no Ukrainian culture.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_Civil_Liberties_(human_rights_organization)

The Center for Civil Liberties (Ukrainian: Центр Громадянських Свобод, romanized: Tsentr Hromadyansʹkykh Svobod) is a Ukrainian human rights organization led by the Ukrainian lawyer Oleksandra Matviichuk.[2] It was founded in 2007,[3][4] with the purpose of pressuring Ukraine’s government to make the country more democratic.[5][6] The organization was awarded the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize, jointly with Ales Bialiatski and Russian organization Memorial.[3][7]

In America the book burning mania took hold in the early Cold War era.

HUAC and the Era of “Book Burnings”

During the 1950s, the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) and other anti-communist forces in the U.S. government were linked to reports of book burnings at American-funded overseas libraries. These libraries, numbering about 230 and holding nearly two million books, served millions of visitors annually and were intended to present a “balanced” view of the United States The New Republic.

The Context

  • HUAC’s role: Established in 1938, HUAC targeted alleged communists and “subversive” activities. While it investigated individuals, its influence extended to shaping cultural and informational policy abroad Wikipedia.
  • Overseas libraries: Originally founded in Latin America in 1942–43 to model public libraries abroad, they emphasized free access to all printed materials. By the Eisenhower era, their purpose had shifted toward promoting U.S. perspectives and discouraging “non-conformity” The New Republic.
  • Targeted content: Books deemed “too communist” — including works by or about communists — were removed from shelves. This included literature banned under dictatorships the U.S. had fought against, such as in Germany, Austria, Japan, Korea, and Trieste The New Republic.

Political Backing

  • Eisenhower administration: Reports indicated that State Department directives, sanctioned by Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, ordered U.S. libraries abroad to remove such books. President Eisenhower publicly distanced himself from these orders, but his administration’s actions were tied to HUAC’s anti-communist agenda The New Republic.
  • McCarthyism: Senator Joseph McCarthy, though not directly involved with HUAC, was part of the broader anti-communist climate that enabled such censorship Intellectual Freedom Blog.
America doesn’t burn books. It bans them as neo-Nazi sentiment takes hold

Outside Lands and Altamont. Golden Gate Park now and what was not then

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 8.8.2026 UPDATED

This August weekend is the now annual Outside Lands three day concert at the Polo Fields near the blogger’s home. 75,000 fans a day are expected to attend.

The hordes at Outside Lands – 8.7. 2026

Golden Gate Park was not always a cash register for corporatization.

One only need look back at rock and roll history to learn that in 1969 the Rolling Stones wanted to give a “free” concert in Golden Gate Park. San Francisco officialdom, mainly in the person of Mayor Joe Alioto, wouldn’t let it happen.

Instead the Stones concert was moved to Altamont Speedway in the East Bay which turned into a total disaster for the musicians and hundreds of thousands of fans. The tragic event is memorialized forever in the classic documentary ‘Gimme Shelter’ which is available on multiple streaming outlets and as a DVD in The Criterion Collection.

The days of San Francisco looking askance at massive concerts in park spaces are a thing of the past. What counts in the current Big Tech, AI monied metropolis is anything is permitted as long as it brings in money.

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

The Altamont Speedway Free Festival was a counterculture rock concert in the United States, held on Saturday, December 6, 1969, at the Altamont Speedway outside of Tracy, California.[2][3][4][5] Approximately 300,000 attended the concert,[2][4][5] with some anticipating that it would be a “Woodstock West“.[6] The Woodstock festival had taken place in Bethel, New York, in mid-August, almost four months earlier.

The event is remembered for its use of Hells Angels as security and its significant violence, including the killing of Meredith Hunter and three accidental deaths: two from a hit-and-run car crash, and one from a drowning incident in an irrigation canal.[4][5] Scores were injured, numerous cars were stolen (and subsequently abandoned), and there was extensive property damage.[7][8] During the Rolling Stones’ headline performance, violence erupted close to the stage, resulting in the fatal stabbing of Hunter, a spectator. MusicRadar noted that the tragedy, captured on film in Gimme Shelter, eclipsed the event and marked a dark ending for the 1960s counterculture.[9]

Outside Lands (festival) – Wikipedia

A “love letter to San Francisco,”[2] the festival is named for the city’s western neighborhoods, which were known as The Outside Lands in the 1800s. The 80-acre festival grounds feature art installations and exhibits by local artists and San Francisco-centric areas devoted to cannabis, activism and sustainability. With stages named after San Francisco locations including the Panhandle, Lands End, Twin Peaks, the Sutro and the Presidio, the San Francisco Weekly wrote that Outside Lands “was about the city, rather than just in it.”

Outside Lands, formerly known as the Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival, is a three-day music, art, food, wine, beer and cannabis festival held annually in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. Multi-genre and multi-generational, it is the largest independently owned music festival in the United States. It was founded in 2008 by Another Planet Entertainment, Starr Hill Presents, and Superfly.

Golden Gate Park is not a cash register for greedy promoters

Chile 9/11/73. Strategic Insight, Moral Myopia Shaped Kissinger

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 7.26.2026

Henry Kissinger has been dead nearly three years but his legacy of Machiavellian intrigue will long be remembered. Perhaps no more so than Chile where the Kissinger and Nixon sought to keep socialist Salvador Allende from gaining power.

TIME – after the coup – 9.24.1973

When that failed and a military coup eliminated President Allende on September 11, 1973 the American government aligned itself at the hip with the free market fascist leaning junta led by Augusto Pinochet.

Excerpted from Foreign Affairs Magazine – 12.3.2023 Timothy Naftali

The Nixon administration continued the policy started by President Kennedy of deploying covert action in Vietnam to prevent the socialist Salvatore Allende from ever becoming president of Chile

Kissinger and Nixon.

Never best friends. Just allies out of necessity

In September 1970, Henry Kissinger supervised the CIA’s efforts to arrange a military coup to prevent Allende, who had just received the largest number of votes in a national election, from becoming president that year. “I don’t see why we have to let a country go Marxist,” Kissinger announced to the board that recommended U.S. covert action to Nixon, “just because its people are irresponsible.” Known as “Track II,” this covert action failed to produce the desired outcome.

Three years later, there were no American puppet masters in the military coup, led by the brutal Augusto Pinochet, that brought down Allende. But Kissinger welcomed the result and refused to apply any pressure on the new, pro-U.S. regime to prevent human rights abuses—indeed, Kissinger did the opposite.

Chilean military guards detained political prisoners in the Santiago soccer stadium after the 9.11.1973 military coup

In June 1976, after Pinochet’s junta had detained thousands of innocent Chileans, torturing an estimated 30,000 and executing at least 2,200 of them, Kissinger told Pinochet in a private meeting, “My evaluation is that you are a victim of all left-wing groups around the world, and that your greatest sin was that you overthrew a government which was going communist.”

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/henry-kissinger-contradictions-america-secretary-state-tim-naftali

September 11, 1973. A Day of Shame for America. Sponsored Coup d’etat in Chile
Opening theme of 1982 film ‘Missing’, adapted from the book of the same title by Thomas Hauser. The controversial cinematic account of the deaths of two Americans Charles Horman and Frank Teruggi. Detained and executed by the Chilean military after the coup. Missing (1982 film) – Wikipedia

Top photo: La Moneda the presidential palace in Chile under attack during the September 11th 1973 Coup.

Angry Prez 1st Amendment attack on nemesis NY Times

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 7.23.2026 UPDATED

THE FIRST AMENDMENT SURVIVES!!!

Daily Beast 7.23.2026
The First Amendment survives
Wall Street Journal – 7.23.2026
Wall Street Journal – 7.20.2026

Donald Trump lives in America in 2026. His attitude and actions are akin to Germany in the 1930’s.

While Trump is precluded from going as far as 1930’s Germany he is using his Department of Justice to intimidate and bully the media for exercising its First Amendment rights to publish.

This is a chilling assault on the foundation of 🇺🇸 American democracy

One of the first things the National Socialists did after assuming power in early 1933 was quash the free press. This action was followed by a series of book burnings.

The  Nazi book burnings  were a campaign conducted by the  German Student Union  (German:  Deutsche Studentenschaft,  DSt) to ceremonially  burn books  in  Nazi Germany  and  Austria  in the 1930s. The books targeted for burning were those viewed as being subversive or as representing ideologies opposed to  Nazism. These included books written by  Jewish,  half-Jewish,  communist,  socialist,  anarchist,  liberal,  pacifist, and  sexologist  authors among others.[1]  The initial books burned were those of  Karl Marx  and  Karl Kautsky,[2]&n bsp;but the burned books came to include other authors, including the works of  Albert Einstein,  Helen Keller,  H.G. Wells, and effectively any book incompatible with Nazi ideology. The first burning consisted mainly of LGBTQ books from the Institute of Sexual Research (Institut für Sexualwissenschaft)  founded by the pioneering Jewish sexologist  Magnus Hirschfeld  as the first medical center devoted to the study of gender and sexuality.[3]  In a campaign of  cultural genocide, books were also burned  en masse&n bsp;by the Nazis in  occupied territories  as well,  such as in Poland.[4] Nazi book burnings – Wikipedia

Donald Trump Is Tearing Up The First Amendment

The president is waging an across-the-board war against the First Amendment and its legal interpretations from the mid-20th century to today. – Huffington Post 3.13.2025

Excerpted from The New York Times – 7.20.2026

The Trump administration sought the phone records of several New York Times journalists and their relatives — including one reporter’s mother — in its effort to unmask the confidential sources who had provided information for articles about the security capabilities of President Trump’s new Air Force One jet.

The Justice Department told The Times late last week that it had issued subpoenas to third-party phone service providers seeking several journalists’ phone and text messaging records. That effort was in addition to the subpoenas issued on July 10  that sought to compel reporters  to testify before a federal grand jury.

The government’s actions amount to an extraordinarily aggressive and unorthodox attempt by the Trump administration to unearth the confidential sources of independent journalists whose reporting  had angered the president.

The additional subpoenas — which also sought information about calls and messages on the phones of two of the reporters’ spouses — were described in a  motion  filed on Saturday by lawyers for The Times, which is  seeking to quash the requests. The motion was unsealed on Monday morning by Judge Arun Subramanian of U.S. District Court in Manhattan.

The  First Amendment  (Amendment I) to the  United States Constitution&nbs p;prevents  Congress  from making laws respecting an  establishment of religion; prohibiting the  free exercise of religion; or abridging the  freedom of speech, the  freedom of the press, the  freedom of peaceable assembly  and the  right to petition  the government for redress of  grievances.[1]  It was adopted on December 15, 1791, as one of the ten amendments that constitute the  Bill of Rights. In the original draft of the Bill of Rights, what is now the First Amendment occupied third place. The first two articles were not ratified by the states, so the article on disestablishment and free speech ended up being first.[2][3]

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

Top drawing: Herblock in Washington Post June 1971 during Pentagon Papers First Amendment battle. The Nixon administration tried to enjoin the New York Times from publishing the history of the Vietnam War. The Supreme Court upheld the Times right to publish.

“A little bit of courage is all we lack. So, catch me if you can I’m going back.” The Byrds

Vietnam to Israel. WSJ follows American hegemony party line

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 7.16.2026

I am unsure what is more infuriating reading this WSJ editorial screed.

Standing by Israel despite its ongoing three year onslaught against the People of Gaza.

Or, relitigating the US involvement in Vietnam. An act of Washington stupidity which lay waste to Southeast Asia resulting in the deaths of 58,000 Americans. And hundreds of thousands of Asians.

Several bloody and bandaged soldiers ride on top of a tank used as a make-shift ambulance after the Battle of Hue in the Vietnam War, Hue, Vietnam, February 15, 1968. (Photo by John Olson/Getty Images)

Wall Street Journal editorial 7.16.2026

The vote by 103 House Democrats on Wednesday to block U.S. arms to Israel as it fights a multifront war is a shocking abandonment of an ally. It’s a sign of the rapid conquest of the Democratic Party by its anti-Israel wing, and it echoes another betrayal half a century ago—in Vietnam.

The measure to strip Israel of all aid—humanitarian and military, offensive and defensive—was offered by the isolationist Republican Thomas Massie of Kentucky. He was the only GOP member who voted for it, as it failed on the House floor, 314–104.

The shock is that nearly half of all Democrats voted for it. They included former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the second ranking Democrat in leadership, Katherine Clark of Massachusetts. Another 10 voted “present”—non-profiles in courage all. “It is clear that the status quo is not tenable,” Ms. Clark said in a statement before the vote. “We should not provide a blank check for military aid to any country that does not comply with U.S. law, interests, and values. The [Benjamin] Netanyahu government has failed to meet that standard.”

Israel has violated no U.S. laws we know of. As for U.S. interests, Israel is fighting by the side of the U.S. against Iran and fighting alone against Iran’s proxies that have killed Americans. The defense relationship with Israel is a U.S. military advantage that helps maintain America’s technological edge over adversaries. When Democrats are voting to abandon even Iron Dome missile defense, this is self-sabotage out of anti-Israel animus.

It’s one thing to oppose Mr. Trump’s war on Iran, but it’s a far more radical step to cut loose a steadfast ally. How is it a U.S. “value” to disarm an ally fighting against murderous enemies that fire rockets on civilian towns?

VIETNAM – APRIL 30: The Fall of Saigon in Vietnam on April 30, 1975 – The north-Vietnamese tanks cross Saigon on the way towards the Doc Lap palace. (Photo by Herve GLOAGUEN/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)

All of this echoes the sad denouement of the Vietnam War, when Democrats fought for years to cut off funds for South Vietnam, restricted U.S. aid, and denied its pleas for help in 1975. The North Vietnamese Communist offensive overran the South, sending more than a million “boat people” into the open ocean.

That is where the Democratic Party—and some parts of the far right—appear to be heading. It’s a telling sign that even Seth Moulton, often sensible on foreign policy, voted to disarm Israel as he competes in a Democratic Senate primary in Massachusetts. That’s where the party’s grassroots voters apparently are.

Some might dismiss the House vote as of no great account because everyone knew the Massie measure would fail. But the mistake is thinking that this is a one-time affair. The political momentum is growing against Israel, even if Israelis depose Prime Minister Netanyahu in their October election. This movement thinks Israel is evil while Palestinian terrorists are victims.

The party of Harry Truman, who recognized Israel in its time of founding crisis, is becoming the party of Zohran Mamdani. It’s a betrayal for the ages.

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/israel-arms-sales-house-democrats-katherine-clark-thomas-massie-cade897f?st=Pnbsue&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

Bully Donald Trump escalates his war on the First Amendment.

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 7.15.2026 UPDATED

New York Times – 7.15.2026
Washington Post – 7.11.2026

Donald Trump wants nothing more than to stamp out the First Amendment.

This wannabe dictator will use his final 925 days in the White House unleashing the Department of Justice and abusing the levers of presidential power to stifle, harass and prosecute his political enemies by any means necessary.

First it was former national security advisor John Bolton who published “The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir.” Bolton plead guilty to one charge against him and is looking at a 2.5M fine and five years prison time.

Trump uses his DOJ to get his Revenge six years later

Now Trump is going after The New York Times

The media world needs to rise up and defend the right to free speech without being intimidated and bullied.

Prior Restraint by Government – Herblock in the Washington Post 1971 Pentagon Papers – Wikipedia

Excerpted from The New York Times 7.10.2026

The Trump administration issued subpoenas on Friday to several journalists for The New York Times, after the news outlet reported this week on security concerns involving President Trump’s new Qatari-donated Air Force One.

The smirking bully Trump

The Times journalists who received subpoenas included Julian E. Barnes, Eric Lipton, Tyler Pager and Eric Schmitt, who reported on Wednesday that Mr. Trump had departed Turkey on the old Air Force One as a security precaution at the urging of the Secret Service. On Thursday, The Times reported that the new Air Force One, a Qatari-donated Boeing 747-8, lacked some of the advanced security features of the older aircraft, including antimissile capabilities. Both articles cited sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive security issues.

The subpoenas — which seek to force the reporters to testify before a federal grand jury in Manhattan on Wednesday — were an extraordinary escalation in President Trump’s efforts to threaten and intimidate independent news organizations.

In some cases, the subpoenas were delivered by federal agents who showed up at reporters’ homes.

The Times denounced the administration’s actions.

“The appearance of federal law enforcement agents on the doorstep of news reporters should shock the conscience of any American who believes in the Constitution and the press freedom it protects,” said David McCraw, The Times’s top newsroom lawyer, in a statement on Friday evening.

How do Germans cope with having Nazi grandparents?

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 7.10.2026

Adolf Hitler perished in his bunker in bombed out Berlin over 81 years ago as the Russian closed in.

Hitler may be long gone physically but his insane 12 year Third Reich lives on. No more so than in the hearts and minds of the German public. Memorialized worldwide in countless historical works, fiction recreations, movies and documentaries.

It’s no surprise that Deutsche Welle would ask the question, “How do Germans cope with having Nazi Grandparents?” Leave it to the bureaucratic Germans to make publicly available online the names of Nazi party members. There were over 8,000,000 members.

Excerpted from Deutsche Welle 7.9.2026

Germany is now regarded abroad as a world leader in how to confront a country’s dark past. There are 100,000 Stolpersteine (“stumbling stones”) embedded in streets to commemorate the victims of National Socialism, a Holocaust memorial stands in the heart of Berlin, and schools place a particular focus on the Nazi era.

Since millions of NSDAP membership cards have been made available online, many Germans have been surprised to discover that their ancestors weren’t always as innocent as family stories had led them to believe.

“I always thought of my grandfather as a left-wing unionist, and now he’s turned up in the NSDAP database,” Hanno Dannenfeldt told DW. It was always said in the family that his paternal grandfather had clean hands.

Now that the National Archives of the United States has published its collection of National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP) membership cards, Dannenfeldt is one of countless Germans eager to find out whether their relatives were members of the party that ruled Germany during the Nazi era from 1933 to 1945.

This has not been an easy task: The site is often inaccessible because of heavy traffic, and the user interface is difficult to navigate.

A German tool simplifies the search

The German weekly newspaper Die Zeit has developed a tool that simplifies the search. Users simply enter the name and perhaps the year and place of birth of a person — and the results appear immediately. These records are sure to be of interest to people in South America, as well: Many Nazis went into hiding there after World War II. However, a subscription is required to use the service.

What users find there can be painful. Often, it means suddenly looking at their families in a very different light. Memories of a loving grandfather who was always full of fun and energy can contrast sharply with evidence now presented in black and white that the very same grandfather was a member of the National Socialist Party.

After the war, few families spoke about the crimes of the Nazi era, let alone their own role in them. According to a study, more than two-thirds of Germans believe that their ancestors were not Nazis. Nearly 36% believe that their relatives were among the victims, and over 30% believe that their ancestors helped victims of the Nazis — for example, by hiding Jews.

But this can’t possibly be true. Only about 1% of Germans actively resisted. In 1945, one in five adult Germans was a member of the Nazi Party — which had a total of 8.5 million members — thereby lending their support, at least on paper, to that unjust system.

And yet, nationalism is on the rise in Germany again. The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party is gaining influence. Dannenfeldt wonders whether Germans might again embrace the justifications of the Nazi era. “Some people might think, ‘I’ll join the AfD and make a career for myself,’ he said. “When you realize that your own family didn’t put up much of a fight back then, it makes you think about just how great the danger is today, as well.” 

https://www.dw.com/en/how-do-germans-cope-with-having-nazi-grandparents/a-77886590

Nazi sentiment has always been widespread in America. Perhaps the most factual documentation is the Academy Award nominated “A Night at the Garden.” The Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden in 1937.

– Philip Roth The Plot Against America – Wikipedia

‘Mississippi Burning’ – You won’t see this cinema in the Trump era

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 6.30.2026

Mississippi Burning – Wikipedia

What’s happened to American edgy political film making? Hollywood has been cowed during the Trump regime and is afraid to speak of racism and violence on the screen.

The 1988 film ‘Mississippi Burning’ is the Hollywood telling of murders of three civil rights workers in Mississippi on June 21st 1964 and the subsequent investigation by the federal government.

‘Mississippi Burning’ is violent and political. Church burnings, lynchings and blatant racism.

The performance by Gene Hackman portraying a home grown FBI agent is arguably the strongest performance in the story of American racism and all its ugliness. Hackman was awarded the Silver Bear for best Actor at the 1989 Berlin Film Festival and was nominated for an Academy Award as best Actor.

The following clips from Mississippi Burning are vivid examples.

Murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner – Wikipedia

On June 21, 1964, three civil rights movement activists, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, were murdered in Neshoba County, Mississippi by local members of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. Earlier the same day they were arrested for speeding, and after being released were followed by local law enforcement and others affiliated with the authorities, all of whom were associated with the Klan.[1] After being followed for some time, the three were abducted by the group, brought to a secluded location, and shot and killed. They were then buried in an earthen dam. All three activists were associated with the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO) and its member organization, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). They had been working with the Freedom Summer campaign by attempting to register African Americans in Mississippi to vote.

Chaney was Black, and Goodman and Schwerner were both Jewish. The three men had traveled roughly 38 miles (61 km) north from Meridian, to the community of Longdale, Mississippi, to talk with congregation members of a Black church that had been burned; the church had been a center of community organization. The disappearance of the three men was initially investigated as a missing persons case. The burnt-out car the three were using was found parked near a swamp three days after their disappearance.[2][3] An extensive search of the area was conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), local and state authorities, and 400 U.S. Navy sailors.[4] Their bodies were not discovered until seven weeks later, when authorities received a tip leading them to the remains of the three activists. During the investigation, it emerged that members of the Ku Klux Klan, the Neshoba County Sheriff’s Office, and the Philadelphia Police Department were involved in the incident.[1]

The murder of the activists sparked national outrage and an extensive federal investigation, filed as Mississippi Burning (MIBURN), which later became the title of a 1988 film loosely based on the events. In 1967, after the state government refused to prosecute those involved in the murders, the United States federal government stepped in and charged 18 individuals with civil rights violations. Seven were convicted and another pleaded guilty, and all received relatively minimal sentences. Outrage over the activists’ murder helped pass of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Forty-one years after the murders took place, one perpetrator, Edgar Ray Killen, was charged by the state of Mississippi for his part in the crimes, and in 2005 was convicted of three counts of manslaughter and was given a 60-year sentence.[5] On June 20, 2016, federal and state authorities officially closed the case. Killen died in prison in January 2018.

Smug and smiling in Mississippi – 1964