Free Republic

**SNIP** The bill was supported by companies that provide green power and energy-efficiency projects. However, Reeves said the measure was proposed by the nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund. The committee staff analysis concluded that parts of the measure “have potentially harmful effects for consumers.” With that analysis in hand, the legislation was opposed by two Democrats, including the committee chairman at the time, current Secretary of State Alex Padilla, and it failed passage. The Times reported last month that De Leon had fired committee staff members, but Reeves said it was to bring in experts on climate change issues to reflect...

MANILA - US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Friday that she is optimistic a peace pact between the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) will happen before President Arroyo steps down in 2010. Clinton said she believes Mrs. Arroyo is ready to make "difficult decisions" regarding the peace talks with the MILF before the end of her term.

Many leftist politicians who want to strip Americans of their Second Amendment rights say their position is based on concern for the safety of citizens. Somehow, they contend, forcing law-abiding gun-owners to give up their weapons will result in street gangs following suit. According to a recently unsealed affidavit, however, one state senator in California allegedly wanted to curtail gun rights for everyone except violent gangsters. State Sen. Leland Yee, the court documents state, was the subject of an FBI raid that led to his arrest Wednesday along with 25 other individuals. Among those arrested was Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow,...

**SNIP** The San Francisco Democrat was a fairly high-profile member of the California Legislature, but not a flamboyant one or one who was the subject of gossip and rumor. And that’s probably why the news in March landed with such a bombshell, when the 66-year old former psychologist was arrested and charged with not only corruption, but also with allegedly participating in a scheme to smuggle illegal weapons into the United States. The irony was impossible to miss: gun trafficking charges against a Democrat who made a name for himself as a fierce advocate of gun control, a politician who...

SAN FRANCISCO (CN) - Suspended California state Sen. Leland Yee could face a jury as early as June for charges of political corruption and conspiracy to import guns. At a scheduling conference on Thursday, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer said Yee will be tried along with his political consultant Keith Jackson, who also faces drug and murder-for-hire charges. Breyer said those charges will be tried separately, but lawyers for the defendants, including Yee's lawyer James Lassart, were not satisfied. "The firearms charges are going to be extremely prejudicial. The government has acquired 50 to 70 different firearms that, undoubtedly to...

State Senate Democrats have decided to resume the annual Pro Tem Cup golf fundraiser in 2015, a year after the event was canceled in the wake of criminal charges filed against three Democratic Senators. The event at Torrey Pines golf course in San Diego is the Senate Democrats' largest political fundraiser for the state party and has been criticized for allowing special interests to mingle with lawmakers in exchange for tickets costing between $15,000 and $65,000 per person. The indictment of Sen. Leland Yee (D-San Francisco) on public corruption charges a week before this year's event was to be held...

Perhaps the last trio you'd expect to see mentioned in the State Sen. Leland Yee corruption trial is comedian Katt Williams, rapper Too $hort, and hip-hop mogul Suge Knight. Strangely enough, recent court documents reveal some interesting details and even more curious connections between some of the defendants in the Yee case and the three famous guys mentioned above. For starters, Keith Jackson — the former school board member who who got tangled up in the corruption case when he allegedly helped Yee obtain campaign donations in excess of the legal limits — was heard on wire taps bragging to...

An undercover FBI agent gave campaign donations to an unnamed Bay Area politician during a yearslong undercover investigation into a Chinatown gang and alleged political corruption that culminated in the arrests of state Sen. Leland Yee and Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow earlier this year. This is according to the latest filing by the U.S. Attorney's Office in the federal case against the two men and about 20 others. Besides indicating that a politician other than Yee allegedly took money from undercover FBI agents in exchange for favors, the filing further lays out the relationship between former school board member and...

**SNIP** Yee, D-San Francisco, and Jackson, his former consultant and a former San Francisco school board president, are among 29 defendants charged with racketeering and other crimes after an undercover FBI investigation. Prosecutors have accused Yee, now suspended from his Senate seat, of soliciting tens of thousands of dollars from agents posing as campaign contributors in exchange for political favors. In a filing Aug. 14, Jackson's lawyer asserted that an FBI agent had been removed from the investigation and reprimanded because of financial misconduct. The agent, identified in court records only as UCE 4773, posed as a Georgia businessman and...

**SNIP** The investigation extended to Yee after an undercover FBI agent who had infiltrated Chow's group was introduced to the senator and allegedly persuaded him to trade political favors for campaign contributions. Lim became enmeshed in the case due to his political backing of Yee. According to a 137-page FBI affidavit, Yee introduced Lim to the undercover agent as a man who could secure guns. The agent, the FBI said, had asked Yee to facilitate an arms deal in exchange for more campaign money. The accusations prompted the Philippines government to open a probe into whether Lim had links to...

**SNIP** As early as November 2012, an FBI wiretap request noted that the investigation team’s leader had concerns about the agent. But according to the filing, an FBI “review has not resulted in any formal findings or determinations regarding the credibility of [the agent].” In early 2013, according to the filing, the agent was no longer involved in the case, but there is no clear explanation as to why. Still, the filing said there was a “series of outrageous behavior” on the part of the agent that might explain why he was removed. That behavior included arranging $20,000 or more...

Prosecutors and defense attorneys agreed at a federal court hearing Thursday that the unwieldy criminal case against suspended state Sen. Leland Yee, Chinatown association leader Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow and 27 others should be split up before trial. **SNIP** The hearing before U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer came two weeks after the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of California filed a new indictment in the case, adding violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act against Yee and his former fundraiser, Keith Jackson. Yee is accused of conducting a criminal enterprise with Jackson, who allegedly solicited bribes and...

**SNIP** At one meeting with an undercover FBI agent, Jackson allegedly told Yee that the agent knew the owner of an NFL team. Yee then told the agent about a pending law that would limit NFL players from filing workers' compensation claims in the state if they played for out of state teams. Yee told the agent that he should "convey this information to the owner of the NFL team" with an offer of help from Yee. Asked about the cost of such a vote, Yee reportedly said, "Oh no...we gotta drag it out, man. We gotta juice this thing."...

(06-11) 14:24 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- Friends, neighbors and a former fellow inmate of Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow took turns testifying Wednesday that the onetime Chinatown gang leader had turned his life around and should be released on bail while fighting money-laundering charges. Describing the witnesses as sincere but not fully informed, U.S. Magistrate Nathanael Cousins refused to release Chow from jail, where he has been kept since his arrest in April. While Chow has engaged in "community activities of a positive nature" since his release from federal prison in 2003 after serving time for racketeering, federal prosecutors presented evidence...

<p>One of the odder stats of Election Night: As of Wednesday morning, 287,590 Californians had cast ballots for indicted state Sen. Leland Yee for secretary of state. That’s good for nearly 10 percent of the vote.</p> <p>Never mind for a second that the San Francisco Democrat has been indicted on multiple federal money laundering and weapons charges. Yee DROPPED OUT of the race in March. Folks were voting for an indicted man who didn’t even want their votes.</p>

A small part of more than $800,000 that was parked in campaign accounts controlled by indicted or convicted California lawmakers is making its way back to contributors, but more than half a million dollars remains missing.. At the time of his arrest on bribery and corruption charges in March, Sen. Leland Yee (D-San Francisco) had $134,000 cash in his secretary of state campaign account and had weeks earlier sent more than $518,000 to a Los Angeles media agency for future campaign commercials. Campaign finance reports filed with the state by Thursday's reporting deadline show the indicted lawmaker had reduced that...

Over the objections of reputed gang figure Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow's lawyers, a federal judge has ordered that the government's evidence in a sweeping criminal case that includes political corruption charges against state Sen. Leland Yee must be kept secret for now. U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer imposed the restrictions Monday on every lawyer and defendant in the case, finding the material should be kept under wraps while both sides prepare for trial. Breyer rejected the free speech arguments of Chow's lawyer, J. Tony Serra, who insisted he should be able to reveal evidence to combat the government's public charges.

**SNIP** “The current political climate has opened windows to reflect and drive cultural changes that would never have been possible a decade ago,” said Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) in announcing the proposals. “This is an opportunity to reiterate why we choose to run for office, to serve the public, and to reaffirm our commitment to political reform.” A trio of Republican Senators called the proposals “window dressing” and said they would introduce legislation to double prison sentences, to up to eight years, for any elected official convicted of bribery or selling votes. "While we appreciate some of...

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

**SNIP** It was there that James Brosnahan, attorney for one of the defendants, former San Francisco school board President Keith Jackson, told his colleagues that Montana was among those the government was looking to shield from unfair scrutiny, multiple sources say. Brosnahan is one of the lawyers on the defense team who was negotiating terms of the protective order with federal prosecutors. "I have nothing to say affirmatively or negatively" about that, Brosnahan said when we contacted him about Montana. Just why the FBI would take an interest in a retired football great as part of a probe that netted...