Free Republic

Two LAPD cops who ignored calls to attend a robbery at a nearby Macy's to play Pokemon have failed in their bid to have their firing reversed. California's court of appeals ruled Tuesday that Louis Lozano and Eric Mitchell were rightfully terminated in 2017 after refusing to go to the scene of a robbery at the Crenshaw mall, with Lozano responding: 'Aw, screw it.' Instead, the cops decided to hunt down a 'Snorlax' character that had appeared nearby on Pokemon Go, which lets players 'capture' virtual reality characters who pop up on a phone map of nearby locations. Players must...

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- The California State Senate held an "ethics refresher course" for its members after federal indictments were issued against two senators and a third was convicted. Senate leaders are hoping to regain the public's trust. The purpose of the course is to teach members and their staffs to avoid potentially compromising situations. It's the latest in a series of moves by senate leaders aimed at putting political distance between them and their colleagues facing criminal charges. The leader of California's state senate stopped all regular business on Wednesday so everyone could go "back to school" in a...

Beginning in early 2011, state Sen. Leland Yee repeatedly solicited bribes to fund his San Francisco mayor and California secretary of state campaigns, according to the FBI agents who brought him down last month. But he appears to have devoted more time and energy to a far more lucrative pursuit: crafting or carrying legislation benefiting special interests who supply campaign contributions. It's a practice that's all too common in Sacramento, but Yee was a master. :snip: Yee introduced 20 bills from 2011 to 2014 that advanced a special interest over the public interest, according to this newspaper's review of his...

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- A story that sounds like a movie script is slowly grinding its way to trial. All of the 29 defendants in the massive corruption case involving suspended State Senator Leland Yee and reputed gangster Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow appeared in federal court Thursday. With so many defendants, lawyers, and documents, the judge is trying to set up a system to manage what could be an unwieldy trial. What makes it even harder is that not everyone's on the same page. The frustration is beginning to show. There are 29 defendants, even more lawyers, a 137 page...

Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. That adage has more application than usual in California, where Democrats hold all of the statewide offices and supermajorities in the legislature. They can enact any policies they want, with only the judicial branch offering belated checks on their power. And when I say belated, that’s literally the case with state Senator Rod Wright, whom a jury found guilty in January of committing eight felonies regarding his residency and eligibility for the office he held.Normally, politicians who get that kind of a verdict have the decency to resign. If not, the body in...

Please Join Us this Thursday Evening at: "ATF Night" - a PRO-Gun Social Gathering Thursday, February 20, 2003 Culver City, CA 7:30 PM - 9:00 PM ("Cocktail" hour from 6:30 - 7:30 PM) FREE Admission This Month's Featured Speaker: Candidate for Los Angeles City Council Rod Wright The Majority of the Members of the Los Angeles City Council have proven to be extremely antagonistic toward those of us who value our God-Given rights as enumerated in the Constitution of the United States in general, and the Second Amendment in particular. Rod Wright is a member of the political party which...

The California Senate has erased the names and online archives of three suspended lawmakers entangled in criminal cases. The Senate removed pictures, video clips and legislative archives over the weekend involving Democratic Sens. Rod Wright of Los Angeles, Ron Calderon of Montebello and Leland Yee of San Francisco. All that remains on the websites is information about their Senate districts. The three men have lost the rights and privileges of a senator, which include having a Senate-maintained website, said Mark Hedlund, a spokesman for Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg.

State Sen. Roderick Wright indicted on charges of voter fraud and perjuryThe Inglewood Democrat is accused of listing as his residence a home in the district he wanted to represent when his actual home was elsewhere. He has pleaded not guilty. By Jean Merl, Los Angeles Times September 17, 2010 A Los Angeles County grand jury on Thursday unsealed an eight-count felony indictment against state Sen. Roderick Wright (D-Inglewood), accusing him of filing a false declaration of candidacy, voter fraud and perjury beginning in 2007, when he changed his voter registration to run for the Legislature. Wright listed as his...

Photo Credit - (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group) Living in the Tarnished State is a gift that just keeps giving. A most amazing, but not terribly surprising event was reported in varying degrees of detail over the last 24 hours, about a California Democrat State Senator – a major gun-control advocate. The Los Angeles Times summarizes the headline: State Sen. Leland Yee (D-San Francisco) and a San Francisco figure known as "Shrimp Boy" were arrested Wednesday as part of a public corruption probe after a series of raids by federal and gang task force officials, the FBI confirmed. Yee,...

No place on the planet is as beautiful and as naturally rich as California. And few places have become as absurd. Currently, three California state senators are either under felony indictment or already have been convicted. State Sen. Leland Yee (D-San Francisco) made a political career out of demanding harsher state gun-control laws. Now he is facing several felony charges for attempting to facilitate gun-running. One count alleges that Lee sought to provide banned heavy automatic weapons to Philippines-based Islamic terrorist groups. State Sen. Ron Calderon (D-Montebello), who had succeeded one brother, Thomas, in the state Assembly and was succeeded...

Has Nancy Pelosi seen a newspaper lately? (Pro tip, hon: Like the Obamacare monstrosity, you have to read it to find out what's in it.) I'd love to see her face in the wake of the veritable epidemic of Democratic corruption now sweeping the country. Pelosi's blink count must be off the charts. I'm going to make it easy on Pelosi and put all of the latest cases in one handy rogue's gallery reference list. But let's not be naive. It's clear to me that the Barack Obama/Eric Holder DOJ is clearing the decks before the midterms. Prediction: The FBI's...

On April 1, Washington Mayor Vincent Gray was denied a second term, defeated in the primary by upstart city councilwoman Muriel Bowser. The beginning of the end came on March 10, when U.S. Attorney Ronald Machen struck a plea bargain with a wealthy businessman who confessed he'd spent $668,000 on an illegal "shadow campaign" to fund get-out-the-vote efforts that helped Gray win the mayoral office in 2010. So the corrupt mayor of America's most important city is thrown out. A political scandal? The same networks that were utterly breathless over the local story of Gov. Chris Christie's aides slowing traffic...

For some odd reason, they seem as rare as public pay phones and customer services. If someone can find one or two, I appreciate it if they could provide a couple. Thank you.

April 6, 2014 Like a criminal wiping down a crime scene, the California State Senate has scrubbed its website and deleted the online archives of three Democratic state Senators that face criminal charges ranging from weapons trafficking to public corruption.

The California state Senate today took the unprecedented step of suspending three of its members who have been accused of crimes including corruption, perjury and conspiracy to traffic weapons -- a move that takes away their power but maintains their pay. With a vote of 28-1, senators ousted colleagues Democrats Leland Yee of San Francisco, Ron Calderon of Montebello and Rod Wright of Baldwin Hills with a resolution that says they can't resume office "until all criminal proceedings currently pending against them have been dismissed." Expelling them would be premature, Senate leader Darrell Steinberg said, because Yee and Calderon have...

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com/AP) — Two Southern California state lawmakers were among a trio of Democratic senators who were suspended Friday over criminal charges. KNX 1070′s Megan Goldsby reports the vote comes after Sen. Leland Yee of San Francisco was indicted this week on federal charges that included accepting bribes and coordinating an international gun-running operation.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Keith Jackson, accused by the FBI on Wednesday of being involved in a murder-for-hire scheme and a gun- and drug-trafficking conspiracy, was San Francisco's top elected educator during the late 1990s.

State senator accused of gun charges SAN FRANCISCO — A California state senator who authored gun control legislation asked for campaign donations in exchange for introducing an undercover FBI agent to an arms trafficker, according to court documents unsealed Wednesday. The allegations against State Sen. Leland Yee were outlined in an FBI criminal complaint that names 25 other defendants, including Raymond Chow, a onetime gang leader with ties to San Francisco's Chinatown known as "Shrimp Boy," and Keith Jackson, Yee's campaign aide. The affidavit accuses Yee of conspiracy to deal firearms without a license and to illegally import firearms. Yee...

State Sen. Leland Yee (D-San Francisco) was charged Wednesday with conspiring to commit wire fraud and traffic firearms, part of a sweeping public corruption case outlined by federal prosecutors. The charges sent shock waves through the San Francisco and Sacramento political establishments, as FBI agents searched Yee's Capitol office. Last year the FBI raided the offices of Sen. Ron Calderon (D-Montebello), who was targeted in a bribery sting. SNIP The indictment alleges Yee and Jackson defrauded "citizens of honest services" and were involved in a scheme to traffic firearms in exchange for thousands in campaign donations to the senator. SNIP...

The federal corruption and bribery charges leveled against state Sen. Leland Yee of San Francisco mark the third embarrassing scandal this year for Senate Democrats and their party, which control both houses of the state Legislature and every statewide office in California.Coming on the heels of recent tangled legal troubles of two other high-profile Los Angeles County Democratic state senators - Ron Calderon of Montebello and Rod Wright of Baldwin Hills - Yee's arrest may now hand the beleaguered state Republican Party an opening in a midterm election year, political observers say.