High Court OKs Personal Property Seizures

[sn-e3]

I'll bury 3 quarts of 5w30 and call in texico for a new oil field.

[82Rigger]

Scout,

You and I seem to be saying the same thing.

This nation didn't exist until July 4, 1776.

The signers of the declaration and the minutemen at Lexington were British citizens speaking against their own government and taking up arms against their own government.

They were looked upon by the government and many of their fellow citizens as traitors, trouble-makers. and worse.

[SuperScout]

Doc 2/47: what was the basis for your call to the IRS? Did it require 2 agents to resolve your problem? Did they utter, hint at, or anyway convey a threat? As dense as some IRS agents are, they probably needed the deputy dawg to guide them to your house. What was the ultimate resolution of the visit? 82Rigger was referring to visits by Secret Service, a vastly different type of beast than IRS folks.

82Rigger: by the time that arms were 'taken up' there was indeed an recognized army, that of the Continental army. In any event, since the Geneva Convention hadn't even been thought of yet, much less written, all provisions are mute in 1776. We had the God-given right to overthrow a despotic regime then, just like the Iraqis had a God-given right to overthrow Saddam, but didn't. To even hint that our patriots back then are even in the same hemisphere as the terrorists of Muslim fame and fortune is too much of stretch for me.

[SuperScout]

[The following was written by Will Collier, and brilliantly explains why and how Nancy Pelosi is so obtuse about the eminent domain seizure case recently decided by the Supreme Court.]

Masters Of Somebody Else's Domain

After reading the comments in my earlier post about the confluence between a recent property seizure in Oakland and Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi's wild defense of eminent domain in the Kelo decision, I did a bit more digging into the lead developer on the Oakland project, Forest City Enterprises, Inc.

Forest City is a publicly-traded development and real estate conglomerate run by the Ratner family of Cleveland, Ohio. Led by the Ratners, Forest City is a player in major developments on both coasts (and many places in between), including some of the hottest hot spots in eminent domain seizures.

The biggest, or at least the most publicized, involves a huge tract of Brooklyn in New York City. The Ratners are proposing to turn it into a condo-shopping-basketball-arena complex; Bruce Ratner of Forest Park is the owner of the New Jersey Nets. The Ratners are lobbying the city and state of New York to exercise eminent domain powers to seize properties in Brooklyn for this project.

(Incidentally, Bruce Ratner's brother Michael runs the far-left humanrightsnow.org website, and is president of the George Soros-funded "Center for Constitutional Rights," and is one of the major legal players trying to free the terrorist prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. Quite a family there.)

In addition to the Uptown Project in Oakland, Forest City is a prime contractor in a gigantic shopping mall project in San Francisco which involves eminent domain seizures of private property. The company is also partnered with the New York Times to build the Times' new headquarters in Manhattan--on a site that was seized especially for the Times by New York City. Small surprise then that the Times is (thus far) second only to Nancy Pelosi in cheerleading for the Kelo decision.

Speaking of Pelosi, as the Democrats' leader in the House, San Fran Nan has been the beneficiary of a great deal of campaign largesse from the Ratners. Based on numbers from OpenSecrets.org, people named Ratner who were employed by Forest City companies donated at least $18,000 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee during the 2002 and 2004 cycles (I also include one individual named Ratner identifed as a "homemaker" who had the same address as another Ratner/Forest City contributor).

The Ratners are also major contributors to other heavyweight Democrats like Hillary Clinton, Chuck Schumer, Chris Dodd, Nita Lowey, Tom Daschle, Joe Lieberman, John Kerrey, as well as disctinctly non-Democratic names like George W. Bush and Rick Santorum. Nothing unusual there; many corporate donors hedge their bets by giving to both parties.

Even so, the large amounts given to the DCCC (18 donations of $1000 per donor, vs. no Ratner/Forest City donations that I can find to the NRCC), many of which were given in late October of election years, suggest that the Ratners are keen to get the attention of congressional Democrats--and particularly their leader--at electoral crunch time.

Gee, I wonder why?

Perhaps more importantly, why did I have to look all this stuff up myself? Shouldn't some MSM reporter have written about it already? It's not like it was hard to find.

[Now, if you have any doubts about the sanctity of your property rights, your doubts are now confirmed. I strongly suggest that you get busy and help pass laws banning such immoral seizures. And I'm making book that the principle of stare decisis will not prevail in the Kelo case, but will be overturned by a newly reconstitued Supreme Court.]

[Gimpy]

Thought "politics" were suposed to be "discussed" on another forum??

Just asking? :cd:

[82Rigger]

Gimper,

You are correct.

I started this thread as an information post, but, as sometimes happens, it evolved into things political.

And at this point in the thread I am humbly reminded why I stay away from political threads in here.

[SuperScout]

In an expostulation of the obvious, the basic subject is political, the center of the core issue of big government and unjustified taking, vs. smaller government and the defense and protection of personal private property rights. Complaints about the position of this thread should be directed to the moderator.

[SuperScout]

New Hampshire businessman Logan Darrow Clements figured out a way to apply the Souter insanity to Souter hisownself, a fitting goose for an unfit gander. He wants to build a new hotel in the town of Weare and he's found just the right piece of land: the home of Supreme Court judge David Souter. In compliance with Justice Souter's view of the public interest, Clements' project will generate far more revenue for Weare than Souter's pad ever could. The Lost Liberty Hotel will include the Just Desserts Bar and a museum dedicated to the loss of freedom in America. I don't know about you, but the last time I was in Weare, N.H., I couldn't help thinking that what this town urgently needs is a good hotel. If it will help the Board of Selectmen in their decision, I personally pledge to take the most expensive suite in the new joint for the first month it's in service. I'll be sluicing plenty of big columnar bucks around town, racking up big N.H. Meals Tax payments at Weare's finest restaurants and, along with my fellow guests, doing far more for the local economy than one ascetic, largely absentee bachelor like Justice Souter could ever do. Indeed, under Souter's definition, it would be hard to think of a property doing less for the public interest than his own house. So let's get on with putting his principles into action, and with luck his beloved but economically moribund abode will be rubble by the end of the year. ... How's that banned-in-Kentucky Commandment go? 'Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, nor his ass.' However, if thy neighbor is an a** and thou hast financing for a luxury hotel, covet away.

[BLUEHAWK]