Free Republic

Opponents of a $165.2 million retail and commercial center that would replace 254 homes in the Sunset Manor subdivision of Sunset Hills asked a judge this morning to order the city to let its voters decide whether the project should go forward. Members of the Stop the Sunset Hills Land Grab, a grassroots organization opposed to the project, have collected more than 600 signatures to force a vote but city officials have rejected the initiative petitions, said Will Aschinger, a spokesman for the group, in a press conference outside the St. Louis County courthouse in Clatyon. The project by Novus...

Reba June Thompson and her son, Howard, at 7016 South Grand Avenue, are the last holdouts against a $40 million shopping-center project under way near Carondelet Park in St. Louis. One by one, their 19 neighbors took the money and moved on. Demolition crews moved in. The city has taken the Thompsons to court, trying to claim their well-maintained brick bungalow by eminent domain. Desco Group, the Schnuck family's development company, has bought most of the 30 acres near Interstate 55 and Loughborough Avenue for its Loughborough Commons shopping center. In March, the city pledged $11 million in tax subsidies...

One Giant Leap Toward Fascist America, Edward Hudgins, Executive Director, The Objectivist Center, ehudgins@objectivistcenter.org The U.S. Supreme Court is allowing a local government to kick out of the house in which she was born 87 year old Wilhelmina Dery and her husband who has lived there with her for 60 years. Why? Because the government wants to seize their property, bulldoze theirs and many other houses and to sell the land to other businesses and developers for private uses. While one must take great care in choosing words in political discussions, one must not mince them either. This decision in...

New! Improved! Asset Forfeiture for Everyone Scott Jordan It's been grimly entertaining, over the years, watching the Supreme Court proceed tick tick tick down the Bill of Rights, negating one allegedly unalienable right after the other, while monotonically ratcheting-up the powers of the central government. For example, with Asset Forfeiture legislation in 1984, the Fourth Amendment was shredded as the Feds were given power to seize property on suspicion (yes, suspicion) of a crime, or even if you just have "too much" cash on you when a cop decides to check you out. The Supremes nodded; this is now a...

I cannot remember being more dismayed at a court ruling, and this includes the occasional ruling against me when I was practicing law. What ruling? Just in case you don't already know, the United States Supreme Court yesterday issued a ruling that goes a long way toward destroying private property rights in this country. Background. The Fifth Amendment to our Constitution restricts the government's right of eminent domain. It does not, as I heard so many commentators say yesterday, grant a right of eminent domain, it restricts it. The right of eminent domain was assumed as a basic part of...

<p>The country is bracing for a bruising battle over filling a U.S. Supreme Court vacancy, a battle in which conservatives will praise "judicial restraint" and "deference" to popularly elected branches of government and liberals will praise judicial activism in defense of individual rights. But consider what the court did Thursday.</p>

I wrote a book a few years ago about property rights. It was called, "This Land Is Our Land." I didn't think of it as an optimistic book at the time. But after yesterday's chilling U.S. Supreme Court ruling that government can seize our property against our will for no other reason than it capriciously chooses to do so, the title is certainly no longer accurate. We do not own our property any more in America. Imagine the home you own – the one you scrimped and saved your entire life to purchase, the one you planned on living in...

I am not the vanity posting type, nor am I usually an alarmist but this latest USSC ruling taking away our private property rights for increasted tax revenue... it is impossible to put into words the impact this is going to have on our country. One area I'm interested in getting feedback on is that of Religious organizations and property tax. Obvouisly states can choose on their own to tax religious organizations if that is what they really wanted -- but that would probably not go over well as a state wide issue. But now, with eminent domain expanded, local...

Today, June 23, 2005, the Supreme Court totally defied history, abdicated their duty to insure justice, ignored our Constitution and trashed the rights of We the People by depriving us of our right to private ownership of property.

Kennedy's Vast Domain June 24, 2005; Page A12 The Supreme Court's "liberal" wing has a reputation in some circles as a guardian of the little guy and a protector of civil liberties. That deserves reconsideration in light of yesterday's decision in Kelo v. City of New London. The Court's four liberals (Justices Stevens, Breyer, Souter and Ginsburg) combined with the protean Anthony Kennedy to rule that local governments have more or less unlimited authority to seize homes and businesses. CUT CUT So, in just two weeks, the Supreme Court has rendered two major decisions on the limits of government. In...

What are your words/thoughts on the loss of your private property rights? I haven't had this feeling since 9/11, and right now the thought of leaving the country seriously sounds like a good idea. How........ is there possibly a fix for this?

News Press Article (copyright)

Everybody knows about the shot that was heard around the world as the birthing pains of this once great nation. Today, sadly, we may have heard it's death knell. It did not come with violence or shots fired. It came with the virtual elimination of personal property rights. Our founding fathers knew how important the ownership of property was and sought to protect the right to be secure in the ownership of property to the extent that they enshrined the guarantee that property would not be taken for public use without due process and just compensation. For over 200 years...

Beginning his oral argument in Kelo v. City of New London, the Connecticut eminent-domain case the Supreme Court took up last week, Scott Bullock of the Institute for Justice puts the stakes bluntly: “Every home, church, or corner store would produce more jobs and tax revenue if it were a Costco or a shopping mall,” he says. If state and local governments can force a property owner to surrender his land so it can be given to a new owner who will put it to more lucrative use, no home or shop in America will ever be safe again. That’s...

Beatrice Lambert, a 63-year-old legal secretary, worries about losing her cats, Tinkerbell and Abigail, and the garden she dedicated to her late son, if she's forced to sell the mobile home she's lived in for 20 years. Joe Depamphilis, a 39-year-old handyman with a failing kidney and an ailing mother, is concerned he won't find affordable storage space for the tools he has amassed over two decades. "We're worried about losing a way of life," said Lambert, a resident of Brown's Trailer Court. "We put down our roots here," Depamphilis said. What Lambert and Depamphilis see as home, borough officials...

Monday, July 30, 2001 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal EDITORIAL: 'Unconstitutional taking' Courts across the country moving to curb abuse of eminent domain Finally, a number of courts around the country are starting to set limits on the municipal use of eminent domain to favor one private property owner over another. Eminent domain, of course, is supposed to be used to seize private property (subject to payment of full compensation) only in the case of a true "public use" -- for roads and firehouses, things like that. Las Vegas has its own examples of abuse of this authority, as when...

Supreme Court rules cities may seize homes HOPE YEN Associated Press WASHINGTON - A divided Supreme Court ruled that local governments may seize people's homes and businesses against their will for private development in a decision anxiously awaited in communities where economic growth conflicts with individual property rights. Thursday's 5-4 ruling represented a defeat for some Connecticut residents whose homes are slated for destruction to make room for an office complex. They argued that cities have no right to take their land except for projects with a clear public use, such as roads or schools, or to revitalize blighted areas....

On June 23, 2005, a divided US Supreme Court stunned most Americans when it ruled 5-4 that local governments may seize people's homes and businesses against their will for private development in a decision awaited by both local governments and property owners. The case under consideration was a defeat for Connecticut residents whose homes are slated for destruction to make room for a private office complex re. Kelo et al v. City of New London, 04-108. They had argued that cities have no right to take their land except for public projects such as roads or schools. As of this...

Some say the dogs were a victim of progress. Others suggest it was a test of wills, and the little dogs simply succumbed to the bigger dogs. But many who were munching on the $1.84 hot dog and fries combo Friday night were less concerned with what killed this celebrated and scruffy little hot dog stand under the Fullerton L station than with the fact it was the last time they'd ever walk through its door. After work. Or headed to a Cubs game. Or just to grab a quick lunch. At age 22, Demon Dogs, of Lincoln Park, is...

NEW LONDON, Conn. -- On Bill Von Winkle's side of town, word of the Supreme Court decision spread like the news of a passing relative. His cell phone rang incessantly. "Hello," he answered. "Yeah, we lost. I know, hard to believe, huh?" No sooner had he hung up the phone than his letter carrier walked by. "Need a hug?" he asked. Von Winkle is one of seven homeowners who learned Thursday that the city's plan to demolish their working class neighborhood in the name of economic development is constitutional. On the other side of town, city leaders cheered the decision,...