Leland Yee Gets Off Easy

Leland Yee Gets off Easy – Sentenced to Five Years in Prison
by C.D. Michel

Gun-ban-promoting California Democratic State Senator Leland Yee has been convicted and sentenced to prison. In 2015, Yee plead guilty to racketeering charges in connection with allegations that he accepted bribes to engage in illegal gun running operations. Federal prosecutors sought an 8 year prison term for Yee. On February 24, 2016, Yee was sentenced to 5 years in prison, a $20,000 fine, and ordered to pay $33,000 in restitution.

Like Harvey Dent – Gotham City’s district attorney turned “Two-Face” split-personality criminal mastermind – Yee was accused of being a two-faced criminal conspirator, supporting gun control in public while arranging illegal international arms deals and influencing peddling behind the scenes.

A great five minute video by NRA News correspondent Ginny Simone lays out the story and exposes “Two-Face” Yee’s hypocrisy, all in living color. I was glad to contribute to that effort. Give it a look at https://www.nranews.com/series/ginny-simone-reporting/video/anti-gun-senator-busted-for-gun-trafficking.

Hypocrisy is common among gun controlling politicians, especially here in California. Dianne Feinstein, for example, who once said she would ban all handguns outright if she could, obtained a nearly impossible to get San Francisco concealed carry permit. Across the bay, rabidly anti-gun State Senate President Don Perata had a carry license from his county, where it was policy not to issue them (sadly, he did not have his pistol on him when carjacked in crime-ridden Oakland). Perata was also investigated for his “consulting” practices, which amounted to accusations of round-robin bribes and money laundering (interestingly, the five year long case was closed shortly after Barack Obama took office). Pictures exist of New York’s Chuck Schumer gleefully shooting a TEC-9. The list goes on.

But Leland “Two-Face” Yee takes the gold medal in the National Hypocrisy Championship (an amazing feat given stiff competition from the U.S. Justice Department smuggling guns to Mexican drug lords). I hope that medal keeps him warm behind bars.

Yee got his start in San Francisco local politics, a breeding ground for opportunistic politicians who exploit the gun control issue for their own political gain. It is part of the local culture. Pelosi, Boxer, Feinstein … and that’s just the top female representatives. They have lots of company, but I have to give a special mention to gun ban promoting Supervisor/Sheriff Mirkarimi and his domestic violence prosecution.

After Yee cut his political teeth supporting San Francisco’s gun bans, he then ran for the state legislature, and became a leader in gun control politics in Sacramento. Among other things, Yee pushed for state laws to:

• Ban “bullet button” magazine disconnect locks.
• Eliminate rifles that used detachable magazines.
• Require gun owners to reregister their weapons annually.
• Mandate mental health evaluations for gun owners.
• Set limits on the amount of ammunition that can be purchased.
• Ban 3D printed guns.
• Require all guns to be stored locked.

Considering his historical public support for gun bans, it was both shocking and ironic that “Two-Face” Yee was involved in orchestrating an international arms trafficking conspiracy. The gun ban laws he has pushed in Sacramento pale in comparison to the federal gun laws he has admittedly broken!

Gun Banner and Asian Crime Syndicate Gun Runner
According to an affidavit filed by the Feds, Yee conspired to connect a wannabe international heavy artillery gun runner (actually an undercover FBI agent) to overseas Muslim arms dealing terrorists, and advised that diverting guns to Africa would be highly profitable. “Two-Face” Yee wanted some of the loot diverted to his election campaign coffers.

The abbreviated story from the affidavit is that the undercover government agents were arranging a big cocaine deal with Yee’s political consultant, Keith Jackson. Jackson then arranged for meetings with Yee. Jackson’s accomplices had over a quarter of a million dollars to spend on cocaine. In the same meeting where the drug deal was taking shape, Yee’s political consultant said that Yee himself was on board to make that deal, and a deal for guns, work out.

So while working out a drug deal with an undercover FBI agent, Yee’s political consultant, speaking on behalf of gun ban advocate Senator Yee, told the undercover agent that there was an opportunity to do illegal gun deals too. And…

• Yee confirmed the viability of the foreign arms dealer.
• He would hash-out the gun supply issue with Yee.
• Yee saw this as a long-term relationship.

These international entrepreneurs were not talking about peashooters, or even modern sporting arms mischaracterized under ineffective and unconstitutional California laws as “assault weapons.” The rebels were hardcore Muslim jihadists, and they earned their operating capital by moving surplus heavy military armament.

Why would Yee do such deals? Evidentially the Secretary of State’s office for which he was then running has lucrative potential. (Thankfully, Yee dropped out of the race after the affidavit was released, although he was still able to draw his Senate salary after being “expelled!”). But the name recognition that Yee had built up from his publicized gun-control political platform was not enough to cinch the position.

A lot of the affidavit itself is second hand. But the allegations are confirmed in subsequent personal meetings with Yee himself.

So a California Senator was allegedly arranging for Muslim terrorists to smuggle guns from the folks who had just invaded the Ukraine. Democratic Senator Yee was putting money into terrorist pockets!

“Two-Face” Yee apparently didn’t mind channeling heavy duty underworld armaments to the worst sort of terrorists to get campaign money. The question is, where were all these guns going? The ever helpful “Two-Face” Yee guided the process by saying he thought Africa was a largely untapped market for the illegal gun trade, and surmised that by utilizing his position, the undercover agent would be able to ship weapons directly to Africa.

All of this is perfectly corrupt: legally, morally, and philosophically. International arms trafficking by someone who pushed laws to deny you the right to possess magazines for self-defense or your recreational shooting hobby. Ironically, the guns that “Two-Face” Yee demonized and tried to pass laws to prohibit you from having are nothing compared to the big guns and heavy armament he was trying to move around the world!

Were “Two-Face” Yee clever enough not to get caught, we might even speculate whether he was trying to restrict gun supplies in order to increase the street value of his illegally imported armament… what Jon Stewart on the Daily Show jokingly called a “win-win.”

The Gun Control Political Fraud Exposed
The philosophical inconsistency amounts to epic hypocrisy and fraud as seen from outside political circles. But it’s a political approach perfectly consistent with the elitist’s “everybody but me” mentality inside those circles; of some animals being more equal than others.

Oddly, there is a consistency to the hypocritical inconsistency. An old adage goes “Gun control isn’t about guns. It’s about control.” Elites decline to apply publicly espoused principles to themselves because they are self-anointed betters – democracy’s equivalent of lording royal classes in countries where such things are still tolerated. They will apply rules consistently to their subjects (that would be you) while exempting themselves without a public whisper. Control requires deciding everybody’s destiny, but does not require equality in such matters.

We can speculate about Yee’s own rationalizations. But the “Two-Face” Yee scandal shows that gun controlling politicians don’t necessarily believe in gun control. Their political strategists, benefiting from millions of dollars in PR studies on how to manipulate public opinion on gun control issues financed by gun control advocacy groups, have told them that they need to build name recognition to win elections. Gun control proposals breed conflict. Conflict makes the news. People read the news. And gun-control conflict is a lot easier for the public to understand than many more obscure legislative issues. Plus, the issues can be spun to trigger a personal emotional response. Folks read the politician’s name along with the pre-packaged sympathetic sounding gun violence talking points. Next time there’s an election voters have a recollection, a feeling, connected to the politician’s name. They may not even recognize the challenger’s name.

So let’s recap. “Two-Face” Yee is evidentially of the elitist caste. He has campaigned to disarm you and make you susceptible to thuggery (in effect, controlling you by proxy). Then he collaborates with crime syndicates to illegally import arms into the U.S. or internationally with criminal distribution in mind (is he controlling you further by keeping you in fear and dependent on government protection?). Regardless, clearly, his goal is to make money and increase his power, over you.

Presto! A big electoral advantage. That’s the real politics of power. Say and do what you need to say and do to get elected and reelected. Meanwhile, believe in, and do, whatever you want to do in private. Only rule: don’t get caught. That’s where “Two-Face” fell down.

As the dark side of Two-Face overtakes Yee’s previous political facade, he has emerged as the ultimate villain, breaking the type of gun laws that we actually should have on the books. Thankfully, those books were thrown at him at sentencing time, although he got off lightly. Good riddance Two-Face.