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Keyword: 5thamendment

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  • Texans ponder where superhighway might take them

    03/04/2008 1:28:23 PM PST · by Tolerance Sucks Rocks · 12 replies · 415+ views
    The Boston Globe ^ | March 4, 2008 | Peter Canellos
    REFUGIO, Texas - With an abandoned Wild West-vintage town of storefronts slumbering just a block from old US 77, tiny Refugio is a place where myth and reality coexist in a ghostly silence. more stories like this Obama faces heat over aide's NAFTA remarks to Canadians Texas, Ohio could decide Dem nomination Canada says didn't misrepresent Obama over NAFTA McCain tags Dems on trade treaty NAFTA seen differently in Ohio, Texas And now this South Texas outpost is swept up in one of the more intriguing tests of myth vs. reality in today's political life: the battle over the so-called...
  • Taxes or Tolls on the TTC

    02/25/2008 5:18:30 PM PST · by Tolerance Sucks Rocks · 6 replies · 281+ views
    Gather.com ^ | February 25, 2008 | Col. George W.
    One major concern I discussed a few weeks ago regarding the Trans Texas Corridor is where the land will come from. Another concern is where the money will come from. Official government websites for the TTC assure that public-private partnerships will shield the taxpayer from bearing too much of the cost burden, but a careful reading shows the door is definitely open to public funding sources, while at the same time there is no doubt of the intention to charge tolls on the road. Taxpayers already pay for their transportation system through hefty gasoline taxes, vehicle registration fees, and other...
  • Trans-Texas Corridor plan met with more loathing

    01/29/2008 3:50:52 PM PST · by Tolerance Sucks Rocks · 27 replies · 421+ views
    Houston Chronicle ^ | January 29, 2008 | Rad Sallee
    BELLVILLE — In what is becoming a regular occurrence in Southeast Texas, more than 1,000 Austin County residents and interested outsiders jammed a county fairgrounds exhibit hall Monday night to let a panel of state transportation officials know that the Trans-Texas Corridor was not welcome here. State Rep. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, opened the public remarks to thunderous applause when she told the panel, "You all thought I was crazy in Austin when I said my people don't want it and I don't want it." The panel, which included Texas Department of Transportation Executive Director Amadeo Saenz and Deputy Executive Director...
  • Officials: Stopping eminent domain tough

    01/27/2008 6:47:31 PM PST · by Tolerance Sucks Rocks · 15 replies · 203+ views
    The Facts ^ | January 27, 2008 | Hunter Sauls
    WEST COLUMBIA — When private property gets in the way of a road project, its owners will be moving out of the way, one way or another, in almost every case. With a widening of Highway 36 on the horizon and state and federal officials ready to drive the Trans-Texas Corridor through the Lone Star State, many land-owning Texans are preparing to defend their property from their own government. Brazoria County residents troubled by the looming eminent domain fights came to the Gulf Coast Christian Center on Saturday morning to voice their views to Tom Lizardo, chief of staff for...
  • TTC talks-- Corridor meeting comes to Bellville

    01/26/2008 6:39:48 PM PST · by Tolerance Sucks Rocks · 2 replies · 484+ views
    Brenham Banner-Press ^ | January 26, 2008 | Staff and Wire Reports
    Austin County residents get their chance Monday to comment on a massive “superhighway” that could be coming through their county. And if the public meeting in Bellville is anything like those already held by the Texas Department of Transportation, it will include hundreds of angry property owners lining up for a chance to lambast the proposed project, called the Trans Texas Corridor. Gov. Rick Perry first proposed the TTC six years ago. If completed as much as 50 years from now, it would roughly parallel interstate highways with up to a quarter-mile-wide stretch of toll roads, rail lines, pipelines and...
  • Corridor of change: East Texans express opinions for and against proposed I-69/Trans-Texas Corridor

    01/18/2008 9:51:51 AM PST · by Tolerance Sucks Rocks · 11 replies · 137+ views
    Lufkin Daily News ^ | January 17, 2008 | Brittony Lund
    Hundreds showed up to a town hall meeting Thursday night in Lufkin, many with questions for Texas Department of Transportation officials about the I-69/Trans-Texas Corridor that could run through or around Lufkin, Nacogdoches, Huntsville and other East Texas towns. As it's drawn up, I-69/TTC would include toll roads, high-speed freight and commuter rail, water lines, oil and gas pipelines, electric transmission lines and telecommunications infrastructure in one corridor running north/south through Texas. One primary purpose of the corridor would be to help with the state's projected traffic congestion. Although TxDOT directors assured everyone that nothing is set in stone and...
  • Land loss big concern at corridor meeting

    01/17/2008 6:42:18 PM PST · by Tolerance Sucks Rocks · 7 replies · 254+ views
    Longview News-Journal ^ | January 17, 2008 | Jimmy Isaac
    CARTHAGE — James Mason doesn't want a new highway cutting him off from his property. James Boggs wants to keep American jobs here. They were just a sample of about 140 residents who asked, commented and listened during a public forum with state transportation leaders Wednesday night in Carthage. It was the second of several forums scheduled along the Interstate 69/Trans-Texas Corridor, a proposed superhighway that likely will parallel U.S. 59 from Texarkana to the Mexican border. "We haven't done a very good job of (communicating) in the past," said Steve Simmons, deputy executive director of Texas Department of Transportation....
  • Anyone got a map?

    10/28/2007 3:20:06 PM PDT · by Tolerance Sucks Rocks · 39 replies · 135+ views
    Fort Worth Star-Telegram ^ | October 28, 2007 | Fort Worth Star-Telegram
    During this year's legislative session, Texas had an "oh, wait, hold on, don't do that" moment on privately funded tollways. Fair enough, but now it's time to figure out what the state should do, including how to pay for what the state's highway czar calls a $100 billion shortfall in money needed for essential highway projects. Ric Williamson, the Weatherford businessman who is chairman of the Texas Transportation Commission, says "the entire future of the state transportation system" depends on potential revenue from private toll road investors. Without it, staffers with the Texas Department of Transportation told commission members at...
  • Thompson: Due process for bin Laden

    09/10/2007 3:02:19 PM PDT · by plain old dave · 135 replies · 2,444+ views
    Yahoo News/ The Associated Press ^ | 09/10/2007 | JIM DAVENPORT
    GREENVILLE, S.C. - Republican presidential contender Fred Thompson said Monday that while Osama bin Laden needs to be caught and killed, the terrorist mastermind would get the due process of law.
  • Farmers upset over Perry veto of eminent domain bill

    06/18/2007 5:18:03 PM PDT · by Tolerance Sucks Rocks · 27 replies · 984+ views
    Houston Chronicle ^ | June 18, 2007 | Betsy Blaney (Associated Press)
    LUBBOCK, Texas — One Central Texas farmer said Monday he was "dumbfounded" by Gov. Rick Perry's veto of an eminent domain bill designed to protect landowners when the state wants to take their property. Robert Fleming is not alone in an area worried about the massive Trans Texas Corridor proposal. The planned route cuts through Fleming's Bell County farms. He's bewildered by Perry's veto. "We were so close to getting something done," Fleming said. "We've worked hard trying to get private property rights." Perry vetoed the bill, and 48 others, Friday. In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Kelo...
  • Perry kills bills on property rights, Trans-Texas Corridor

    06/16/2007 1:28:22 PM PDT · by Tolerance Sucks Rocks · 18 replies · 920+ views
    Dallas Morning News ^ | June 16, 2007 | Christy Hoppe
    AUSTIN – A property rights bill that went awry and a mandate for the Trans-Texas Corridor to follow the state's existing highway system were among the 49 bills that fell victim to Gov. Rick Perry's veto pen on Friday. Mr. Perry targeted at least two bills that he believed would open the courthouse doors to more litigation, including a bill that would have provided a greater balance in eminent domain proceedings. The bill spelled out what public land uses were acceptable in order to take private land and provided more recourse for land owners. But a provision tacked onto the...
  • Trading Liberty For Safety

    10/23/2006 4:06:16 PM PDT · by Tolerance Sucks Rocks · 33 replies · 843+ views
    Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership ^ | October 23, 2006 | The Liberty Crew
    "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety" - Benjamin FranklinThe response was predictable. After sending our alert last Thursday regarding the passing of the Military Commissions Act, we received a flood of email. Many were supportive, but others took exception: "Don't you care that terrorists want to kill us?" "Olbermann's obviously a left-wing nut who wants conservatives out of power." "The act isn't that bad..." It is bemusing to watch certain conservatives -- conservatives who once screamed that Bill Clinton was going to suspend the Constitution, establish martial law,...
  • Activists and state to fight home seizures in Long Branch Residents find allies in eminent domain

    09/25/2006 8:12:58 PM PDT · by Coleus · 7 replies · 387+ views
    Star Ledger ^ | 08.31.06 | MARYANN SPOTO
    For 3 1/2 years, Long Branch residents fighting to keep their homes out of the city's oceanfront redevelopment plan mostly battled alone. That changed yesterday. The state public advocate and a national constitutional rights advocacy group will lend their legal muscle to the residents of MTOTSA -- Marine Terrace, Ocean Terrace and Seaview Avenue -- as they appeal a ruling allowing their oceanside homes to be given to a private developer though eminent domain. "As of today, this neighborhood is ground zero in the fight against eminent domain abuse, not only in New Jersey but across the nation," said Chip...
  • Perry signs property rights law

    10/26/2005 3:46:46 AM PDT · by Tolerance Sucks Rocks · 4 replies · 859+ views
    Fort Bend Herald and Texas Coaster ^ | October 25, 2005 | B.J. Pollock
    Gov. Rick Perry's ceremonial signing of the eminent domain bill Monday in Waco didn't get a positive reaction from his rival for his 2006 reelection, Republican Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn, or from Richmond resident and private property rights activist Jack Myska. Strayhorn accused Perry of grandstanding and said the bill is filled with loopholes, and Myska concurred. "I agree with her wholeheartedly," Myska said Tuesday morning, adding he has not yet read the bill thoroughly. Perry officially signed the law into effect on Sept. 1, but the ceremonial signing was postponed due to hurricanes Rita and Katrina. He said Monday...
  • How confident are you, really? (Trans-Texas Corridor)

    09/02/2005 9:56:03 AM PDT · by Tolerance Sucks Rocks · 11 replies · 638+ views
    The Cameron Herald ^ | September 1, 2005 | Margaret Green
    Even before the US supreme court 'legislated' their opinion that our constitution allows government entities to take property from one citizen and profit on the 'exchange' of that property to another private individual or group, our own Texas leaders (some elected and many non-elected-TxDOT personnel) have been working overtime to assure that toll roads and the Trans Texas Corridor (TTC) are forced on Texans before too many of us become aware, stand up, and protest. Probably due to many groups protesting the TTC and toll projects allowed by law in 2003 with HB 3388, our Texas leaders came up with...
  • John Roberts: A Supreme Property Rights Disaster In The MakingMore Kelo on the SCOTUS horizon?...

    08/19/2005 8:41:48 PM PDT · by FReethesheeples · 139 replies · 3,598+ views
    A Supreme Property Rights Disaster In The Making More Kelo on the SCOTUS horizon?... [James S. Burling] 8/15/05 After a term marked by the Supreme Court’s utter contempt for property rights, those of us who happen to think there is something special about allowing old widows to keep their homes were not prepared for an even more bitter defeat. Yet, that is what President Bush handed us with the nomination of John Roberts. The battle over property rights is not a conservative versus liberal thing. It’s more a struggle between those who believe in the power of the state to...
  • From Kelo to Consternation – but Back to the States - (potential for "all kinds of trouble!")

    07/22/2005 1:39:12 PM PDT · by CHARLITE · 4 replies · 482+ views
    A.I.M.ORG ^ | JULY 22, 2005 | Marion Edwyn Harrison, ESQ.
    The five-four decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in Susette Kelo et al v City of New London, Connecticut et al (June 23, 2005) well could trigger the terrifying risk to private property which Justice Sandra Day O'Connor envisions in her Dissent (joined by the Chief Justice and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas): " . . . Under the banner of economic development, all private property is now vulnerable to being taken and transferred to another private owner . . . who will use it in a way that the legislature deems more beneficial to the...
  • Boston Liberals Plot to Steal Land (24 hour notice)

    07/21/2005 3:54:18 PM PDT · by pabianice · 10 replies · 716+ views
    mass chc | 7/21/05 | Stein
    Surprise Bill Disempowers Communities and Privatizes Surplus Public Lands. With less than 24 hours before a scheduled vote, a radically different bill for disposing of state surplus land was unveiled yesterday. According to Massachusetts Coalition for Healthy Communities (MCHC) board member Nat Fortune "The Legislative leadership is using summer vacation and a last-minute release to get the bill passed before there can be a public response. Considering what’s in this bill, it’s no surprise its proponents were keeping it under the radar.” Jill Stein, MCHC president noted, “This bill takes disempowerment of communities to a new extreme. Like the other...
  • States Trying to Blunt Property Ruling

    07/19/2005 2:27:12 PM PDT · by Tumbleweed_Connection · 6 replies · 374+ views
    Guardian ^ | 7/19/05 | Maura Lannan
    Alarmed by the prospect of local governments seizing homes and turning the property over to developers, lawmakers in at least half the states are rushing to blunt last month's U.S. Supreme Court ruling expanding the power of eminent domain. In Texas and California, legislators have proposed constitutional amendments to bar government from taking private property for economic development. Politicians in Alabama, South Dakota and Virginia likewise hope to curtail government's ability to condemn land. Even in states like Illinois - one of at least eight that already forbid eminent domain for economic development unless the purpose is to eliminate blight...
  • Homeowners Ask Court To Reconsider Its Decision On Eminent Domain

    07/19/2005 6:58:12 AM PDT · by camle · 9 replies · 856+ views
    New London (CT) Day ^ | 19-jul-05 | Kate Moran _NL Day
    By KATE MORAN Day Staff Writer, New London Published on 7/19/2005 New London — However improbable their chance for success, attorneys at the Institute for Justice asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday to reconsider the decision in the Kelo v. New London case that allows the city to take private property in the Fort Trumbull neighborhood to make way for a huge new development. In the three weeks since the court handed down its decision, the Institute for Justice has pressed local and state leaders to conserve the dozen houses and single apartment building the city has planned to...