Increased Threshold For Major Theft Statute, Brings Increased Shoplifting

[From article]
Perry Lutz says his struggle to survive as a small businessman became a lot harder after California voters reduced theft penalties 1½ years ago.
About a half-dozen times this year, shoplifters have stolen expensive drones or another of the remote-controlled toys he sells in HobbyTown USA, a small shop in Rocklin, northeast of Sacramento. "It's just pretty much open season," Lutz said. "They'll pick the $800 unit and just grab it and run out the door."
Anything below $950 keeps the crime a misdemeanor — and likely means the thieves face no pursuit and no punishment, say retailers and law enforcement officials. Large retailers including Safeway, Target, Rite Aid and CVS pharmacies say shoplifting increased at least 15 percent, and in some cases, doubled since voters approved Proposition 47 and ended the possibility of charging shoplifting as a felony with the potential for a prison sentence.
Shoplifting reports to the Los Angeles Police Department jumped by a quarter in the first year, according to statistics the department compiled for The Associated Press. The ballot measure also lowered penalties for forgery, fraud, petty theft and drug possession.
Public Policy Institute of California researcher Magnus Lofstrom noted a troubling increase in property crime inCalifornia's largest cities in the first half-year after Proposition 47 took effect. Preliminary FBI crime reports show a 12 percent jump in larceny-theft, which includes shoplifting, but he said it is too early to determine what, if any, increase is due to the ballot measure.
The increase in shoplifting reports set up a debate over how much criminals pay attention to penalties, and whether law enforcement is doing enough to adapt to the legal change.
Prosecutors, police and retailers, including California Retailers Association President Bill Dombrowski and CVS Health spokesman Mike DeAngelis, say the problem is organized retail theft rings whose members are well aware of the reduced penalties.
"The law didn't account for that," said Capt. John Romero, commander of the LAPD's commercial crimes division. "It did not give an exception for organized retail theft, so we're seeing these offenders benefiting and the retailers are paying the price."
Lenore Anderson, executive director of Californians for Safety and Justice, who led the drive to pass Proposition 47, said law enforcement still has plenty of tools, including using the state's general conspiracy law and proving that the same thief is responsible for multiple thefts that together top $950.
[. . .]
While misdemeanors, in theory, can bring up to a year in county jail, Fresno Police Sgt. Mark Hudson said it's not worth it to issue a citation or arrest a suspect who would likely be immediately released because of overcrowding.
"We've heard of cases where they're going into stores with a calculator so they can make sure that what they steal is worth less than $950," said Robin Shakely, Sacramento County assistant chief deputy district attorney.
[. . .]
California is among 17 states without an organized retail crime law that specifically targets shoplifting rings with tougher penalties, according to the Organized Retail Crime Resource Center. Results vary: Of the top five states for shoplifting last year, three — Florida, Pennsylvania and Texas — had such laws, while California and New York did not.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/05/14/california-ballot-measure-blamed-for-shoplifting-jump.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+foxnews%2Fmost-popular+%28Internal+-+Most+Popular+Content%29

California ballot measure blamed for shoplifting jump
Published May 14, 2016 

Associated Press

Women At Harvard University Object To Forcing Them To Admit Men To Their Clubs

Does "Title IX" trump the Right to Associate guaranteed by the US Constitution? And the Mass Civil Rights Statute Chapter 265, Sec. 37 "No person, whether or not acting under color of law, shall by force or threat of force, willfully injure, intimidate or interfere with, or attempt to injure, intimidate or interfere with, or oppress or threaten any other person in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the constitution or laws of the commonwealth or by the constitution or laws of the United States."



http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2016/5/9/female-clubs-sororities-response/

Sorority, Club Women Denounce New Policy on Facebook
By C. RAMSEY FAHS and DEREK G. XIAO

Harvard CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
May 8, ,2016

* * *



http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2016/5/10/women-oppose-sanctions/

Hundreds of Women Protest Harvard Sanctions
By C. RAMSEY FAHS

Harvard CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
May 9, 2016

Southerners Push Back Against Removal Of Confederate Statue

The statue of Confederate Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard in New Orleans.
Photo: AP

[From article]
Backlash against a plan to remove prominent Confederate monuments in New Orleans has been tinged by death threats, intimidation and even what may have been the torching of a contractor’s Lamborghini.
For now, at least, things have gotten so nasty, the city hasn’t found a contractor willing to bear the risk of tearing down the monuments. The city doesn’t have its own equipment to move them and is now in talks to find a company, even discussing doing the work at night to avoid further tumult.
Initially, it appeared the monuments would be removed quickly after the majority-black City Council on Dec. 17 voted 6-1 to approve the mayor’s plan to take them down. The monuments, including towering figures of Gens. Robert E. Lee and P.G.T. Beauregard, have long been viewed by many here as symbols of racism and white supremacy.
The backlash is not surprising to Bill Quigley, a Loyola University law professor and longtime civil rights activist in New Orleans who’s worked on behalf of a group demanding the monuments come down.
The South has seen such resistance before, during fights over school integration and efforts in the early 1990s to racially integrate Carnival parades in New Orleans.
“Fighting in the courts, fighting in the legislature, anonymous intimidation,” Quigley said. “These are from the same deck of cards that are used to stop all social change.”

http://nypost.com/2016/03/25/removal-of-confederate-symbols-turns-nasty-in-new-orleans/

Removal of Confederate symbols turns nasty in New Orleans
By Associated Press
New York Post
March 25, 2016 | 12:44pm

Restricting Migrants Is Settled Federal Law

[From article]
Most of us have locks on our doors. We do not think twice about securing our homes from unwanted intrusion. Yet now the opposition to common sense has increased in Western cultures, to the point where it is now controversial to get foreigners to ask permission before invading another country. There are a significant number of people in the West who believe that everyone in the world has the right to come and go across all international borders.
[. . .]



After decades of Muslim terrorism, the West is now experiencing the fruits of hijrah, the Muslim invasion, in Europe. The bodily integrity of Europe’s women is being sacrificed upon the altar of multiculturalism to the insatiable god of jihad.
However, only one American presidential candidate, Donald J. Trump, has had the decency to offer to protect Americans by barring the entry of more Muslims. This power is undoubtedly a legal, constitutional prerogative of the president, under 8 USC §1182, “Inadmissible Aliens.” For this proposal he has been roundly condemned by Democrats and Republicans alike.
[. . .]
In the past, one could at least rely on the common sense of the observant Orthodox community and the nationalist Zionist community.
Alas, it seems those days are now gone. Both the Orthodox Union and the Zionist Organization of America (both of which I have supported in the past) have condemned Trump’s proposal to protect America from becoming Eurabia.



[. . .]
Israel will not accept an influx of millions of Muslims. This policy has been supported by the American Jewish community.
The question is now obvious. This policy of barring Muslim immigration is good enough for Israel, so why should it not be good enough for America?
[. . .]



We already have accumulated enough evidence by observing Europe to know that the Muslim invaders will attack women and Jews first, raping the first, murdering the second. Is that what the Jewish establishment wants? They should speak with some Jewish refugees from Arab countries in the Middle East, to find out how their distant cousins the Arabs will treat them.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/01/muslim_immigration_hypocrisy.html

January 13, 2016
Muslim immigration hypocrisy
By Surak

MA Supreme Judicial Court Voids Statute Making It A Crime To Lie About Political Candidates

[From article]
The Supreme Judicial Court unanimously struck down a nearly 70-year-old state law that made it a crime to publish false statements about a political candidate, holding that the statute violated the First Amendment.
The case stemmed from a campaign battle between Second Barnstable State Rep. Brian Mannal and the Jobs First IE PAC, which distributed fliers before last year’s election claiming in part: “Brian Mannal chose convicted felons over the safety of our families.” The claim was based on legislation Mannal sponsored to require that sex offenders be notified of their right to a public defender. Mannal took the fight to court, seeking criminal charges against the PAC’s treasurer under the law.
Though the state asked the court to dismiss the charges against the PAC official but uphold the statute, the court ruled that the Constitution prevented that outcome because the law banned too broad a category of speech.
[. . .]
the court has consistently protected unsavory speech against laws that could have too broad of a chilling effect on Americans’ free speech rights.
That outcome wasn’t unexpected. Both liberal and conservative groups, as well a host of media companies, urged the court to come to the decision that it did. Boston First Amendment attorney Harvey A. Silverglate said the court understood that in politics, the solution to bad information is more information — not a jail sentence.
“If one person happens to have a larger megaphone than someone else, that’s not disruption, that’s politics,” Silverglate said.

http://www.bostonherald.com/news_opinion/columnists/kimberly_atkins/2015/08/sjc_voids_law_criminalizing_lying_about_office

SJC voids law criminalizing lying about
office-seekers
Friday, August 7, 2015
By: Kimberly Atkins
Boston Herald

Wives Try RICO Statutes in Divorce Court

Rachel Alintoff is using the RICO laws against her husband Bryan Alintoff.

Photo: Kristy Leibowitz
[From article]
While RICO was enacted in 1970 “to get to corrupt families under the name of the Mafia, there’s a certain symmetry [with divorce cases] because oftentimes . . . you have the corrupt spouse in cahoots with others, often family members or paramours,’’ said family-law expert Michael Stutman.
Patricia Cohen, the ex-wife of billionaire Steven Cohen, pioneered the tactic in 2009.

http://nypost.com/2015/02/16/wives-try-to-use-racketeering-law-against-rich-husbands-in-court/

Wives try to use racketeering law against rich husbands in court
By Julia Marsh
New York Post
February 16, 2015 | 6:02am

SCOTUS Justice Indicates Being Misinformed On Obamacare

Justice Elena Kagan, wrong on Affordable Health care Act?

[From article]
Kagan’s mistake, if that’s what it was, goes to the heart of a serious contemporary problem: the proliferation of bureaucratic regulation carrying the force of law, wholly produced not by legislation, but by bureaucrats.
It should be deeply shocking and embarrassing if a sitting Supreme Court Justice confused bureaucratic regulation for actual statutory language. A former Harvard Law School professor, and dean, no less. One of the reasons we venerate the Supreme Court is that the justices are expected to immerse themselves in the cases, and ponder them deeply.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2014/03/did_justice_kagan_embarrass_herself_during_the_hobby_lobby_oral_arguments.html

March 30, 2014
Did Justice Kagan embarrass herself during the Hobby Lobby oral arguments?
Thomas Lifson

Rape Shield Statutes

In response to allegations that Greg Kelly, son of NY Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, raped a woman.

http://apleblog.com/2012/01/28/rape-shield-statutes-%E2%80%93-shield-or-sword/

Rape Shield Statutes