Right Wing Granny

News behind the news. This picture is me (white spot) standing on the bridge connecting European and North American tectonic plates. It is located in the Reykjanes area of Iceland. By-the-way, this is a color picture.

Right Wing Granny

Tag Archives: Los Angeles Times

Voting With Their Feet

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As we approach the mid-term elections, it might be a good idea to take a look at the consequences of some of the ideas that the Democrat party is espousing. Those consequences are visible in blue states such as California, Minnesota, New York, and others. Many blue states are losing population as businesses and residents leave those states to go to states with better economic conditions and fewer regulations.

On Friday, American Greatness posted an article about another major company talking about leaving California because of the actions of California’s Attorney General.

The article reports:

An antitrust battle over a proposed merger of Paramount Skydance with Warner Brothers has Paramount’s CEO David Ellison threatening to move the studio out of the state of California.

The Daily Caller reports the Hollywood giant is weighing moving its operations out of California while the state’s Democratic attorney general leads a lawsuit seeking to block its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery.

The California Attorney General Rob Bonta, backed by 11 other state attorneys general and the Writers Guild of America, filed a lawsuit to block the deal on antitrust grounds, according to The Wrap.

According to TMZ, officials within the Los Angeles Mayor’s office and California Attorney General’s office say Paramount has threatened to leave California and move its operation to another state, if the matter isn’t settled by Oct 1.

…A leaked internal report warns that if Paramount follows through on the move, the impact on California’s economy could include the loss of up to 58,000 jobs, a $21 billion hit to economic output, and a reduction of up to $1.17 billion in annual state tax revenue, according to Yahoo Finance.

The Daily Caller reports that Paramount’s departure would be another blow to the state’s already shrinking entertainment industry.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the region shed roughly 57,000 entertainment jobs over the past four years, while more than 80 film and television production service businesses have closed since 2022.

The article concludes:

The threatened move underscores how California’s current regulatory climate is becoming intolerable despite Governor Newsom’s claims that the state would continue to be the entertainment capital of the world for decades to come.

UPDATE: Sept 22

From The Hollywood Reporter:

After all of that sound and fury, that’s it? “I don’t think these two companies should merge,” said California attorney general Rob Bonta in unveiling a settlement with David Ellison to allow the mogul to do just that with Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery.

I wonder if Paramount will stay in California.

Where Does Protesting End And Law Breaking Begin?

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On Monday, Breitbart posted an article about Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) objecting to a new law proposed by the L.A. City Council to bar anti-Israel protesters from the entrances to synagogues. Why should churches or synagogues be forced to let protesters into their facilities? Just for the record, CAIR is the lawfare division of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The article reports:

The proposal is a response to a rise in antisemitism in the city associated with anti-Israel protests, especially several incidents in June in which pro-Palestinian activists targeted local synagogues, obstructing entrances in one case.

City Council members Katy Yaroslavsky and Bob Blumenfield demanded action in June, calling for more resources for safety. They are the authors of the new proposal, which would require an eight-foot “bubble zone” around synagogues and other religious institutions.

The Los Angeles Times described the proposal in August, reporting that it “would make it a misdemeanor for protesters to intentionally block the entrances of healthcare facilities, schools or religious institutions — or demonstrate within 8 feet of anyone trying to get inside. The protective 8-foot “bubble” would be required within 100 feet of a facility’s entrance.” It would apply to mosques as well as to synagogues.

CAIR has objected to the proposal, alleging that it intentionally targets pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel activists

If we have bubble zones around abortion clinics, why can’t we have them around religious institutions to protect the people going there?

The article concludes with some additional information on CAIR:

CAIR’s national executive director, Nihad Awad, said that he was happy at the terror attack of October 7, 2023.

In addition, as Breitbart News has noted in the past:

In 2007-8, CAIR was named an unindicted co-conspirator in the terror financing trial of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development. That case, in turn, led the FBI to discontinue its work with the organization. In 2009, a federal judge ruled that the government “produced ample evidence to establish” the ties of CAIR with Hamas, the Palestinian terror organization. The United Arab Emirates labeled CAIR a terrorist organization in 2014 (a decision that the Obama administration opposed).

CAIR’s Los Angeles chapter also offered to help the family of two Islamic terrorists in nearby San Bernardino in 2015.

These are not people who care about America or the American Constitution.

 

Where Are The Mainstream Media Reports On This?

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On Friday, Breitbart posted an article about the attack on Gen. Don Bolduc who is running for the U.S. Senate in New Hampshire.

The article reports:

The establishment media have ignored the physical attack against Republican New Hampshire candidate Gen. Don Bolduc.

The three top establishment newspapers, the New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times, all failed to report the physical attack on Gen. Bolduc that occurred moments before Wednesday’s debate with Democrat Maggie Hassan (D-NH).

…On Wednesday, police arrested 37-year-old Joseph Hart of Greenville, Rhode Island, for criminal trespass and disorderly conduct after he took a swing at Gen. Bolduc.

…The attack is still under investigation by police.

Kate Constantini, Bolduc for Senate spokeswoman, told Breitbart News Wednesday night there is no space for political violence. “As the General said on stage tonight, it’s time to lower the temperature of the political discourse in this country,” she stated.

Yet the establishment media have remained silent about the attack and Bolduc’s call for peaceful discourse, instead preferring to report on the attack against Paul Pelosi, which was carried out by an illegal alien.

The article concludes:

The establishment media’s bias was also on display during Wednesday’s debate. The WMUR ABC debate moderators failed to mention the attack before or during the debate.

Conversely, the moderators asked the candidates about the rise in violence against politicians, referencing the January 6 and attack against Paul Pelosi, failing to mention an attack that occurred just minutes before the debate against the Republican candidate.

I guess some violence is more important than others. If you rely on the mainstream media for your news, you are probably uninformed.

Looking Or Taking?

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On Saturday, The New York Post posted an article about a recent FBI raid on a Beverly Hills safety deposit company that uncovered $86 million in cash and millions more other assets, according to a new report.

Pocketsense notes:

No laws exist that prevent you from keeping cash in a safe deposit box. However, while not illegal, bankers typically discourage customers from keeping cash in safe deposit boxes because funds inside the box are not insured. Additionally, you can only access your box during regular bank hours, which means you have no access to your cash during weekends and evenings when banks are closed.

It should also be noted that money in a safe deposit box is not earning interest.

The article at The New York Post notes:

The FBI and US Attorney’s Office misled a judge who issued a warrant for a controversial raid on a Beverly Hills safety deposit company that uncovered $86 million in cash and millions more other assets, according to a new report.

A senior FBI agent recently testified that central to the plan, and not disclosed to the judge, was the permanent confiscation of the contents of every box that contained at least $5,000 in cash or goods, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The alleged disclosure failure came out in FBI documents and agent depositions in a class-action lawsuit by box holders at U.S. Private Vaults, who say the 2021 raid violated their rights.

The FBI justified the seizure by arguing that the goods were tied to unknown crimes, the Times reported, citing court records.

Court filings also showed that agents defied a judge’s restrictions in the warrant by searching through box holders’ belongings for evidence of crimes, the paper said.

“The government did not know what was in those boxes, who owned them, or what, if anything, those people had done,” Robert Frommer, a lawyer who represents nearly 400 box holders in the class-action case, wrote in court papers, according to the Times.

It does seem as if the FBI has overstepped its bounds and been less than honest in its dealings lately. If the FBI truly misrepresented their intentions to the judge, I hope the people in the FBI who planned the raid will be fired.

Who Is Funding American Magazines?

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The Washington Free Beacon is reporting today that the Chinese government is funding content published in Time magazine.

The article reports:

Time magazine failed to disclose Chinese government funding for content published in its most recent print edition.

The magazine’s June 21-28 double issue included an insert from China Daily, a media outlet controlled by the Chinese Communist Party. Disclosures on the insert label it as an advertisement from China Daily in Beijing and note that additional “information is on file with the DOJ, Washington DC.” Chinese government funding for China Daily is not mentioned. China Daily registers with the Justice Department under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, a law aimed at tracking foreign government influence.

Advocacy groups have criticized news outlets for partnering with China Daily out of concerns that the organization is spreading propaganda in the West. Some companies, including the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, have ended content-sharing deals with China Daily because it is controlled by the Chinese government. The outlet has paid millions of dollars to publish content in Western magazines’ and newspapers’ print and online editions.

Time began working with China Daily last year. Foreign-agent disclosures filed by China Daily in May show the outlet paid Time $700,000 over the past six months, by far the highest outlay to any American news company. In addition to the print inserts, the magazine publishes sponsored China Daily content on its website, which also does not acknowledge Chinese government funding.

Much of the China Daily content does not appear to be aggressive Chinese propaganda, with many of the articles portraying life in China and Chinese culture in a positive light. But some of the paid China Daily content has drawn criticism from advocacy groups because of its clear political agenda.

The article also noted:

China Daily also sponsored content in the Financial Times, the Los Angeles Times, and Foreign Policy magazine, according to foreign agent disclosures. Two Tibetan advocacy groups criticized Foreign Policy over a series of China Daily articles last month that touted Communist Party policies in Tibet. The International Campaign for Tibet called the articles an “affront” to Tibetans who oppose Communist Party rule.

Let’s be clear. The articles do not have to be aggressive Chinese propaganda–all they have to do is paint an idyllic picture of life in Communist China. As young Americans see the illusion of a utopian society where they get free education and have all of their needs met by the state, they are misled about the lack of freedom that goes along with those ‘benefits.’ The Chinese have engaged in a propaganda war with America for some time now. Chinese money has been flowing into American colleges for years, and recently a few professors have been arrested for spying for China. When you read an article in the mainstream media, you need to know if someone is paying for it.

I Think This Problem Was Preventable!

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The Daily Wire is reporting today that Fresno County Sheriff Margaret Mims of California has stated that she is not enforcing Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom’s lockdown order because her team has their “hands full trying to re-arrest” criminals who are out on “zero-dollar bail,” a policy implemented in 2019. New York City and California seem to be having a lot of the same problems due to the same ridiculous policies.

The article reports:

In August of 2018, California set in motion their “zero-dollar bail” policy.

“California will become the first state in the nation to abolish bail for suspects awaiting trial under a sweeping reform bill signed by Gov. Jerry Brown,” NPR reported at the time. “An overhaul of the state’s bail system has been in the works for years, and became an inevitability earlier this year when a California appellate court declared the state’s cash bail system unconstitutional. The new law goes into effect in October 2019.”

“Today, California reforms its bail system so that rich and poor alike are treated fairly,” Brown said in a statement.

The reforms to the bail system may treat the rich and poor who are suspected of committing crimes equally, but they are a nightmare for innocent citizens who become victims of the crimes committed by criminals not held in jail.

The article notes:

Moreover, as noted by The Los Angeles Times in March, the blue state granted early release to 3,500 inmates “in an effort to reduce crowding as coronavirus infections begin spreading through the state prison system.”

“Lawyers for Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday told a panel of federal judges the state is taking ‘extraordinary and unprecedented protective measures’ to slow the spread of the virus and protect those who live and work within California’s 35 prisons,” the report said. “The accelerated prison discharges — affecting inmates due to be released over the next 60 days — come in the face of pressure to do much more.”

The voters of California have only themselves to blame for this mess. What percentage of Californians voted in the election of Governor Newsom, and how many people voted for him?

Be Careful Out There (Or Better Yet, Stay Home)

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It’s hard to fight an enemy you can’t see, yet that is what Americans are being asked to do. We can debate the seriousness of the coronavirus if we choose, but we can’t debate that it is here and that it is killing people.

MSN posted an article yesterday about the death of two people in Washington state. I realize that compared to the growing number of coronavirus deaths in America, two people may seem insignificant (not to their families), but their story is significant.

The article reports:

With the coronavirus quickly spreading in Washington state in early March, leaders of the Skagit Valley Chorale debated whether to go ahead with weekly rehearsal.

The virus was already killing people in the Seattle area, about an hour’s drive to the south.

But Skagit County hadn’t reported any cases, schools and business remained open, and prohibitions on large gatherings had yet to be announced.

On March 6, Adam Burdick, the choir’s conductor, informed the 121 members in an email that amid the “stress and strain of concerns about the virus,” practice would proceed as scheduled at Mount Vernon Presbyterian Church.

“I’m planning on being there this Tuesday March 10, and hoping many of you will be, too,” he wrote.

Sixty singers showed up. A greeter offered hand sanitizer at the door, and members refrained from the usual hugs and handshakes.

…After 2 1/2 hours, the singers parted ways at 9 p.m.

Nearly three weeks later, 45 have been diagnosed with COVID-19 or ill with the symptoms, at least three have been hospitalized, and two are dead.

The outbreak has stunned county health officials, who have concluded that the virus was almost certainly transmitted through the air from one or more people without symptoms.

The fact that the virus was transmitted at the rehearsal raises questions about the virus.

The article notes:

In interviews with the Los Angeles Times, eight people who were at the rehearsal said that nobody there was coughing or sneezing or appeared ill.

Everybody came with their own sheet music and avoided direct physical contact. Some members helped set up or remove folding chairs. A few helped themselves to mandarins that had been put out on a table in back.

Experts said the choir outbreak is consistent with a growing body of evidence that the virus can be transmitted through aerosols — particles smaller than 5 micrometers that can float in the air for minutes or longer.

The World Health Organization has downplayed the possibility of transmission in aerosols, stressing that the virus is spread through much larger “respiratory droplets,” which are emitted when an infected person coughs or sneezes and quickly fall to a surface.

But a study published March 17 in the New England Journal of Medicine found that when the virus was suspended in a mist under laboratory conditions it remained “viable and infectious” for three hours — though researchers have said that time period would probably be no more than a half-hour in real-world conditions.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has not behaved well during this pandemic. There is a video of an official of the organization obviously avoiding a question about helping Taiwan. There are also indications that the WHO has made statements based on Chinese propaganda rather than actual facts (misinformation that has helped spread the virus).

At any rate–STAY HOME. Choir practice is fun, but when you sing, you may be projecting more than your voice. Normally that is not a problem–right now it is.

Stay safe.

In The Long Run, This Would Not Have Mattered, But It Was Still Irresponsible

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Yesterday The Daily Signal posted an article about the shortage of N95 protective respirator masks. Some of the media have stated that President Obama chose not to replenish the stockpile of these masks after the 2009 H1N1 virus epidemic. That is true, but there is more to the story. At this point I would like to note that the masks have a shelf life of five years–even if President Obama had replenished the stockpile, in order for the stockpile to be any good it would have had to have been replenished again in 2014 and 2019. The responsibility for the shortage of these masks rests of both the Obama and Trump administrations. However, I think that the blame actually rests on the bureaucrats running the CDC and other health agencies inside the government.

The article notes:

H1N1, also known as the swine flu, drew down about 100 million N95 protective respirator masks.

Afterward, an H1N1 task force recommended that the Obama administration replace the masks in the national stockpile, according to reporting by the Los Angeles Times and Bloomberg News.

“If the Obama administration didn’t respond to a request for additional masks, and if they did not communicate that need to the incoming [Trump] administration, that would certainly make the present situation more difficult,” Amy Anderson, a registered nurse and co-founder of the Global Nurse Consultants Alliance, told The Daily Signal in a phone interview.

…The Los Angeles Times reported March 20 that the U.S. government ignored warnings in 2009, making no reference to Obama’s being president at the time. 

The CDC, under the George W. Bush administration, published a “National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza” in 2005. In that case, the government heeded the agency’s advice to stockpile medical supplies. 

…The International Safety Equipment Association and the federal H1N1 task force recommended replacing the N95 masks after the response to the swine flu drew down 100 million masks from the federal stockpile, the paper reported.

However, association President Charles Johnson told the Times: “Our association is unaware of any major effort to restore the stockpile to cover that drawdown.”

The problem with a medical emergency is that you generally don’t see it coming. Blaming any administration for current supply problems is not helpful. Finding a solution to those problems is helpful. It would be nice if the mainstream media would attempt to unite us rather than divide us. The reporting during the Wuhan Flu epidemic has been horrendous and very unhelpful.

Whatever Happened To Loving Your Country?

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The Los Angeles Times is reporting today that a decision to put an American flag graphic on the side of the Laguna Beach police cars is opposed by some citizens of the community. The citizens either praise the flag graphic on police cars or pan it as too aggressive.

The article reports:

After hearing the criticism and acknowledging that the image they approved didn’t quite match the final results, officials agreed to reconsider their February decision to paint the Laguna Beach Police Department’s fleet of 11 squad cars. The City Council will take up the issue again at its Tuesday meeting.

“People are screaming that the American flag on a police car is somehow or another … hurting people’s feelings who might be immigrants or visitors,” said Councilman Peter Blake. “People are actually ridiculous enough to bring up comments about our cop cars having American flags on them.”

Artist Carrie Woodburn went to the podium at the March 19 council meeting and said it was “shocking to see the boldness of the design” when the newly painted Ford Explorers rolled out.

“We have such an amazing community of artists here, and I thought the aesthetic didn’t really represent our community,” Woodburn said. “It feels very aggressive.”

Has it occurred to these artists that the flag represents the country that has given them the freedom they have as artists?

Things That Began Well Don’t Always End Well

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This is my eulogy for Fox News. I remember Fox News Sunday when Tony Snow was hosting it. It was balanced and informative. That has changed in recent years. I enjoy Tucker Carlson. I understand we may not agree on everything, but he is fair, logical, and informative. I used to enjoy Hannity and Colmes when they debated both sides of an issue. I guess the fairness and balance of Fox News will be a distant memory.

The Los Angeles Times posted an article yesterday about some changes to Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox as it prepares for a merger with Walt Disney Company. 21st Century Fox created a new company, Fox Corp., made up of Fox News Channel and Fox broadcast network.

Yesterday The Washington Post reported that Paul Ryan will be a board member for Fox Corp., the new parent company of Fox News.

The Washington Post reports:

Last week, Ryan reportedly told a crowd during a lecture in Vero Beach, Fla., that the Democrat who defines the race as one about Trump and Trump’s personality could beat him. But he quickly backtracked on Twitter to clarify that he believes Trump deserves to win.

“To be clear, GOP wins elections when they’re about ideas not when they’re personality contests like Dems & media want. We’re clearly better off because of @RealDonaldTrump,” Ryan tweeted. “His record of accomplishment is why he’ll win re-election especially when compared to Dems’ leftward lurch.”

Ryan will serve on the seven-member board along with Murdoch, Fox’s founder, and his son, Lachlan Murdoch, Fox’s chairman and chief executive.

I believe the choices currently being made will be the end of Fox News as the most-watched news network in America.

I Have Very Mixed Emotions About This

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Yesterday The Los Angeles Times reported on a concert by Roy Orbison. Roy Orbison died in 1988. The concert was done with a hologram.

The article reports:

Thirty years after his death, Orbison (at least the digital version of him) is going on a national tour, the latest and possibly the most ambitious example to date of how holographic technology is transforming the music industry. The hologram’s 65-minute show, which features 16 songs and orchestral accompaniment, is among the first full-length concerts to feature a holographic dead singer.

Such images and shows are becoming more common, as families of deceased celebrities look for new ways to prolong and capitalize on their legacies. But as technology evolves and it becomes easier to create three-dimensional, lifelike visuals of artists, there’s growing debate over how those images will be portrayed — and whether they truly represent how the artists behaved when they were alive. That has prompted some celebrities to add language in their contracts about holograms and to be more meticulous about selecting who is in charge of their estates. It has also sparked threats of lawsuits from estates to bar companies from profiting from a celebrity’s image without their permission.

“This is a big issue,” said Aaron Moss, a partner with law firm Greenberg Glusker. “With new technology, you could essentially make somebody an unwitting and involuntary actor in a film that a celebrity has no part of.”

The article further reports:

The hologram took about a year to create. The company worked with the Orbison family to create a concert that included songs that the legendary rocker had never performed live on stage before.

Orbison (Alex Orbison) said he was nervous when the show had its first opening night in London. The pressure was so great, “it was almost like stage fright,” Orbison said.

But as the holographic version of his father reached the high notes and fans cheered during “Crying,” it was Orbison’s turn to cry — from relief.

“It was seeing couples holding hands and the way that these families looked at each other,” Orbison said. “The fact that these people were having the experience of my dad … in 2018 is just so incredible.”

Still, there were some awkward moments during Tuesday night’s performance. When a song finished and the hologram said “Thank you,” some audience members laughed, unsure of the appropriate response to a programmed event.

Orbison’s hologram wasn’t static during the concert. He turned to acknowledge the orchestra, though for most of the concert, he faced the audience. There were no dance moves. Organizers said that was typical of concerts Orbison did in his lifetime.

Sho Guo, 34, said she would have liked to see Orbison interact more with the audience. When people yelled “Encore!” Orbison didn’t acknowledge them.

“You don’t have that in the hologram,” Guo said.

I have very mixed emotions about this. It is encouraging to me that Alex Orbison, Roy Orbison’s son, was part of the project and approved of the project. However, I really wonder about how this type of concert blurs the line between reality and something that isn’t real. I am also concerned about what had to be the static nature of the concert. Artists in concert do not always follow the script, and that is part of what makes live concerts fun. It seems to me that a hologram concert would simply be like listening to the artist sing on a recording–it wouldn’t have the spark of life to it.

After saying that, I love Roy Orbison’s music, and I am willing to bet that even a hologram concert by Roy Orbison would be a really fantastic concert.

 

The Democrat Party Moves Further Left

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Yesterday The Los Angeles Times reported that California Democrat leaders have endorsed Kevin de León for Senate in a stinging rebuke of Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein. Senator Feinstein has been in the Senate since 1992. While some voters might see her an a poster child for term limits, she has been a mostly rational voice on the liberal side of the aisle during her time in the Senate. However, she has been rejected in favor of someone who has espoused views very much to the left of her views.

The article reports:

De León’s campaign has focused on the party’s energized liberal faction. He supports single-payer healthcare, aggressive goals for renewable energy and helped lead the successful effort to raise the state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour. He has criticized Feinstein, known for having moderate tendencies, for being too conciliatory toward Trump, such as when she urged people to have “patience” with the president last year.

Senator Feinstein needs to remember that today’s Democrat party does not allow ‘moderate tendencies.’ It will be interesting to see in November if Americans in states other than California approve of ‘moderate tendencies.’

Principles Die When Politics Enter The Picture

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Unfortunately the idea that principles die when politics enter the picture is true on both sides of the political aisle. However, every now and then an example of this concept occurs that is so blatant you have to wonder if anyone making the statements to the press is listening to themselves.

Newsbusters posted an article on Tuesday about the shutting down of the website Backpage. This is part of the war that President Trump has been waging against human trafficking since he took office. The media hasn’t said a lot about this, but good things are happening.

The story at Newsbusters reports:

Saturday was, as Katie Yoder at NewsBusters noted Tuesday afternoon, a “sad day.” That’s when the Women’s March sprang to the defense of Backpage.com, tweeting that its Friday seizure by the Justice Department “is an absolute crisis for sex workers.” In that same tweet, the group declared that “Sex workers rights are women’s rights.” Backpage and seven associated individuals were indicted Monday on charges relating to facilitating prostitution — including child prostitution conducted by human sex traffickers. Thus far, the establishment press has been almost unanimously running cover for the Women’s March by ignoring its disgraceful position.

According to the New York Times’s coverage of the the first Women’s March in January 2017, participants reportedly were there to “Protest Trump.” On the eve of that first march, a Times op-ed writer, who hoped that it “Could Resurrect the Democratic Party,” lamented that “Sex workers have rightly raised issues with its failure to meaningfully address their concerns.”

On April 7, The Los Angeles Times reported:

In the climax of a fight that pitted foes of sex trafficking against advocates of free internet speech, the Justice Department on Friday seized the Backpage.com website and raided the home of its cofounder.

…Congress moved to strip away that shield late last month with a measure to carve out an exception in the communications law after a high-volume political battle. When signed into law by President Trump, the measure will allow states to proceed against websites that knowingly assist or support sex trafficking.

Silicon Valley trade groups and free-speech advocates such as the ACLU fought the new measure, warning that it would create havoc by forcing companies to try to get a handle on wild online speech.

Sex workers have rights, and it’s wrong to interfere with websites that assist or support sex trafficking. What? I thought feminists were against women being sex objects. I admit I am somewhat unfamiliar with exactly how this whole things works, but it seems to me that a ‘woman of the night’ might actually be considered a sex object. Also, we used to have something called ‘community standards.’ Somehow I don’t think that freedom to promote sex trafficking would be included in those standards.

Thank you, President Trump, for dealing with the issue of sex trafficking. It has been going on in America (and worldwide) for a long time, and it is time someone stepped up to the plate and begin to deal with it.

 

Charles Krauthammer Had It Right

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The following is a quote from Charles Krauthammer in October of 2016:

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: This brings us back full circle to the beginning. The question was originally: Why did she have the private server? She said convenience, obviously that was ridiculous…

It was obvious she was hiding something.

And think about it, she set it up in 2009, before becoming Secretary of State. So, she anticipated having exchanges that she would not want anyone to see. So, we’ve been asking ourselves on this set for a year almost, what exactly didn’t she want people to see?

Well, now we know.

And as we speculated, the most plausible explanation was the rank corruption of the Clinton Foundation, and its corrupt — I don’t know if it’s illegal, but corrupt relationship with the State Department.

And her only defense as we saw earlier– the Democrats are saying, well, there was nothing she did… that was corrupted by donations. You can believe that if you want, but there’s a reason that people give donations in large amounts, and that’s to influence the outcome of decisions. So, this — we are getting unfolding to us, exactly what she anticipated having to hide, and it is really dirty business.

The quote was posted at Real Clear Politics.

This is a quote from then FBI Comey’s statement about Hillary Clinton’s emails. It is taken from the Los Angeles Times:

FBI investigators have also read all of the approximately 30,000 e-mails provided by Secretary Clinton to the State Department in December 2014. Where an e-mail was assessed as possibly containing classified information, the FBI referred the e-mail to any U.S. government agency that was a likely “owner” of information in the e-mail, so that agency could make a determination as to whether the e-mail contained classified information at the time it was sent or received, or whether there was reason to classify the e-mail now, even if its content was not classified at the time it was sent (that is the process sometimes referred to as “up-classifying”).

From the group of 30,000 e-mails returned to the State Department, 110 e-mails in 52 e-mail chains have been determined by the owning agency to contain classified information at the time they were sent or received. Eight of those chains contained information that was Top Secret at the time they were sent; 36 chains contained Secret information at the time; and eight contained Confidential information, which is the lowest level of classification. Separate from those, about 2,000 additional e-mails were “up-classified” to make them Confidential; the information in those had not been classified at the time the e-mails were sent.

The FBI also discovered several thousand work-related e-mails that were not in the group of 30,000 that were returned by Secretary Clinton to State in 2014. We found those additional e-mails in a variety of ways. Some had been deleted over the years and we found traces of them on devices that supported or were connected to the private e-mail domain. Others we found by reviewing the archived government e-mail accounts of people who had been government employees at the same time as Secretary Clinton, including high-ranking officials at other agencies, people with whom a Secretary of State might naturally correspond.

This helped us recover work-related e-mails that were not among the 30,000 produced to State. Still others we recovered from the laborious review of the millions of e-mail fragments dumped into the slack space of the server decommissioned in 2013.

With respect to the thousands of e-mails we found that were not among those produced to State, agencies have concluded that three of those were classified at the time they were sent or received, one at the Secret level and two at the Confidential level. There were no additional Top Secret e-mails found. Finally, none of those we found have since been “up-classified.”

The underline is mine.

Regardless of how you feel about Hillary Clinton, mishandling classified information is a crime that ordinary people go to jail for committing. If there are not consequences for breaking laws, why do we have those laws?

 

 

The Things Many Of Us Didn’t Know

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You can’t change history, and ‘what if’s’ are somewhat useless, but on February 4th, Larry Elder posted a very interesting article in the Toronto Sun. The article reveals one way the media bias in America has impacted our nation.

The article is titled, “Had the ‘news’ media done its job, Obama would not have become president.” That is a very interesting thought. I somewhat disagree in that I believe the media considered it their job to discredit anyone who said anything negative about then Senator Obama and acted accordingly–so in their minds they were doing their job.

The article reports the first obvious example of the media omitting something that might have been relevant:

A photojournalist withheld publication of a 2005 photograph of a smiling then-Sen. Barack Obama with a beaming Louis Farrakhan, the anti-Semitic, anti-white leader of the Nation of Islam.

The occasion was a meeting with the Congressional Black Caucus. The photographer, Askia Muhammad, said that almost immediately after he took the picture a CBC staffer called and said, “We have to have the picture back.”

Muhammad later surrendered the disk with the photo to Farrakhan’s chief of staff. “I gave the picture up at the time and basically swore secrecy,” Muhammad said in an interview with the Trice Edney News Wire. “But after the (presidential) nomination was secured and all the way up until the inauguration; then for eight years after he was President, it was kept under cover.”

…Harvard Law School professor emeritus and lifelong liberal Alan Dershowitz says he would not have campaigned for Obama had he been aware of this photograph. Dershowitz says: “Louis Farrakhan is a virulent anti-Semite. He’s called Judaism a ‘gutter religion.’ He’s anti-American. He is a horrible, horrible human being.

Example number two:

Obama’s longtime association with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright of Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ would likely have derailed his candidacy had media pounced on this as they did the Trump “Access Hollywood” tape. But for Fox News’ coverage of Wright and the videotapes of his fiery sermons, the other major media would have avoided or downplayed Obama’s 20-year association with a pastor who gave fiery sermons critical of America and who had a longtime friendship with Farrakhan.

Ezra Klein, then with The Washington Post, set up a private internet forum he called JournoList, which served as an online gathering place for several hundred like-minded (aka liberal) reporters. When the Jeremiah Wright scandal broke, several reporters on the “J-List” literally schemed of ways to deflect attention from the scandal.

Not an encouraging picture of a supposedly unbiased media.

The third example:

Then there’s the Los Angeles Times, which, to this day, has not and will not publish even a transcript of the “Khalidi tapes.” Rashid Khalidi, an Obama friend and a University of Chicago Palestinian-American professor of Middle East studies, had a going-away party to celebrate his new post at Columbia University. Someone gave the Los Angeles Times a videotape of this 2003 event that Obama attended, where he reminisced about their friendship in a tribute to the professor.

Khalidi was an outspoken supporter of Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Liberation Organization. But what he said and what others said at this farewell party, we will never know. Were attendees bashing Israel? Did Obama bash Israel? The Times says it promised the unnamed source who provided the videotape not to air or reproduce the tape. The paper, whose editorial board endorsed Obama, claims it simply kept its promise to a source. If a tape could have ended Trump’s 2016 campaign, would the LA Times, whose editorial board twice endorsed Obama and considered Trump a danger to the world, have sat on it?

Whether or not this information would have mattered to the voters is not clear. What is clear is that each one of these events was an indication of the policies Senator Obama would embrace as President. Under President Obama we had eight years of very strained relationships with a number of our allies–the Churchill bust that was sent back to England, and the horrific treatment of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during one of his visits when he was ignored then asked to leave by the back door of the White House are just two examples.

Under President Trump our relationship with Israel and Britain have improved. We are regaining the respect that our country lost under President Obama. We are no longer ‘leading from behind’ (which makes no sense anyway), but taking our place in the family of nations as a supporter of freedom and a voice for the exploited.

Things Just Got Murkier

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Yesterday The Washington Examiner posted an article by Byron York about General Michael Flynn.

The article reports:

There was also a lot of concern in Congress, at least among Republicans, about the leak of the wiretapped Flynn-Kislyak conversation. Such intelligence is classified at the highest level of secrecy, yet someone — Republicans suspected Obama appointees in the Justice Department and intelligence community — revealed it to the press.

So in March, lawmakers wanted Comey to tell them what was up. And what they heard from the director did not match what they were hearing in the media.

According to two sources familiar with the meetings, Comey told lawmakers that the FBI agents who interviewed Flynn did not believe that Flynn had lied to them, or that any inaccuracies in his answers were intentional. As a result, some of those in attendance came away with the impression that Flynn would not be charged with a crime pertaining to the Jan. 24 interview.

So what happened?

There seem to be some serious irregularities in the whole episode.

The article further reports:

It has sometimes been asked why Flynn, a man long familiar with the ways of Washington, would talk to the FBI without a lawyer. There seems to be no clear answer. On the one hand, as national security adviser, Flynn had plenty of reasons to talk to the FBI, and he could have reasonably thought the meeting would be about a prosaic issue involved in getting the new Trump National Security Council up and running. On the other hand, the media was filled with talk about the investigation into his conversations with Kislyak, and he might just as reasonably have thought that’s what the agents wanted to discuss. In any event, Flynn went ahead without an attorney present.

In addition, it appears the FBI did not tell White House officials, including the National Security Council’s legal adviser or the White House counsel, that agents were coming to interview the national security adviser over a potentially criminal matter.

On February 13th, General Flynn resigned as National Security Advisor after charges that he had lied to the FBI were leaked. General Flynn later pleaded guilty to Special Prosecutor Mueller’s charges of lying to the FBI on January 24th. The only way this makes sense is when you consider the financial and emotional cost of defending yourself against the government. This is particularly disturbing when the weight of the government is aimed at the destruction of one innocent person.

This is reminiscent of the tactics used against Billy Dale during the Clinton Administration. On November 17, 1995, The Los Angeles Times posted the following:

Billy R. Dale, a White House official fired for allegedly mismanaging staff and press travel arrangements, was acquitted Thursday by a federal court jury of charges that he embezzled $68,000.

Culminating a 13-day trial, jurors decided in less than two hours that federal prosecutors had failed to prove charges that Dale stole funds paid to his office by reporters and photographers who traveled with the President.

A White House employee for more than 30 years, Dale broke into tears as the verdict was announced.

Dale, 58, was at the center of a Clinton Administration travel office fiasco two years ago that resulted in seven employees being fired, and later in reprimands for those responsible for the dismissals.

The 1993 dismissals were inspired by complaints of mismanagement from Catherine Cornelius, a distant cousin of the President, and Hollywood producer Harry Thomason, a close friend of Clinton’s.

Cornelius wanted a more powerful job in the travel office, and Thomason was seeking a federal aviation contract.

There was no mention in the article of the financial and emotional toll this ordeal took on Billy Dale.

If we are going to end the government being used as a weapon against innocent Americans, we have to begin to send those guilty of doing the weaponization to jail.

General Flynn was charged after an illegal wiretap. The charges should not be against General Flynn–they should be against the people involved in the wiretap. If we want to see the misuse of the intelligence agencies end, the guilty parties have to go to jail–regardless of who they are.

Why Policy Matters

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The Los Angeles Times posted an article today about the stretch of wild brushland between the Rio Grande and the sprawling Texas border cities of Hidalgo and McAllen. That deserted piece of land was one a bustling crossing point for illegals coming into the United States. It is now very quiet.

The article reports:

Across the Southwest border, the number of immigrants caught crossing illegally into the United States has dropped dramatically. Fewer than 12,200 people were apprehended in March, a 64% decrease from the same time last year, and the lowest monthly number in at least 17 years.

…”We don’t really have a normal anymore,” said Castro, who has worked for Customs and Border Protection for nearly 20 years. She insists agents are not doing anything differently; the Trump administration’s executive orders are simply enforcing laws already on the books.

“Are you going to risk a 1,000-mile journey and pay $8,000 to be smuggled if you’re not sure you’ll get to stay?” Castro said, offering a reason she thinks fewer asylum seekers are crossing over. “I wouldn’t.”

Some of the reasons people are fleeing Mexico and countries south of there are the drug cartels and the gangs. It would make sense to work with some of the governments involved to clean up the drug cartels and the gangs. Unfortunately, that is very dangerous work, and the corruption runs deep. South American politicians who take on either the drug cartels or the gangs tend not to live very long. However, that is the answer. Ultimately, we need a wall to stop illegal immigration, but we also need a way to help stop the drug cartels and the gangs and to help the economies of our southern neighbors. We also need to understand that by not securing our borders, we are encouraging the drug cartels and the gangs to invade our country.

 

Why We Need Financial Accountability In Washington

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On Monday, The Los Angeles Times posted an article about the Pentagon‘s request that California members of the National Guard pay back their re-enlistment bonuses.

The article reports:

The California National Guard told the state’s members of Congress two years ago that the Pentagon was trying to claw back reenlistment bonuses from thousands of soldiers, and even offered a proposal to mitigate the problem, but Congress took no action, according to a senior National Guard official.

The official added that improper bonuses had been paid to National Guard members in every state, raising the possibility that many more soldiers may owe large debts to the Pentagon.

“This is a national issue and affects all states,” Andreas Mueller, the chief of federal policy for the California Guard, wrote in an email to the state’s congressional delegation Monday. Attention had focused on California because it was “the only state that audited” bonus payments at the height of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, he added.

In the email, Mueller reminded members of Congress that the Guard had informed them about the issue two years ago. Whether members of Congress understood the scope of the problem at the time is unclear.

Nothing like punishing the little people for the mistakes of the bureaucracy.

The article goes on to report the following:

Army Master Sgt. Toni Jaffe, the California Guard’s incentive manager, pleaded guilty in 2011 to filing false claims of $15.2 million and was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison. Three officers also pleaded guilty to fraud and were put on probation after paying restitution.

This is a disgrace. Promises were made, and even if those promises were made in error, they still need to be kept. To ask the members of the National Guard, who generally don’t earn much to begin with, to pay back thousands of dollars because the bureaucracy made a mistake is simply wrong. I also wonder why the California Congressional delegation chose to be quiet about the matter for two years.

The Crash Of ObamaCare

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On Monday The Washington Free Beacon posted an article about changes in ObamaCare.

The article reports:

Aetna, one of the largest health insurers in the United States, announced Monday it would be dropping out of 70 percent of the counties in which it offers coverage through Obamacare, also known as the Affordable Care Act.

According to Business Insider:

“The firm said that, after a review of its public health-exchange business, it determined that the nearly $200 million in pretax loss that it was sustaining on an annual basis was not worth the business.”

Aetna will continue to offer health care options through the public exchanges in Delaware, Iowa, Nebraska, and Virginia but its services have been reduced from 778 counties to 242.

UnitedHealth Care, another leading health insurer announced its decision to completely quit Obamacare by 2017 in April:

“Aetna’s and UnitedHealthcare’s decisions to scale back is problematic for customers because the number of insurers competing through the exchange is closely linked with the affordability of the plans.”

The collapse of ObamaCare is partially a result of the design of the program–it was designed to collapse so the Democrats could go to full government health insurance–and partially the result of the House of Representative refusing to fund reimbursements for insurance companies.

In May of this year, I reported:

Today The Los Angeles Times reported:

A federal judge ruled for House Republicans on Thursday in their suit against President Obama and declared his administration is unconstitutionally spending money to reimburse health insurers without obtaining an appropriation from Congress.

The judge’s ruling, though a setback for the administration, was put on hold immediately and stands a good chance of being overturned on appeal.

In North Carolina, there will only be one health insurance company left that will be operating through the ObamaCare health exchange. Stay tuned. The rise in ObamaCare premiums in most states is going to astronomical.

 

The Face Of Sharia Law

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The Los Angeles Times is reporting today that Waseem Azeem, brother of slain Pakistani model Qandeel Baloch, has confessed to killing his sister for the sake of the family’s honor.

The article reports:

Baloch, who had become a social media celebrity in recent months, stirred controversy by posting pictures online taken with a prominent Muslim cleric. She was found dead Saturday at her family home in the central city of Multan.

Police arrested her brother, Waseem Azeem, and presented him before the media in Multan, where he confessed to killing her. He said that people had taunted him over the photos and that he found the social embarrassment unbearable. 

“I was determined either to kill myself or kill her,” Azeem told the Associated Press as he was being led away. 

He said that even though Baloch was the main breadwinner for the family, he slipped her sedatives the night before and then strangled her in her sleep. 

According to the tenets of Islam, what he did was perfectly acceptable.

The article further reports:

Nearly 1,000 women are killed in Pakistan each year for violating conservative norms on love and marriage. The so-called “honor killings” often are carried out by family members. 

Such killings are considered murder. But Islamic law in Pakistan allows a murder victim’s family to pardon the killer, which often allows those convicted of honor killings to escape punishment. 

Islamic law is Sharia Law. This is what many Muslims want to introduce into our courts to supersede the U.S. Constitution. Sharia Law and the U.S. Constitution are totally incompatible–the U.S. Constitution protects freedom of speech and freedom of religion, neither of which are acceptable in Sharia Law. In Sharia Law, freedom of speech is defined as the right to express any opinion freely in such manner as would not be contrary to the principles of the Shari’ah. It is also defined as the right to advocate what is right, and propagate what is good, and warn against what is wrong and evil according to the norms of Islamic Shari’ah. Free speech is allowed as long as it agrees with Shariah. Anything negative about Mohammad or any picture of Mohammad are not allowed. We need to make sure that anyone who comes to America is willing to live under the U.S. Constitution. If they are not, we need to send them home.

Common Sense Rears Its Head

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Breitbart.com posted an article today about a Los Angeles Times reporter who was surprised to find Latinos who are supporting Donald Trump for President. Robin Abcarian attended a Donald Trump rally in Fresno, California, and was surprised to find Latino supporters of Trump there.

The article reports:

It turns out that many of them are American citizens or legal immigrants who care about the country’s borders, and share the same views as fellow conservatives Republicans on a variety of issues.

His rhetoric about Mexicans doesn’t bother you, I asked?

“It’s about illegal aliens!” Jennings said. “Mom and I can’t go to Canada and just squat and get benefits. We couldn’t go to Mexico either without the proper paperwork. They’d put us in jail!”

…

“I’m Mexican,” Aderhold said, “and I understand that Mexicans do the farm labor, but there are a lot of legal ones. That’s how they should do it, the way my parents did.”

Note that these people were here legally. The people who have come to America legally do not want to see our borders erased–they want other people to stand in line and do things legally as they did. It is not a surprise to hear that many of them are supporting Donald Trump.

Is This Important? Why Or Why Not?

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I have actually attempted to avoid writing about Hillary Clinton’s emails. However, when new information comes out, I feel obligated to say something. One recent bit of new information is the State Department Inspector General‘s report on Secretary of State Clinton’s email server.

On Wednesday, The Los Angeles Times posted an article about Mrs. Clinton’s email server that included the following:

Clinton has long said she used a personal email server solely as a matter of “convenience.” But the result wasn’t very convenient; because of State Department spam filters, Clinton’s emails weren’t getting through to her own department. According to the report, when an aide proposed giving her a government email address, Clinton agreed, but added: “I don’t want any risk of the personal being accessible.”

Clinton has emphasized that the law did not prohibit her from using personal email for official business – and that’s true. But the inspector general notes that State Department rules required her to get permission to use a personal server, and she never complied.

And Clinton has said she turned over all her business-related emails as soon as the State Department asked for them. The inspector general says her submission of documents was “incomplete” and later than the law requires.

On May 28, The Washington Post reported:

Clinton initially sought to downplay the report as old news. “It’s the same story,” she told Univision anchor Maria Elena Salinas. “Just like previous secretaries of state, I used a personal email. Many people did. It was not at all unprecedented.

Except that it was. While other secretaries of state had used personal email addresses, none of them had exclusively done so. And as Helderman and Hamburger noted, the State Department IG report scolded Clinton not only for using the email address exclusively but also for slow-walking the release of those emails to the State Department.

Judicial Watch recently posted a download of an education panel they hosted on March 23 about Hillary Clinton’s emails. Judicial Watch is an organization that has been working toward more transparent government for a number of years. They have held both Republican and Democratic administrations accountable. Their panel included Jason Leopold, an investigative reporter for Vice News, Joe diGenova, attorney and former U.S. attorney, Dan Metcalfe, head of the Collaboration on Government Secrecy for the AU law school; a non-partisan educational project devoted to openness in government, freedom of information, government transparency, and a study of government secrecy in the United States and internationally, Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, and Michael Bekesha, an attorney for Judicial Watch.

The report is twenty-four pages long. Here is one excerpt:

Joe diGenova stated: 

I believe Mrs. Clinton decided from the beginning of her tenure as a constitutional officer — she is a constitutional officer — that she would procure a server with the assistance of the State Department, including having them install it in her home in Chappaqua. When she did that, Chappaqua became the State Department. Those records were in fact in the possession of the United States government at that point. I am going to be fascinated by the argument she is going to make that they were not. She moved the secretary’s office from Foggy Bottom to Chappaqua. There is simply no disputing that. She made a decision that her business would be conducted on that server. That was her decision. It wasn’t anybody else’s decision. When she did that, she transferred federal records into that house and into that server. They may very well argue whatever they want to argue about it, but I think they are going to have a really tough time convincing anybody those were not government records from day one in her possession in that place. What is crucial, is that nobody knows what she ordered deleted. Her representations are irrelevant. They mean nothing. They are of limited evidentiary value, given the scheme that was worked out here to deny access and to deny information.

It does matter that Mrs. Clinton used a private server. The server was not encrypted, and many people who understand computers have stated that it would have been very easy to hack into that server. On May 25th, NBC News reported that Guccifer, a known hacker, claimed that he had broken into Mrs. Clinton’s server. That has not yet been proven, so we will wait for further news.

If you check the sources on this story, you will see that this is not simply the right-wing press reporting on Hillary Clinton’s emails. There is a genuine problem here, and the truth matters. This story shouldn’t be about the election, but because Mrs. Clinton is running for President, it seems to be that way. The story is actually about whether or not all Americans are treated equally under the law. Whether or not that is true remains to be seen.

 

Effectively Using The Power Of The Purse

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Theoretically, the House of Representatives can limit executive power by using its control of the purse strings. According to the U.S. Constitution, the government cannot spend money unless that spending is authorized by the House of Representatives. We haven’t seen the House of Representatives use that power as much as I would have liked under the Obama Administration, but the power is there. In fact, there was one recent incident where the House of Representatives successfully used that power.

In October I posted a story about the Obama Administration attempting to spend money that was not allocated by Congress. At issue were payments to insurance companies to alleviate their losses under Obama.

As reported by the Daily Signal in October:

In January, Sessions’ committee and the House Energy and Commerce Committee had identified that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) lacked an appropriation for bailing out insurance companies through the risk corridors. They asked the Government Accountability Office to look into the matter. That September, the GAO issued its legal opinion: the administration would need an appropriation from Congress to make outgoing payments.

Today The Los Angeles Times reported:

A federal judge ruled for House Republicans on Thursday in their suit against President Obama and declared his administration is unconstitutionally spending money to reimburse health insurers without obtaining an appropriation from Congress.

The judge’s ruling, though a setback for the administration, was put on hold immediately and stands a good chance of being overturned on appeal.

The ruling upholds the Constitution, why would it be overturned on appeal?

The article at The Los Angeles Times reports:

The Constitution says “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law,” said Judge Rosemary Collyer, yet the administration has continued to pay billions to insurers for their extra cost of providing coverage for low-income Americans.

“Paying out Sec. 1402 reimbursements without an appropriation thus violates the Constitution,” she wrote. “Congress is the only source for such an appropriation, and no public money can be spent without one.”

Stay tuned to see if the Constitution will be upheld.

Fast And Furious Shows Up Again

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Yesterday Katie Pavlich posted an article at Townhall.com about the shooting in Texas at a Mohammed cartoon contest. Nadir Soofi and Elton Simpson were the two gunmen who carried out the attack, after driving from Phoenix, Arizona, to Garland, Texas.

The article reports:

It turns out Soofi purchased his gun under the Holder Justice Department’s Operation Fast and Furious back in 2010. As a reminder, Operation Fast and Furious was a program that ran from 2009-2010 in which federal agents purposely allowed the sale of thousands of weapons, including handguns, AK-47s and .50-caliber rifles, to known drug cartels. Agents deliberately allowed weapons to be trafficked and lost in Mexico.

On Saturday, The Los Angeles Times reported some of the details of the gun purchase:

Five years before he was shot to death in the failed terrorist attack in Garland, Texas, Nadir Soofi walked into a suburban Phoenix gun shop to buy a 9-millimeter pistol.

At the time, Lone Wolf Trading Co. was known among gun smugglers for selling illegal firearms. And with Soofi’s history of misdemeanor drug and assault charges, there was a chance his purchase might raise red flags in the federal screening process.

Inside the store, he fudged some facts on the form required of would-be gun buyers.

What Soofi could not have known was that Lone Wolf was at the center of a federal sting operation known as Fast and Furious, targeting Mexican drug lords and traffickers. The idea of the secret program was to allow Lone Wolf to sell illegal weapons to criminals and straw purchasers, and track the guns back to large smuggling networks and drug cartels.

Instead, federal agents lost track of the weapons and the operation became a fiasco, particularly after several of the missing guns were linked to shootings in Mexico and the 2010 killing of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in Arizona.

Soofi’s attempt to buy a gun caught the attention of authorities, who slapped a seven-day hold on the transaction, according to his Feb. 24, 2010, firearms transaction record, which was reviewed by the Los Angeles Times. Then, for reasons that remain unclear, the hold was lifted after 24 hours, and Soofi got the 9-millimeter.

As the owner of a small pizzeria, the Dallas-born Soofi, son of a Pakistani American engineer and American nurse, would not have been the primary focus of federal authorities, who back then were looking for smugglers and drug lords.

He is now.

The Fast and Furious Program has fallen out of the national spotlight. However, the consequences of the poor judgement exercised in the conception of that program is still with us. It is ironic that a poorly conceived program to capture drug lords would be used by terrorists to push forward their agenda.

 

Hoisted On Their Own Petard?

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Yesterday the Los Angeles Times reported that Los Angeles labor leaders, who recently supported a minimum wage increase approved last week by the Los Angeles City Council, are now asking for changes in the law that would exempt companies whose workforces are unionized.

The article reports:

For much of the past eight months, labor activists have argued against special considerations for business owners, such as restaurateurs, who said they would have trouble complying with the mandated pay increase.

But Rusty Hicks, who heads the county Federation of Labor and helps lead the Raise the Wage coalition, said Tuesday night that companies with workers represented by unions should have leeway to negotiate a wage below that mandated by the law.

“With a collective bargaining agreement, a business owner and the employees negotiate an agreement that works for them both. The agreement allows each party to prioritize what is important to them,” Hicks said in a statement. “This provision gives the parties the option, the freedom, to negotiate that agreement. And that is a good thing.”

Laws for thee, but not for me. If a unionized company can be exempt in order to stay in business, why can’t a non-unionized restaurant be exempt?

The Council voted to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2020. The increase in the minimum wage will be a problem for both restaurants and fast food places. The increase will also pose a problem for other small businesses.