TAKINGS
I agree with Anonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas! | Never thought I'd see the day! Kelo et al v City of New London has determined that development corporations can seize the homes of private citizens for as yet uncertain gains | The winners here are Pfizer Corporation and the New London Development Corporation [NLDC] | Now land profiteers can move in, build luxury residences, toney shopping areas, maybe some private clubs for upper management types, all at the expense of average middle income home owners |
     It is generally held in the United States that, from the founding of the nation to the closing of the frontier, the nation, in a zealous fashion, provided cheap or free farmland to its citizens | This is far from the truth | During the first decades of western settlement, from the Northeast Ordinance of 1787 to the Civil War, land laws favored profiteers and speculators |
     In February, the Coalition for Redevelopment Reform noted that "...such battles have long been a staple of U.S. westward expansion. In the 19th century, farmers, railroads, miners and ranchers competed for the opportunity to exploit rural resources" and that
     Today, the disputes have become more urban-based, focusing on stadiums, office parks and shopping centers. Courts and legislatures around the country have had widely differing standards on when eminent domain can be used." Pfizer and NLDC plans include a hotel/conference center and a daycare facility for Pfizer employees located within walking distance of the company's complex | A bioscience research park; an athletic center; and 80 units of housing, retail and commercial space are also said to be part of the as yet to be constructed mix |
     15 properties remaining unbulldozed | People still live in them | This whole experience could have been avoided | Many cities have successfully incorporated older, settled neighborhoods into redevelopment plans | Worse, the NLDC has experience rehabbing older homes, some of them quite close, geographically, to the probably soon to be razed doomed 15 |
     Agreed, a large junkyard and oil tanks were removed and the area cleaned up from their residues | But this doesn't make the remaining properties "unsightly blights" as Pfizer executives and the NDLC deceitfully describe the remaining homes | Modest, to be sure, but sometimes modestly does alot to temper official hubris |
     But back to the Supremes | It was William Rhenquist, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Sandra Day O'Conner who spoke outa against this travesty of social justice |  ¶ 01:55 0 comments  

  JUSTICE AT LAST
Murderer Killen Tried and Convicted | Edgar Ray Killen, an 80-year-old preacher and longtime leader of the Ku Klux Klan, who, investigators say, organized and led two carloads of Klansmen on the night of the killings in 1964 | Sentenced to the maximum 60 years in prison Thursday for masterminding the 1964 slayings of three civil rights workers, Circuit Judge Marcus Gordon sentenced Killen to 20-year terms on each of three counts of manslaughter | Gordon said the terms will run consecutively | Killen was convicted Tuesday, 41 years after Michael Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman were brutally murdered on Killen's orders | Killen's attorneys plan on appealing the conviction, arguing that "manslaughter" was an inappropriate sentence |      At least I can agree on that | Manslaughter is too polite a charge for this bastid | He ought to have been executed, or ...perhaps, placed alive in a car that gets buried under six feet of swamp ooze |  ¶ 01:24 0 comments