Anti-gun CA senator arrested for gunrunning, bribery, corruption

[Pointedstick]

You can't make this stuff up.

CA Senator Leland Yee, an outspoken opponent of civilian gun ownership who is part of the reason why I left the state, was just arrested yesterday on charges of gunrunning, among other things (bribery, corruption, campaign finance fraud). Apparently he had close ties to the San Francisco Triads and was involved in some pretty shady things, in addition to the standard pay-to-play schemes that I assume all politicians run. One of his close associates (Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow; what a name!) spent 16 years in federal prison for armed robbery, assault, sex trafficking, drug trafficking, and murder for hire.

The criminal complaint is here, in all its juicy glory. It reads like a movie script at times.
http://www.cand.uscourts.gov/filelibrar ... 421-NC.pdf

From the complaint:

[...] In august 2013, Keith Jackson told UCE [an FBI undercover agent posing as an Italian mobster from the east coast] that Senator Yee had a contact who deals in arms trafficking. The purported arms dealer was later identified. Jackson requested UCE to provide a campaign donation on behalf of Senator Yee, for Senator Yee to facilitate a meeting with the arms dealer with the intent of UCE to purportedly purchase a large number of weapons to be imported through the port of Neward, New Jersey. During a meeting with UCE Senator Yee and Keith Jackson, Senator Yee discussed certain details of the specific types of weapons UCE was interested in buying and importing).

There are also some hilarious things about a purported "community organization" that Senator Yee got the CA senate to praise actually being a criminal syndicate. Oops. It's amazing. It's all amazing.

[WildAboutHarry]

Oh, my!

Here is what the CA senate pro tem Darrell Steinberg had to say:

"We're going to demand that Leland Yee -- yes, innocent until proven guilty -- leave the Senate and leave it now," Steinberg said at a news conference in his office, where he was flanked by 14 fellow Democratic senators.

So much for innocent until proven guilty.  There has been a rash of disgraced pols in CA of late, so maybe they have finally had enough.

And "Shrimp Boy" sounds like a character from a Max Fisher play.

[Pointedstick]

I wonder if Steinberg knew. It's not like Yee was an unknown to him. These guys work together every day.

[Benko]

But how about the really important stuff, did he help advance the progressive cause?  ;-)

[RuralEngineer]

This was also the d-bag that was so up in arms over video game violence. As if we didn't need more evidence that these people's convictions are barely skin deep.

[Pointedstick]

Some more juicy details:

• The weapons were from M.I.L.F: The Moro Islamic Liberation Front, which is classified by the U.S. government as a terrorist group.

• When asked about a peace treaty between M.I.L.F. and the Philippine government, Yee replied that it wouldn't last because the Philippine government was secretly funding MILF to create a distraction from the government's own corruption!

It's just… staggering. And again, this is all in addition to the tame-by-comparison pay-to-play schemes they found.

[MediumTex]

Some more juicy details:

• The weapons were from M.I.L.F: The Moro Islamic Liberation Front, which is classified by the U.S. government as a terrorist group.

So I guess that acronym is going to start tripping porno AND terrorism web filters.

[Libertarian666]

I'm shocked, SHOCKED! that a liberal politician could ever be corrupt!

[moda0306]

i am sure this is just another false scandal dreamed up and financed by the koch brothers and the all powerful right wing media bias..

nothing to see here... we should file it with Benghazi the IRS intimidation etc and go back to believing in hope....

This is an actual scandal.  I definitely wouldn't recommend filing it under those categories.

And while there's plenty of things dreamed up by the Koch brothers and Faux News, this definitely isn't one of them.

But I'm sure you know all that.

[MediumTex]

I would expect a crooked politician who was a gun runner to be very opposed to gun ownership by private citizens.

It's sort of like I would expect a politician who was smuggling drugs to be against decriminalization of the drugs he was smuggling.

Politicians rarely have positions on issues that are based upon deeply held beliefs.  It's usually some combination of paying back a group that supported him or just pursuing his own opportunistic schemes.

[Pointedstick]

Yeah, it's like how an amusing number of anti-gay politicians have been caught with gay prostitutes or in secret gay affairs or something.

[RuralEngineer]

Yeah, it's like how an amusing number of anti-gay politicians have been caught with gay prostitutes or in secret gay affairs or something.

Ha, that's a good analogy.

How's that quote go..."the d-bag politician doth protest too much, methinks."  I may have tweaked it a bit.

[Pointedstick]

Yeah, it's like how an amusing number of anti-gay politicians have been caught with gay prostitutes or in secret gay affairs or something.

Ha, that's a good analogy.

I like it because (IMHO of course) the cultural and legal acceptance of gays is a dead-simple issue that liberals are right about as much as conservatives are right about guns. It shows me that neither party or ideological persuasion has a monopoly on idiotically ignoring reality in the face of cultural backlash and the utter failure of their discriminatory policies based on fear of the "other." Or, in some cases, being the other and wanting to save face!

[MediumTex]

Yeah, it's like how an amusing number of anti-gay politicians have been caught with gay prostitutes or in secret gay affairs or something.

Ha, that's a good analogy.

I like it because (IMHO of course) the cultural and legal acceptance of gays is a dead-simple issue that liberals are right about as much as conservatives are right about guns. It shows me that neither party or ideological persuasion has a monopoly on idiotically ignoring reality in the face of cultural backlash and the utter failure of their discriminatory policies based on fear of the "other." Or, in some cases, being the other and wanting to save face!

I think that in the fullness of time people will come to see that their opposition to rights for homosexuals was based upon their personal distaste for it, in the same way that a lot of the arguments against racial integration/equal rights were based upon a basic dislike of black people by many white people.

Ironically, I think that much of the dislike for black people and gay people was/is driven by a set of stereotypes that were/are sort of created by the straight white people who are trying to set the social agenda in the first place.  For example, I don't think that black people are predisposed to commit crime simply because they are black, and I don't think that gay people are predisposed to sexual perversion simply because they are gay, but these are two of the arguments that were/are tossed around as a basis for skepticism about bringing these groups into full legitimacy in society.

For example, when I was a kid and learning about what it meant to be gay, I sort of visualized all gay males as being more or less like the Village People, and all lesbians as being more or less like Rosie O'Donnell.  As I got to know gay people, though, I began to see that almost without exception the people I knew were far more low key about being gay than the stereotypes would suggest.

In professional sports, it's sort of comical how there is this high drama about whether a gay player would be "accepted" within the sport.  Considering that professional sports already tolerates behavior such as spousal abuse, drug use and abuse, DWI, gambling, involuntary manslaughter, tax evasion, and dogfighting, it's really surprising that anyone would even notice a dude who was gay.

[WildAboutHarry]

[quote=Pointedstick]Yeah, it's like how an amusing number of anti-gay politicians have been caught with gay prostitutes or in secret gay affairs or something.[/quote]

That was just some innocent foot-tapping.  Yeah, foot-tapping.

[Mountaineer]

On the topic of gays:  Interesting article on how intolerant some who preach tolerance can be; or maybe it is just a case of reacting without all the facts.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/03/ ... r_end.html

... Mountaineer

[Pointedstick]

Ironically, I think that much of the dislike for black people and gay people was/is driven by a set of stereotypes that were/are sort of created by the straight white people who are trying to set the social agenda in the first place.  For example, I don't think that black people are predisposed to commit crime simply because they are black, and I don't think that gay people are predisposed to sexual perversion simply because they are gay, but these are two of the arguments that were/are tossed around as a basis for skepticism about bringing these groups into full legitimacy in society.

Or maybe the dominant culture even created it.

For example, I think the connection between gays and sexual deviancy is because back in the day, being gay made you such a pariah that you were pretty much forced to hang out with the deviants and perverts if you wanted any human social interaction. As we see today, when they're allowed into mainstream society, most of them are pretty normal people. My former engineering manager for three years was a gay man who you frankly would never even know was gay if he didn't have a male partner and only one bed in the house.

And I think a similar thing happened with blacks. In the wake of the civil rights movement, the government realized that they had to do something to neutralize the threat of liberated black people so they introduced drugs to black communities and then cracked down hard, in the process basically annihilating the black family and creating an environment that breeds crime. Deliberately so, in my estimation. To quote System of a Down's "Prison Song":

Following the rights movement you clamped on with your iron fist
drugs became conveniently available for all the kids

I know this may dump me in crazy tinfoil-hat-wearing-conspiracy-theorist territory, but to put things in perspective, anyone who claimed two days ago that gun control loving Leland Yee was actually an international arms smuggler using it as a distraction from his plots would have been dismissed on similar grounds. Sometimes the truth really is stranger than fiction!

[MediumTex]

And I think a similar thing happened with blacks. In the wake of the civil rights movement, the government realized that they had to do something to neutralize the threat of liberated black people so they introduced drugs to black communities and then cracked down hard, in the process basically annihilating the black family and creating an environment that breeds crime. Deliberately so, in my estimation. To quote System of a Down's "Prison Song":

Following the rights movement you clamped on with your iron fist
drugs became conveniently available for all the kids

I know this may dump me in crazy tinfoil-hat-wearing-conspiracy-theorist territory, but to put things in perspective, anyone who claimed two days ago that gun control loving Leland Yee was actually an international arms smuggler using it as a distraction from his plots would have been dismissed on similar grounds. Sometimes the truth really is stranger than fiction!

I don't know if you're a tinfoil hat model (though it would be kind of cool if you were), but +1,000,000 for quoting System of a Down lyrics.  In addition to crafting really interesting lyrics, there simply isn't any better carpet cleaning headphones music than System of a Down (other than Metallica's first four albums, of course).

Just last week, I made over $300 doing what felt mostly like listening to loud music, working out, and giving my OCD tendencies a chance to be fully expressed as I battled unsightly carpeted surfaces.

[ns3]

And I think a similar thing happened with blacks. In the wake of the civil rights movement, the government realized that they had to do something to neutralize the threat of liberated black people so they introduced drugs to black communities and then cracked down hard, in the process basically annihilating the black family and creating an environment that breeds crime. Deliberately so, in my estimation. To quote System of a Down's "Prison Song":

Well I guess that backfired on them big time when us white boys and girls starting using the drugs too.

When you say "the government" what agencies of the government do you think were involved in this?

[Pointedstick]

And I think a similar thing happened with blacks. In the wake of the civil rights movement, the government realized that they had to do something to neutralize the threat of liberated black people so they introduced drugs to black communities and then cracked down hard, in the process basically annihilating the black family and creating an environment that breeds crime. Deliberately so, in my estimation. To quote System of a Down's "Prison Song":

Well I guess that backfired on them big time when us white boys and girls starting using the drugs too.

When you say "the government" what agencies of the government do you think were involved in this?

Probably the CIA, but I don't really know. I imagine we'll find out in 30 or 40 years or so when the records are unsealed.

[Mountaineer]

And I think a similar thing happened with blacks. In the wake of the civil rights movement, the government realized that they had to do something to neutralize the threat of liberated black people so they introduced drugs to black communities and then cracked down hard, in the process basically annihilating the black family and creating an environment that breeds crime. Deliberately so, in my estimation. To quote System of a Down's "Prison Song":

Well I guess that backfired on them big time when us white boys and girls starting using the drugs too.

When you say "the government" what agencies of the government do you think were involved in this?

We should ask Snowden.

... Mountaineer

[Reub]

I thought that this thread was about a corrupt, hypocritical Democratic politician. I must have clicked the wrong button.

[Kshartle]

I thought that this thread was about a corrupt, hypocritical Democratic politician. I must have clicked the wrong button.

That's like a thread about rain in the rainforest. It's so common it doesn't merit much discussion.

[Pointedstick]

That's like a thread about rain in the rainforest. It's so common it doesn't merit much discussion.

Yeah, for me the surprise was the sheer magnitude of the scandal. It's not every day a politician engages in a conspiracy to traffic heavy weapons procured from Muslim terrorists for millions of dollars in cash to random Joes. The stuff about campaign finance fraud, misappropriation of funds, and pay-to-play schemes are things I honestly believe that all politicians engage in simply as part of their jobs. They just charged him with this stuff because he got caught doing something else. It's like how a non-politician being arrested on any charge will often additionally be charged with resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer, and they'll go on a fishing expedition to try to find drugs or illegal guns.

When they nab someone, they just want to make sure it'll stick, so they find every possible illegal thing you've ever done even if everybody else does it too.

[Kshartle]

That's like a thread about rain in the rainforest. It's so common it doesn't merit much discussion.

Yeah, for me the surprise was the sheer magnitude of the scandal. It's not every day a politician engages in a conspiracy to traffic heavy weapons procured from Muslim terrorists for millions of dollars in cash to random Joes. The stuff about campaign finance fraud, misappropriation of funds, and pay-to-play schemes are things I honestly believe that all politicians engage in simply as part of their jobs. They just charged him with this stuff because he got caught doing something else. It's like how a non-politician being arrested on any charge will often additionally be charged with resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer, and they'll go on a fishing expedition to try to find drugs or illegal guns.

When they nab someone, they just want to make sure it'll stick, so they find every possible illegal thing you've ever done even if everybody else does it too.

Yes I was just kidding. This one is particularly bad. I'm sure much worse stuff is going on that we won't hear about, but it's nice when stuff like this is brought to people's attention. Imagine how bad the scandals were in the USSR when the state controlled everything.

Imagine how bad they're going to get here................

Gold.