Combs Spouts Off

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Posts Tagged ‘california’

Power corrupts, and so does entitlement mentality

Posted by Richard on March 28, 2014

In case you haven’t seen details about Leland Yee’s arrest in the news, you can catch up with Anti-gun CA state senator charged with firearms trafficking, corruption (posted yesterday). MSM coverage seems to be scant. Despite the fact that we’ve been bombarding @CNN with tweets about their lack any mention, as of this writing a search at CNN for “Leland Yee arrested” returns the message “Your search leland yee arrested did not match any documents.”

Yee is the third liberal Democrat state legislator arrested on corruption charges in California in the past year. In an excellent column, Eric Golub attributes this to two reasons. The first has to do with power:

While corruption knows no ideology, it is more than a coincidence that liberal Democrats in very progressive areas are the ones who keep getting accused of breaking the law. In California, Democrats control everything. The Democratic Party’s veto-proof majority gives them absolute power.

Lord Acton’s maxim about absolute power corrupting absolutely has rung true again.

Los Angeles and San Francisco are liberal cities, with San Francisco being a haven for hard-left policies. When no one is able or willing to challenge the dominant ideology, corruption is bound to set in as it does in third world dictatorships.

States where Republicans control everything tend to see fewer Democrats getting into trouble.

The second reason has to do with entitlement:

… the Democratic Party has become the party of entitlement; California epitomizes that entitlement mentality. When people believe they are entitled to things, greed sets in.

California is where liberal Democrat Sandra Fluke is running for a Los Angeles Senate seat so she and her fellow feminists can receive the free birth control they are entitled to. California is where liberal Democrat San Diego Mayor Bob Filner was forced out after a lifetime of sexually abusing women — the epitome of a man with an entitlement mentality.

While Fluke has not broken any laws, her behavior is similar to Filner’s. Other people have stuff they want, so they think it is just acceptable to take it.

When people believe that their right to have stuff trumps the law, laws will be broken. Wright, Calderon and Yee were just behaving the way many other people representing their ideology continue to behave.

RTWT.

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Anti-gun CA state senator charged with firearms trafficking, corruption

Posted by Richard on March 27, 2014

There’s nothing unusual about gun control advocates turning out to be hypocrites (there are many more examples, from Carl Rowan to Sean Penn). But Leland Yee takes the cake. Yee is the leading gun control advocate in the California state senate — not an easy distinction to achieve, I’m sure. It turns out, if charges are true, that he’s been involved in international weapons trafficking and associated with a criminal gang leader:

SAN FRANCISCO — In a stunning criminal complaint, State Sen. Leland Yee has been charged with conspiring to traffic in firearms and public corruption as part of a major FBI operation spanning the Bay Area, casting yet another cloud of corruption over the Democratic establishment in the Legislature and torpedoing Yee’s aspirations for statewide office.

Yee and an intermediary allegedly met repeatedly with an undercover FBI agent, soliciting campaign contributions in exchange for setting up a deal with international arms dealers.

Yee, D-San Francisco, highlights a series of arrests Wednesday morning that included infamous Chinatown gangster Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow, whose past includes a variety of charges including racketeering and drug crimes. Targets of the early-morning raids appeared in federal court in San Francisco on Wednesday afternoon.

A 137-page criminal complaint charges 26 people — including Yee and Chow — with a panoply of crimes, including firearms trafficking, money laundering, murder-for-hire, drug distribution, trafficking in contraband cigarettes, and honest services fraud.

Yee is charged with conspiracy to traffic in firearms without a license and to illegally import firearms, as well as six counts of scheming to defraud citizens of honest services. …

The charges are particularly shocking given that Yee has been among the state Senate’s most outspoken advocates both of gun control and of good-government initiatives.

Laws are for the little people.

UPDATE: Wow. The affidavit alleges Yee offered to provide $2 million of automatic weapons to Islamic rebels.

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Drones hunt Dorner

Posted by Richard on February 12, 2013

Christopher Dorner, the former L.A. cop and rabid leftist (read the manifesto) who went on a shooting rampage in California and is being praised and cheered on by a host of leftist moonbats, had better keep an eye on the sky and have his shoulder-launched ground-to-air missiles ready:

POLICE plan to use spy drones in the hunt for a Rambo-style ex-soldier and policeman who has murdered three people and vowed to kill again.

Yesterday, as a task force of 125 officers, some riding Snowcats in the rugged terrain, continued their search, it was revealed that Dorner has become the first human target for remotely-controlled airborne drones on US soil.

Asked directly if drones have already been deployed, Riverside Police Chief Sergio Diaz, who is jointly leading the task force, said: “We are using all the tools at our disposal.”

The use of drones was later confirmed by Customs and Border Patrol spokesman Ralph DeSio, who revealed agents have been prepared for Dorner to make a dash for the Mexican border since his rampage began.

He said: “This agency has been at the forefront of domestic use of drones by law enforcement. That’s all I can say at the moment.”

Less than a week ago, Judge Andrew Napolitano’s scathing column “Obama Gives Himself Permission to Kill” appeared, with the subtitle “How long will it be before we see drone assassinations on American soil?” Will the President authorize a drone strike on Dorner if he’s located? Highly, highly unlikely.

Now, if Dorner belonged to the Tea Party …

Still, Dorner might want to consider going to Montana or Virginia:

Bills that would limit the use of domestic drones in Virginia and Montana took an important step forward this week.

On Tuesday, the Montana Senate overwhelmingly passed anti-drone legislation.

Sen. Robyn Driscoll (D-Billings) introduced SB 150 last month. The bill would prohibit any state or local agency in Montana from owning an “unmanned aerial vehicle containing an antipersonnel device.” It would also make any evidence gathered by a drone inadmissible in a criminal proceeding. The legislation contains some teeth, opening the door for any victim of a drone to seek punitive and compensatory damages.

SB 150 passed the Senate by a 32-17 margin.

On Monday, the Virginia House overwhelmingly passed HB2012, it’s own anti-drone bill. It would place a two-year moratorium on the use of unmanned aircraft by any state or local law enforcement agency in the Old Dominion State. The bill, sponsored by Delegate Benjamin Cline (R-Amherst), passed 83-16.

UPDATE: Dorner’s dead. Allegedly. No word on whether the fire that consumed the cabin he was believed to be in was the result of a drone strike.

Heck, the LAPD not once, but twice, opened fire on pickup trucks, injuring the innocent civilians inside in one instance, merely on the suspicion that he might be inside — so there’s no telling who, if anyone, was in the burning cabin.

Anyway, I’m sure that Dorner’s plea to ban “assault rifles” is being carried forward by the President tonight. Yeah, Dorner advocated gun control. He thought only cops — and ex-c0ps with a grievance, apparently — should have “assault weapons.” (No, I’m not listening to POTUS give the SOTUS. I don’t have the stomach for it. If you’re interested, check out Vodkapundit’s drunkblogging.)

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Another gun control hypocrite hoist by his own petard

Posted by Richard on January 28, 2012

San Francisco’s new sheriff, Ross Mirkarimi, helped found the Green Party of California, worked for Ralph Nader in 2000, and was a strident advocate of gun control. Even MSNBC described him as “fiercely liberal –even in the context of progressive San Francisco.” Before being elected sheriff, he served for seven years on the Board of Supervisors, where he worked hard to strengthen San Francisco’s already-stringent gun control laws.

Recently, Mirkarimi was charged with misdemeanor domestic violence battery, child endangerment, and “dissuading a witness” (Is that like intimidating a witness, but more polite? Or just more politically connected?) for an incident involving his wife. Since the initial charges, two former girlfriends have come forward alleging that he abused them, too. And it’s been reported that Mirkarimi has a bad temper and tyrannizes his staff.

As a result of the arrest, and to the surprise of many, he was forced to surrender three handguns that he owns. According to CBS San Francisco, “Mirkarimi would not comment about any aspect of his gun ownership, where he kept the weapons or in what manner the firearms were stored.” That’s interesting because one of the gun control laws he helped strengthen last year mandates that all guns be securely locked up (and unavailable for self-defense).

David Cordrea, while not exactly sympathetic to Mirkarimi’s plight, pointed out the injustice of the laws Mirkarimi and his ilk have long supported, and which are now applied to him:

“If Mirkarimi were convicted on the domestic violence charge, he would not be able to carry a gun as sheriff,” reporter Joshua Sabatini claims.

True, but it would entail more than that. If convicted, “thanks” to the infamous Lautenberg Amendment, he would be a prohibited person under federal law, forbidden not only to carry a gun, but to own or even touch one—forever.

And a protective order is enough to disenfranchise him from his fundamental right to keep and bear arms prior to being convicted of anything.

But even if convicted, a prohibition of a fundamental natural right over a misdemeanor is overkill. …

CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb was less measured:

“Mirkarimi’s case presents a massive irony,” Gottlieb observed. “Here’s a man who has supported restrictive gun control measures while on the Board of Supervisors, and yet he had three handguns. He just was elected sheriff, and now he’s accused of a crime that, if he is convicted, could cost him his gun rights for the rest of his life under federal law.

“Perhaps Mirkarimi’s biggest problem is that he is now exposed as a double-standard elitist,” he continued. “News reports about this case over the past few days suggest that he may also have an anger-management problem.”

…“Someone who has been legally disarmed over a criminal charge,” he concluded, “should not be permitted to serve as a chief law enforcement officer. Someone like Mirkarimi, who has done whatever he could to discourage others from owning firearms, should admit his world-class hypocrisy and walk away from the public arena.”

Admit his hypocrisy? I’m not holding my breath. But I look forward to hearing him argue that he can continue to fulfill the duties of sheriff without so much as touching a gun.

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“Call Me Senator”

Posted by Richard on October 29, 2010

Famed Hollywood director David Zucker (Airplane, Naked Gun, Naked Gun 2.5, Scary Movie 3, Scary Movie 4, An American Carol) has created a hilarious spoof of Barbara Boxer's "call me Senator" moment. Enjoy, and then share it with your friends in California. After Nov. 2, I hope we'll soon be calling her "ex-Senator."


[YouTube link]

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High-priced jobs

Posted by Richard on September 20, 2010

The City of Los Angeles used its $111 million in ARRA "stimulus" money to "create or retain" 55 jobs. That's $2 million per job. They'd better get those printing presses cranked up in Washington, because at that rate they're going to need another several trillion dollars to "put America back to work."

I wonder how many jobs are created for every $111 million in private sector investment. 

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Time for a Freeway Truth Movement!

Posted by Richard on May 2, 2007

I've been thinking about the fiery crash on I-80/I-880 Sunday near Oakland, California. According to news reports, a tanker truck carrying thousands of gallons of gasoline overturned and burst into flames, causing two sections of freeway overpass to collapse within minutes:

Two connector ramps of the Bay Bridge MacArthur Maze (map), located near Emeryville, collapsed Sunday morning after an explosion and fire.

Heat from the fire, which reached temperatures estimated at up to 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit, caused the metal bolts and girders on the highway connector ramp above to melt. The overpass then gave way and collapsed.

NBC 7/39's sister station in San Jose talked to a witness of the fire. Paul Kochli said he was driving from San Francisco to Napa at around 4 a.m. when he noticed a huge plume of smoke and a mushroom cloud. Kochli said he recorded 59 seconds of the fire. He said the overpass had already collapsed by 4:05 a.m.

Other witnesses reported flames from the blaze reached up to 200 feet high.

The tanker was under the overpass.

Aerial views showed at least two sections of the maze totaling about 250 yards in length had collapsed.

(Note: The video below isn't the Kochli video mentioned in the story. This one's from a fellow called baconmonkey, and it's shot on a Canon high-definition camcorder — not that YouTube even vaguely approximates high-def, but it's well worth watching.)

Well, the official story says heat from the fire collapsed the overpasses. But of course, we know from concerned scientists and engineers who studied the World Trade Center collapses that fires can't melt steel — that a chemical explosion is required. Ask Rosie! Or check out the experiment by a member of the reality-based community that I wrote about last summer: 

fire burning in rabbit fence "building"

 

I think that the freeway overpass was just as likely to have been brought down by controlled demolition as the World Trade Center buildings. The Governor of California, the President of the United States, and Karl Rove are all Republicans — coincidence? Do we know what ties exist between Dick Cheney, Halliburton, and the California highway construction industry? Why did Caltrans rush its "demolition contractor" onto the site within hours to remove the evidence? Doesn't it strain credulity to believe that the driver walked away from the inferno and caught a cab to the hospital?

These and other questions demand answers! We need a Freeway Truth Movement, with Californians for Freeway Truth, Scholars for Freeway Truth, Press for Freeway Truth, Truck Drivers for Freeway Truth, Freeway Truth Radio, and a whole host of other like-minded organizations committed to uncovering the real truth behind the so-called tanker truck accident. 

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