In 2005, the Supreme Court ruled that the city of New London, Connecticut, could condemn fifteen residential properties in order to transfer them to a new private owner. Although the Fifth Amendment only permits the taking of private property for “public use,” the Court ruled that the transfer of condemned land to private parties for “economic development” is permitted by the Constitution – even if the government cannot prove that the expected development will ever actually happen. The Court’s decision in Kelo v. City of New London empowered the grasping hand of the state at the expense of the invisible hand of the market.
In this detailed study of one of the most controversial Supreme Court cases in modern times, Ilya Somin argues that Kelo was a grave error. Economic development and “blight” condemnations are unconstitutional under both originalist and most “living constitution” theories of legal interpretation. They also victimize the poor and the politically weak for the benefit of powerful interest groups, and often destroy more economic value than they create. Kelo itself exemplifies these patterns. The residents targeted for condemnation lacked the influence needed to combat the formidable government and corporate interests arrayed against them. Moreover, the city’s poorly conceived development plan ultimately failed: the condemned land lies empty to this day, occupied only by feral cats.
The Supreme Court’s unpopular ruling triggered an unprecedented political reaction, with forty-five states passing new laws intended to limit the use of eminent domain. But many of the new laws impose few or no genuine constraints on takings. The Kelo backlash led to significant progress, but not nearly as much as it may have seemed.
Despite its outcome, the closely divided 5-4 rulingshattered what many believed to be a consensus that virtually any condemnation qualifies as a public use under the Fifth Amendment. It also showed that there is widespread public opposition to eminent domain abuse. With controversy over takings sure to continue, The Grasping Hand offers the first book-length analysis of Kelo by a legal scholar, alongside a broader history of the dispute over public use and eminent domain, and an evaluation of options for reform.
A good Samaritan, who stopped to help a driver who spun out on ice, was fatally shot by the driver in Catawba County.
According to the Catawba County Sheriff, a driver spun out on ice along Mathis Church Road Friday night. Neighbors who overheard the wreck, went out to check on the incident.
The driver of a truck came up on the incident and pulled over the help the driver, later identified as 27-year-old Marvin Jacob Lee, of Claremont.
According to the sheriff, Lee was acting odd and belligerent. The neighbors and good Samaritan were talking about calling police when Lee apparently overheard them, jumped out of the car and shot the good Samaritan.
When the good Samaritan fell to the ground, Lee fired several more shots. According to the Sheriff, the good Samaritan died from the injuries.
Coinciding with UK’s Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn’s arrival at the French refugee camps, Sky News reports the port of Calais has been temporarily closed as 100s of migrants stormed on to a ship in the hope of reaching the UK. About 50 migrants are thought to have made their way on to a P&O-operated vessel called Spirit of Britain, and police are at the scene and have reportedly deployed water cannons to break up the crowds of protesters.
DFDS Seaways tweeted: “The Port of Calais has been temporarily closed due to a migrant invasion, as soon as they are cleared the Port will re-open.”
Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio said Friday that people “should be prosecuted” in the three-week stand-off at Oregon wildlife refuge, but said the federal government should not resort to violence against the group of armed men occupying the area.
“We’re not going to treat them like an invading army from a foreign country,” Rubio, a U.S. senator from Florida, told a crowd at a town hall in Merrimack, New Hampshire, after an audience member asked him how he would handle the occupiers, led by Ammon Bundy, whose father, Cliven Bundy, held a similar standoff in Nevada two years ago.
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“That being said, you can’t be lawless,” he said of the Oregon protesters. “We live in a Republic. That’s why we have an election in 2016.”
First, not one candidate from either party is addressing the root issue of this protest. The Hammonds are still in jail as political prisoners. The government has no jurisdiction in this matter. The Federal government is not authorized to seize land from the states except as outlined in the Constitution.
As for Marco, anyone running for political office is either delusional or complicit with evil. And this is a perfect example how the government has trashed the Constitutional foundation of this country. Imagine a statesman standing up and discussing the merits of the case that Ammon Bundy is trying to tell the people.
I have closed comments on this article. I believe the comments against the Bundy group showed two points:
They are willing to submit to any law or executive order by the government.
They did not even watch the videos.
The answer to the question posed in the title is “yes”.
Forbes magazine and the Daily Kos are publishing how the Bundy “militia” are destroying Indian artifacts. First, let’s see Mr. Finicum’s intent concerning refuge property:
Robert “LaVoy” Finicum talks about taking care of refuge property
Here is a video from The Daily Kos. Note the use of the term “rifle” in the title. If you read the comments on YouTube, it is obvious that the people did not even watch the video.
Oregon militants rifle through native artifacts
Did you see any mistreatment of Indian artifacts in the video?
From the outset of the now weeks-long occupation of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge in Oregon by the militia led by Ammon Bundy, archaeologists as well as members of the Burns Paiute Tribe have been concerned for ancient artifacts and sacred spaces. Their fears were realized this week as news reports discussed bulldozing of land and a video surfaced of armed militants rifling through boxes of artifacts archived at the refuge. And many on Twitter are already making a parallel between the militia and the work of ISIS in destroying world heritage sites.
If the government is able to issue propaganda through their media outlets to non-sentient people, what is our course of action? I am still waiting for any verification that the people at the Malheur Wildlife Refuge are calling themselves “militia”. Based on our founding principles and the Constitution, the “militia” is what guarantees the security of a free State.
What will you do when the government attacks these people? Got Faith? Got Sacred honor?
Today, we’ve got just 363 days left to finish the work we started together seven years ago — and Barack intends to use every last one of those days to keep expanding opportunity for every single American.
But if we want to continue this work and keep moving this country forward after Barack leaves office, we need to elect more Democrats who will protect and build on our progress. And we need everyone — including you — working together to make that happen.
So I’m asking you to make a commitment — a commitment to continue supporting Barack and to help elect Democrats up and down the ballot in 2016.
The gunman suspected of killing four people and injuring several others in Canada’s worst school violence in a decade first shot his two brothers at home before opening fire at the remote community high school, a family friend and the town’s acting mayor said on Friday.
Police said a suspect was arrested after the shooting in La Loche, Saskatchewan, an impoverished community about 600 km (375 miles) north of the city of Saskatoon.
The town’s acting mayor, Kevin Janvier, told the Associated Press that his 23-year-old daughter Marie, a teacher, was shot to death.
The Qur’an tells Muslims: “Drive them out from where they drove you out.” (2:191) This is the basis for the idea that any land that belonged to the Muslims at any time belongs by right to the Muslims forever. That includes Spain.
“ISIS TERROR WARNING: Jihadists threaten to attack SPAIN in chilling new propaganda clip,” by Tom Parfitt, Express, January 22, 2016:
The jihadist group’s latest chilling propaganda video features an ancient map of the Iberian Peninsula which slowly turns to red.
Representative André Carson (D-Indiana), a convert to Islam, was appointed to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Carson has extensive ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Officials at the Rocky Heights Middle School in Littleton, Colorado, ignited controversy when they told female students to dress according to Sharia law while visiting a mosque during a field trip.
Islamic politics “advocates the world’s greatest double standard: if you come to our country, we won’t let you worship the way you want, we won’t let you say what you want to say… However, we have come to your country, therefore we have the right to do whatever we want to do, including kill you if you make us mad.” — Former US President Bill Clinton.
Fouad ElBayly, an Egyptian-born imam who in 2007 said that Somali-born activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali should receive the death penalty for her criticism of Islam, is now a Department of Justice contractor hired to teach classes to Muslims who are in federal prison. – The Daily Caller
“I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under Allah….” – Arabic rendering of the Pledge of Allegiance, Pine Bush High School, New York.
Breitbart News revealed the existence of what is believed to be the first official Sharia law court in the United States, in Irving, Texas. The so-called Islamic Tribunal settles civil disputes among the growing Muslim population.
It seems only yesterday when I was in high school and we were studying the United States Constitution. We studied it because it had meaning and was the written basis for all our freedoms. We were idealized then – the Constitution is now merely an historical document, hermetically sealed so that it won’t wither and mold physically—but it definitely molds from lack of respect or use.
The 1st Amendment gave us the “freedom of speech or of the press”. I use the word “gave” as in the past tense because this most basic of all our rights has been subjected to “political correctness” to the point that we have lost the ability to communicate without offending some government imposed social standard. And actual hate speech is narrowly defined solely by the skin pigment of the individual making the statement. There is no restriction on what a person of color can utter; however, a white person must be selective in his words—very selective. The press has become the 4th branch of the liberal arm of the government and is selective and ideological in what they choose to report. The press does retain its freedom but it is a moot point because it is rare to find anyone in the written or voice media that is objective and informative.
The 2nd Amendment is very easy to understand, so easy in fact that one must invent a way to misunderstand what it clearly states. “. . . the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” There is no wordage about: big guns, small guns, expensive guns, or cheap guns— if you can carry the weapon, it is allowed—no wriggle room there. There is verbiage which precedes the quote, but there are also commas that separate the two coordinated independent clauses from the quote. In other words: “A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state,” is independent clauses which have no bearing on our right to bear arms….. It does not state, as some attempt to claim, that one must be in a militia (military) to own or carry a weapon – and we – the citizens are the militia in any event.
Now that a German swimming pool has been forced to lift its ban on Muslim male migrants, according to Bäder GmbH (Baths Inc.), Muslims have been masturbating and defecating into the water, and are sexually harassing and groping women in the Sauna, while trying to storm the women’s changing rooms. Other reports claim Muslim migrants have also been sexually molesting children in a swimming hall.
Must be a byproduct of inbreeding with goats. Seriously, is a European Spring coming soon? I don’t think the Germans will show mercy when they finally stand up. How about us? Will we stand up to a tyrannical government with mercy or vengeance? Got Faith?
President Barack Obama issued a statement today, celebrating the 43rd anniversary of the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that declared abortion a constitutionally protected right.
“Today, we mark the 43rd anniversary of the Supreme Court ruling in Roe v. Wade, which affirmed a woman’s freedom to make her own choices about her body and her health,” said Obama.
I believe only an anti-Christ would equate the slaughter of 58,586,256 babies with freedom. But he is not alone in this holocaust: the Republican Congress voted to continue funding Planned Parenthood’s butchering of babies for spare parts. And We the People either support the “rights of women” or hide in shame.
The leader of an armed group occupying a national wildlife refuge in Oregon plans to have a ceremony Saturday for ranchers to renounce federal ownership of public land and tear up their federal grazing contracts.
On Friday, Ammon Bundy met briefly with a federal agent as authorities attempt to resolve the three-week old standoff over federal land policies, but Bundy left because the agent wouldn’t talk with him in front of the media.
The short meeting occurred as Oregon officials are putting increased pressure on federal authorities to take action against Bundy’s group.
On Thursday, Bundy went to the airport in Burns, where the FBI has set up a staging area, and spoke to an FBI negotiator over the phone. They agreed to speak again Friday, but Bundy left the airport shortly after he arrived because the FBI agent he spoke with said federal authorities wanted any conversation to be private.
Bundy wants face-to-face conversations in front of reporters. “I really don’t think, at this point, even having another phone conversation here without him would be beneficial,” Bundy said before leaving Friday.
MuslimStern compared women to ‘naked antelope’ presented before ‘lions’
The group said banning alcohol in Germany would help resolve the issue
German women were told to dress like the Virgin Mary and not Lady Gaga
The group accused the women of being responsible for their own attacks
Germanyneeds to ban alcohol if it wants to prevent further sexual violence and to help North African migrants integrate into society, a Muslim pressure group has claimed.
Commenting on the Cologne sex-attack controversy, MuslimStern, which has 20,000 followers on Facebook, said its mission was to ‘highlight the way the media was using the incidents to promote racism against minorities’.
The group complained that the female victims had brought the unwanted attention to themselves by dressing in a manner that North African men were not accustomed to.
In 2005, the Supreme Court ruled that the city of New London, Connecticut, could condemn fifteen residential properties in order to transfer them to a new private owner. Although the Fifth Amendment only permits the taking of private property for “public use,” the Court ruled that the transfer of condemned land to private parties for “economic development” is permitted by the Constitution – even if the government cannot prove that the expected development will ever actually happen. The Court’s decision in Kelo v. City of New London empowered the grasping hand of the state at the expense of the invisible hand of the market.
