Twilight Dispatch: News Snapshot #3
A dead Iranian President, a French colonial uprising, and a crisis in San Francisco's jails feature this week
Global Events
Note: This week features a notable absence of coverage on the War in Gaza, which does not reflect any lack of news or concern on the part of the authors but rather the sheer volume of breaking international news that has emerged over the past week. The authors regret that they were not able to provide further coverage and suggest that interested readers take a look at last week’s detailed segment.
Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico was shot several times during an assassination attempt last Wednesday. Fico has survived the attack and is currently medically stable but remains hospitalized. Slovakia’s perennial Prime Minister has been a constant in national politics since the fall of communism in 1989. Fico — leader of the social democratic SMER party — has been prime minister three separate times since 2006. His return to power in October 2023 was controversial, seeing as his second term had ended in resignation after a scandal involving the mafia-linked murder of an investigative journalist in 2018. At the time, the popular protests that helped forced him out of office led many to believe the Fico’s time in Slovakian politics was over. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, however, rescued SMER’s political fortunes after severe inflation and a tide of Ukrainian war refugees polarized the country. Fico returned to the political scene promising to end aid to Ukraine, destroy “gender ideology,” institute immigration quotas, improve relations with Hungary, and to expand workers’ rights and social service benefits. Fico’s would-be assassin — a 71-year-old poet and writer named Juraj Cintula — is believed to have carried out the attack for political reasons, although what sort of political reasons remain unclear. Cintula is said to have ties to both far-right pro-Russia political groups as well as pro-Ukraine opposition parties. After he was arrested following the attack, Cintula was filmed airing his disagreements with the government’s cuts to public broadcasting.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and a number of other high-ranking Iranian government officials died yesterday after a helicopter carrying them crashed in the East Azerbaijan province. President Raisi was visiting the neighboring country of Azerbaijan to attend the opening ceremony of a new dam when local weather conditions took a sudden turn that is believed to have played a role in the crash. Iran’s aviation industry is also notoriously unreliable, a factor owing to over 40 years of international sanction since the 1979 Revolution, with Al Jazeera noting that “nearly 2,000 Iranians have lost their lives in plane crashes since 1979.” A longtime conservative stalwart, President Raisi was a political powerhouse in Iran who unsuccessfully ran for President in 2017 against Hassan Rouhani. Even before his successful presidential campaign in 2021, Raisi was seen by many observers both inside and outside of Iran as the likely successor to the 85-year-old Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has led the nation since 1989. Rescue efforts were launched yesterday by Iranian teams searching through the region’s mountainous forests on foot. The accident has provoked an unexpected surge of shock and sympathy from the international community, with a number of countries pledging support for the rescue operations and sending condolences. Even the Saudis — longtime enemies of the Iranian regime — offered assistance and vowed to “stand by the Islamic Republic.” Rescue teams found the burned wreckage of the helicopter early this morning (PST) and all passengers were pronounced dead. In accordance with Iranian law, Vice President Mohammad Mokhber will be sworn into office as President until new elections can be held. The announcement of such elections should be forthcoming within 50 days.
New Caledonia has been rocked by rioting after the French government announced plans to expand suffrage to all French citizens who live there. Thus far, the violence is believed to have claimed at least three lives. Prior to the recent announcement only ethnic Kanaks (the indigenous people of New Caledonia) and non-Kanaks who lived on the island prior to 1998 could vote. This unusual voting system owes to the long and turbulent history of New Caledonia as a French colony. After the indigenous population was devastated by European diseases, the Islands were annexed by the French in 1853 and thousands of Kanaks were enslaved for plantation labor. The discovery of vast nickel reserves led to the mass importation of French convict labor, resulting in the indigenous Kanaks being pushed onto reservations. This led to a prolonged period of independence struggles, both peaceable and militant, which eventually led to a deal with the French government that limited suffrage in order to enshrine indigenous rights to self-determination. Relations between Paris and the semi-autonomous New Caledonian government have remained contentious, and with things as they are the Islands’ inhabitants are unlikely to back down. Pro-independence sentiments have been growing on the island for years, with the last real referendum on independence (held in 2020) resulting in a narrow 53.4% of voters in favor of remaining a part of France (A decline from the 57% of voters who voted the same way in 2018). A state of emergency has been declared territory-wide and the French Military has been deployed to secure the archipelago’s ports and airfields.
Carlos Narvaez Romero — a close political ally of Mexican President Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador who was likely slated to be the next Head of Customs for Mexico — was murdered by armed gunmen after dropping his son off at school last week. Thus far, no group has stepped forward to take credit for the killing, but a number of observers believe that one of Mexico’s numerous cartels are responsible. A video released by Telediario reporter Carlos Jiménez last Wednesday purports to show the assailants lying in wait for Romero as he traveled home on an electric scooter, after which they shot him twice in the head and fled on motorcycles. This forms the highest-profile murder in the ongoing Mexican election campaigns (currently scheduled for 2 June), with Mexico’s government reporting that more than 25 candidates for office nationwide have been killed so far, and over 400 have requested federal protection. The murder and ongoing violence are likely to dovetail nicely with the sharp criticism that President AMLO has received for his “abrazos, no balazos” (lit. “hugs, not gunshots”) policies toward the cartels, which has avoided direct and violent confrontation with Mexico’s notorious drug-dealing organizations.
Officials in Kinshasa claim that they foiled a coup attempt involving American citizens yesterday. The bizarre affair seems to have involved little-known opposition figure Christian Malanga, who has lived in the United States since 1990 and only briefly returned to the Democratic Republic of the Congo to run for office before being arrested and returned to the United States in 2011. An unknown number of armed men reportedly attacked the residence of federal legislator Vital Kamerhe, who lives in Kinshasa. The attack resulted in a shootout that killed two Kinshasa police officers as well as one of the putschists. Malanga himself was seen posing in the presidential palace with several armed men (including his son) and declaring that the DRC was once again Zaire. Malanga’s partner in crime appears to have been Benjamin Zalman-Polun, a white “cannabis entrepreneur” with whom he co-owned a Mozambican gold mine. Zalman-Polun was seen in a video posted by the Congolese Army handcuffed and bleeding from the head alongside Malanga’s son. Both men are US citizens, and the American embassy has condemned the coup attempt in the strongest terms. Malanga himself was killed during the attempted putsch.
US News
California is facing a serious budget deficit as tax revenues have failed to rebound despite the subsidence of COVID over the past two years. The California job market has also suffered, with only a 0.1% increase in non-farm jobs expected this calendar year. There is currently a budget gap of roughly $27 billion, which the state government is struggling to bridge. Governor Gavin Newsom is currently dipping into the state’s “rainy-day fund” of emergency financial reserves to make up some of the difference, but the main force behind the attempt to balance the budget is a series of service cuts. With an entrenched unwillingness at all levels of state government to address California’s flawed tax system, deep service cuts seem inevitable. It is a truism of American politics that taxes are a political loser, and with Governor Newsom not only facing what is likely to be a contentious reelection race in two years but clearly nursing Presidential ambitions, it is unlikely that he is going to step up on this front. The Governor’s proposed budget, as reported by the phenomenal California Budget Center includes deep cuts to social services. A non-exhaustive list will follow. The Indian Health Grant, which provides medical care to the state’s Indigenous residents, will be eliminated. California’s Medi-Cal expansion program will suffer a $100 million cut, which will end in-home support services for 14,000 undocumented Californians with disabilities. A planned expansion of California’s Food Assistance Program, which would have moved to include undocumented seniors, will be delayed. CalWorks — a program which helps 650,000 Californian children and their families with employment, financial relief, and mental health and substance abuse issues — will see a cut of nearly $740 million. The Middle-Class Scholarship program, which has been instrumental in helping one of the writers through college, will see a nearly 60% budget cut of $510 million over the next two years. Finally, despite the fact that California’s criminal justice reform efforts are beginning to bear fruit and allow the cut of 4,600 prison beds, Newsom will not be closing any of the state prisons. This is despite the fact that such closures would save the state nearly $200 million per prison per annum.
Texas governor Greg Abbott pardoned a man convicted of the murder of a Black Lives Matter activist. The murderer in question, a former US Army Sergeant named Daniel Perry, was sentenced to 25 years in prison in 2023 for killing 28-year-old Air Force veteran and community activist Garrett Foster, who had been open-carrying his legally owned AK-47 rifle during a march in Austin. Perry murdered Foster in cold blood right in front of his girlfriend, Whitney Mitchell, who described the pardon “desecrated the life of a murdered Texan and U.S. Air Force veteran.” Perry’s defense attempted to claim that Foster had raised his gun and that the effort was in self-defense, but witnesses dismissed these claims. The prosecution secured a conviction by making use of a series of damning texts and social media posts by Perry, which included the proud declaration that “I am a racist” who believed that black people were “acting like animals at the zoo” by protesting. He also texted some of his friends that he “might have to kill a few people on [his] way to work” and that he “might go to Dallas to shoot a few looters,” which were disastrous for Perry’s defense given that he was working as an Uber driver and had approached the scene in his car before murdering Foster. The defense’s response to this evidence was to blame Perry’s actions on being bullied as a child and having autism. Forensic psychiatrists who testified for the defense at the trial claimed that Perry’s mental health issues made him “basically a loaded gun,” which the Prosecution was able to use to argue that he was an active risk and might commit further murders. Governor Abbott’s public statement proudly proclaimed that “Texas has one of the strongest ‘Stand Your Ground’ laws” that he was defending from the depredations of a “progressive District Attorney.” In keeping with Abbott’s extreme right-wing policies, state progressives and activists fear that the pardon will set a precedent for legally excusing further attacks by psychotic right-wingers.
Primary elections were held in West Virginia, Nebraska, and Maryland over the past week. Current West Virginia Governor Jim Justice easily won the Republican primary and is now all but guaranteed to succeed Joe Manchin as United States Senator. In the gubernatorial primary, meanwhile, current Attorney General and vicious transphobe Patrick Morrisey narrowly defeated fellow transphobe Moore Capito, who is the son of West Virginia’s other Senator, Shelley Moore Capito. Nikki Haley (who suspended her campaign back in March) won 18% of the vote in Nebraska’s Presidential Primary. Her campaign’s victory by 25% in Lancaster County (home to the city of Lincoln) and 24% in Douglas County (home to the city of Omaha) point to former President Trump’s ongoing struggle with suburban voters. Joe Biden’s electoral troubles, on the other hand, were on display in Maryland, where the uncommitted movement got 10% of the vote. The consistent ability of the uncommitted movement to break double digits speaks to the threat to Biden’s reelection posed by the Democratic base’s broad dissatisfaction with his unwavering support for Israel’s brutal campaign of genocide in Gaza.
The Oregon county of Crook County will vote on a non-binding resolution tomorrow that will determine whether the county will endorse the “Greater Idaho” movement, which would see Crook secede from Oregon and join Idaho. If Crook were to vote in favor, it would join twelve other Eastern Oregon counties that have voted the same way. These counties, which are primarily rural and agricultural and have limited sway in a state politically dominated by large liberal cities like Portland, see themselves as economically and ideologically more similar to Idaho. To many of these county residents, Idaho’s far-right state government would be better representatives than “those liberals in Portland.” The resolution is, as stated previously, nonbinding and has limited legal basis. The United States Constitution clarifies in Section 3 of Article IV that (among other state creation quibbling) new states cannot be created by joining the parts of existing states without the consent of the legislatures of all involved states as well as the federal government, and it is highly probable that a real legal effort to change Idaho’s borders in this manner would fall under similar restrictions. Syracuse University political science professor Ryan D. Griffiths told local USAToday spinoff Cincinnati.com that the movement was “a pipe dream” that was “partly performative, for ideological purposes.” Ultimately, however, the Greater Idaho movement illustrates the deep social crisis in rural America, which finds its small landholder farming practices imperiled by globalized agriculture. As UW PhD candidate Jacob S. Wilson wrote in Jacobin; the movement is politically controlled by landowners who want to protect their struggling agricultural businesses from regulation and to secure economic relief.
San Francisco News
TogetherSF — the dark money PAC infamous for supporting right-wing causes — cancelled their scheduled mayoral debate this week after three of the five candidates withdrew from the event. Aaron Peskin was the first to say he would not attend, citing the close ties between the organization and competitor Mark Farrell’s mayoral campaign. TogetherSF founder Kanishka Cheng served as a staffer for Farrell during his short-lived term as interim mayor, and the organization has contributed numerous staffers to his current campaign. Mayor London Breed, citing the same concerns, announced that she too would be withdrawing from the debate. In addition to losing candidates, the event also struggled to find willing moderators. After the two top candidates withdrew, multimillionaire and postal gadfly Daniel Lurie followed their lead after the third moderator in a row dropped out, citing what he called the event’s “disorganized planning.” This left only two of the five mayoral candidates — Asha Safai and Mark Farrell himself — on the stage. Clearly embarrassed by the collapse of their debate, TogetherSF put out an amusingly tone-deaf and whiny statement on the matter, declaring that the debate’s collapse “proves that [their] movement to hold our elected officials accountable… is working” and that "the political establishment must be really afraid of change” because the Peskin, Breed, and Lurie weren’t willing to attend a “real mayoral debate.” These authors believe that an account of the events speaks to the truth (or lack thereof) in their statement.
San Francisco’s new policy of incarcerating addicts inside SF County Jail is rapidly turning into an unmitigated disaster. As inmates suffering from severe mental health and substance abuse issues have been forced into the jail’s general population, conditions for prisoners and guards alike have deteriorated rapidly. Mayor London Breed’s office has proudly advertised the “700 [arrests] for drug sales [and] nearly 800 [arrests] for public drug use” for which its policies have been responsible, an influx of prisoners that has driven the prison’s population back to pre-Pandemic levels. Currently there are roughly 1,100 inmates housed in the County Jail, a 36% rise in the jail’s population that occurred while the City Sheriff’s Office is short almost 200 deputies (a recent staffing decline of 16%). This disastrous policy has had predictable consequences. Sheriff Miyamoto reported that there has been a 36% increase in violence in the jail this year, which has resulted in at least two lockdowns in the past few weeks and multiple serious injuries to deputies, who have suffered broken bones, eye wounds, and severe bite wounds from prisoner assaults. Mission Local reported that some prisoners were actually excited to be transferred to the State Prison in order to escape the hellish conditions. Sheriff Miyamoto blamed the recent violence on staffing cuts and overcrowding, a problem that is only going to get worse given that Mayor Breed reportedly intends to cut the Sheriff’s budget by a further 10% this year. The crisis was condemned across the board by the Board of Supervisors, with D-9 Supervisor Hillary Ronen asking “This is a grave situation that was entirely foreseeable… What was the plan?” after noting that city officials were well aware of the Sheriff Office’s staffing problems, the city’s budget crisis, and the fact that jail populations were going to increase. The mayor’s office had no comment.
The Bay Area welcomed its WNBA team this week as the Golden State Valkyries announced their name and logo. The Valkyries — who is being created at a time when interest in women’s sports is higher than ever — will be the thirteenth WNBA team. New stars like Catlin Clark and Angel Reese whose talent inspired millions of Americans to tune in to Collegiate women’s basketball have now joined the league, and WNBA executives are hopeful that 2024 will be their most watched season ever.
After 127-year-old brewing company Anchor Brewing shut down last July, Bay Area residents despaired at the prospect of the longtime regional business finally closing its doors for good. Last Wednesday, however, Anchor spokesman Sam Singer told the San Francisco Examiner that the brewery was expected to have solidified its sale to new owners by the end of this month. This announcement comes four months after the sale was expected to be announced, but the prospect of Anchor’s revival is nevertheless promising. At this juncture the winning bidder is not yet known, although workers’ cooperative Anchor SF Cooperative made it clear that they had bowed out of the process. The Cooperative’s Chairman, Patrick Machel, did add that the brewery’s workers were ready to return to the job and that the cooperative intends to “be a voice of reason as a representative of the workers of Anchor.”