Anti-Game Violence Crusader Leland Yee Arrested On Charges Of Bribery, Corruption And Arms Trafficking
from the and-you're-the-guy-pushing-a-moral-superiority? dept
Well, I'd like to say this is ironic, but it isn't anything of the sort, although it does carry with it a little bit of schadenfreude. Leland Yee, a longtime combatant of free speech (via his attempts to regulate the sales of violent videogames), has been arrested for bribery and corruption charges.
California State Senator Leland Yee (D), a driving force behind California's legislative efforts to restrict minors' access to violent video games, has been arrested on charges of bribery and corruption, according to numerous local media reports.As more new came out, the story got even more ridiculous as the politician who was so against video game violence is also charged with arms trafficking. Fake guns? Ban 'em! Real guns? Let's get down to business!
Yee, who is running for California Secretary of State, saw his office raided by FBI agents this morning in service of multiple arrest and search warrants, according to San Francisco's KCRA. The raid follows a grand jury indictment of Yee, as reported by San Francisco's ABC7. Sacramento's Fox 40 reports that concurrent, related raids are being conducted on Chinatown locations with possible drug connections.
Yee and an intermediary allegedly met repeatedly with an undercover FBI agent, soliciting campaign contributions in exchange for setting up a deal with international arms dealers.At this point, all wrongdoing is still alleged (including possible ties to drug dealers) and, it must be noted, this is based on a grand jury indictment, something often entirely unrelated to any actual evidence of wrongdoing.
At their first face-to-face meeting in January, "Senator Yee explained he has known the arms dealer for a number of years and has developed a close relationship with him," an FBI affidavit says, noting Yee told the agent the arms dealer "has things that you guys want."
Still, if you're someone who actively strives to regulate the moral choices made by your constituents, you had better make sure your own life is damn near spotless. And let's not forget that Yee spent nearly $2 million in taxpayer funds fighting for the government's "right" to regulate speech. This is its own form of abuse, one that no legislator ever seems to be punished for: riding political hobby horses at the expense of a public that is broadly opposed to the legislation being pursued.
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Filed Under: arms trafficking, bribery, california, corruption, leland yee, video games, violence
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Response to: Tom Landry on Mar 27th, 2014 @ 3:22am
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win-win
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Re:
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Judge not, lest ye be judged.
For with what judgement ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.
It's nothing more than a warning to pursue Justice with Faith and Mercy in your judgements for righteous people, BUT a dire warning for Hypocrites!
I tired of people using it to push the idea that people should not judge. People definitely should judge... but should do so fairly and to recuse themselves of making judgements in cases where they themselves have conflict of interest, or are guilty of the same as well!
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Go troll some Yahoo Answers/Youtube comments...
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Oddly enoughm I was making a bad pun, but so bee it.
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Any control freakery is bad, unwarranted control freakery is really bad.
And no, protecting people from harm isn't control freakery, if used with some discretion and sense. The problem is the absolutism, and too much or not enough regard for other peoples' rights.
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$5 says he was playing GTA when the cops came in
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Re: $5 says he was playing GTA when the cops came in
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Hold up
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Re: Hold up
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Ha, arms dealing...
A link to the complaint here: http://media.nbcbayarea.com/documents/complaint_affidavit_14-70421-nc.pdf
Thus the gun charge is particularly amusing, basically its setting up a deal (in return for a campaign contribution) with a gun importer.
[1] Namely, in CA, "Assault weapon" is defined as a rifle with "removable magazine + 1 scary looking feature (pistol grip, flash suppressor, adjustable stock, etc)".
So someone came up with the "Bullet button": a magazine release that requires a tool, so its no longer removable, and a legal limit of 10 round magazines.
Now these are great: The gun-types can have their ARs with all the features they think are so cool, they are great home defense guns (far better than a pistol or a shotgun: 5.56 breaks apart much easier in walls and is much more accurate), yet they, well, can't be quickly reloaded!
So its perfect: The tacticool guys get their tacticool shit, people who want a home defense gun get 10 easy to hit with, break-apart-in-walls shots, but the crazy-wakko-spree-killers are SOL. And the gangbangers always used pistols: its hard to stick an AR down your pants.
Yet Senator Yee viewed this as a "loophole" and has been fighting it for years. He and a couple of colleagues got a sweeping "assault weapon" ban passed that would reclassify effectively EVERY rifle as an "assault weapon"! (It was so bad that Governor Brown actually vetoed it!).
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Re: Ha, arms dealing...
If you think passing a law is going to stop people who have already proven they are willing to break the law, you sir are horribly sadly mistaken.
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Time would be far better focused on solving the issues that lead to gun violence, rather than trying to limit anything related to guns. Limiting guns hurts the 99% of guns owners who have done and will do nothing wrong with them.
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Time would be far better focused on solving the issues that leads to labels stealing, rather than trying to limit anything related to DL's. Limiting DL's hurts the 99% of fans who have done and will do nothing wrong with them.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Ha, arms dealing...
And while I was drawing attention to the idea that nobody would want to ban cars, I would find it amusing to attempt to ban labels to save the artists. =)
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I know a handful of people who seriously want to ban cars.
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I'd love to ban cars. However, the problem is that like everything else, the lawyers would get involved and draft exceptions to the ban, and then the only thing left would be a ban on cars for me. Which actually wouldn't be bad if my employer would remove the stupid ban on telework that only bans me from working at home.
In seriousness though, banning anything is never the solution to anything. I wish the politicians would get the picture. There is never a worthwhile 100% solution to any problem that involves banning. I would love to use iodine to sanitize my carboys, but the government has seriously reduced the amount of iodine I can purchase to sanitize stuff because I could possibly use it to manufacture meth, even though I don't. But yet, the guys who make meth have no problem accessing iodine. Same is true with guns, cars, and everything else. If we could somehow convince the government to make a ban on banning things, I would be a very happy camper.
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Uh, how so? I was offered pot several times in high school in the 10th grade. By other 10th graders. This in a small town, not a big city. So no, laws do not erect such barriers. They only define logical boundaries and provide punishment for those who cross those boundaries.
Much like a cop is really just an historian. They show up after the crime, take notes and pictures, ask some questions and hopefully, eventually catch the perpetrator of the crime. They do not, in fact, protect you. Not that they wouldn't if they could, but the can't so they don't.
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Laws can certainly reduce easy access. Prohibition doesn't work well to accomplish this, but reasonable regulation certainly can.
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It is available, as I acknowledged, but not nearly as easily as pot is.
"I have no idea why you think illegal stuff is or will ever be hard to get"
I have no idea why you think that I think what you think I do. I never said making things illegal makes them hard to get. I explicitly said that prohibition completely fails at this and that regulation can reduce easy access. The contrast between pot (trivially available) and alcohol (available, but with much more hassle) illustrates this.
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This is entirely false. How can something being outlawed completely make it easy to get and something being regulated is harder to get? That argument fails the logic test.
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In any case, there's a nice logical reason why this is true. I'll walk you through it. First, we have to correct your statement a little. I'm not talking about easy or hard to get for everybody, I'm talking about easy or hard to get for certain subgroups (in this case, children).
The answer is the black market. You can buy pot everywhere because there is a heavy, nationwide demand for it but it isn't (outside of two places) legal. In that environment, the black market has taken up the job of filling the demand. The black market doesn't care who their customers are. It will sell to anybody with the cash.
Alcohol, however, is legal and regulated. The heavy demand for it is met through legal channels, so the black market can't grow to any significant size. Regulations help to discourage the sales of alcohol to subgroups that society has decided shouldn't have it (children). If you are a child, you can't buy booze readily because there is a minimal black market for booze and the legitimate booze sellers won't generally sell to children because they'd be kicked out of the market.
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People don't want 30 round magazines, AR-15's, and easily interchangeable magazines because they are "tacticool"... they want them because they are effective in protecting their families.
If 3 people came in armed to rob your house or even just 2, then would 10 rounds be enough to engage all the targets.
In the end, this story shows us that only law abiding people obey the law, and that criminals will always get illegal items (drugs, weapons, etc.). Why do we let these government criminals consistently handcuff us and take away our rights? Safety? Security? They have proven failures at both and show that they are only concerned with lining their own pockets.
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Once the gunfight has started, regardless of whether I come out on top or not, I've lost more than I'm willing to lose.
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Just one thing...
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Well, I suppose there is a pretty good chance that the FBI initiated the meetings, set up fake arms dealers, and possibly installed Yee in office as a puppet so they would have someone they could dup into this so they could arrest him - to stop terrorism.
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Terrorism?
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Re: Terrorism?
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See page 83 and 84...
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"As more new came out"
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So
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If Yee is actually associated with Raymond Chow, it's probably safe to assume there's some truth in the indictment.
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Indictment is Really a Movie outline
http://www.sfgate.com/file/757/757-complaint_affidavit_14-70421-nc.pdf
It reads like an outline for a crime novel. Its well written and engrossing.
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