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Over the objections of reputed gang figure Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow's lawyers, a federal judge has ordered that the government's evidence in a sweeping criminal case that includes political corruption charges against state Sen. Leland Yee must be kept secret for now. U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer imposed the restrictions Monday on every lawyer and defendant in the case, finding the material should be kept under wraps while both sides prepare for trial. Breyer rejected the free speech arguments of Chow's lawyer, J. Tony Serra, who insisted he should be able to reveal evidence to combat the government's public charges.

Prosecutors and defense attorneys agreed at a federal court hearing Thursday that the unwieldy criminal case against suspended state Sen. Leland Yee, Chinatown association leader Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow and 27 others should be split up before trial. **SNIP** The hearing before U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer came two weeks after the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of California filed a new indictment in the case, adding violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act against Yee and his former fundraiser, Keith Jackson. Yee is accused of conducting a criminal enterprise with Jackson, who allegedly solicited bribes and...

**SNIP** As early as November 2012, an FBI wiretap request noted that the investigation team’s leader had concerns about the agent. But according to the filing, an FBI “review has not resulted in any formal findings or determinations regarding the credibility of [the agent].” In early 2013, according to the filing, the agent was no longer involved in the case, but there is no clear explanation as to why. Still, the filing said there was a “series of outrageous behavior” on the part of the agent that might explain why he was removed. That behavior included arranging $20,000 or more...

**SNIP** Yee, D-San Francisco, and Jackson, his former consultant and a former San Francisco school board president, are among 29 defendants charged with racketeering and other crimes after an undercover FBI investigation. Prosecutors have accused Yee, now suspended from his Senate seat, of soliciting tens of thousands of dollars from agents posing as campaign contributors in exchange for political favors. In a filing Aug. 14, Jackson's lawyer asserted that an FBI agent had been removed from the investigation and reprimanded because of financial misconduct. The agent, identified in court records only as UCE 4773, posed as a Georgia businessman and...

Perhaps the last trio you'd expect to see mentioned in the State Sen. Leland Yee corruption trial is comedian Katt Williams, rapper Too $hort, and hip-hop mogul Suge Knight. Strangely enough, recent court documents reveal some interesting details and even more curious connections between some of the defendants in the Yee case and the three famous guys mentioned above. For starters, Keith Jackson — the former school board member who who got tangled up in the corruption case when he allegedly helped Yee obtain campaign donations in excess of the legal limits — was heard on wire taps bragging to...

State Senate Democrats have decided to resume the annual Pro Tem Cup golf fundraiser in 2015, a year after the event was canceled in the wake of criminal charges filed against three Democratic Senators. The event at Torrey Pines golf course in San Diego is the Senate Democrats' largest political fundraiser for the state party and has been criticized for allowing special interests to mingle with lawmakers in exchange for tickets costing between $15,000 and $65,000 per person. The indictment of Sen. Leland Yee (D-San Francisco) on public corruption charges a week before this year's event was to be held...

Many leftist politicians who want to strip Americans of their Second Amendment rights say their position is based on concern for the safety of citizens. Somehow, they contend, forcing law-abiding gun-owners to give up their weapons will result in street gangs following suit. According to a recently unsealed affidavit, however, one state senator in California allegedly wanted to curtail gun rights for everyone except violent gangsters. State Sen. Leland Yee, the court documents state, was the subject of an FBI raid that led to his arrest Wednesday along with 25 other individuals. Among those arrested was Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow,...

SAN FRANCISCO (CN) - Suspended California state Sen. Leland Yee could face a jury as early as June for charges of political corruption and conspiracy to import guns. At a scheduling conference on Thursday, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer said Yee will be tried along with his political consultant Keith Jackson, who also faces drug and murder-for-hire charges. Breyer said those charges will be tried separately, but lawyers for the defendants, including Yee's lawyer James Lassart, were not satisfied. "The firearms charges are going to be extremely prejudicial. The government has acquired 50 to 70 different firearms that, undoubtedly to...

**SNIP** The San Francisco Democrat was a fairly high-profile member of the California Legislature, but not a flamboyant one or one who was the subject of gossip and rumor. And that’s probably why the news in March landed with such a bombshell, when the 66-year old former psychologist was arrested and charged with not only corruption, but also with allegedly participating in a scheme to smuggle illegal weapons into the United States. The irony was impossible to miss: gun trafficking charges against a Democrat who made a name for himself as a fierce advocate of gun control, a politician who...

Maryland Gov.-elect Larry Hogan (R) announced eight more senior members of his administration Tuesday, including a new transportation secretary whom he introduced as “the best highway builder in the entire country.” Hogan’s nomination of Pete Rahn, who has held top transportation jobs in New Mexico and Missouri, comes amid great uncertainty over the future of the light-rail Purple Line in the Washington suburbs and other proposed mass-transit projects. The governor-elect has strongly signaled that he will emphasize roads over rail after he takes office Jan. 21. Hogan, who made tax cuts a rallying cry of his campaign, also pledged to...

"We knew we had problems when the returns from Los Angeles County started coming in." That's what Fresno Mayor Ashley Swearengin told me several days ago when we chatted by phone about her race for the state controller's office. Turns out LA County voter returns are still catching the eyes of political gurus throughout the state. To refresh, Swearengin, a Republican, lost to Betty Yee, a Democrat, in the Nov. 4 general election by a 54%-46% margin. Yee had 3,810,304 votes. Swearengin had 3,249,668 votes. That's a difference of 560,636 votes. Those numbers from the state's official Statement of Vote....

How far left was I? So far left my beloved uncle was a card-carrying member of the Communist Party in a Communist country. When I returned to his Slovak village to buy him a mass card, the priest refused to sell me one. So far left that a self-identified terrorist proposed marriage to me. So far left I was a two-time Peace Corps volunteer and I have a degree from UC Berkeley. So far left that my Teamster mother used to tell anyone who would listen that she voted for Gus Hall, Communist Party chairman, for president. I wore a...

The house at 27 Crocus Place is listed on property tax statements for $1.06 million, but neighbors consider it priceless. Built in 1902, the yellow, two-story Victorian sits on a bluff, overlooking Pleasant Avenue and Interstate 35E. In November, trial attorney Fred Pritzker and his wife, Renee, bought the 4,200-square-foot home from his brother and sister-in-law with a singular goal: to tear it down and replace it with one that is more accessible to the disabled. At 64, Pritzker said he is slowly losing function on the left side of his body; at some point soon, he'll need a walker...

Opinion: White House Obama's Paris snub wasn't an oversight By Byron York | January 12, 2015 | 4:33 pm The uproar over whether President Obama or another top administration official should have attended the massive unity rally in Paris has obscured an important point about the White House's reaction to the latest terror attacks in Europe. The administration no-shows were not a failure of optics, or a diplomatic misstep, but were instead the logical result of the president's years-long effort to downgrade the threat of terrorism and move on to other things. "The analogy we use around [the White House]...

The Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party will present a unified front this year in favor of a transportation funding package, including about $1 billion of increased taxes and fees. Legislative DFL leaders unveiled a proposal Monday that dovetails closely with Gov. Mark Dayton's plan, along with that of advocacy group Move MN: almost $600 million per year in new gasoline taxes, plus $125 million in vehicle registration fees and hundreds of millions of dollars more for metro-area mass transit. The plan forestalls the possibility of a three-way fight among Dayton, the DFL majority in the Senate and House Republicans -- who oppose any...

Taxes: Democrats unveiled a plan Monday that — surprise — would boost taxes on the rich. But new IRS data show these soak-the-rich campaigns are based on total falsehoods. 'Our tax code today is stacked in favor of people who make money off of money and against those who make money off of hard work," Rep. Chris Van Hollen, the top Democrat on the Budget Committee, said Monday. The plan he announced — which to be sure has no chance of being enacted — would boost taxes on the top 1% and hand out checks to the middle class each...

If you thought the Democrats – recently chased into the minority – were going to sit by quietly while the GOP put all the proposals on the table, think again. Their agenda to fix America (at least in terms understood by your dog and your veterinarian) will still be on the table. The rallying cry of income inequality isn’t going anywhere, and Chris Van Hollen (D-Maryland) is ready to lay out the next plan in what the Washington Post laughably calls a “stark shift in messaging” for 2015.Okay, boys… let’s see what you’ve got. Senior Democrats, dissatisfied with the...

Not long after Mayor Bill de Blasio sat beside the Rev. Al Sharpton at a July summit meeting on police reform, a political adviser gave the mayor a blunt assessment: You have a problem with the cops. Rank-and-file officers felt disrespected by the mayor, the adviser explained, and were dismayed to see Mr. Sharpton, a longtime critic of the New York Police Department, embraced at City Hall. But Mr. de Blasio, a Democrat, rejected the notion that officers disliked him. His message, the adviser later recalled, was clear: Everything was under control. That confidence would last until late last month,...

Stephanie Miner, the Democratic Mayor of Syracuse, N.Y., appointed Mark D. Muhammad to the Syracuse city school board last week. Muhammad is a minister in the Nation of Islam — a very wealthy, U.S.-based religious organization that mixes the tenets of Islam with notorious notions of black supremacy. The current leader of the Nation of Islam is Louis Farrakhan. Muhammad, 54, will serve the remainder of the term to which commissioner Bill Bullen was elected until the next election in November, reports Post-Standardullen is leaving town.) In addition to his role as a Nation of Islam minister, Muhammad is an...

Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley said Thursday that he’s still “seriously considering” a run for president but admitted that he was rattled when voters rejected his hand-picked Democratic successor in favor of Republican Larry Hogan. “I can tell you my feelings were hurt,” Mr. O'Malley said in a speech at the University of Chicago, CNN reported. “We had done a lot of really good things in Maryland and in the end, you did not hear much about it during the campaign,” Still, he acknowledged, “I was on the ballot.” Mr. Hogan won a stunning upset victory over Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown,...