Monthly Archive: February 2022

Wealthy Hollywood Liberals Funding Gascón Recall

by · Feb 8, 2022 2:36 pm

In 2019 rich liberals, most of whom do not live in Southern California, including George Soros (New York), Patty Quillin  & husband Reed Hastings (San Francisco), Elizabeth Simons (San Francisco), M. Quinn Delaney (Oakland), Cari Tuna (San Francisco), Susan Pritzker (Oakland), Kaitlyn Krieger ( San Francisco), Nicole Shanahan (San Francisco), Dorianna Blitt (New York), Anne Devereux (New York), and Anne Rosenbaum Irwin (San Francisco), gave $12.4 million to George Gascón’s campaign for Los Angeles District Attorney.  Immediately after taking office, Gascón announced that he would not be prosecuting most property and drug criminals and that most arrestees would be released without bail. He also pledged to seek the shortest sentences possible for criminals convicted in Los Angeles County, including murderers, rapists and other violent offenders.  While progressive state sentencing reforms (read reductions) along with Governor Newsom’s pandemic emergency orders for inmate releases and zero bail had been fueling crime increases before Gascón was elected, his new policies exacerbated this trend.  The Los Angeles County Sheriff reports that homicides increased by 94% and auto thefts by 59% over the past two years.  News footage of the daily “smash and grab” robberies across LA and the recent Beverly Hills home invasion and murder of liberal philanthropist Jaqueline Avant and the brutal killing of UCLA student Brianna Kupfer in exclusive Hancock Park, both by habitual felons, was a reality check for LA area liberals.

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Mike Pence Stands Up for the Rule of Law in Federalist Society Speech

by · Feb 4, 2022 7:33 pm

Like most Vice Presidents, Mike Pence was loyal to his superior while in office.  Of late, former President Trump and some of his more extreme allies have been touting the notion, hatched a bit more than a year ago, that Pence should have either refused to count the electoral votes that put Joe Biden in the White House, or have simply “counted” them in a way where Trump would have come out ahead.  Whether or not one views the last Presidential election as having had its episodes of fraud (what national election hasn’t to some degree?), there is no reasonable way to view that stance as consistent with the rule of law, or as anything but a dangerous deviation of how we do things in this country.

Today, speaking at the Federalist Society, Mike Pence gave his answer.  The Washington Post has the story.

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In California, Blanket Nonenforcement Policies Are Unconstitutional

by · Feb 4, 2022 11:39 am

Progressive California District Attorneys who have chosen not to prosecute offenders who commit so called “low level” crimes are violating the state Constitution according to Hasting’s law professor Zachary Price.  In a piece published in SCOCA blog, a joint project of the U.C. Berkeley and Hastings Schools of Law, Professor Price asserts that while district attorneys such as San Francisco’s Chesa Boudin and Los Angeles DA George Gascón ran for office promising not to prosecute drug users and small-time dealers, trespassers, shoplifters, traffic offenders and those resisting arrest among others, the state constitution

specifically limits local district attorney discretion by imposing an affirmative duty on California’s attorney general “to see that the laws of the State are uniformly and adequately enforced.” And although state law provides for elected district attorneys in each county and obligates them to “attend the courts, and within his or her discretion . . . initiate and conduct on behalf of the people all prosecutions for public offenses,” the state constitution requires supersession of local prosecutorial functions when the attorney general determines that local enforcement is inadequate.

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CA Law Authorizes Biased Jurors

by · Feb 3, 2022 10:02 am

A California law which took effect in January prohibits prosecutors from removing people who are biased against police officers from juries in criminal trials.  The California jury selection process in criminal cases allows the prosecutor and the defense attorney 10 peremptory challenges for most felony trials, and 20 each for capital cases.  Prior law allowed these challenges to be exercised for any reason other than solely on the potential juror’s race, which is unconstitutional.  AB 3070 Weber (D Los Angeles) signed into law by Governor Newsom in September of 2020, prohibits the use of a peremptory challenge to remove a juror who considers police and/or the criminal justice system racist.  The law also supports objections by defense attorneys if the prosecutor challenges potential jurors who are inattentive, incoherent or threatening.  In a courtroom with a impartial judge who allows a challenge to a gang member who admits that he hates cops, the removal of the gang member from the jury will now become grounds for appeal.  The law does not prevent defense attorneys from removing potential jurors who express support for law enforcement or have friends or relatives who are police officers, prosecutors or judges, or who have been victims of crime.  Essentially Governor Newsom has approved a law that eliminates the constitutional right of an impartial jury.  The bill’s author, Shirley Weber, was appointed in 2020 by Governor Newsom to serve as Secretary of State.  She is the person in charge of California elections.

Choosing Optics Over Competence

by · Feb 1, 2022 10:48 am

Imagine your five-year-old daughter was being wheeled into surgery to have a defective heart valve replaced.  What would be the most important qualification for the surgeon about to cut her open?  Would it be the doctor’s race or gender?   When the hospital’s chief administrator decided that it was more important that the members of surgical staff “looked like the community” than their level of competence, he put your daughter’s life at risk.  As a parent, if I suspected that this was the case, I would choose a different hospital.  The U.S. Supreme Court is the last word on what constitutes law in our country.  The exercise of this sweeping power has and will continue to have life-altering consequences on the millions of people who live in America.  What then, should be the most important qualification for the selection of a Supreme Court Justice?  Heather MacDonald’s compelling piece in the City Journal exposes the absurdity of elevating race, gender or any other criteria beyond competence, integrity and temperament governing the selection for membership on the nation’s highest court.  By limiting the selection of the next justice to a black woman, MacDonald notes that President Biden is “rendering 98 percent of all possible candidates beyond consideration because they lack `qualifications’ that have nothing to do with judging.”

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