Another active shooter at Fort Hood. One confirmed dead. 14 reportedly injured. (Some reports have the shooter dead of self-inflicted wounds; let’s hope so.) Early reports of two shooters are most likely erroneous (as is fairly common in these situations).
Update: Shooter identified as one Ivan Lopez, reportedly a soldier. (And remember folks, there’s probably more than one Ivan Lopez in Texas. Don’t break out the Jump to Conclusions mat just yet…)
Hearing reports that now have four confirmed dead on Twitter, but haven’t seen media confirmation.
Update 2: Blithely ignoring my own advice one paragraph up, this would seem to be Ivan Lopez’s Google+ page (“Works at 2-8 CAV/Lives in texas”) and his connected YouTube channel. What little this says about the shooter could be measured in a very small thimble.
Update 6: Lopez evidently served four months in Iraq in 2011. “They said the gunman was taking medication and seeking help for depression and anxiety and was undergoing a diagnosis process for PTSD but hadn’t yet been diagnosed.”
I’m far from an expert, but if it’s been two plus years since Lopez saw combat, I would think that would be ample time to make a PTSD determination or not.
Update 7: “I don’t endorse carrying concealed weapons on base,” [Lt. Gen. Mark] Milley told reporters. “We have military police officers on base.”
You know, general, I think we now have enough data points to conclusively prove that that policy isn’t working.
Before the LinkSwarm itself, an observation: On the drive home from Houston to Austin this weekend, I saw a Prius with a “Repeal ObamaCare” sticker. Truly the tide has turned…
CNN decides that California’s third-ranking Democratic state Senator and gun control advocate being busted on federal arms trafficking charges just isn’t news.
And when liberals want to have a “conversation” on gun control, what they really mean is “let us shame you into rolling over and giving up your rights.” Then they wonder why they keep losing. “After Newtown, many gun-control advocates tried to shame rather than persuade, as if the ‘correct’ position was obvious to everyone save retrograde idiots. On guns, that strategy has never worked.”
Erick Erickson reviews Noah. I think the movie the movie may have strayed a little from its Biblical source, especially in the light-saber fight in the strip club after the car chase…
Yee is out on $500,000 bond, his passport has been confiscated, and he’s been told not to leave California. I dunno about you, but $500,000 seems low for someone accused of running a major arms trafficking ring. Good thing Chinese tongs have never been known to smuggle people in or out of a country illegally…
Democrats were all for keeping convicted felon Rod Wright around as a state senator, but now that Yee is making all the wrong headlines, suddenly they want to kick Yee out because he was indicted.
The indictment on Shrimp Boy’s misdeeds: “Chow’s criminal history includes a guilty plea in federal court for racketeering, involving murder for hire, conspiracy to distribute heroin, arson, and conspiracy to collect extensions of credit.” 1. Shrimp Boy is obviously well-rounded, 2. “conspiracy to collect extensions of credit”? YOU MONSTER! (Actually, I’m guessing this may be loan sharking.)
Also indicted is a Alan Chiu, who is described as a “close associate” of Chow and is “employed by Men’s Warehouse.” Well, now we know where Shrimp Boy gets all of those natty outfits…
Kongphet Chanthavong is described as a Thai citizen with a felony conviction and “an outstanding warrant of deportation; however, country conditions preclude deportation.” What? Which country’s conditions? Ours, because Obama refuses to enforce immigration law, or Thailand? If the later, just get him a one way-ticket to Bangkok and let Thai officials deal with him. Problem solved.
Marlon Darrell Sullivan was indicted on narcotics trafficking, gun trafficking, and the murder-for-hire scheme. I’m guessing it’s this Marlon Sullivan, who represents football players Matt Toeaina, Jonathan Fanene, and Pat Williams, and boxer Karim Mayfield. I was unfamiliar with Mayfield until I ran across his name this morning. Where? On Chow’s Facebook page.
Just how does a sports agent wake up one day and say to himself: “You know, the agent business is good and all, but I really want to break into the lucrative world of contract killing”?
Maybe because he never left the street. “Marlon Sullivan, according to the federal affidavit, told undercover agents he’d have no trouble pulling off a ‘hit’, saying ‘I got a hundred niggas, I still got my ties to the street. I got young boys who love me.’”
Also this: “As I write, Sullivan’s whereabouts are unknown. He did not appear at the hearing where more than 20 of the defendants were arraigned.”
Yee traveled in the circles you would expect a California state senator to travel in:
He evidently has friends on the South Side:
(In case you don’t get the reference, that’s singer Moby. Kids, ask your parents what a “Moby” was…)
But that’s not the only supergenius headline they offer up on the case. There’s also this sparkling example of the headline-writer’s art: “Leland Yee indictment may mark abrupt end to his political career.” Really? You think? Then again, he is a Democrat. Convictions couldn’t fully derail Marion Barry or Alcee Hastings careers…
All the story needs to take it to the next level is Lo Pan casting fireballs from his fingers…
It was inevitable that a Democrat accused of arms trafficking was a devout gun-grabber who was lauded by the Brady Bunch and pushed for an “assault weapons” ban.
Yee is also accused of pay-for-play legislative favors and trying to do an end-run around campaign finance laws.
Yee wasn’t just against guns, he also ranted against violent video games, despite evidently stealing criminal syndicate ideas from Grant Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars.
Yee is the third Democratic California state senator indicted in the past year, along with State Senator Ron Calderon and State Senator Roderick Wright, who has actually been convicted of eight felony counts of voter fraud, and who Democrats refuse to force to resign.
Funny how one-party Democratic rule leads to corruption, isn’t it?
Chow isn’t just a gangster, he’s a gangster who has his profile in the encyclopedia of gangsters. In other news, there’s an encyclopedia of gangsters (though it seems to be pretty focused on Californian and Asian gangs).
Chow has a really extensive rap sheet:
In 1978 Shrimp Boy was founded [sic] guilty in 1978 for strong-arm robbery and sentenced to 11 years of which he did 7 years and 4 months…Raymond Chow started running a protution[sic] ring, when he was approached by the leader of the Wah Ching gang “Danny Wong” who ask him to be a part of the Wah organization, but Chow refused.
On May 31, 1986 Raymond was at a popular night club in Chinatown when a Wah Ching Gang member started an altercation and Chow was accused of 28 counts of assault with a lethal firearm, and attempted murder, Raymond did 3 years behind bars and was released in 1989.
(Extensive details of shifting Asian gang allegiances omitted.)
Until 1992, when Chow was apprehended for racketeering which was then divided into 2 different trials. The initial trial for firearm trafficking and the 2nd for prostitution, drug, money laundering, unlawful gambling functions, arson, hire for murder and assault with a deadly weapon. Raymond was pronounced guilty in 1995, Chow was penalized and sentenced to 24 years on 6 counts of firearm-trafficking.
Seeing some reports that Chow’s previous indictments included ones for male prostitution, which is pretty unusual (even for San Francisco), but I’m not sure how well sourced those reports are.
It takes a special kind of gangster to carry off that look.
Ha:
And here he is with former San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom:
According to the official indictment, Chow is still a Chinese citizen. Why was he not deported after serving his first felony sentence? The moment he got out of prison the first time he should have been on a plane back to Hong Kong.
Iowahawk’s Twitter feed linked the indictment papers with this observation:
The Leland Yee criminal complaint: legal document, or lost screenplay for a ludicrous low budget 1974 Kung Fu movie? http://t.co/Fx9VZiISxr
Tam says the indictment “reads like a Tarantino production of an Elmore Leonard novel.” Or something out of Paul Malmont’s The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril, which I happen to be reading right now. I suspect the books collection of (real) 1930s pulp writers would be amazed to learn that Chinese criminal tongs were still alive and well in 2014…
The indictment (which I’m still reading) also mentions the indictment of Keith Jackson, the former former president of the San Francisco Board of Education, on a murder for hire charge.
Here’s a more detailed piece on Chong and Chinatown gang boss Peter Chong. Chong’s house was struck by arson the same night he hosted a concert by sex-bomb Hong Kong actress Amy Yip, who made her bones in movies like Chinese Erotic Ghost Story and Sex and Zen, and who was known far and wide for her tremendous, uh, talents.
Here you can see more of her fabulous talents:
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Of course, if Yee was trafficking arms to foreigners, it brings up one important question: Why wasn’t he already working for Obama’s Department of Justice?
Edited to add: Dwight has done another update, and Yee was evidently willing to sell shoulder-fired rockets to Islamic rebels for $2 million. Wow, this story really does have everything!
Joaquin Castro to boycott Buc-ees? He should have almost as much luck in Texas boycotting air conditioning and football. Hey, when Castro can offer outstanding fudge and the largest, cleanest restrooms in the state, let me know…
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You may remember the case of New Rome, Ohio, an infamous speedtrap that existed only to line the pockets of a corrupt family and their friends. The corruption was so bad, Ohio disolved the town on September 9, 2004.
“A state audit of Hampton’s books, released last month, reads like a primer on municipal malfeasance. It found 31 instances in which local rules or state or federal laws were violated in ways large and small.”
The big question seems to be where the ticket money went…
Nigerian Muslim defends daughter’s conversion to Christianity, pleads for multiculturalism and tolerance. Ha, just kidding! He hacked her to death with a machete.
“What Nigerian scams are to your grandfather, Bitcoin exchanges are to the 20-30 semi-tech-savvy libertarian demographic.”
“The exchanges are based on layers upon layers of bad software, run by shady characters,” he writes. “The Bitcoin masses, judging by their behavior on forums, have no actual interest in science, technology or even objective reality when it interferes with their market position. They believe that holding a Bitcoin somehow makes them an active participant in a bold new future, even as they passively get fleeced in the bolder current present.”
More on Critical Race Theorist/Social Justice Warrior types: “These people don’t listen to things like “logic” and “reason” when they are in one of their social justice tizzies. It’s not even worth trying to be kind or polite to them.”
Another roundup of tab-clearing news, much of which got pushed aside by Ukraine updates:
Obama Administration admits that ObamaCare will screw small businesses. (Hat tip: Instapundit.) Why are any Republicans futzing around with any fix but full repeal?
Bobby Jindal: “Obamacare is giving low-income Americans fewer reasons to work.”
How ObamaCare is turning into the Democrats’ own forever war.
Michael Totten points out that Che Guevara is a murderous communist scumbag. Bonus: “Cuba’s maximum wage is less than one percent of America’s minimum wage”
Portugal decriminalized all drugs 11 years ago. Result? Addiction cut in half, and “Portugal’s drug usage rates are now among the lowest of EU member states.”
Sarah Hoyt further dissects Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America idiocy. She touches on many of the reasons I didn’t renew my membership, the main ones being that SFWA is no longer important enough to be worth fighting for, and was certainly not worth $90 a year in dues.
