Post-Legalization, Marijuana Smuggling Explodes at LAX

Drug trafficking arrests at Los Angeles International Airport have risen 166 percent in the year since California legalized marijuana state-wide.

In 2018, LAX police made 101 trafficking arrests, the Los Angeles Times reports. This represents a substantial increase over the 38 arrests in 2017 and 20 in 2016, according to police records obtained by the LAT.

"This is normal procedure for these guys, and I would say 29 out of 30 times they make it through without a problem," said Bill Kroger Jr., a lawyer defending a would-be trafficker profiled in the LAT‘s reporting.

Comporting with state law, it is legal for individuals to possess up to 28.5 grams of marijuana or 8 grams of concentrated marijuana at the airport. But California prohibits selling marijuana out of state, as the drug remains federally illegal, with the skies the jurisdiction of the federal government.

In spite of this, police are seeing more and more bags containing large quantities of marijuana, often disguised with tinfoil or wax paper. One officer told the Times that they have routinely seen 50-pound quantities stowed in carry-on luggage.

This upswing in seizures, and therefore in marijuana trafficking, is reflective of the practice of purchasing legal marijuana in California and then selling it in other states at a profit. According to the LAT, most marijuana is exported by car or truck; in 2018, the California Highway Patrol seized eight tons of leaves, compared to two tons in 2017.

The reason for this exportation is simple. Far more marijuana is grown in California than residents of the state themselves consume—five times more, according to one estimate. A 2017 paper cited by the LAT estimates that 80 percent of pot is shipped out of state, and therefore never taxed or regulated.

Instead, the drugs spread across the country, including to the many states where cannabis remains illegal. Arrest reports reviewed by the LAT show trafficking suspects routinely telling police that they came to California "to purchase better and cheaper cannabis products to sell for a profit back home."

The result is a de facto semi-legalization throughout the United States—without the consent of the state legislatures or citizens who would otherwise be responsible for such a decision.

"I don't think we're surprised by the numbers. These are things we foresaw and we've warned folks about," DEA Agent Kyle Mori told the LAT. "When states legalize it, you give folks a false sense of security that they can come through TSA checkpoints … They believe what they're doing is legal."

https://freebeacon.com/issues/post-legalization-marijuana-smuggling-explodes-at-lax/

House Foreign Affairs Chair: New ‘Ultra-Left’ Democrats ‘Not My Cup of Tea’

Whoa moar confirmation the Dems solidarity cracking like a mirror

New York congressman Eliot Engel, the chair of the House foreign affairs committee, is not a fan of his new "ultra-left" colleagues within the House Democratic majority.

Engel, who has been viewed as one of Congress's more liberal members over the span of his 30-year political career, made the admission during a recent interview with the American Jewish Committee's "Passport" podcast.

"There are a handful of people that aren't my cup of tea, but we have to transcend that and we will, and we have been," said Engel, as first reported by the New York Post.

The admission came when Engel was asked to discuss how his longstanding support for Israel contrasted with newer members of the Democratic majority, like fellow representatives Ilhan Omar (Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (Mich.). Both women have made controversial statements about Israel and Jewish Americans that are widely seen as anti-Semitic. Omar in particular, has accused political groups representing the Jewish community of "paying off" elected officials to be pro-Israel.

Engel, who himself is Jewish, was one of the first to denounce Omar's rhetoric, calling on her to apologize for the "vile anti-Semitic slur." Although Engel strongly rebuked Omar, he stopped short of removing her from his committee, despite calls from House Republicans to do so.

"I don't want Israel used as a political football by the ultra-left or the ultra-right," Engel said during the podcast. The congressman also discussed the recent increase in hate-crimes, especially against Jewish-Americans.

"Even in New York City, of all places," Engel said. "It only takes one jerk to do these things," he said, referencing the recent painting of a swastika.

On the podcast, Engel didn't reference the controversy directly and didn't mention the new Democratic lawmakers by name, but said, "It's not that Israel can't be criticized. It's just, I know when things are anti-Semitic, being Jewish, I have a feeling … we all know it when we see it."

https://freebeacon.com/politics/eliot-engel-ultra-left-democrats-not-my-cup-of-tea/

Dems seem to have a monopoly on ethics problems. They will do anything to win

Ethics Complaint Filed Against Calif. Dem. T.J. Cox Over Disclosure Problems

Six citizens in California have filed an ethics complaint against freshman Representative T.J. Cox (D.) alleging he violated House rules by omitting some business interests from his 2018 congressional disclosures which are required not only of incumbents, but also of candidates.

The complaint comes weeks after the largest paper in Cox's district, the Fresno Bee, revealed that the congressman's disclosure forms submitted during the campaign appeared to omit some key business interests he still had ties to.

"The congressman has stressed he's working to divest from his various interests, but his disclosures do not seem to show the full scale of those business ties," the Bee reported in early April.

"A Bee investigation found that Cox failed to disclose ties to five businesses, two of which he is still listed as a primary owner or director."

In one of those cases, Cox failed to disclose his activity as a member of the board of directors for a mining company based in Canada.

"At best, Representative Cox was grossly negligent in complying with the financial disclosure requirements and in failing to provide voters with complete and accurate information to make an informed selection of a candidate," the complaint, which was first reported by SVJSun.com, reads.

"At worst, Representative Cox willfully concealed accurate financial information regarding current ties and past legal issues."

Cox's race in California's 21st Congressional District in the San Joaquin Valley last year was so close it wasn't decided until a manual recount was completed almost a month after Election Day, in which Cox squeaked by incumbent Republican David Valadao by less than 1000 votes.

Cox was later asked about the Bee report on the disclosures problem in an interview by a local television station, but the congressman's reply didn't provide any straightforward answers.

"What they forgot to tell you is, any of these things—and there wasn't any of them where—one, they were already shut down, had no assets or revenues," he toldKSEE from his Capitol Hill office. "That's uh, that would've been a very pertinent piece of information."

He also implied that the Bee may have had an "agenda" against him.

Cox has also been under pressure about a nonprofit in the Fresno area for which he served as the treasurer, but an audit released this February showed the organization lacked basic controls "for monitoring revenues earned and expenses incurred," and essentially could not balance its checkbook.

Requests for comment from the Washington Free Beacon to Cox's congressional office about the ethics complaint were not returned.

https://freebeacon.com/politics/ethics-complaint-filed-against-calif-dem-t-j-cox-over-disclosure-problems/

Another Dem orchestrated Ethics Problem

Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh (D.) was a key player in the rollout of a well-funded plan by former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg to place lawyers into attorney general offices across the nation to litigate environmental and climate change issues..The scheme has fallen under scrutiny because Bloomberg, not the state, was the source of the salaries for the lawyers placed with attorneys general.

One of the participants in the emails described: At issue is the practice of allowing a third party to fund the deputizing of attorneys into the highest arm of state law enforcement and whether or not this is an illegal expansion of the OAG's reach. Additionally, the Virginia General Assembly last year required staff to the Virginia attorney general be paid only by funds allocated by the state, and not by any third party.

Emails obtained through open records requests by Chris Horner for the nonprofit organization Government Accountability and Oversight show that Frosh conducted much of this business on his personal Gmail account, ..Maryland AG office might flow through his personal account.

In one chain of emails from August 2017, as the plan was being rolled out, Frosh was given a set of talking points to deliver to other state AGs .. Democratic Attorneys General Association,.. Those talking points came from David Hayes, whose email signatures identified him as the executive director of the State Energy & Environmental Impact Center, a school within the New York University School of Law funded by Bloomberg to be the pass-through agency for the plan of placing the attorneys across the country.

Hayes emailed linking to a story in the Washington Post.. the creation of Bloomberg's school at NYU, and said, "We're off to the races. This would never have happened without your leadership." The Maryland AG's office was one of the early adapters of the Bloomberg project..Despite the fact that the lawyer was being paid a $125,000 salary by Bloomberg's school at NYU, Frosh labeled him a "pro bono" attorney, according to Government Accountability and Oversight.

In another email from January of 2018, Frosh writes to an employee at Yale University looking to recruit..

"Do you know anyone who would be interested in saving the planet from the predations of Scott Pruitt and Ryan Zinke?" he wrote.

When Hayes asked NAAG to publicize the Bloomberg plan, NAAG initially deferred, noting that all of the participating AGs were Democrats… In February, the Virginia General Assembly added an amendment to the annual budget that effectively nullified the Bloomberg plan… "The sole source of compensation paid to employees of the Office of the Attorney General for performing legal services on behalf of the Commonwealth shall be from the appropriations provided under this act," the amendment read.

Thus far, Horner says Bloomberg-funded attorneys have been placed in: Oregon, New York, Massachusetts, Maryland, Illinois, New Mexico, Washington, and the District of Columbia. In Oregon, a nonbinding analysis by the legal counsel for the Oregon State Legislature found that the Bloomberg funding of attorneys placed in the state's department of justice was probably not completely in compliance with state law.

Bloomberg's school at the NYU School of Law…has always claimed that having a third-party pay for lawyers to be embedded with OAGs is acceptable and ethical. ..Horner believes if Republicans were hiring and paying for third-party attorneys to do highly specific work with the full force and authority of state law enforcement, there would be an outcry.

"If what [the OAGs] are saying is, ‘Well, it's not illegal,' then they're saying they are perfectly fine with the Koch Foundation renting office space across from any office of attorney general to give her the staff she feels she really deserves that the legislature won't give him, to work on issues of Koch interest," Horner told the Washington Free Beacon last year.

"The ethical problems here should be obvious," the Journal wrote. "Private interests are leveraging the police powers of the state to pursue their political agenda," adding that, "[n]one of this is reassuring about the fair administration of justice."

https://freebeacon.com/issues/maryland-ag-frosh-gave-leadership-to-bloombergs-enviro-lawyer-scheme

wow even Liberals don’t believe the Abrams lie that she had the election stolen from her

Prof. at Liberal Univ. Says ‘No Good Evidence’ Stacy Abrams Won GA Gov. Election

“Let’s be clear: This is not a speech of concession,” Abrams said at the time. “Because concession means to acknowledge an action is right, true or proper. As a woman of conscience and faith, I cannot concede that.”

She couldn’t concede this in her concession speech because Brian Kemp, the winner, engaged in voter suppression as attorney general by enforcing existing voter laws, the most crucial of which was shepherded into being by Democrats. A regular Orval Faubus, this Kemp fellow.

Whatever the case, Abrams has created a new article of faith among the acolytes of the left: She didn’t really lose the Georgia gubernatorial election, it was stolen from her! (You don’t actually have to be Joseph Campbell to sense a pattern in the archetypal hero of modern liberal mythology.)

However, even a professor at a liberal university doesn’t think that’s true — and PolitiFact isn’t exactly standing behind the claim, either.

“It isn’t possible to prove if any election law or policy in either state cost the Democrats their elections, so we aren’t rating the statement by Harris on the Truth-O-Meter. However, our review found there’s more to the story of why these Democrats lost both races,” PolitiFact’s Amy Sherman wrote.

“Harris has a weaker case for blaming voter suppression in Gillum’s loss. Among other issues, Gillum faced ties to an FBI investigation during his campaign.”

https://www.westernjournal.com/ct/prof-liberal-univ-says-no-good-evidence-stacy-abrams-won-ga-gov-election/