Document 9980wqOQwOvE540BD7BO5qBo3

Message From: Sent: To: Subject: Americans for Limited Government [media@limitgov.org] 3/7/2018 2:41:49 PM Abboud, Michael [/o=ExchangeLabs/ou=Exchange Administrative Group (FYDIBOHF23SPDLT)/cn=Recipients/cn=b6f5af791al842fladcc088cbf9ed3ce-Abboud, Mic] How many laws did the Oakland mayor break? Every drop of blood spilled by the criminal illegal immigrants the mayor warned is on her hands March 7, 2018 Permission to republish original op-eds and cartoons granted. How many laws did the Oakland mayor break? Anyone that paid attention to the 2016 election knows the issue of illegal immigration was one of the core issues that drove President Trump to victory. For good reason, the American people were tired of open borders and criminal illegal immigrants roaming freely through their streets. President Trump is keeping his promise to deport criminal illegal immigrants, but many local politicians care more about convicted criminals than they do their own citizens. Living in the Lap of Luxury According to a report it filed with the US Department of Labor, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) spent over $2.3 million at 4- to 5-star hotels around the world in 2016. (Data for 2017 is not yet available.) With so many of SEIU's members working low-paying jobs as janitors and health care workers, it seems unlikely that many of SEIU's members regularly travel in such luxury. Anti-establishment, anti-euro parties topple power in Italy Euro opponent Matteo Salvini is poised to become Italy's next prime minister. The Economist: Xi Jinping decides to abolish presidential term limits "Censorship makes judging public reaction in China hard. But there was more inventive mockery in response to the startling announcement on February 25th than there was during the country's biggest political event of the past few years, a party congress last October. There was also some unusual open dissent. A prominent former editor, Li Datong, and a well-known businesswoman, Wang Ying, both appealed to the legislature through WeChat, a social-media platform, demanding that it reject what Ms Wang called an `outright betrayal'. Many Chinese, it seems, regard scrapping term limits as a return to the bad old days of strongman rule. " How many Haws did the Oakland mayor break? Sierra Club v. EPA 18cv3472 NDCA Tier 7 ED 002061 00004268-00001 By Printus LeBlanc Anyone that paid attention to the 2016 election knows the issue of illegal immigration was one of the core issues that drove President Trump to victory. For good reason, the American people were tired of open borders and criminal illegal immigrants roaming freely through their streets. President Trump is keeping his promise to deport criminal illegal immigrants, but many local politicians care more about convicted criminals than they do their own citizens. Since President Trump took office, ICE has increased arrests by 40 percent, a far cry from the Obama administration that had a habit of releasing criminal illegal immigrants into the community. The Obama administration was so inept, or corrupt, at security it released over 19,000 criminal illegal immigrants into U S. communities. The 19,000 had over 64,000 convictions, including hundreds of guilty of murder, kidnapping, and sexual assault. For some reason, the Obama administration didn't believe in deporting violent criminals; the administration felt it was more appropriate to let them roam streets. Last week, U S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) launched a series of raids across Northern California targeting hundreds of criminal illegal immigrants. It is important to note; these are illegal immigrants that have committed crimes in addition to being here illegally. Illegal immigrants convicted of assault, child sex crimes, and weapons charges were just a small sampling of the people targeted for removal. However, the Mayor of Oakland had different plans. Shortly before the raids were to begin, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf (D) sent out a tweet warning criminal illegal immigrants of the impending raids. The warning gave the criminals time to relocate and hide. ICE still carried out the raids, but only captured 180 illegal immigrants that were either convicted criminals, had been issued a final order of removal and failed to depart the United States, or had been previously removed. Federal immigration officials believe as many as 800 criminals were able to avoid arrest thanks to the tip-off from the Mayor. U S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement chief Thomas Homan stated that Schaafs actions were, "no better than a gang lookout yelling 'police' when a police cruiser comes in the neighborhood." It brings up the obvious question, did the mayor break the law? There seem to be at least three apparent violations of the law by the mayor: 1. 18 U.S. Code 2(a) Aiding and Abetting - "Whoever commits an offense against the United States or aids, abets, counsels, commands, induces or procures its commission, is punishable as a principal." In layman's terms, it means assisting in someone else's commission of a crime. 2. 18 U.S. Code 3 Accessory after the fact - "Whoever, knowing that an offense against the United States has been committed, receives, relieves, comforts or assists the offender in order to hinder or prevent his apprehension, trial or punishment, is an accessory after the fact." Sierra Club v. EPA 18cv3472 NDCA Tier 7 ED 002061 00004268-00002 3. 18 U.S. Code 1503 Obstruction of Justice - "Whoever corruptly by any threatening letter or communication, influences, obstructs, or impedes, or endeavors to influence, obstruct, or impede, the due administration of justice, shall be punished." Not only should criminal charges be brought against the mayor, but Congress must also act to make sure this does not happen again, and the best way to do that is to hit them in the pocketbook. Not the city, county, or state's pocketbook but the official's personal pocketbook. A piece of legislation introduced in Colorado is the best way to achieve that goal. State Senators (Vicki Marble and Tim Neville) and a pair of State Representatives (Phil Covarrubias and Dave Williams) from introduced SB17-281, the Hold Colorado Government Accountable Sanctuary Jurisdictions bill. The bill waives governmental immunity against a jurisdiction and its public employees for personal injuries caused to crime victims because a jurisdiction is a sanctuary jurisdiction. If a local official knew they could be held financially liable for the crimes committed by illegal immigrants they let go, it is doubtful sanctuary city policies would continue. Americans for Limited Government President Ric Manning stated, "Any private citizen who engaged in the same activity as Mayor Schaaf would have been locked up and already facing charges. There is no excuse for putting law enforcement and Oakland residents in danger due to misguided loyalties. Not only should she be locked up, but all federal law enforcement funds should be frozen." Every drop of blood spilled by the criminal illegal immigrants the mayor warned is on her hands. She chose to put the feelings of convicted criminals over Oakland residents. The Justice Department must act, or every sanctuary city will follow the Oakland example and warn offenders of impending raids. Printus LeBlanc is a contributing editor at Americans for Limited Government. Living in the Lap of Luxury Sierra Club v. EPA 18cv3472 NDCA Tier 7 ED 002061 00004268-00003 By Richard McCarty According to a report it filed with the US Department of Labor, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) spent over $2.3 million at 4- to 5-star hotels around the world in 2016. (Data for 2017 is not yet available.) With so many of SEIU's members working low-paying jobs as janitors and health care workers, it seems unlikely that many of SEIU's members regularly travel in such luxury. Below are some of the amenities available at several of these fine hotels. SEIU spent nearly $50,000 at the 5-star Regis Washington DC, which is one of the nicest hotels in the city. The hotel is located near the White House; its lobby features crystal chandeliers, marble floors, and a baby grand piano. Most evenings, the hotel conducts a ceremony opening a champagne bottle with a saber and then distributes complimentary glasses of champagne. SEIU spent over $18,000 at the 5-star InterContinental Hong Kong. The hotel has stunning views of the city's harbor. In 2016, the hotel had one fancy restaurant that was Michelin-rated; now it has two. Each hotel room includes a loaner smart phone that guests can use to make unlimited local or international calls. The phone also offers unlimited data and functions as a hotspot. SEIU spent over $8,000 at the 5-star Park Hyatt Chicago, the "flagship Park Hyatt hotel." The hotel has beautiful views of downtown Chicago and Lake Michigan. Rooms in this hotel have remote control blinds, iPads, espresso machines, bathrobes, slippers, and televisions in the bathrooms. SEIU spent over $5,000 at the 5-star Westin New York at Times Square. Guests staying at this hotel who forgot their workout clothes can borrow pants or shorts, a shirt, socks, and tennis shoes for just a few dollars. Room service, on the other hand, is much more expensive: the room service menu offers a cheeseburger for $26, yogurt for $12, pancakes for $22, a muffin for $14, and an ice cream sandwich for $14. If none of the room service options suit guests' appetites, they can order a chicken pot pie for $29 in the hotel's bar. SEIU spent over $70,000 at the 5-star MGM Grand Detroit, one of the nicest hotels there. The hotel has a casino, a spa, an indoor pool, and Wolfgang Puck Steak, which received a 4-star rating from the Forbes Travel Guide. This rating makes the steakhouse the highest-rated restaurant in the state, according to Forbes. SEIU spent over $27,000 at the 5-star MotorCity Casino Hotel in Detroit, also one of the nicest hotels in Detroit. Guests can use the hotel's spa and its pillow library and dine at the hotel's AAA Four Diamond Award-winning restaurant, Iridescence. Iridescence is one of only five restaurants in the state receiving this award. At Iridescence, the menu includes caviar for $125 and a 6-ounce Japanese steak for $120. SEIU spent over $5,000 at the 5-star Taj Boston, which was previously a Ritz-Carlton. The hotel is noted for its "vast array of museum-worthy artwork." The hotel's restaurant, The Caf, Sierra Club v. EPA 18cv3472 NDCA Tier 7 ED 002061 00004268-00004 received the AAA Four Diamond Award; it is one only twelve restaurants in the state receiving this award. The hotel is located on the same block as Burberry, Brooks Brother's, and Armani, and is across the street from Boston Commons. A Tiffany & Co. boutique can be accessed from the hotel's lobby. The hotel offers guests a pillow menu, a bath menu, a bath butler, and complimentary shoeshines. A seasonal fireplace butler is available to assist guests staying in the hotel's fireplace suites. It's a little hard to believe that SEIU had to spend over $2 million of its members' money at fancy, swanky hotels in just one year. Surely, there were other less costly lodging options that SEIU could have chosen if SEIU's bosses wanted to conserve their members' funds. But because SIEU chose to spend its members' money in this fashion, SEIU members are due an explanation as to who is traveling in luxury at their expense and why. Richard McCarty is the Director of Research for Americans for Limited Government Foundation. Anti-establishment, anti-euro parties prevail in Italy Sierra Club v. EPA 18cv3472 NDCA Tier 7 ED 002061 00004268-00005 By Robert Romano Almost a decade after the sovereign debt crisis began in Europe, with increasing sentiment for countries to withdraw from the Eurozone currency union, and for the first time in Italy, a narrow majority voted against the establishment parties. The trouble? The Italian people voted for two separate anti-establishment parties: The Five-Star Movement with 32.7 percent of the vote and the League with 17.4 percent of the vote. Sierra Club v. EPA 18cv3472 NDCA Tier 7 ED 002061 00004268-00006 Italy has one of the largest sovereign debts in the world at 2.5 trillion but since the crisis in sovereign bond markets emerged, hitting Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Spain and Italy the hardest, the debtor nations have been held captive in the euro currency. Any other sovereign country in such a situation would use its central bank to engage in open market operations and restore confidence to markets, essentially printing money to pay the debt. It would be default by another name. But Eurozone countries only received assistance from the European Central Bank with very stringent terms. In essence, Brussels was taking over the sovereign decisions of member countries, and dictating terms to legislatures. The experience helped fuel uprisings all across Europe. The radical-left Syriza decimated the Socialists in Greece in 2015. The Five-Star Movement in Italy has slowly gained support in successive elections since 2013 and now is the largest single party in the country. It had consistently supported a national referendum to leave the Eurozone but in this past cycle party leader Luigi Pi Maio would only call such a referendum "a last resort, which I hope to avoid." In the UK, Brexit reached critical mass in 2016 as the British people voted to leave the European Union. For his part, the League's Matteo Salvini -- whose party beat out Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia -- remains opposed to the Eurozone, stating on the campaign trail, "I remain convinced ... that the euro under these conditions was an error. Which we will put right." Now, Salvini has become the top contender to lead a national government in Italy. He had formed a center-right coalition with Berlusconi. Together, they garnered 37 percent of the vote. Almost, but not quite enough to get the 40 percent needed to form a government. To get across the finish line, Salvini has to make a deal. So would Di Maio, whose Five Star Movement -- founded by comedian Beppe Grillo -- has never joined a governing coalition, always opting for opposition. Could Salvini and Five Star come together to address Italy's fiscal woes? Obstacles include divergent views on immigration, with Salvini taking a Trumpian stance against the wave of migration from the Middle East throughout Italy and more broadly Europe. The party of Matteo Renzi, who has resigned as Prime Minister, could also serve as an obstacle, although Renzi on his way out the door suggested his party would be in opposition and not form a coalition with the Five-Stars. Renzi's center-left coalition only received 23 percent of the vote. Claudio Borghi, the League's top economist suggested that the Five-Stars form a government with the center-right in an interview with Reuters: "What I would prefer for my country would be the centreright and 5-Star because I think we could find common ground." Which, there is something to be said for that. One thing that united Five Star and the center-right was opposition to Renzi's proposed constitutional referendum, which failed by about 6 million votes, losing 41 percent to 59 percent. In many ways, the same coalition showed up in Italy on March 4. Sierra Club v. EPA 18cv3472 NDCA Tier 7 ED 002061 00004268-00007 But Saivini ruled it out such a grand coalition, at least initially, stating, "The 5-Stars have changed their minds too many times and on too many topics, so for me it's a big `no.'" What about with Renzi? Saivini was quick to quip, "I won't comment on the debacle of others, Matteo Renzi's arrogance has been punished." To get to the 40 percent needed to form a government, Saivini will either have to make a deal with Di Maio or with perhaps smaller members of Renzi's coalition. Di Maio could play the kingmaker or could form the opposition with Renzi's party. If the center-right and parts of the center-left cannot form a coalition, then Di Maio may be more wellpositioned to assume control, in a coalition with parts of the center-right coalition or with Renzi's party. The question is, what happens? Who knows? It's Italy. Under their constitution, the President of Italy, Sergio Mattarella, determines which party gets an opportunity to create a government. By its nature, the system calls for compromise. Anything could happen. Stay tuned. Robert Romano is the Vice President of Public Policy at Americans for Limited Government. ALG Editor's Note: In the following editorial from The Economist, the author describes the mood in China after Xi Jinping abolished presidential term limits and the unrest that creates: The R co no m ist Xi Jinping decides to abolish presidential term limits BLOGGERS in China surpassed themselves in their ingenuity after the Communist Party announced its plan to get rid of presidential term limits, which would have required Xi Jinping to step down as head of state in 2023. One online commentator posted a picture of Winnie-the-Pooh hugging a jar of honey, with the caption "Find the thing you love and stick with it." The Bear of Very Little Brain is used in China as code for the portly Mr Xi--the post was swiftly deleted by humourless censors. Others posted mock condom advertisements with tag lines such as "Doing it twice is not enough" and "I like how you're always on top." (The manufacturer solemnly informed readers that these were fakes.) Other banned terms included "I disagree", "Animal Farm" (the novel), "emigrate", "board the plane" {dengji, which also sounds like "ascend the throne") and "Yuan Shikai", an early 20th-century warlord who declared himself emperor and died six months later. Censorship makes judging public reaction in China hard. But there was more inventive mockery in response to the startling announcement on February 25th than there was during the country's biggest political event of the past few years, a party congress last October. There was also some unusual open dissent. A prominent former editor, Li Datong, and a well-known businesswoman, Wang Ying, both appealed to the legislature through WeChat, a social-media platform, demanding that it reject Sierra Club v. EPA 18cv3472 NDCA Tier 7 ED 002061 00004268-00008 what Ms Wang called an "outright betrayal". Many Chinese, it seems, regard scrapping term limits as a return to the bad old days of strongman rule. Terms of art Such limits may not matter much in themselves (they will be formally abolished at an annual session of the rubber-stamp parliament, which starts on March 5th). The presidency is a weak office. Mr Xi could stay in power as the party's general secretary and military chief, to which term limits do not apply. But the abolition is still important partly because it is the clearest evidence that MrXi does, in fact, plan to ignore convention that party chiefs step down after ten years, and keep all of his jobs after 2023. It also pierces the veil of politics and shows what kind of ruler he wants to be. At a time when he is trying to boost China's image globally as a modern, outward-looking and responsible state, the political system he governs seems premodern, opaque and treacherous. The system itself is extremely unusual. China has two ladders of authority: the government and the party. The party hierarchy outranks the state one. In other countries, the ministers of finance and foreign affairs (government jobs) are usually the most important ones after the president or prime minister. In China, they are not even in the top 25. Neither man is a member of the Politburo, let alone its inner sanctum, the Politburo Standing Committee. Formally, the People's Liberation Army is controlled by the party, not the government. In one respect, though, Chinese politics is all too normal. As with other Leninist systems, it is bedevilled by the problem of leadership succession. Of the 11 party leaders since 1921 (seven since the party seized power in 1949), only one--Mr Xi's predecessor, Hu Jintao--has stepped down from all his posts in accordance with a timetable. Seven were executed or purged. In the 1980s, reacting to the chaos of the Mao era, Deng Xiaoping tried to make the system more orderly and predictable by introducing new rules, norms and precedents. These included the reinstitution of the post of president (there had not been one since 1968), along with a two-term limit for the holder of that office as well as the vice-president. Mandatory retirement ages were also introduced. After Mao's one-man freak show, Deng argued that China needed "collective leadership". In a speech in 1980 he said the system should avoid an "over-concentration of power", which, he warned, was "liable to give rise to arbitrary rule". He said it should make a clearer separation between the party and the government. And it had to "solve the problem of succession in leadership". Before he resigned in 1989 as head of the party's Central Military Commission, Deng said his final task was to "take the lead in establishing a retirement system". As the abolition of term limits shows, he failed--or at least, his reforms failed to rein in Mr Xi. Instead of avoiding an over-concentration of powers, the president has made himself chairman of everything. Instead of separating party from state, he has injected party control into areas which had once been relatively free of it, such as private companies (see article). Now he has cast aside Deng's efforts to introduce a system of succession by timetable. Click here for the full story. Sierra Club v. EPA 18cv3472 NDCA Tier 7 ED 002061 00004268-00009 Subscribe in a reader Americans for Limited Government 10332 Main Street # 326None Fairfax Virginia 22030 United States This email is intended for abboud.michael@epa.gov. 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