VoteKansas.org

Five search warrants were executed after wiretaps. Defendant had standing as to his business and home, but not three others. There is no co-conspirator exception to standing for them (Padilla). There was “strong evidence” of probable cause supporting the search warrants, so the motion is denied as to all five. United States v. Kazarian, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 70050 (S.D. N.Y. May 18, 2012).*

Defendant had a “full and fair opportunity to litigate” his search claim which he waived by his guilty plea. The after the fact discovery by defendant that a witness on the search issue was not completely believable wasn’t good enough to undermine the plea. Balleza v. United States, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 69537 (N.D. Tex. May 17, 2012).*

Defendant’s 2255 claim that defense counsel failed to challenge warrantless searches fails without an allegation as to what those searches were and how he was prejudiced by it. Fuller v. United States, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 70813 (N.D. Ill. May 22, 2012).*

Yosemite National Park officers came to a campsite to investigate disorderly conduct and a traffic offense and ordered everybody to sit at a table and show their hands. One lady refused to be patted down and then was threatened with being Tasered, and that was unreasonable under the circumstances. She was targeted only because she was with others who might be suspects. United States v. Mazzetti, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 69922 (E.D. Cal. May 17, 2012)*:

Based on the record before the Court, including the primary concern for the personal freedom of individuals who are suspected of having done nothing more than to have committed, and completed, a misdemeanor, the rangers had the right and duty to approach the group and question its individual members regarding possible criminal activity. However, they lacked the right to conduct an investigatory stop, i.e, restrain the liberty, of Defendant. They did restrain her. The restraints violated protections afforded her under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

The Court does not discount nor denigrate the reasonableness and sincerity of Ranger Bellino's belief that the restraints on Defendant's freedom were necessary to ensure safety of himself and his fellow rangers dealing with members of a group which outnumbered the Rangers. The Court respects such concerns. History has shown that law enforcement personnel are regularly exposed to wholly unexpected, and all too often deadly, threats. However, our Constitution demands that such concerns be balanced against citizens' rights to be free of unreasonable seizure of their persons. Thus, law enforcement may not take action to restrain the personal liberties of individuals based on purely theoretical safety concerns. Here, when Ranger Bellino arrived, nothing suggested to him that any member of the group had engaged in any serious crime or threat to public safety or posed an ongoing threat to Ranger Bellino or anyone else. There was no justification for using the threat of force to compel Defendant's continued presence.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Regulators are examining whether Morgan Stanley, the investment bank that shepherded Facebook through its highly publicized stock offering last week, selectively informed clients of an analyst's negative report about the company before the stock started trading.

Rick Ketchum, the head of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, the ...

What a terrible task to take on at such a dark moment when I would prefer to keep my thoughts private, but someone must speak.
I am, and I hope you are, sickened to see Rupert Murdoch's New York Post savage our colleague Robert F. Kennedy Jr. while he and his children are in great distress.
I will not answer, and thereby repeat, the cruel libels thrown at Kennedy by the Post.
But let me get this on the record: Kennedy is, and this is no exaggeration, the most committed family man I know. Every single day, he shuts down work, no matter the flood of urgent demands from around the world, for family time, for his kids. He is deeply religious, with a piety and intelligence he communicates with his family so impressive it makes me doubt my atheism.
Kennedy uses his family name, not to further his career, but to widen his children's understanding and involvement in the world and to try to teach our ignorant nation lessons in moral conduct that his kids have already learned well.
To blame Kennedy for his wife's illness is just further proof of the conclusion of Britain's Parliament that Murdoch is "unfit to run a newspaper."  But then, no one would say the NY Post is a newspaper.
Again, I want to extend the condolences of the entire Palast crew to Mary Richardson Kennedy's family.
When Bobby's grief and mourning pauses––because it will never end––we look forward to resuming our partnership with him.

- Greg Palast

No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief,

More pangs will, schooled at forepangs, wilder wring.

Comforter, where, where is your comforting?

...O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall

Frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed. Hold them cheap

May who ne’er hung there. Nor does long our small

Durance deal with that steep or deep. 
 

- Gerard Manley Hopkins

Journalist Greg Palast, with Bobby Kennedy Jr., investigated the threat to voters' civil rights for Rolling Stone magazine and BBC Television. www.GregPalast.com

ShareThis

JOPLIN, MO. | A year after a massive tornado tore through Joplin, thousands of survivors and others touched by the storm's fury made a somber march through some of the hardest-hit neighborhoods in a town dedicated to remembering its losses but also committed to what is certain to be a ...