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After California Democrat voters essentially legalized the theft of goods valued at less than $950 when they downgraded the crime from a felony to a misdemeanor, it failed spectacularly, and brought about total societal mayhem, with viral video after viral video showing brazen robbers exiting stores with armfuls of merchandise.
Recall that in 2014, progressive constituents passed Proposition 47 which ushered in the change; then, last year, state lawmakers sought to rectify at least some of the chaos, and passed a number of laws to legitimately criminalize theft again.
Yet, stupid as ever, and completely undeterred, unashamed, and unburdened by political fiasco after political fiasco, state lawmakers want to try the “$950 law” again, this time amongst welfare recipients.
According to Martha McHardy’s new report at Newsweek, Lola Smallwood-Cuevas, a black, female legislator from Los Angeles, has just introduced a bill before colleagues that “proposes eliminating criminal penalties for attempted welfare fraud involving less than $950.” For context, Smallwood-Cuevas was the lone state senator to vote against AB2943, which created a new crime for “possessing more than $950 of stolen goods with intent to sell, exchange, or return the goods.” Now, the theft alone should be the crime, because this still essentially permits theft as long as you’re not going to turn around and sell it to someone else or return it to the store, but we can safely assume that’s not why Smallwood-Cuevas was a “nay” vote.
Anyway, here’s what Smallwood-Cuevas said about her new proposal, via McHardy:
‘This bill is about keeping families out of the criminal justice system for making administrative errors,’ the senator wrote in an April 8 Instagram post. ‘It offers a smarter, more humane approach by allowing counties to resolve most overpayment cases administratively, holding people accountable without criminalizing poverty.’
“Administrative errors” like illegals erroneously claiming they’re citizens, or deadbeats erroneously forgetting to report income, or “single” mothers erroneously “concealing the presence of another parent in the household.”
Does Smallwood-Cuevas realize there’s a stereotype about black people and theft? This isn’t helping.
Here’s a bit of relevant data, from McHardy:
In Los Angeles County alone, investigators review 15,000 to 20,000 welfare fraud referrals annually, identifying fraud in about 5,000 to 8,000 cases. Of those, approximately 200 cases are referred to the district attorney's office, with a 95 percent conviction rate.
Seems like fraud just *might* be a pretty big issue.
Just yesterday I was reading a Fox News item reporting on a late-night exchange that California Democrat Adam Schiff had had with a cashier at Target shortly after a thief broke into his car and stole his luggage a few years back:
‘And then I get to the cashier. The cashier asked me if I want one of those Target bags with a little bullseye on it. And I said, ‘Yes, that Target bag is gonna be my luggage for the next two days,’ Schiff continued. ‘And she asked me what happened, and I told her, and she basically said in not so many words, ‘Yeah, Democrats are a---h---s.’ And I thought, you know, if the cashier in South San Francisco at 10 o’clock at night believes that Democrats are a---h---s because the shampoo was locked up and my stuff got stolen out of the trunk, we’ve got a major problem that we have to address.’
Turns out, it never clicked, and the Democrats just can’t help but be total a**hol*s.
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