Free Republic

A former employee of YouTube (a subsidiary of Alphabet, parent of Google) alleged in a recently filed lawsuit that YouTube is discriminating against white and Asian men. “YouTube last year stopped hiring white and Asian males for technical positions because they didn’t help the world’s largest video site achieve its goals for improving diversity,” the suit alleges. Liberal discrimination against white men is nothing new, but many people are caught by surprise to see such explicit discrimination against Asian males in the name of diversity from one of the most progressive companies in one of the most liberal zip codes....

Special interests have continued to shower California legislators with hundreds of thousands of dollars in freebies, including foreign travel, golf games and concert tickets, as efforts to rein in gifts to elected state officials after a series of corruption scandals have stalled. New filings show lawmakers also were given bottles of champagne and whiskey, cigars, flowers, neckties and makeup in 2017, continuing a trend of gift-giving with few limits that has not slowed after the bribery scandals that sent former Sens. Leland Yee and Ron Calderon to prison. {snip} The governor reported $44,000 in gifts, most to cover the costs...

California Democrats are speechless as they watch their prized Sacramento gun control senator, Leland Yee, head to prison for weapons trafficking, accepting bribes, and extorting money. “The crimes that you committed have resulted in essentially an attack on democratic institutions,” Breyer told Yee, who nodded as the judge addressed him. “This is a serious, serious injury to a governmental institution.” Breyer called his involvement in that crime “hypocritical” and “unfathomable” given his past advocacy for gun control. The judge gave him 30 days to surrender to the U.S. Marshal’s Service, which will turn him over to the federal prison system....

Leland Yee, a San Francisco Democrat and staunch proponent of stiffer gun-control laws was sentenced today in federal court on corruption charges tied to, among other things, a conspiracy to traffic weapons. Although this is off-the-charts hypocritical of Mr. Yee, a wonderfully sensational corrupt politician story ripe for national news, none of the Big Three broadcast evening news programs last night so much as devoted a news brief to the story. [You may also recall that Yee was behind a spurious smear against Rush Limbaugh in 2011. Read about that here.] Adding to the seriousness of the weapons trafficking charge, as the...

A federal district judge sentenced former state Sen. Leland Yee, a San Francisco Democrat, to five years in prison Wednesday for trading political favors for campaign contributions. He was also fined $20,000. Yee admitted in a plea deal that he was part of a racketeering conspiracy that involved exchanging official acts for money, conspiring to traffic in weapons and money laundering. Specifically, Lee promised an undercover FBI agent favors in return for campaign contributions. During the hourlong proceedings, Yee asked the court for leniency in light of his public humiliation, his wife's severe illness, his admissions of wrongdoing and his...

US Attorney recommends 8 years in prison for Leland Yee Known as being "tough on guns," disgraced former California State Sen. Leland Yee may get 8 years in federal prison for his 2015 plea to racketeering charges. Yee, ironically known for his gun control legislation, was arrested in 2014 on a host of charges including plotting to smuggle guns into the country via Islamic terror groups. This left many gun control advocates, who up until that time held the San Francisco-based politician as a champion in the crusade for tougher gun laws, dismayed. Facing potentially the rest of his life...

California's Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom is no stranger to controversy. He famously gave out gay marriage licenses during his time as Mayor of San Francisco, even as it flouted state law. His time as Mayor was met with serious economic troubles and increasing numbers of middle class residents leaving the city. However, Newsom used that position to become California's Lt. Governor under Jerry Brown. Now after links to disgraced State Senator Leland Yee-- who was found involved in a gun running organization, and recently convicted Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow, Newsom is under increased public scrutiny.

Chinatown crime boss Raymond 'Shrimp Boy' Chow - the man at the heart of a federal corruption case that brought down former state Sen. Leland Yee and engulfed City Hall with allegations of 'pay to play' politics, took the center stage in U.S. District Court this week to deny the murder and racketeering charges against him. But anyone expecting his testimony to blow the roof of City Hall or cause Mayor Ed Lee further embarrassment would be sadly disappointed. The trial has largely boiled down to unpacking the nearly decade-old murder of businessman Allen Leung, and whether Chow - who...

Six defendants in the sweeping criminal prosecution of Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow, part of a public corruption and organized crime investigation that ensnared a once-prominent Democratic politician, pleaded guilty on Wednesday, prosecutors said.. In a San Francisco courtroom before U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer, the defendants entered their pleas to some of the charges filed against them in an indictment that alleged gun-running, a rampant pay-for-play political culture, money laundering, drug trafficking and more. None of the six admitted to racketeering, a count for which former state Sen. Leland Yee, one of the many caught in the wide-ranging federal inquiry,...

San Francisco’s mayor was accused by the FBI of taking bribes in exchange for favors, attorneys for a defendant in an organized crime case centered on San Francisco’s Chinatown said Tuesday. In a court filing, Curtis Briggs, an attorney for Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow, cites as the source of the FBI’s allegation documents turned over to him by the government as part of the process of mounting a defense for his client. Briggs is seeking to dismiss the indictment against Chow on the grounds that the government is selectively prosecuting him while letting other people caught in its probe go....

We’re glad this criminal is off the streets, but we’ll also be honest. We were hoping this one would go to trial because an anti-2nd Amendment Democrat who also happens to be an international gun-runner is just too much fun to pass up. Have fun in the slammer, Mr. Yee.

<p>An ex-California state senator has pleaded guilty to a racketeering charge in an organized crime and public corruption case centered in San Francisco’s Chinatown.</p> <p>Leland Yee entered the plea on Wednesday and could face a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison when he is sentenced in October.</p>

It is well known that Asian Americans in this country vote overwhelmingly for Democrat candidates. Politico.com reported that “in the 2012 presidential election, Barack Obama won 73 percent of the Asian American vote, exceeding his support among Hispanics (71 percent) and women (55 percent).” What is unclear to many conservative politicians and operatives is why and how to fix it. But as the 2016 presidential race is heating up, any GOP candidate who wishes to have a serious shot at the White House simply cannot continue ignoring the Asian voting block, because the demographics in this country has already changed....

SACRAMENTO (AP) -- A dispute over who leaked an affidavit detailing a corruption probe involving a state senator is heading to federal court in Los Angeles after a judge's action on Friday. Ron Calderon, then a Democratic state senator from Montebello, filed a complaint in November 2013 contending that federal authorities tried to ruin his reputation by raiding his offices and leaking an FBI affidavit alleging he took money in return for promoting bills. He was later indicted and faces trial in federal court in Los Angeles beginning Aug. 11 on charges that he accepted $100,000 in bribes, lavish trips...

**SNIP** The 11,000 strong rebel group, which dates back to the 1960s, aims to carve out greater autonomy in the Philippines for the Muslim minority in the South of the archipelago. The group was cited extensively in a federal case made against Yee and dozens of other defendants last March following a four-year investigation. Yee, ironically known for his gun control legislation, was arrested then on a host of charges including plotting to smuggle guns into the country to be obtained through MILF contacts brokered by his associate, Dr. Wilson Lim . In an affidavit unsealed last year, Yee spoke...

**SNIP** The charges against most defendants, including Chow, remain the same as in a previous indictment, but the new document added two money laundering conspiracy counts against Yee and Jackson. All of the defendants are being re-arraigned on the revised 230-count indictment, known as the second superseding indictment, last week and this week. Chow, 54, of San Francisco, is accused of conspiring to racketeer, or to operate a continuing criminal enterprise that allegedly included selling drugs and stolen property and money laundering. He is also charged with conspiring to receive and transport stolen liquor, conspiring to traffic in stolen and...

Former state Sen. Leland Yee pleaded not guilty Thursday to an expanded indictment in his corruption case that included two new charges of money-laundering. The San Francisco Democrat was first charged in April, along with more than two dozen other defendants, of accepting $62,000 in bribes from FBI agents posing as contributors in exchange for legislative favors, and for illegally importing firearms from the Philippines.

Former state Sen. Leland Yee’s campaign committee for last year’s secretary of state race has spent $128,000 on attorney's fees since he was indicted on federal corruption charges, he reported this week. The practice is legal, but one ethics expert said it should be restricted. "Unfortunately California’s relatively weak restrictions on the use of surplus campaign funds mean that politicians can turn these accounts into personal slush funds," said Sarah Swanbeck, an advocate for the group Common Cause.

Washington—Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) released the following statement on California State Senator Leland Yee:“The allegations against Senator Yee are shocking. It has become clear he has lost the confidence of his colleagues and for the good of his constituents should step down.”###

SAN FRANCISCO (CN) - Accused Chinatown gangster Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow has refused to sign on to a protective order that will allow defense attorneys to receive evidence from federal prosecutors, including audio recordings and video surveillance, from a five-year undercover investigation that led to his arrest, and the arrest of 26 others in March. Attorneys for the federal government on Thursday filed a motion to compel Chow to cooperate, noting that nearly all the other defendants have signed on, and only one other defendant has not signed because of a likely substitution of counsel in the near future. According...