The Hits Keep on Coming

Ever since this story broke, I've been wondering when we'd hear this...it was only a matter of time before it came out and Jaxon Van Derbeken over at the Chronicle gets major props for his continued dedication to bringing these facts to the attention of San Franciscans.

Turns out, Edwin Ramos, who is being charged with the murder of a father and his two sons (almost a month ago today), is one of the juvenile illegal immigrants who was shielded from deportation by the San Francisco Juvenile Probation Department.

"Ramos, a native of El Salvador whom prosecutors say is a member of a violent street gang, was found guilty of two felonies as a juvenile - a gang-related assault on a Muni passenger and the attempted robbery of a pregnant woman - according to authorities familiar with his background.

In neither instance did officials with the city's Juvenile Probation Department alert federal immigration authorities, because it was the city agency's policy not to consider immigration status when deciding how to deal with an offender. Had city officials investigated, they would have found that Ramos lacked legal status to remain in the United States."

Attempted robbery of a pregnant woman! Nice. I wonder how the mother of his child feels about him assaulting pregnant women (Ramos has a baby girl with some bright spot in the female community). And he committed that crime literally within days of being released for his first offense (a gang-related assault on a MUNI bus).

Update - after a little research, it turns out he's married to a girl who is (how convenient!) a U.S. citizen and had a request to become a permanent resident pending when he shot Tony Bologna and his two sons.

I guess I should include that his prior juvenile convictions occurred before Gavin Newsom took office in 2004 and we already know that the policy of shielding illegal immigrant felons predates his administration (confirming another well-known fact: San Francisco has been run by misguided liberals and outright idiots for a very long time). Still, his administration should have stopped this policy immediately upon taking office instead of jumping right for issuing illegal marriage licenses to gays and lesbians. I mean, clearly, his priorities have been way off track from day one!

In the two weeks (it's about two weeks, maybe a little more) since Gavin Newsom terminated the idiotic policy of not referring these felons to ICE at least ten juvenile offenders have been referred to federal authorities. That's almost one per day! Can you imagine how many have slipped through the system in the years since this policy started? How many heinous crimes could have been prevented by simply abiding by federal law? I'd like to know what the repeat-offense rate for these criminals is...how many of them go on to commit progressively more violent crimes as Mr. Ramos has?

Oh, and speaking of Gavin Newsom, he hasn't clarified whether or not he ended the policy in May as he claimed on CBS or in July when it was brought to the public attention.

All I can say is it's more than time for some serious accountability for the leaders of San Francisco. At every turn they have had ample opportunity to right the wrongs that have ruled this city for decades and at each turn they've chosen WRONG. As one SFGate commenter put it: "Grab your pitchforks and light your torches. Time to take back our city."

(Speaking of pitchforks and torches, go to recallmayornewsom08.com and email them to show your support!)

The papers mostly seem willing to put this whole immigrant shield business behind them and move on as Newsom's mostly-faithful lapdogs, but one there was one semi-enlightening blurb in the Chronicle today:

For the past two years, Gavin Newsom's advisers have been telling the politically ambitious mayor he has to make a choice: Stay "governor" of San Francisco, or start acting like the governor of California.

The importance of making a call became clear last week when Newsom found himself in the national spotlight for shielding juvenile crack dealers from immigration authorities as part of San Francisco's sanctuary-city policy.

As luck would have it, The Chronicle's Jaxon Van Derbeken broke the kid crack dealer story just as Newsom was announcing he was setting up an exploratory committee for a run for governor. Suddenly, the would-be statewide candidate ran the risk of being pilloried as being soft on not one but two hot-button issues: crime and illegal immigration.

But within his own administration, there was no clear consensus on what he should do.

At his regular weekly think tank gathering, the division became clear - with one side urging Newsom to hold true to the sanctuary city ideals and show "compassion" for the crack kids, and the other side telling him that shielding drug dealers, of any age or immigration status, was political suicide.

"Not only for someone running for governor," said one source who attended the meeting. "Even here in San Francisco, it was a 80-20 loser."

The next day, Newsom made the call to end the sanctuary shield and start cooperating with federal immigration authorities.

But, Newsom claimed last week in that Hank Plante interview that he ended the policy a month before it hit the news...so...again Mayor Newsom, were you lying then or now?

More Inconsistencies from Mayor Photo-Op

Gavin Newsom's taking it hard on all sides after revelations that San Francisco has been involved in a criminal shield of illegal alien drug dealers. Yeah, you've probably already heard about that.

Then we heard about dumping some of those detainees being dumped (to the tune of $7000/month) in a San Bernadino group home. Oh hey, they also escaped. Embarrassing much?

Then we had the denials. "I don't have the authority here."

Then we had the simultaneous reversal and the whole exploratory committee announcement. Timely, I know.

Today, we're hearing a bit more from San Bernadino. Big surprise, they're more than a little hacked off about SF dumping our criminals into their community. Gee, total shocker - apparently other communities are actually concerned about protecting their citizens.

"This is a virtual assault on our communities," [County Supervisor Gary] Ovitt said Thursday at a news conference. "Our county will not serve as San Francisco's dumping ground."

"But what the city of San Francisco and its rock star Mayor Gavin Newsom did to poor little Yucaipa and the county of San Bernardino is a crime - really. And they should be ashamed of themselves. Sending eight crack-dealing street criminals to a nonsecure home in Yucaipa to serve out their sentences in a lock-free come-and-go at-will environment is beyond the pale. Their motive was to shelter these crooks from the feds because they are illegal immigrants from Honduras. Where did they park their brains? It was wrong, wrong, wrong." (Wes Hugh)

San Francisco didn't really need any help building a bad reputation with the rest of the state. There's already plenty of resentment about San Francisco values and the fact that we spell city with a capital "C" because we are just that darn important. This scandal is not helping. It definitely won't be a boon to Gavie's campaign for guv in 2010.

Tonight's 10:00 news featured a tasty piece of journalism from Hank Plante. You can read the article but I seriously urge you to view the video. Among other things, Newsom claims that he ended the policy of dumping illegal immigrant felons on May 16th, the date he claims to have found out about the practice.

So was he lying when he said that he didn't have the authority to change the practice on July 2nd? Or when he said that he that he didn't know "until recently" about the policy and that it was changed on July 3rd? Or tonight, was he lying when he told Hank Plante that he terminated the policy a month before the press got wind of it? Because, Mayor Newsom, I'm sure even you can see that all three of these things cannot be true.

I'm sure that behind closed doors this guy has the worst temper (in my head, I'm thinking Patrick Bateman-style rage...my imagination could be considered a little colorful). At any rate, it's probably a good possibility that a few walls of his office (or home) had a good bit of contact with his fist when all of this hit the fan.

Despite his adamant insistence that this has "nothing to do with anything political" - Newsom can be sure that to the rest of California, especially San Bernadino, this is going to be very political when they go to the polls in 2010.

Too Little, Too Late?

Over here in the category of absurd:

S.F. mayor shifts policy on illegal offenders.

Practicing his best "I was for it before I was against it" impression, Mayor Newsom announced today that the juvenile illegal immigrant felons will be turned over to the feds for deportation. Amazingly, he managed to conjure up the "authority" to make this big policy decision just one day after proclaiming that such decisions were entirely out of his power.

Let's review, shall we?

Yesterday:

"I don't have the authority here," Newsom said at a City Hall news conference as he stood beside his handpicked juvenile probation director, William Siffermann. "I have a bully pulpit. The courts have the authority here. [...] The question you need to ask is why the courts, the D.A. and the public defender are directing (the Juvenile Probation Department) to do that, [...] [Juvenile Probation Department Direction William Sifferman] is told by the courts to do this. ... The D.A. and judges and public defender all tell chief Siffermann what to do."

Today:

"All I can say is, I can't explain away the past," Newsom said. "I take responsibility, I take it. We are moving in a different direction.[...]There has been a lack of clarity, however, on our policy toward juveniles who commit felonies. ... I have directed my administration to work in cooperation with the federal government on all felony cases."

So, I'm confused. Authority or no authority? Which is it, Mayor Newsom?

Oh hey, also, way to through your man Sifferman under the bus:

He said the decision to send the juveniles to the unlocked group home in San Bernardino County "was wrong. It was a mistake, and he (Siffermann) needs to answer for that. I'm not pleased about any of this."

Yes, he's definitely ready for higher office.

No matter what, this is not the kind of management that California needs. A plea of ignorance doesn't undo the $2.3 million (yes, million) spent on inappropriately detaining illegal juvenile felons. Newsom should have put a stop to the entire Sanctuary City policy ages ago, especially if you consider our city's $338 million dollar deficit. I'm guessing (and I have to research this further) that eliminating spending on illegal aliens would alleviate a considerable amount of our budget woes.

No Comment?

Right around the time he was passing the buck on the whole illegal immigrant crack dealer scandal, Gavin Newsom also announced the formation of his exploratory committee for a possible 2010 gubernatorial campaign.

With all the outcry about the crack dealer debacle, you can imagine a lot of people had opinions about Mayor Newsom running the whole State (um, how about NO?). At last count, there were around 78 comments on the article. But then, *poof!* comments = gone.

"Comments have been removed from this article.

Back to Article."

I've emailed the author of the article, Carla Marinucci...we'll see if there's a response.

Update: I received emails both from Carla Marinucci and someone from SFGate's web people, they both said it was basically a "technical error" and comments are now open. All original comments were "lost."

Score One for Truth Justice and the American Way

I must confess, I actually lost sleep last night thinking about the soon-to-be-released Supreme Court decision on the DC gun ban. Nerdy, much? I am also trying to figure out a way to rationalize printing all 157 pages of the decision to Mr. Urb so I can read it without sitting in front of Lappy all day. And I'm thinking about steak and milkshakes because this is such a gosh darn great day for America (and PS - I never eat or like either of those foods). It feels almost sacreligious that I am still planning on making turkey tacos for dinner.

Anyway - Gavin Newsom's petulant reaction to the Heller decision (I am so excited to teach this part of American history to my kids) is, well, typical. He is Lord Ruler and all-wise and any one who's opinion (or hey, judicial fiat) differs with his omnipotent views is either stupid or sheltered (privileged) or malignant (as in - aggressively malicious, not fast-growing cancer).

"Mayor Gavin Newsom said the ruling "just flies in the face of reality. You just wish the Supreme Court could spend a week in public housing and then come out with this decision. It's very easy and comfortable to stand there with security guards and metal detectors and make these decisions."

Hey Mayor, how about you spend a week in public housing without the following: bodyguard (who, I am sure, carries a weapon), manicurist and hair gel. And maybe you should have a conversation with our good friend DiFi who has carried a gun for years (all while doing everything in her power to make sure average citizens cannot). Law-abiding gun owners the world over will tell you, gun control laws don't stop criminals from being criminals! They make criminals think twice because their next victim might be packing heat.

Forecast for DC in the near future: less crime.