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The King's Chapel, And The King's Court 11-10-11

The ambitious plans of Reston-based tech firm LightSquared, Inc. to build a $14 billion new nationwide mobile data and phone network are in limbo after the abrupt resignation this week of the company's boss on the heels of a major regulatory setback.

CEO Sanjiv Ahuja quit Tuesday, after regulators at ...

Federal agents armed with search warrants took documents Wednesday from the home of the son of Rep. Chaka Fattah and the law offices of one of the son's associates who owns a private school that does millions of dollars in business with the Philadelphia School District.

Agents from the FBI ...

When Communists and sympathizers made excuses for Stalin's terror, they said, "You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs."

Call it the white-coat revolution.

But instead of a Tunisian man burning himself about his vegetable cart, it's research scientists protesting the high cost of the Communications in Nonlinear Science and Numerical Simulation journal.

In an unprecedented global backlash, nearly 7,700 academics — ranging from renowned professors to graduate students, ...

NEW YORK — The number of American mosques has increased dramatically in the last decade despite protests aimed at Muslim houses of worship in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, according to a new study.

Researchers conducting the national count found a total of 2,106 Islamic centers, compared ...

Forget Congress - States Must Boot Federal Dept. of Education, 12-8-10

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — People jumped off - or rather leaped off -tall buildings all around the country Wednesday, parachuting down to the ground in honor of Feb. 29.

It was all part of a leap year promotion for an energy drink.

In Atlantic City, two parachutists jumped off the ...

The Power Elite and the Secret Nazi Plan, Part 17, 8-9-10

The Power Elite and the Secret Nazi Plan, Part 13, 4-19-10

You Want THEM To Control Healthcare? 8-17-10

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — The Indiana Senate on Wednesday passed a diluted version of a statewide ban on smoking in public places in hopes that lawmakers can forge a stronger ban in a conference committee with House lawmakers, who have passed a more restrictive version of the bill.

The Senate voted ...

They're stealing it again.

In 2000, my team uncovered how Katherine Harris illegally purged thousands of African-Americans from Florida's voter rolls.

In 2004, for BBC, we uncovered the Karl Rove GOP "caging scheme" that swiped that election.

In 2008, we uncovered, for Rolling Stone and BBC, with co-investigator Bobby Kennedy, the GOP attack on voters who lost their homes to foreclosure.

This year, there's a new danger: Behind the election games are billionaires Super-PAC-ing the ballot box.

But we have something they fear: deep file cabinets filled with confidential information on the billionaires behind Restore Our Future and other PAC-rats.

(We broadcast the first investigative report of the Koch Brothers in 1996. And they're not the worst. We MUST get this information out and soon.)

Now, our team is prepared to dig in again, to write about and to film the scams against our civil rights -- and this time, we have TV networks and major print outlets ready to take our reports.

BUT, they can't finance the basic detective work that gives our reports their powerful weight of undeniable facts.

For that, we count on you.

Please, right now, make a tax-deductible donation to the Palast Investigative Fund for our Billionaires and Ballots investigation.
If you join up with us to help fund the completion of our investigation, for your tax-deductible donation, we'll be happy to send you, in thanks:

- $150 - The Billionaires & Ballots Pack: includes a signed copy of Palast's latest, highly acclaimed book, Vultures' Picnic, the Election Files DVD and 5 copies of the Steal Back Your Vote comic plus the new Elections Games film when released. - $75 - Get two DVDs: Election Files and Palast Investigates: from 8-Mile to the Amazon (which includes the 2008 election shenanigans), both signed by Palast - $25 - Get 5 print copies of Steal Back Your Vote: The Graphic Election Guide (one SIGNED by Greg Palast).

Would you consider becoming an Associate Producer (minimum donation $500) or an Executive Producer (minimum donation $1000) of our film on the election games of 2012?

Producers will get a film credit, a dozen signed copies of the new Election Games: Billionaires and Ballots DVD and companion book when released in July. And copies of the book, film, and comic book election guides to the activist or civil rights group of your choice (we have suggestions).

We have lots of film from all over the USA already in the can. We have the files on the billionaire boys club. What we need are the funds to complete the work to get it on the air, into the hands of policy-makers, voters, the voting rights movement and waiting media outlets.

We don't come to you often. Now is the moment.
And we can't tell you how much we appreciate your support.

Yours,
Greg Palast and the team

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Greg Palast is the author of Vultures' Picnic: In Pursuit of Petroleum Pigs, Power Pirates and High-Finance Carnivores, released in the US and Canada by Penguin.

You can read Vultures' Picnic, "Chapter 1: Goldfinger," or download it, at no charge: click here.

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LISBON (AP) — Portugal won't extradite American fugitive George Wright to the United States for crimes he committed there four decades ago, after the U.S. ran out of possibilities to appeal the decision to let him stay, a Portuguese court official said Wednesday.

Portuguese police captured the 68-year-old Wright near ...

OFAC violated due process and the Fourth Amendment in its seizure of an Islamic foundation’s assets under an Executive Order without a warrant claiming the special needs exception, held not to apply. Al Haramain Islamic Found. v. United States Dep't of the Treasury, 2012 U.S. App. LEXIS 4025 (9th Cir. February 27, 2012):

AHIF-Oregon argues that OFAC's failure to obtain a warrant supported by probable cause violated its Fourth Amendment right to be free of unreasonable seizures. "In the ordinary case, the [Supreme] Court has viewed a seizure of personal property as per se unreasonable within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment unless it is accomplished pursuant to a judicial warrant issued upon probable cause and particularly describing the items to be seized." United States v. Place, 462 U.S. 696, 701 (1983). In most circumstances, searches and seizures conducted without a warrant are "per se unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment—subject only to a few specifically established and well-delineated exceptions." Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 357 (1967). Here, OFAC argues that its seizure falls within one of those well-delineated exceptions to the warrant requirement: the "special needs" exception.

. . .

In any event, OFAC has not given us any reason why it could not have obtained a warrant here. We hold that the "special needs" exception does not apply to the seizure of AHIF-Oregon's assets by OFAC under EO 13,224. See Kind-Hearts II, 647 F. Supp. 2d at 879-82 (holding that the "special needs" exception did not apply to very similar facts).

. . .

Most of our reasoning above, concerning the special needs exception, applies equally here. The cases in which the Court has found warrantless searches to be reasonable all involve very special circumstances and greatly diminished privacy interests—a point repeatedly emphasized by the Court. For instance, in Flores-Montano, 541 U.S. at 154, the Court held that a person's privacy interest in the interior of an automobile's gas tank is not sufficient to overcome the government's interest in preventing drug smuggling at the border. Similarly, in Samson and Knights, the Court explained at length that probationers and parolees, who are subject to a clearly disclosed search condition of parole or probation, have greatly diminished expectations of privacy such that warrantless searches survived Fourth Amendment scrutiny. Samson, 547 U.S. at 850-52; Knights, 534 U.S. at 119-21. Here, however, as we have explained, the reach of OFAC's authority extends to all persons and entities, without limitation. Nothing diminishes the privacy expectation of persons and entities potentially subject to seizure by OFAC because that class includes everyone.

We reiterate that OFAC's interest in preventing terrorism is extremely high. But we cannot accept OFAC's contention that its blocking orders are per se reasonable in all circumstances, solely by virtue of that vital mission. As we noted above, an exception to the warrant requirement would permit OFAC to seize assets without obtaining a warrant in some situations. But, because there is no diminished expectation of privacy and because nothing prevents OFAC from obtaining a warrant in the normal course, we reject OFAC's argument that its blocking orders are per se reasonable under the "general reasonableness" approach.

In summary, no exception applies to OFAC's warrantless seizure of AHIF-Oregon's assets and the seizure is not justified under a "general reasonableness" test. We therefore hold that OFAC violated AHIF-Oregon's Fourth Amendment right to be free of unreasonable seizures. Because the district court did not reach the issue of remedy and because the parties did not brief that issue before us, we remand to the district court to determine, in the first instance, what remedy, if any, is available.

Even when I agree with Rick Santorum, listening to him argue the point almost makes me change my mind.

The White House fairy tale about the Happily Ever After Auto Bailout is missing a crucial, bloody page.

Unlike Bill Clinton, President Obama admits he inhaled...

Rick Santorum's recent speech at the Detroit Economic Club stirred up a bit of controversy.

President Obama's apologies keep getting more outrageous and more destructive.