Supreme Court Rules Cities May Seize Homes

EmilyM wrote: Have you seen any of Ratner's previous developments?

--They're ugly as all get-out. Ratner barely bothers even with a facade, as most suburban strip-mall developers are forced to.
--They have no street life around them. There is no sense of community, everything about them feels artificial.
--They're abandoned and dangerous at night.
--Ratner can't find tenants, so his cronies bailed him out by moving the DMV to a retail center rather than an office building.
--Plus, there seems to be no plan for transportation. Do you really want that many people, plus basketball fans, on the train with you every day? Seems kind of crowded to me as it is.

Anything Ratner builds is a new kind of blight--a pseudo-suburban dead zone. You'll be sacrificing more than just a view.

You make good points. However,
I think the asthetics (facade) will be done better, He even admits he made mistakes in the past and has learned from them. He wouldnt be a billoinaire from being a dummy. I feel he will do better then in the past. Your point about being abondanded is true. But this is a different location and concept. This is housing along with office space so there will be more activity. Pacific Street is dangerous in the evening . It is very desolete, so it cant be anymore abandoned then it is now. I have seen from my windows cars broken into, assaults, drug dealing etc. I call 911 the police come but the crook is gone quicker then you can imagine. I feel helpless to see this criminal activity on a constant basis. I am not in fear of being mugged because i walk with a chip on my shoulder and dont show fear. but it is scary late evenings on Pacific Street.
He wont get financing without commitment letters for occupancy of the office building. The hotel in my opinion will a success. The commercial space will do well with all the new residents and arena traffic. I respect your points but respectively disagree with your point of view. By the way, I see alot of people who condemned Target and the whole Atlantic Mall concept. But then why are they in there shopping. Hypocrites wouldnt you say.

Captain Marvelous wrote: Anonymous,

thanks for making my point for me,

[quote=Anonymous]And if you dont care to see it then your head is in a hole. Take a look at the statistics, crime trended downward, the economy and real estate and everything intertwined went up.

Exactly my point, all those changes had nothing to with Gulinani, they are all intertwined.

Who's intiatives started the ball rolling. Crime trended downward with Guiliani. Your head is in the hole so deep your not relevent in this debate. Your a closeminded know it all who thinks he is better then. You are probably holding a masters degree and unemployed because your obnoxious.

Lest you think I intentionally posted anonymously above, guest=me.

Eat my ass, I live in crime heights. FLYBOY 2005 ... the new millenia, jam a thumb up your ass.

Millenium Falcon ... OUT!!!

Subject: Liberal Majority Decision? Try Again

from: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/6/23/212323/775

WHAT Liberal Justices?
by zeke L

Thu Jun 23rd, 2005 at 20:23:23 EST

People, come over here and let me explain something before you go repeating talking points from the Right-Wing Corporate Media.

We need to correct a serious misconception in the minds of even many kossacks.  The Supreme Court decision on  Kelo v. New London today was not a decision by the "liberal" wing of the Court.  For the simple reason that there is no liberal wing.

Question:  between Congress and the Supreme Court, which has the larger majority of Republicans?

Answer:  The Supreme Court, with a 7-2 Republican majority (78%).

If you're  surprised by the answer, you need to get up to speed on this and quick.  Don't let the RWCM blame this turkey on "liberals."

Let's be clear:  Kelo v. New London is a disaster.  The Supreme Court ruled that taking private citizen's homes and handing them over to corporations to develop is a valid use of eminent domain.  This is yet another decision in the long trend in US law to make "corporate citizens" more empowered in the eyes of the law than human citizens.  For once, the prominent media treatment is not overblown - this is a landmark in our progress toward a corporatist state, and liberals, progressives and libertarians need to stand shoulder to shoulder to oppose this.

Am I shocked to be on the same side of an issue as Scalia and Clarence Thomas?  Well, yes and no.  No because this actually isn't a conservative versus liberal issue, it's an entirely different political axis: libertarian versus authoritarian.  Yes, because for the most part these Federalist Society types talk libertarian, but when it comes right down to it, they seem to take the pro-business pro-right-wing-crazy side most of the time.  This is an exception, and I believe the fact is that it was big enough that Scalia and Thomas realized that they would have absolutely no Libertarianoid cred if they voted for it.  And they probably had at the back of their shifty little minds a push to try to reinforce corporations' property rights against government seizure for wrongdoing, or something of that nature.

But the real point here is to examine the make-up of this supposedly liberal wing of the court the RWCM keeps harping on.  There were five justices who decided in favor of New London developers over the townsfolk:
 
John Paul Stevens (wrote the decision)
Appointed by
Gerald Ford

Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Appointed by
Bill Clinton

David Souter
Appointed by
George H. W. Bush

Stephen Breyer
Appointed by
Bill Clinton

Anthony Kennedy
Appointed by
Ronald Reagan

So of these five "liberal" judges, three were appointed by Republican presidents.  Of the four in the minority today, they all count as republicans, having been appointed by Nixon (Rehnquist),  Reagan (O'Connor, Scalia) or Bush pere (Thomas).

The idea that there is a "liberal" wing of the Supreme Court, or that it is the one branch of the government not yet controlled by the GOP, is a right-wing frame.  It comes from the fact that so far they have not overturned Roe v. Wade.  However, Roe is currently the status quo in the US.  The definition of conservative (remember your high-school civics classes?) is someone who wants to keep the status quo.  So merely keeping Roe is actually a conservative position.  A liberal position on that particular issue would be to try to expand abortion rights.

Also, IIRC O'Connor typically upholds Roe, so she count as "liberal" by that litmus test anyway.

The other part of this is that many of these justices were put on the court when they actually represented conservative positions and the Republican mainstream.  What has changed is that the GOP leadership has moved into ultra-right-wing territory, so to them Benito Mussolini is starting to look like a centrist.

Lately the Right-Wing Noise Machine has been talking up the "liberal activist judges" rhetoric.  If you go around repeating the spin that Kelo v. New London was a decision by the "liberal" wing of the Court, you play right into this.  

The decision is a big victory for the Right Wing, because it opens huge opportunities for corporate developers to grab up any land they want.  And I hope I don't have to spell out for you the potential for massive increases in corruption at the local politics level - and we all know which party is the party of corruption, right?

The public reaction on this one is going to be huge - I believe the media has called this correctly.  And for those poor souls whose only source of newsertainment is FAUX News, you can be sure this is going to be held up as a prominent example of how liberals and activist judges are ruining America, etcetera and so forth.  So they're going to try to turn this into a huge PR victory for their plan to replace the conservative justices with ultra-conservative or reactionary judges.  We've seen them play that game before where they blame the anti-populist crap they support on us.  Typically we let them do it, too.

Don't let that happen.  Remind everybody you know, everyone at work and at church and at the bar that the Supreme Court is 78% Republican!