Author: Michael Rushford

Making the Case Against Gascón

The following is a letter by Councilmember James R. Bozajian from the Los Angeles County city of Calabasas.  Hat tip to the LA’s Association of Deputy District Attorneys:

I am in receipt of your recent letter, inviting the Calabasas City Council to meet with you to discuss your vision for the District Attorney’s Office. For the following reasons, I must decline your request.

On the very day you assumed office, you announced a series of “reforms” seemingly designed with precision to turn the District Attorney’s Office upside-down. Your actions since then have only aggravated the negative effects of these ill-conceived measures.

You enacted these draconian policies without soliciting input from law enforcement, public officials, the general public, or even your own (experienced) prosecutors. Instead, you relied exclusively upon a cadre of hostile, extreme partisans whose sole objectives appear to have been to defund, demolish, and destroy our criminal justice system.

The ultimate result of which, simply put, is that Los Angeles County has become a vastly more dangerous place to live since you became its chief prosecutor

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Transgender Inmates Impregnate Two Women in New Jersey Prison

The suspicion that some prison inmates identify as women in order to get into a women’s prison where they can receive better living conditions and access to women has, once again, proven true.   As reported by Andrea Blanco of the Daily Mail, an investigation has been launched after two women inmates in New Jersey’s only all-women’s prison became pregnant after having sex with transgender inmates.  Last year, the prison started housing former male inmates who now identify as woman and to date 27 transgenders are residing in the 800 inmate facility.  This policy was adopted to settle an ACLU lawsuit against New Jersey claiming that preventing transgender criminals from serving their sentences in a women’s prison constituted discrimination.  ACLU Legal Director Jeanne LoCicero told reporters, “It’s in line with New Jersey’s strong anti-discrimination laws that prevent discrimination and harassment on the basis of gender identity.”   A Department of Corrections spokesperson said that the pregnant inmates engaged in sex with the transgender inmates voluntarily.   Last year a lawsuit was filed by two woman inmates seeking a ruling to revoke the policy citing sexual activity between female and transgender inmates.  More to come….no pun intended.

It’s The Weak Sentencing Stupid

New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced today that she is “sick and tired of reading headlines about crime,” in the wake of this morning’s Brooklyn subway shootings and bombing that injured at least 16 commuters.  Last week, after 18 people were shot with 6 killed at a shooting in downtown Sacramento,  California Governor Gavin Newsom told reporters “Sadly, we once again mourn the lives lost and for those injured in yet another horrendous act of gun violence.”  Yesterday, President Biden announced that his administrations effort to combat the nation’s unprecedented spike in violent crime was going to be a crack down on gun kits assembled at home called “ghost guns.”  At a press conference the President told reporters “These guns are weapons of choice for many criminals, we’re going to do everything we can to deprive them of that choice.”   These politicians either don’t know or don’t care about the real reason crime and violence has increased in New York, California, and dozens of other states across the country.  It is not the availability of firearms, most of which used in crimes are stolen.  It is the criminals that are shooting the firearms, left free on the streets by so-called compassionate sentencing reforms adopted by Congress, many state legislatures and even state voters through misleading ballot measures.

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Candidates for LA Mayor Divided on Policing

As the Los Angeles mayor’s race starts heating up, one of the top issues is restoring the Los Angeles Police Department, which suffered $150 million in cuts made by Mayor Eric Garcetti and the woke city council in June of 2020.  Some may recall news video of Garcetti kneeling with Black Lives Matter protesters the day before the vote.  Soledad Ursúa of the City Journal reports that while the City Council told the public that the funds from the cuts would be reinvested in non-white and disadvantaged communities, city officials later reported back that the money was being earmarked for street sweeping, tree trimming, storm drains, speed bumps and other services unrelated to the disadvantaged or reducing crime.  In the eighteen months since the cuts were made Los Angeles has suffered an unprecedented rise in murders, assaults, carjackings, commercial and residential burglaries.  With this crime spike and the police-officer-to-citizen ratio in Los Angeles now roughly half of that of Chicago or New York City,  the candidates for Mayor are being asked how they would address the issue if elected.

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Sacramento Shooting Was Gang Related

The April 3 mass shooting in downtown Sacramento, which left six dead and at twelve wounded, was between two street gangs according to local police.  NBC News reports that the two suspects tied to the shooting were both habitual felons, one of which was granted early release from state prison in February.   In custody are Dandrae Martin, released from an Arizona prison in 2020 for aggravated assault, and his brother Smiley Martin, released to probation after serving three years and four months of a ten year sentence for two counts of felony assault.  Last May Sacramento District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert’s office appealed to the state Parole Board urging them not to release Smiley, whom, based upon his record, presented a “significant, unreasonable risk of safety to the community.”   The Board denied release at that time, then nine months later, the Department of Corrections  announced that he had accumulated enough “good time” credits to be released after serving less than half of his sentence.  Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg told reporters that he had “serious questions” about why the brothers “were out on the streets.”  Here’s the answer Mayor…you supported the sentencing reforms (AB109, Proposition 47 and Proposition 57, that gutted laws increasing confinement and punishing parole violations of habitual criminals.  You can pass all the gun-control measures you want, but Dandrae and Smiley, and others like them are going acquire weapons and hurt people so long as state law leaves them on the streets.

BLM Bought $6 Million Mansion With Contributions

Five months after the death of drug-addict and habitual felon George Floyd, the racial activist group Black Lives Matter (BLM) secretly purchased a 6,500 sq. ft. Southern California mansion with $6 million in funds contributed to fight racism.  The purchase, reported by Joshua Rhett Mills of the New York Post,  was arranged by Dyane Pascall, the financial manager of a consulting firm managed by BLM founder Patrisse Cullors and her spouse.  Within a week, ownership of the six-bedroom, six bathroom home was transferred to a Delaware LLC, ensuring the property’s owner would be kept secret.  In a video recorded in June 2021, Cullors, Alicia Garza and Melina Abdullah, the leaders of BLM, are seen toasting the first anniversary of George Floyd’s death with champagne on the patio of the mansion.  In the video Cullors complained about last year’s New York Post disclosure of her purchase of four homes, allegedly with contributions.  “It’s because we are threatening the establishment, we’re threatening white supremacy,” she said.   One wonders if Target, Facebook, Walmart, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Square, Etsy, Levis, Gap, Nike, MacDonalds, Wendys, Coca-Cola, Peloton and liberal billionaires that contributed millions to BLM will ever acknowledge that they were hustled by a group of race-baiting  thieves.

Sacramento Mayor Gets the Recognition He Deserves

Sacramento made national headlines on April 3, after eighteen people were shot with six killed around 2:00 AM at a popular downtown district known for its nightlife.  Police are investigating security video showing a fight breaking out on a crowded street in front of a nightclub before multiple shooters began firing into the crowd.  The Sacramento Bee reports that one stolen handgun was found at the scene but no suspects have been identified.  As noted by Katy Grimes of the California Globe both Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg and California Governor Gavin Newsom blamed the shootings on the guns rather than the criminals who fired them.  “Rising gun violence is the scourge of our city, state and nation,” tweeted the Mayor.  “Sadly, we once again mourn the lives lost and for those injured in yet another horrendous act of gun violence,” said Newsom.  I am guessing that when suspects are arrested, we will learn that it is the criminal justice reform policies that Steinberg and Newsom supported that allowed the shooters to stay on the streets and gun down the victims last weekend.

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Facing Recall, LADA Gascón Adjusts Policy on Juvenile Murderers

National media coverage in February of a transgender child molester set to be released after serving as little as six months under Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón’s  blanket “youth justice” policy has induced the progressive DA to admit that the policy might not be appropriate for all offenders.  Marjorie Hernandez of the New York Post reports that Hanna Tubbs, was James Tubbs in 2014 when he followed a 10-year-old girl into a woman’s restroom at a Denny’s restaurant and molested her.  Tubbs was two weeks shy of his 18th birthday at the time, which qualified him as a juvenile.   After he was arrested six years later on an Idaho battery charge, his DNA tied him to the molestation.  After his arrest Tubbs began to identify as a woman.   Because of his age at the time of the crime,  under Gascón’s policy, he/she could not be tried in adult court.  As a result, Tubbs plead guilty in juvenile court and will likely serve six months of a two year sentence in a juvenile treatment facility for young woman.

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Mayor Adams to “Sort of” Restore Broken Windows Policing

Running for mayor last year in crime-besieged New York City, former police captain Eric Adams promised that if elected he would restore the plainclothes anti-crime unit shut down by his predecessor Mayor de Bill Blasio.  This was quite a gamble, even for a black man running for Mayor in the ultra-liberal big apple, which is the national headquarters for the woke media and race-baiting activists.  But practically every day for the past two years Americans have watched news video of New Yorkers being sucker-punched, attacked with clubs, knives and guns on crowded streets in broad daylight.  The rapes and beatings in subway cars, stairwells and parks…commuters pushed in front of subway trains….and folks being carjacked and occasionally killed by groups of thugs, including teenagers, must have helped tip the scales in favor of Adams.   After he took office, while crime continued to escalate in his city, Adams waited two and a half months to actually put a watered-down version of the promised unit back on the streets.  This time the officers would be in uniform, and there would be no stop, question and frisking of suspects.  In today’s environment, gang members will spot these officers and tweet their location to their colleagues.  Probably on stolen smartphones.

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The Crime Epidemic in Larry Krasner’s Philadelphia

Crime is out of control in Philadelphia.  There were 562 homicides last year, twice as many than eight years ago, and homicides have increased by 19% so far this year.  The city’s Police Commissioner reports that last year’s 750 carjackings were triple the number in 2019.   For perspective, New York City, which has more than five times the population of Philadelphia, had 485 homicides and 510 carjackings last year.   A data snapshot from last year indicates that police arrested only 31% of the Philadelphia’s murderers, 14% of criminals who shot people,  and 11% of those committing property crimes.  “Far too many in our city think that it’s open season to commit crime here in Philadelphia,” said the Police Commissioner.  They think it’s open season because it is open season.

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