Roy Exum
Back in the early 60s we still had a 30-minute recess in junior high school where you first learned how to talk to girls, polish your strut, and find out what new cuss words meant … stuff like that. I had one particular friend and about once every several weeks he and I would make our legendary “pocket knife bet.”
The way it worked is one of us would pick out the stupidest guy we could find in the whole yard and we’d get to talking with him. We’d steer the conversation to pocket knives and we’d both show him ours. Most parents wouldn’t let dumb kids carry a knife and, sure enough, almost every time our pigeon wouldn’t have one.
Well, it would just so happen I’d have one of those shiny, cheapos from China that Western Auto would sell for 99 cents on Saturdays. I’d pull from my hip pocket and the goof would leap at the chance to buy it for a quarter. “Can’t give it to you … everybody knows you never give a friend a knife -- that will cut a man’s friendship every time! Just gimme a quarter.”
The trap set, my confederate and I would bet each other a dollar on how many days it would take the dumbo kid to cut himself with it. It was a great game and we played it regularly for about two years. The average was somewhere between two to four days because a really stupid kid can’t bear not playing with a new knife. So help me it’s true.
I saw a real dandy cut himself within the first 10 minutes one day. What’s worse, they’ll readily admit a nick from the blade and tell you exactly when it happened. What makes the game so easy is that the suckers are so dumb they have no idea they are dumb.
I’d forgotten “really stupid” until I read the story last week about two Einsteins in Dade County who were swapping an unloaded gun at school. Understand, according to reports neither gangster had any bullets but, boy, if we ever needed a strong argument against “social promotions” in our schools we just came across Exhibit A.
There is no way our “pistol boys” got into high school on the up-and-up. Neither can have an IQ higher than ground temperature, are you kidding me? Both had to know the world has gone big-jump crazy with outrageous reactions over firearms. For anybody to take an empty gun to any school in this climate begs a deep mental exam with the shock treatments. Better to be shocked in “the tater lab” than the penitentiary, I always say.
Let me tell you what happens next – people like this grow up and the worst always get into politics. Don’t laugh, it is really not funny. Case in point: Libby Schaaf is the Mayor of Oakland, California. Oakland is the 45th largest city in the United States by population but I’m thinking there are very few people like us within the state lines of California. After all, most of Oakland voted for Libby.
Last weekend – Saturday a week ago to be precise – The mayor actually issued a press release and appeared on TV to warn the citizens of an impending operation by the U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement to round up criminals who are undocumented immigrants. That’s right – she very publicly warned the criminals that the police were coming.
Thomas Holman, the Deputy Director of ICE, was obviously shocked and as he announced over 850 “criminal aliens and public safety threats” remain at large. “I believe that some of them were able to elude us thanks to the mayor’s irresponsible decision.”
Naturally there is a huge uproar and there are very strong calls for the mayor to be arrested and jailed for not only obstructing justice but willfully violating the federal Immigration and Naturalization Act. Her actions undoubtedly compromised the safety of federal agents but Schaaf, also a lawyer, said she did nothing illegal.
“I do not regret sharing this information,” Schaaf said after the ICE operation. “It is Oakland’s legal right as a sanctuary city. We believe our community is safer when families stay together.”
In a news release, the immigration authorities said the effort was “a continuation of ICE’s efforts to prioritize enforcement against public safety threats. During a similar operation earlier this month in Los Angeles, 88 percent of those arrested by ICE were convicted criminals. In Fiscal Year 2017, ICE arrested 20,201 aliens throughout California – 81 percent of whom were convicted criminals.
“Sanctuary jurisdictions like San Francisco and Oakland shield dangerous criminal aliens from federal law enforcement at the expense of public safety,” the release further stated. “Because these jurisdictions prevent ICE from arresting criminal aliens in the secure confines of a jail, they also force ICE officers to make more arrests out in the community, which poses increased risks for law enforcement and the public.
Holman added, “The Oakland mayor’s decision to publicize her suspicions about ICE operations further increased that risk for my officers and alerted criminal aliens – making clear that this reckless decision was based on her political agenda with the very federal laws that ICE is sworn to uphold.”
In an interview with Fox & Friends, Holman added, “What she did is no better than a gang lookout yelling ‘police’ when a police cruiser comes in the neighborhood, except she did it to a whole community,” he said. “It’s beyond the pale.”
Yes, and what the Oakland mayor did was stupidity at its worst. An outspoken Trump hater, the liberal elected official has openly admitted she is very much a part of the liberal Left’s “resistance,” the unofficial term for left-leaning Americans who oppose Trump, according to the Washington Post.
“I hope we take this moment to recognize that we have to fight against the racist myth that the Trump administration is trying to perpetuate, that immigrants are dangerous criminals. There is nothing farther from the truth. This is racist, and it is false,” Schaaf said last week.
Legal experts? One said it was unlikely that Schaaf could be charged with obstruction of justice, noting that her weekend news release was vague and that proving a corrupt intent would be difficult. “It can’t be a corrupt intent simply to have the desire for someone to avoid prosecution,” said Professor Robert Weisberg of Stanford Law School told the San Francisco Chronicle.
“This is just going to be fought out between the feds and the locals, but I don’t think obstruction will come into play. How would this differ from somebody saying, ‘The San Francisco Police Department is using more resources to patrol neighborhood X for drugs’?” Neither warning would be directly interfering with an investigation, and thus would not count as obstruction, Weisberg said.
Among those arrested was ICE fugitive Armando Nuñez-Salgado, 38, a citizen of Mexico and documented Sureño gang member, who has been previously removed by ICE on four prior occasions. Over the past 18 years, he has accumulated criminal convictions in California that have resulted in prison sentences totaling more than 15 years. His criminal convictions include assault with a deadly weapon (statutorily enhanced because of his gang member status), burglary, hit-and-run causing injury and evading a peace officer.
Other arrests include:
* -- In Sacramento, a citizen of Mexico, who has criminal convictions for possession of a dangerous weapon, inflicting corporal injury on a spouse, DUI, convicted felon in possession of a firearm, burglary, threatening with intent to terrorize, battery on a police officer and resisting arrest. The individual is also a documented Sureños gang member
* -- In Sacramento, a citizen of Guatemala, who has a criminal conviction for false imprisonment
* -- In Bay Point, a citizen of Mexico, previously removed by ICE eight times and who has a criminal conviction for assault with a deadly weapon
* -- In Stockton, a citizen of Mexico, who has a previous criminal conviction for lewd and lascivious acts with a child under 14 years old
* -- In San Francisco, a citizen of Mexico, who has previous criminal convictions for battery and DUI
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“Although it is not true that most conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservatives.” -- John Stuart Mill
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“When my boss asked ‘Who is stupid – you or me?’ I told him everyone readily agrees he never hires a stupid person.”
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“Stupid people are a lot like glow sticks – you gotta’ snap them and shake real hard until the light comes on.”
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“Everyone has to climb ignorant mountain --- what worries me are those who pitch a tent and stay there.”
royexum@aol.com