CA Prop 47 Made Theft out of Control

Clean out your cars every night, watch shoplifters with calculators and stop UPS deliveries to your home.
Swell huh? Speaker Pelosi must be proud…same with Senator Dianne Feinstein.

Overview

Proposition 47 implemented three broad changes to felony sentencing laws. First, it reclassified certain theft and drug possession offenses from felonies to misdemeanors. Second, it authorizes defendants currently serving sentences for felony offenses that would have qualified as misdemeanors under the proposition to petition courts for resentencing under the new misdemeanor provisions. Third, it authorizes defendants who have completed their sentences for felony convictions that would have qualified as misdemeanors under the proposition to apply to reclassify those convictions to misdemeanors.

Felony convictions resentenced or reclassified as misdemeanors under the proposition are considered misdemeanors for all purposes, except that such relief does not permit the person to own, possess, or have in his or her custody or control any firearm.

Early Impacts of Proposition 47 on the CourtsPDF file type icon

California superior courts received more than 200,000 petitions for resentencing or applications for reclassification during the first 13 months after voters approved Proposition 47. A report prepared by Judicial Council staff, highlights the impacts of the ballot measure on the courts during the first year of implementation.

***

Since the passage of the infamous Prop 47 five years ago, then marketed by California Democrats as the “Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act,” theft has increased across the state, as organized crime rings have transformed ordinary shoplifting into a lucrative and sophisticated operation. It’s likely no coincidence that San Francisco now has the highest rate of property crime of America’s twenty largest cities.

Passed in 2014, Prop 47 was allegedly designed to emphasize rehabilitation and keep non-violent offenders out of the state’s already packed prisons by reducing certain non-violent felonies to mere misdemeanors. For instance, a thief can now steal twice as much as he or she formerly could before facing a felony charge. But thieves and organized crime gangs capitalized on this loophole. In other words, Prop 47 is now a mechanism for gangs to immunize themselves from felony charges.  In cities like Vacaville, CA, just outside of the state’s capital, theft has more than doubled, and police believe Prop 47 is to blame.

According to the National Retail Federation’s 2018 survey on Organized Retail Crime (ORC), this jump is in petty theft as a result of relaxed laws is common (and given its ubiquity, should now be expected).

In states where the felony threshold has increased, over half report an increase in ORC case value. None reported a decrease. It appears that ORC criminals understand the new threshold and have increased their thefts to meet it.

Rachel Michelin, who currently serves as President of the California Retailers Association, explained to Fox News the crude savviness of the latest generation of shoplifters. “[Shoplifters] know what they’re doing. They will bring in calculators and get all the way up to the $950 limit.” She continued. “One person will go into a store, fill up their backpack, come out, dump it out and go right back in and do it all over again.”

The relaxation of penalties, combined with selective enforcement to focus on more “serious” crime, has seemingly been disastrous for the state’s larger cities. Although Prop 47 was championed by the state’s Democratic overlords, as well as by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), many attribute California’s growing property crime problem to lax initiatives like this one.

As Del Seymour of the non-profit Code Tenderloin emphasized to Fox News, the theft patterns in the city are a mix of international gangs, usually from Mexico or Guatemala, as well as homeless addicts looking to secure enough money to finance their next fix. The stealing and handoffs often take place in broad daylight and ironically, right in front of San Francisco City Hall. When I lived in San Francisco, City Hall was infamous for being a beehive of illicit activities and an area best avoided at all times of day.

Oddly enough, unrelated measures, like the additional charge for plastic bags, have made it more difficult for store owners to spot theft, given the frequency with which shoppers now simply throw items into their purses or backpacks after purchase. As Michelin noted, this type of behavior now allows shoplifters to “fit in” with the paying customers.  Michelin predicts that stores will increasingly turn to locking up their products for fear of theft.

The jump in retail theft is just one part of the picture when it comes to property theft in the state. According to the San Francisco Police Department, there is a car break-in every 22 minutes in the city, resulting in the formation of neighborhood “vigilantes” devoted to stopping break-ins. A 2018 study from the Public Policy Institute found evidence that Prop 47 was a contributing factor in the almost 20 percent-increase in car break-ins from 2014 to 2016.  It seems the rampant property crime in the city is creating a dystopian hellscape that the cops haven’t been awarded the authority to address.

CHAOS: California’s Prop 47 Gives ‘Green Light’ to ...

California voters may have had enough. In 2020, California residents will vote on whether to rollback the reforms implemented under Prop 47 in the hopes of reinstating the deterrents that fell by the wayside under the auspices of the state’s Democratic leadership.

When I lived in San Francisco’s fabled Bernal Heights, I was instructed to empty my car each night to discourage thieves from smashing my windows. There were some evenings I would forget after a long commute home, and I would hold my breath walking to my vehicle in the morning, always relieved to see that the windows were still intact (I detail my San Francisco trials here). If California voters are smart, perhaps San Francisco’s next generation of residents won’t have to feel terrorized by the constant barrage of petty crime. Hat Tip Federalist

Still Defiant, Iran Doubles Uranium Centrifuges

RFERL: The UN’s nuclear watchdog has issued a report saying Iran is preparing for possible major expansion of uranium enrichment in a fortified underground facility.

The International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) quarterly report also says “extensive activities” — a reference to suspected sanitization efforts — at Iran’s Parchin military complex will hamper its investigation of possible past nuclear weapons development work there, if inspectors are granted access.

Nuclear Deal Silent on Iran’s Parchin Military Plant ... Parchin

The report says Iran has produced 189 kilograms of higher-grade enriched uranium since 2010 — up from 145 kilograms since May, when the previous quarterly report was issued.

The IAEA reported last year that Iran placed “a large explosives containment vessel” in Parchin in 2000 and constructed a building around it.

The facilities were designed to contain the detonation of up to 70 kilograms of high explosives — something the IAEA called “relevant to the development of an explosive nuclear device.”

Since that report, the IAEA has sought to send inspectors to the site of the suspected building but have been denied access by Iran to that part of the military base.

In recent months, the agency also has obtained information that indicates Iran has been busy cleaning up the suspected site, including tearing down some buildings and removing soil.

The last effort by the IAEA to convince Iran to let inspectors visit the site — where Iran denies clean-up activities are taking place — broke down in June when Tehran accused the agency of acting like an “intelligence organization.”

More Centrifuges At Fordow Site

ISIS NuclearIran › Iran In Brief Fordow

The IAEA’s latest report also says the number of enrichment centrifuges at Fordow has more than doubled to 2,140 from 1,064 in May.

The Fordow facility is extremely controversial for two reasons.

First, it is dug into a mountain, making it difficult to bomb — suggesting it could have a military purpose.

Secondly, the centrifuges at the facility are being used to enrich uranium to purities of 20 percent — far higher than the 4 percent needed for fuel for commercial reactors.

Iran has said it is producing the 20 percent-enriched fuel for use in research reactors to produce medical isotopes.

But arms-control experts worry that creating large stockpiles of 20 percent-enriched uranium makes it much easier for Iran to later complete the jump to 90 percent-enriched uranium needed for nuclear bombs.

In Washington, the White House said it was closely studying the fresh IAEA report.

In Tehran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, denied his country is seeking to develop nuclear weapons, adding Iran will “never abandon its right for the peaceful use of nuclear energy.”

In what appears to be a sign of the IAEA’s growing concern over Iran’s nuclear activities, the agency this week revealed it was creating a special Iran “task force.”

The task force is to scrutinize Tehran’s nuclear program and its compliance with UN resolutions — including those demanding a suspension of uranium enrichment.

Iran has denied any interest in nuclear arms.

Meanwhile, Congresswoman Liz Cheney is introducing legislation to fully terminate all of the Iran nuclear deal including the remaining sanctions waivers.

Yet, it seems that Turkey, a NATO member and in major dispute with the United States over Syria has not only defied NATO rules and the United States but has fully allied with Russia but for sure now as well Iran.

FDD: The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) announced yesterday that it will sell its 10 percent stake in the Istanbul stock exchange after Turkey named as its CEO a Turkish banker convicted in U.S. court for his role in a multi-billion dollar scheme to evade Washington’s sanctions on Iran. Ankara’s move to reward a sanctions buster further strengthens the argument that Turkey has become a permissive jurisdiction for illicit finance.

Turkey’s sovereign wealth fund offered today to buy EBRD’s shares, which would increase the fund’s stake in the stock exchange to over 90 percent. EBRD’s exit will mean the departure of Borsa Istanbul’s only major foreign stakeholder at a critical moment in Turkey’s relations with its western allies. Ankara’s military operation in northeast Syria targeting the Syrian Democratic Forces – Washington’s key partner in the fight against the Islamic State – has drawn sweeping condemnation from the international community.

Five days after Ankara launched its Syria incursion, the U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions on three Turkish officials and Turkey’s ministries of energy and defense. That same week, the Southern District of New York filed an indictment charging Halkbank, a Turkish public lender, for its role in the multi-billion dollar gas-for-gold scheme to evade U.S. sanctions against Iran. Halkbank’s deputy general manager, Mehmet Hakan Atilla, in 2018 received a sentence of 32 months for his role in the affair. At the time of Atilla’s sentencing, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemned the trial as a political attack on his government.

Atilla returned to Turkey in July after serving his U.S. sentence. Last week, just days after U.S. federal prosecutors indicted Halkbank, Turkish Finance and Treasury Minister Berat Albayrak, who is also Erdogan’s son-in-law, named Atilla as CEO of the Istanbul stock exchange.

Atilla’s promotion is part of a string of appointments that showcase Erdogan’s policy of rehabilitating Iran sanctions busters and rewarding corrupt officials who further his personal ambitions. In September, Erdogan appointed former Minister for European Union Affairs Egemen Bagis as Turkey’s ambassador to Prague. Bagis had resigned from the ministry after a 2013 corruption scandal implicated him in accepting bribes related to the gas-for-gold scheme run through Halkbank.

Members of Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) who dare criticize his policy of rehabilitating sanctions evaders continue to draw the Turkish president’s wrath. After publicly pronouncing strong opposition to Bagis’s ambassadorial appointment and other party policies, a senior AKP lawmaker, Mustafa Yeneroglu, resigned from the party yesterday after Erdogan commanded him to step down.

Another minister implicated in taking bribes as part of the Halkbank scheme, Zafer Caglayan, who served as minister of Economy in 2013 before resigning due to corruption allegations, has returned to political life as an AKP delegate from the Turkish city of Mersin. Caglayan is best known for accepting bribes of cash and jewelry worth tens of millions of dollars.

Erdogan’s rehabilitation of sanctions evaders continues to hurt Turkey’s image, economy, and investment climate. Ankara’s apparent disregard for U.S. sanctions, including those targeting Iran, Russia, and Venezuela, does not bode well for Washington or other NATO allies. Yet so far, President Donald Trump has shielded Erdogan from U.S. sanctions, the most recent of which he lifted after only nine days. In contrast, a biting sanctions bill focused on Turkey passed the House 403 to 16 on Tuesday. Like Congress, Trump should communicate to his Turkish counterpart that his policy of evading sanctions and rewarding sanctions busters could have dire consequences.

Iran Hostage-Takers Hold Top Roles in Government

Primer: From the 2018 Country by Country Report on Terrorism (in part)

Iran remains the world’s worst state sponsor of terrorism. The regime has spent nearly one billion dollars per year to support terrorist groups that serve as its proxies and expand its malign influence across the globe. Tehran has funded international terrorist groups such as Hizballah, Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. It also has engaged in its own terrorist plotting around the world, particularly in Europe. In January, German authorities investigated 10 suspected Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Qods Force operatives. In the summer, authorities in Belgium, France, and Germany thwarted an Iranian plot to bomb a political rally near Paris, France. In October, an Iranian operative was arrested for planning an assassination in Denmark, and in December, Albania expelled two Iranian officials for plotting terrorist attacks. Furthermore, Tehran continued to allow an AQ facilitation network to operate in Iran, which sends fighters and money to conflict zones in Afghanistan and Syria, and it has extended sanctuary to AQ members residing in the country.

***

This is the country that Obama and Kerry gave Iran $400 million, the first installment of a $1.7 billion settlement the Obama administration reached with Iran to resolve an old arms deal. This was at the same time that Iran released 4 American hostages while the United States released 7 Iranian citizens and terminated extradition requests for 14 others.

***

Forty years ago, on November 4, 1979, the United States embassy in Tehran was taken over by a group of people calling themselves “Student followers of the line of the Imam.”

Fifty-two U.S. embassy employees and diplomats were taken hostage for 444 days. Years later, the hostage-takers went on to become the most senior officials of Iran’s regime, including Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, former President of the regime. Many of the hostage-takers still hold key positions in the regime. Some were wrongly dubbed as “moderates” by the West despite their loyalty to the regime’s agenda.

Where are the hostage-takers today?

Masoumeh Ebtekar, spokeswoman of the “Student followers of the line of the Imam”:

Masoumeh Ebtekar, also known as “Sister Mary,” was the spokeswoman for the hostage-takers. She vehemently defended the Americans’ detention and demanded to be tried. She is now Iran’s Vice President for women and family affairs. In the first term of Hassan Rouhani’s Presidency, she was also Vice President and head of the environmental preservation organization. In Mohammad Khatami’s administration, she was Vice President and Head of the environmental preservation organization for several years.

Hamid Abutalebi:

He is now Political Advisor to the President. For years, he held top positions in the Foreign Ministry, including the post of Deputy Foreign Minister for political affairs, the regime’s Ambassador to a number of Western countries including Italy, Belgium, Australia, and the European Union (for 15 years). He was previously General Manager of Political Affairs in the Foreign Ministry (for 5 years), Advisor to the Foreign Minister (for 5 years), and member of Foreign Ministry’s Strategic Council. In 2014, he was Rouhani’s candidate to become the regime’s representative to the United Nations in New York, but the U.S. government refused to grant him a visa due to his role in the hostage-taking and in the 1993 assassination of Mohammad-Hossein Naqdi, representative of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) in Italy.

Hossein Sheikholislam, council member of “Student followers of the line of the Imam” and member of the team reviewing U.S. embassy documents:

He is now Advisor to the Foreign Minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif. Previously, for several years, he was Deputy for International Affairs to Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani. For 16 years, Sheikholislam was Deputy Foreign Minister for Political Affairs. Subsequently, for three years, he became Iran’s Ambassador to Syria, and after two terms as a Member of Parliament, he became Deputy Foreign Minister for Middle Eastern affairs.

Mohammad-Ali (Aziz) Jafari, one of the plotters of the U.S. embassy takeover:

Until April 21, 2019, for over 10 years, Major General Mohammad-Ali Jafari was Commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). He is currently in charge of the “Baqiollah Cultural and Social Headquarters.”

Hossein Dehqan:

IRGC Brigadier General Hossein Dehqan was Iran’s Defense Minister in Rouhan’s first term (2013-2017), and he is now Advisor to the Supreme Leader on Defense Industries and Army Support. From 2004 to 2009, he was Vice President and chairman of the Shahid Foundation (Bonyad-e Shahid), one of the largest economic institutions in the regime.

During Khatami’s Presidency, he was Deputy Defense Minister. Prior to that, he was Deputy Chief of the IRGC Air Force.

After the U.S. hostages were released, Hossein Dehqan joined the IRGC and went to Lebanon. In the years 1982 to 1984, he was in Beirut at the peak of terror attacks in Lebanon, especially massive explosions like the ones at the U.S. embassy and U.S. Marines barracks. He had acknowledged his key role in the formation of Lebanese Hizballah. Based on reports by U.S. media, he had a direct role in the 1983 bombing in Beirut, in which 241 U.S. marines were killed.

Reza Seifollahi, a main plotter of the embassy takeover and member of the central council of the “Student followers of the line of the Imam”:

From 2013 to 2018, Reza Seifollahi was the Political Deputy of the Secretariat of the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC). From 2008 to 2013, He was deputy coordinator of the regime’s Expediency Council. He was a senior IRGC commander, including the commander of IRGC Intelligence. When the Police, Gendarmeries, and Committees (Comite) were all combined into once force, Seifollahi was appointed as the first commander of the State Security Forces (SSF). During Khatami’s Presidency, he was Deputy Interior Minister for Security Affairs.

Habibollah Bitaraf, a main plotter of the embassy takeover and member of the central council of the “Student followers of the line of the Imam”:

From 1997 to 2005, he was Iran’s Energy Minister. From 1986 to 1989, he was the Governor of Yazd Province. Also, for nearly five years, he was Deputy Minister of Energy for Educational Affairs.

Ezzatollah Zarghami

An IRGC Brigadier General, he became head of the state Radio and Television Corporation on the orders of the Supreme Leader, and from 2004 to 2014 he played a key role in the regime’s propaganda machine. For years, Zarghami was the keynote speaker at ceremonies in front of the US embassy in Tehran to mark the anniversary of the embassy takeover.

 

Alireza Afshar:

After the hostages were released, Afshar joined the IRGC, and he has held important posts in the IRGC ever since, including as Chief of the IRGC General Staff, Commander of the Basij Force and Deputy Commander of the Armed Forces for Cultural Affairs.

In Ahmadinejad’s administration, Afshar was Deputy Minister of Interior for Political and Social Affairs.

He is now head of the Supreme Delegation for the IRGC School of thought.

 

Mohsen Aminzadeh:

During Khatami’s presidency, Mohsen Aminzadeh was Deputy Foreign Minister for Asian Affairs. He was a shadow minister when Kamal Kharrazi was Foreign Minister.

Hossein Sharifzadegan:

During Khatami’s second term as President, Sharifzadegan was a member of “the Islamic partnership front” and General Manager of the Social Security Organization and Minister of Social Security.

Mohammad Mehdi Rahmati:

During Ahmadinejad’s Presidency, Rahmati was in charge of President’s Office of Planning and Strategic Oversight

Mohammdreza Behzadian-Nejad:

In the first term of Ahmadinejad’s Presidency, Behzadian-Nejad was Deputy Interior Minister for Economic Affairs. Later, he became head of the Commerce Office of Tehran.

The seizure of the U.S. embassy in Tehran marked the beginning of the regime’s policy of hostage-taking and international blackmail, a policy that has become official and institutionalized as part of the foreign policy of this regime.

For 40 years, the foreign policy of the mullahs’ regime has been rooted in terrorism and blackmail. Today, it is recognized as the world’s main state sponsor of terrorism. In the past 40 years, there has never been a time that this regime has not held onto hostages. Still, under different pretexts, Americans and other countries’ citizens are kept in the Iranian regime’s prisons as hostages.

In the past 40 years, thousands of innocent people have fallen victim to the regime and its proxy groups’ terrorism in the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and even Latin America.

Terrorism and hostage-taking are a part of the DNA of Iran’s regime.

The 1979 U.S. embassy takeover, which later was dubbed by regime officials as a ‘revolution greater than the 1979 revolution,’ had the goal of eliminating Iran’s democratic forces, and more specifically the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), or Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) from the political scene. Khomeini, the regime’s Supreme Leader at the time, supported the act of the students, and Khamenei the current Supreme Leader, who at the time was Friday prayers’ leader and Khomeini’s representative, was one of the main supporters of the takeover; he went to the embassy and encouraged the students.

It is no surprise then that just last week Khamenei, through his representative in the state-run Keyhan newspaper, called on regime-backed Iraqi militias known as the “Hashd al Shaabi,” who are under the command of the IRGC Qods Force, to take over the U.S. embassy in Baghdad by the same model that took place in Tehran 40 years ago.

Hossein Shariatmadari, editor and representative of the Iranian regime’s Supreme Leader in Kayhan, in the paper’s October 30, 2019 editorial called for the takeover of the U.S. Embassy by the Iraqi militias.

Shariatmadari, whose words reflect Khamenei’s opinions, wrote: “In a previous note, by mentioning the takeover of the U.S. embassy in Iran, which the Imam called the “second revolution,” the issue was raised in the context of a question that why the Iraqi revolutionary youths … are not ending the presence of the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, which is the epicenter of conspiracy and espionage against the innocent people of Iraq!? And why are you not eliminating and throwing out this infected wound from your holy land? The takeover of the U.S. espionage center in Islamic Iran and eliminating that epicenter of conspiracy had many benefits for us. So why then are the revolutionary youths of Iraq depriving their holy land from these benefits?”