The Iranian-owned skyscraper, The Piaget Building in midtown Manhattan, along with mosques, schools and Islamic centers around the country, had a Federal civil “complaint” filed today, leading to their seizure by the U.S.

The Piaget Building is managed by the Alavi Foundation and owned by the Iranian government. An amended complaint “seeking the Foundation’s “majority stake” in the building located at  650 Park Avenue, New York, New York.

[Alavi] working with a front company known as Assa Corp., illegally funneled millions in rental income to Iran’s state-owned Bank Melli. Bank Melli has been accused by a U.S. Treasury official of providing support for Iran’s nuclear program, and it is illegal in the United States to do business with the bank

Bank Melli Iran is reported to have $48 billion in Shariah-compliant assets, with Iran holding more Islamic assets than all other countries. Iranian banks account for 6 of the top 10 Islamic Institutions worldwide.

In their amended complaint, U.S. prosecutors alleged Alavi has been providing numerous services to Iran’s government, including managing the building, running a charitable organization for the Iranian government and transferring funds from the building’s management company to Bank Melli.

While all of the properties under forfeiture may remain open as proceedings go forward, and no Iranian spokesman or mosque leader would speak of the action, neither would they open their doors:

At the Islamic Institute of New York, a mosque and school in Queens, two U.S. marshals came to the door and rang the bell repeatedly. The marshals taped a forfeiture notice to the window and left a large document sitting on the ground. After they left a group of men came out of the building and took the document.

Mosques are located in Queens, NY, and schools in Huston and Rockville, Maryland and an Islamic center in Carmichael, California. In Virginia, a 100-acre property.

This minute on FOX, Alavi is denying any part of their operation is owned by the Iranian government. While one earlier report said no action was taken today at the properties, FOX News’ Eric Shawn just reported that boxes were removed from the Piaget Building today.

Assets are believed to total more than $500 million, with mosques, schools and Islamic centers in Maryland, California, Houston and New York, including a 36-story office building in New York, and more than 100 acres in Virginia.

The receipts from the Piaget Building funds mosques, Islamic Centers and schools.

Confiscating the properties would be a sharp blow against Iran, which has been accused by the U.S. government of bankrolling terrorism and trying to build a nuclear bomb.

The sleek, modern building, last valued at $570 million to $650 million in 2007, has served as an important source of income for the foundation over the past 36 years. The most recent tax records show the foundation earned $4.5 million from rents in 2007.

Rents collected from the building help fund the centers and other ventures, such as sending educational literature to imprisoned Muslims in the U.S. The foundation has also invested in dozens of mosques around the country and supported Iranian academics at prominent universities.

If federal prosecutors seize the skyscraper, the Alavi Foundation would have almost no way to continue supporting the Islamic centers, which house schools and mosques. That could leave a major void in Shiite communities, and hard feelings toward the FBI.

It’s about time radical Islam has a problem with the FBI. The article says Alavi Foundation has been suspected of terrorist ties for THREE DECADES. This is not good news for the three young Americans held hostage in Iran for crossing the border from Iraq. Sarah Shourd, Shane Bauer and Joshua Fattal were charged this week with espionage and will be tried in Iran. We’ll see if the Iranian mosques and schools become bargaining chips for the release of Shourd, Bauer and Fattal.

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Judge Andrew Napolitano announced on the Glenn Beck Show this week that he is planning to do a Constitutional Law seminar on Fox News. I see this as the next avenue of Tea Parties: We begin to talk about the U.S. Constitution, and what liberty really consists of, in detail, and we keep talking about it.

Thomas Jefferson said:

“… God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed.

The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive.

If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty…. And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms.

The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.”
Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334 (C.J. Boyd, Ed., 1950)

That is an awesome quotation – an awesome thought.

Napolitano is the author of a wonderfully informative book, Constitutional Chaos. I’m looking forward to the lecture or lectures as a way to get the conversation started.

Not everyone is anxious to hear the Judge’s ideas, however. It would be naive to think Liberals would be interested in the U.S. Constitution. I found one Liberal site admitting they are “more than a little queasy” at some of the issues Napolitano addressed yesterday:

Freedom of choice and control over your own body will be lost.

More of your hard earned dollars will be at the disposal and tender mercies of federal bureaucrats. It was not intended to be this way.

We can vote the bums out of their cushy federal office

…we can persuade the state governments to defy the Feds in areas like health care where the Constitution gives the federal government zero authority.

We can ask our state legislatures to threaten to amend the Constitution to abolish the income tax, to return the selection of US senators to state legislatures and to nullify, to nullify! all the laws that Congress has written that are not based on the Constitution.

But there is one thing we can’t do. Just sit back and take it.”

Napolitano has been laying out our politically incorrect abuse of the US Constitution for a very long time. Here’s a snippet from the introduction to his book Constitutional Chaos:

What’s at Stake in America Today

I, myself, am a strong and fervent believer in Natural Law. The only valid laws are those grounded in a pursuit of goodness. Anything else – like taking property from Person A and giving it to Person B, like silencing an unpopular minority, like interfering with freedom of worship – is an unjust law, and, theoretically, need not be obeyed. St. Thomas Aquinas said only just laws impose an obligation of obedience, because unjust laws are not within the power of the government to enact; and only laws that seek goodness are just. This is the essence of Natural Law. No government may enact laws interfering with our freedoms no matter how popular the enactment.

The positivist would say since the government gives freedom, the government can take it away. The Natural Law says only God gives freedom and the government can only take it away as a punishment for violating the Natural Law, and then only through due process.

To a positivist, the government’s goal is to bring about the greatest benefit to the greatest number of people. Under the Natural Law, the only legitimate goal of government is to secure liberty, which is the freedom to obey one’s own free will and conscience, rather than the free wills or consciences of others.

The problem today in America – the greatest and gravest threat to personal freedom in this country – is that the positivists are carrying the day. Under their sway, the government violates the law while busily passing more legislation to abridge our liberties.

If we wish to survive the near future with our rights intact, we need to understand the size and scope of the threat. We must also understand its true identity: a government that breaks its own laws. ~  Constitutional Chaos, Judge Andrew Napolitan

About Natural Law, new President George Washington said:

The foundation of our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality; …the propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained…”

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Our world is upside-down. Democratic leaders say they do not share the concerns of the Republican members of the House Intelligence Committee that Nidal Hasan’s red flags were, perhaps, ignored.

Just a few short months ago, Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the CIA liars, offered no proof and then refused to talk about it again – leaving the stain on the agency’s  credibility in full view for the world to see.

Yesterday, Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI) accused Obama of withholding “critical” information. The House Intelligence Committee, chaired by a Democrat, dismissed Hoestra’s concerns.

Rep. Hoekstra went even farther and effectively said the President was not truthful when he claimed that Hoekstra and other intelligence committees had been “briefed:”

Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI) is blasting President Obama for withholding from the Congressional intelligence committees information on the Fort Hood killings suspect, while at the same time acknowledging the leaders of those panels — including Hoekstra himself — have indeed been briefed on Nidal Malik Hasan.

In his statement, Hoekstra repeated Obama’s plea that we not “jump to conclusions” about the alleged Fort Hood killer:

…but the administration is in possession of critical information related to the attack that they are refusing to release to Congress or the American people,” Hoekstra said

Hoekstra said he was concerned that more information had been provided, piecemeal, to the news media by anonymous sources than had yet been provided to the Committee. He criticized the Obama administration for not being more immediately forthcoming with details and specifically requested information, and for restricting the limited information provided so far to the so-called “Gang of Eight.”

So perhaps the Gang of Eight is the problem? No. Hoekstra is a member of the Gang of Eight. Members are Nancy Pelosi, John Boehner Harry Reid, Mitch McConnell, Silvestre Reyes, Pete Hoekstra, Diane Feinstein and Kit Bond. So what is going on? Was Hoekstra appropriately briefed as Obama claims, or was he not? And how about Pelosi and Reid? What do they know?

This is the height of hypocrisy and the culmination of evil. The administration and Democrats are salivating over Eric Holder’s investigation into CIA so-called torture of Guantanamo prisoners - after promising the Bush administration that they would drop that atrocious idea.

But today, with the Fort Hood memorial tribute still on the calendar, they have no concern that intelligence and the U.S. Army may have put troops side-by-side with a radical jihadist – with red flags flaring.

Democrats know Americans are fed up with their politically correct posture. We know Americans are dying in this country, in Afghanistan and still yet in Iraq because military fears the wrath of Congress, and the administration, loathes any attempt to profile or point a knowing finger at an extremist. In the video below, Hoekstra speaks about preventing terrorism and keeping soldiers safe…February 2008. Listen as he talks about homegrown terrorism. Democrats told him the “threat is not real.”

Pete Hoekstra  “threat not real”

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This is a priceless 50 year-old cartoon, demonstrating how big and small business thrives alongside labor. Then, as today, one cannot survive without the other – capital and labor working together.

Liberals contend that America is different today, our needs are different, the U.S. Constitution is no longer relevant, but this humorous and desperately serious cartoon shows how the struggle for liberty never ends…until we let “them” end it.

Fifty year old political cartoon predicts future (video)

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A British reporter chatted-it-up with an American Muslim at the local mosque where murdering, Islamicist Nidal Hasan, worshipped.

Duane, the American Muslim, said he has “no pity” for the dead at Ft. Hood. He admits that we [infidels] will be shocked by his words but predicts that after 5 minutes we’ll forget about it and go on our way.

“Duane” must be issuing a challenge to Liberals, because I promise, Conservatives will not forget:

“it’s just like a majority of the people who hear this will be shocked and after 5 minutes they will forget about it and go on their way.”

Muslim-appeasing Liberals will forget Duane, but not I, not my liberty-loving friends. We won’t be forgetting, and you can sleep well knowing that our military will never, never forget – but they will protect your rotten soul – you who would never have the strength to live the rest of your life among your own “brothers,” as you affectionately refer to them, in the squalor of a real Muslim environment, where your life has no value. The only thing lower than you in a Muslim country are your women.

American Muslim “Duane” – attends Hasan’s local mosque – “no pity” for soldiers (video)

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If PelosiCare passes, the bill has some very stiff penalties for those refusing to participate. Rep. David Camp (R-MI) requested official word from the Joint Committee on Taxes. If you do not buy what PelosiCare is selling, fines of up to $250,000 and up to 5 years imprisonment, including both civil and criminal trials, may be in your future.

The following information is taken from a letter to Rep. Dave Camp (R-MI), the ranking member of the Committee on Ways and Means Republicans. Camp asked for clarification of penalties to be imposed if a taxpayer chooses not to purchase at least a $15,000 policy – which Camp says is the “lowest cost family non-group plan under the Speaker’s bill” in 2016.

The date stamp is November 5, 2009 and is on the letterhead of Congress of the United States, Joint Committee on Taxation and is signed by Thomas A. Barthold. Read the entire pdf letter here, as well as Rep. Camp’s comments. The following are significant snippets:

“H.R. 3962 provides that an individual (or a husband and wife in the case of a joint return) who does not, at any time during the taxable year, maintain acceptable health insurance coverage for himself or herself and each of his or her qualifying children is subject to an additional tax.” [page 1]

Among possible Civil penalties for not obeying Nancy Pelosi:
* An “accuracy” penalty of 20% of the underpayment attributable to the health care tax, based on negligence…

* A fraud penalty of 75% of the underpayment…

* A $5,000 penalty for taking a frivolous position on a tax return…

* A delinquency penalty of .5% of the unperpayment, each month, up to a max of 25% of the underpayment…

Among possible Criminal penalties for evading PelosiCare:
* A misdemeanor willful failure to pay – fine of up to $25,000 and/or imprisonment of up to one year.

*A felony willful evasion – fine of up to $250,000 and/or imprisonment of up to 5 years.

Seriously? Jail time?

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In a developing story, the Federal Reserve called the heads of New York’s largest banks to its lower Manhattan office earlier this week. According to some one speaking from the banks, the feds told the bankers to lower CEO compensation or….

The “precise” “or,” is not known, but Judge Andrew Napolitano, sitting in for ailing Glenn Beck believe the banks have been told you WILL lower CEO compensation or the FDIC will begin an audit.

Following are quotes from Judge Napolitano (there may be an occasional word that is not exact, but it is very close). See the video below.

The CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York called the heads of New York’s largest banks into the offices of his lower Manhattan offices.

We don’t know precisely what was said but we do know that the head of the Fed told the assembled bankers that they must start cutting executive compensation, or the government will do it for them.

The government admits that it has no lawful authority to regulate compensation at banks that never received TARP funds or paid the funds back already.

So what was the extortion? Undoubtedly, it was a threat to have the FDIC audit the banks if they fail to tow the pay Czar’s line. An FDIC audit will cost the banks tens of millions in employee loss of time and shareholder loss of value.

What is extortion? Extortion is a threat to perform a lawful act to influence the free will of someone else. Well, can the FDIC audit these banks? Yes. But may it do so to force executives to do what they have a lawful authority not to do? No.

Napolitano has a great panel that now discusses what has happened. Napolitano asks? Can the federal government, constitutionally interfere with use of private funds and private freely negotiated contracts? Listen to this conversation about extortion and demonization.

Remember that Obama’s Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner, was the head of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York when Obama tapped the tax-cheater to tend to our money.

Thanks much to David Lemon the master sculptor at Clay to Bronze.

Judge Napolitano – Government Extorts Banks? (video)

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CAIR came out with their excuse for Muslim shooter, Nadal Malik Hasan: he is heinous, and Islam condemns his actions. No comment from CAIR spokesman Nihad Awad that the murders may have been committed in the name of Allah. Awad didn’t mention that there is a name for murders committed in the name of Allah – and that name is jihad. CAIR, by the way, is an un-indicted co-conspirator in the war on terror.

This article, written by Cynthia Tucker, supports CAIR’s position. The CAIR press release is here.

While most Americans will no longer buy this, our courts will. While most Americans know that Islam is an ideology with a Koranic mission to eliminate infidels entirely, the government will not even begin to explore that truth. It is a fact that many Muslims who live their lives peacefully, know that others inside the “faith” are committing jihad, and they do nothing to stop it. It is also a fact, that to abolish jihad from the “faith” is to abandon Islam.

Cynthia Tucker says [it] is probably not a “teachable moment from this horror,” and she cautions that the Army must focus more on stress-plagued soldiers.

There were about 7 hours of teachable moments yesterday – for some, those hours will never end – those hours will be the defining moments in their lives. The Army was already investigating Hasan. Tell me what they could have done with him, without cries of discrimination? There is nothing they could do except:

(1) let him out of the Army after paying thousands for his education, and send the message that if you don’t want to go to a war zone, just let us know and we’ll fix it for you, or

(2) deny all promotions and try to keep him quiet in an environment where men and women know they will be on a battlefield fighting the same ideology that Major Hasan believed so intensely in.

How many centuries has this been going on and we still reject that Islam is anything but peaceful?

There has never been a time, anywhere in the world, that Islam was not the aggressor. No, not every Muslim is radical, but can anyone show me one instance, even within the Military, where Muslims personally want to put an end to Islam’s threat to infidels?

We do not know the details of each and every Muslim serving alongside our Military. That’s the problem. What are we asking Muslims to do when deployed to a war zone fighting the war on terror. We are asking Muslims to kill Muslims, knowing that their “faith” teachs that only Muslims can, and should, survive. I know many Muslims are serving this country, but, really, I ask again, will they tell you they want to put an end to Islam’s threat to infidels? Will they?

My predictions:

(1) If Hasan lives, he will go to prison. I’m hearing this afternoon that he is paralyzed, so if he lives he will not go to prison – and no, being paralyzed is not punishment enough.

(2) The soldiers at Ft. Hood will be blamed for harassing Hasan for his religious beliefs. “Stress” will be used to excuse Major Hasan’s actions.

(3) No one can answer how a solider is supposed to react to a man among them, saying that America is the aggressor in Iraq. There is no answer, because every right answer is discrimination.

(4) Most Americas will no longer support the Muslim cries of “discrimination,” but our leaders will. Our troops will continue to serve side-by-side with Muslim soldiers who do not believe in the war on terror and are not fully committed to eradicating jihad.

(5) Fort Hood will happen again, somewhere, in some way.

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After Newt Gingrich declared that DeDe Scozzafava’s exit left and out of the NY-23 special election was the “statesmanlike thing to do,” DeDe be-itch slapped the brilliant Newt with her endorsement of Democrat David Owens.

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A few days ago, Hans Bader writing for Stop the ACLU reported on the hate crimes legislation Bill. This article is intended to be a further discussion of what is behind the language in the Bill. The question is, is double jeopardy a factor in this new legislative language?

The answer is kinda-sorta. It’s really more about The Dual Sovereignty Doctrine negating the double jeopardy clause in the 5th Amendment.

The government now does have the right to try hate crime suspects after they have been tried by the state, and even if already tried and found guilty by the state. This position is confirmed by a letter from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights to members of the U.S. Senate. Read it at NationaReviewOnLine. So how does it happen a person can be tried twice for the same crime?

Here is a portion that I believe gives the DOJ the opportunity to retry a hate crime: (The text of the Bill is here).

(b) (1) IN GENERAL – No prosecution of any offense described in the subsection may be undertaken by the United States, except under the certification in writing of the Attorney General, or his designee, that- (C) the verdict or sentence obtained pursuant to State charges left demonstratively unvindicated the Federal interest in eradicating bias-motivated violence; or (D) a prosecution by the United States is in the public interest and necessary to secure substantial justice.

(b) (2) RULE OF CONSTRUCTION- Nothing in this subsection shall be construed to limit the authority of Federal officers, or a Federal grand jury, to investigate possible violations of this section.

This gives the DOJ the right to try any case on behalf of a victim they feel has not received justice, while also eliminating “the badges…and relics of slavery and involuntary servitude.”

A quick reading of the Bill might lead you to think it will simply “support” state’s with money, but it goes much deeper than the $5 million to be given to states in each of the years 2010 and 2011. If a state can “certify” the need for government assistance to “investigate or prosecute the hate crime,” then that state will get that assistance. But read about the”sham and cover” exception a few paragraphs below. We have to ask why this administration believes this legislation is necessary.

The Dual Sovereignty Doctrine expects those administering under the Doctrine to “limit” their actions. This from TheFreeLibrary:

The court did not, however, fully eliminate the double jeopardy prohibition from this context. The dual sovereignty doctrine continues to be limited by what is referred to as the “sham” exception, which was described by the Bartkus Court.

The sham exception provides that a prosecution by one sovereign cannot be used as a “sham and a cover” for another sovereign’s re-prosecution of the same defendant.

This doctrine would operate to prevent, on double jeopardy grounds, a prosecution brought by one sovereign with the encouragement and support of another sovereign that has already failed in its attempt to prosecute the same defendant.

The doctrine is founded on the rationale that the two sovereigns are acting as one. Unfortunately, this exception has been construed so narrowly as to make it difficult to be utilized successfully.

Apparently, this DOJ and Barack Obama believe that justice is not done often enough, and courts do not punish, often enough, those who commit hate crimes. So the question remains: is it possible for any violent crime to be classified as a “hate crime” when it is perpetrated against a Jewish or a white person?

[Emphasis by Lobo]

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