Posted on 04/22/2011 4:16:39 AM PDT by Kaslin
Don't be fooled by The Donald. Take it from one who knows: I'm a South Jersey gal who was raised on the outskirts of Atlantic City in the looming shadow of Trump's towers. All through my childhood, casino developers and government bureaucrats joined hands, raised taxes and made dazzling promises of urban renewal. Then we wised up to the eminent-domain thievery championed by our hometown faux free-marketeers.
America, it's time you wised up to Donald Trump's property redistribution racket, too.
Trump has been wooing conservative activists for months and flirting with a GOP presidential run -- first at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington and most recently at a tea party event in South Florida. He touts his business experience, "high aptitude" and "bragadocious" deal-making abilities. But he's no more a standard-bearer of conservative values, limited government and constitutional principles than the cast of "Jersey Shore."
Too many mega-developers like Trump have achieved success by using and abusing the government's ability to commandeer private property for purported "public use." Invoking the Fifth Amendment takings clause, real estate moguls, parking garage builders, mall developers and sports palace architects have colluded with elected officials to pull off legalized theft in the name of reducing "blight." Under eminent domain, the definition of "public purpose" has been stretched like Silly Putty to cover everything from roads and bridges to high-end retail stores, baseball stadiums and casinos.
While casting himself as America's new constitutional savior, Trump has shown reckless disregard for fundamental private property rights. In the 1990s, he waged a notorious war on elderly homeowner Vera Coking, who owned a little home in Atlantic City that stood in the way of Trump's manifest land development. The real estate mogul was determined to expand his Trump Plaza and build a limo parking lot -- Coking's private property be damned. The nonprofit Institute for Justice, which successfully saved Coking's home, explained the confiscatory scheme:
"Unlike most developers, Donald Trump doesn't have to negotiate with a private owner when he wants to buy a piece of property, because a governmental agency -- the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority or CRDA -- will get it for him at a fraction of the market value, even if the current owner refuses to sell. Here is how the process works.
"After a developer identifies the parcels of land he wants to acquire and a city planning board approves a casino project, CRDA attempts to confiscate these properties using a process called 'eminent domain,' which allows the government to condemn properties 'for public use.' Increasingly, though, CRDA and other government entities exercise the power of eminent domain to take property from one private person and give it to another. At the same time, governments give less and less consideration to the necessity of taking property and also ignore the personal loss to the individuals being evicted."
Trump has attempted to use the same tactics in Connecticut and has championed the reviled Kelo vs. City of New London Supreme Court ruling upholding expansive use of eminent domain. He told Fox News anchor Neil Cavuto that he agreed with the ruling "100 percent" and defended the chilling power of government to kick people out of their homes and businesses based on arbitrary determinations:
"The fact is, if you have a person living in an area that's not even necessarily a good area, and government, whether it's local or whatever, government wants to build a tremendous economic development, where a lot of people are going to be put to work and make (an) area that's not good into a good area, and move the person that's living there into a better place -- now, I know it might not be their choice -- but move the person to a better place and yet create thousands upon thousands of jobs and beautification and lots of other things, I think it happens to be good."
Like most statist promises of bountiful job creation, government-engineered redevelopment math rarely adds up. Trump's corporations have backed casino industry bailouts and wealth-redistributing "tax-increment financing" schemes -- the very kind of taxpayer-subsidized interventions we've seen on a grand scale under the Obama administration.
Championing liberty begins at the local level. There is nothing more fundamental than the principle that a man's home is his castle. Donald Trump's career-long willingness to trample this right tells you everything you need to know about his bogus tea party sideshow.
Wrong. As a conservative, my job on this forum is to speak the truth about liberalism and oppose a scumbag liberal like Trump.
Its the job of the political system to come up with candidates. If Trump is the best the GOP has to offer, Obama will be reelected.
You must have a short list of potential candidates, don't you?
I'm listening...
If Trump is the best the GOP has to offer, Obama will be reelected. >>>>>>
First off Trump has to run and he might decide not to. If he does run I see him winning the Republican nomination plus I see him easily beating Obama. The tough part will be winning the Republican primaries and nomination. The easy part will be beating Obama
Not obvious at all. You are, in fact, incorrect. Go back to mind-reading 101 or some other inferential training.
I cannot believe how much traction Trump is getting on FR. This guy is McCain Part 2, only more “in your face”. He would wheel and deal with both sides of the aisle to relentlessly pursue his own needs and his own legacy. He is a flip-flopper of the highest order. He has consistently donated to Democrats. He is not a family man, has no morals, and apparently no knowledge or respect for the Constitution. He is repulsive in his demeanor, and would sell his first born child for a bump in Nielson ratings for his ridiculous reality TV show.
You could say the same thing about Huckabee, but there were lots of people here who latched onto him as their candidate. If Trump gets 25% of the vote, it will speak more to the weakness of the GOP nominee. As it stands now, he is the only voice who isn't spouting the typical pablum we hear from the establishment GOP pretenders. Trump will probably self-destruct a la Ross Perot and the NAFTA debate without any additional help. In the meantime, he's scoring hits on Obama when no one else is.
yup2394871293 Since Jan 21, 2011
Seems to think so (referring to post#17)
They sort of opened the door for a guy like Trump.
ML/NJ
Right. LOL
Trump makes me leery of him. I don’t trust him, because he is wishy washy. If anyone is a flip flopper it is Trump. He is anything but a conservative. Also his boasting how rich he is disgraceful. We all know he is rich, but he doesn’t have to shove it down our throat
You don’t have to vote for him to love what he’s doing. Let’s see the BC!
Pray for America
Too many just assume that it's the birther issue that has attracted people to Trump. I expect it's far more the financial, one-sided trade arrangements, unemployment and general economic weakness.
you said:”Obviously you assume that anyone who opposes Trump is some sort of Bush insider”
“Not obvious at all. You are, in fact, incorrect. Go back to mind-reading 101 or some other inferential training. “
Fine. You fell into my trap:
In which case Bush and Arlington are totally 100% irrelevant to this discussion. If Bush is not running, and no one here is a Bushie, then why does his Arlington deal matter at all? It doesn’t.
Poor Michelle - she cites one fact in her whole article (a case that Trump lost, btw), splices in one quote, but doesn’t let that get in the way of an long angry screed and lump of generalizations. She ought to work for the government propaganda department. Or is it that she “works for us” so style points and facts don’t count?
Just keep on drinking the Kool Aid
you said: “So if Michelle doesn’t like Trump she has to tell me who she has who can drive the Kenyan out of the White House. I’ll back anyone who can do this and Trump is the best bet today”
Might I submit that the damage Trump is inflicting on Obama will not go away simply because Trump’s candidacy might. Whoever runs against Obama will reap the benefits of what Trump is doing now.
If it’s Trump, I’ll vote for him, but then we’ll have to work like hell to get Trump to follow the Constitution, something he is very poor at doing. He is McCain with an attitude. He is the GE Jeff Immelt of Real Estate corporatism. He doesn’t understand the upstart entrepreneur because he started with a ton of cash.
Number one, Trump cannot 'take' anything or invoke eminent domain. This is a government function and while it may be appropriate to be upset with the expanded use of this tactic, it is the governments who are whores for the tax dollars and will use whatever methods they see fit. Without the tax contributions of the developers, property taxes in a lot of areas would be significantly higher for all citizens, so perhaps they should be appreciative of the tax contributions and thousands of jobs the developers are providing.
Number two, There is a large degree of wink and nod deals in nearly every government function. The VOTERS are the ones who tolerate or look the other way when their local government is involved. They are quick to suck up the benefits of the deals, and quick to point fingers at the backroom deals that got it done in the first place. I for one think we must have someone who knows how this machine operates in order to effectively handle it. A naive newbie is going to be eaten alive - a shark will get things done and knows when they are getting screwed.
Of course he is.
Michelle Malkin is another Conservative who completely turned her back on the questions of the Obama undocumented past. Yet, she now finds it important to expose the past of Donald Trump? Why the inconsistency?
I like reading Michelle Malkin's stuff, normally. What I don't like is her attitude, along with other Conservative types, of talking down to the many who have unanswered questions about this President's history, telling them (in essence) to stop with the questions and focus on issues.
Well Michelle, the people you (and seemingly all others affiliated with Fox News) speak to are intelligent and brave enough to pursue the truth, wanting answers, whatever they may be. I resent being told what I should consider important and what I should believe.
So many of the Conservative and the Conservative want to be analysts (O'Reilly, Beck, Coulter, Levin, etc) have taken this stance, without ever explaining their logic. They tell us there's nothing there and to forget about the questions, it's a losing approach to defeating Obama. To all those, answer me why an individual with very few Conservative credentials, can become so popular in such a short time, using the questions of the Obama undocumented past?
Again, you don't inductive understand logic. It matters some, not a whole lot. The case to be proven is whether one candidate has more warts than another, or whether we make a big deal out of the warts on one but not on the other.
Ah, now you've proven something. Not sure what. It must be red kool-aid to go along with your red herring or inability to defend the bland, bad essay by Malkin. IF it were a high school essay it would get a D for lack of facts to back up the assertion. But we needn't hold our pundits to such a high standard if they make us feel good.
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