Trump’s Eminent-Domain Empire

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 limousine 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 v. 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.

“...Are we so starved for a strong courageous communicator who is happy to fight 0bama that we’ll jump on the first train that comes by, even if it is a carnival sideshow?...”

I think the answer is yes - not “we” as in folks out here on Free Republic, but I talk with a lot of people who are NOT politics-wise, as does my wife in her industry. They’re raving about Trump because they’re sick to death of FuBO.

People are swayed by strong, dominant personalities. You mention Paul Ryan to folks, and they go “Who?”. You mention Michelle Bachmann, they give you a blank glassy stare - one that doesn’t indicate they’re going to take any time or trouble to educate themselves no matter what you say.

They KNOW Sarah Palin through the thorough demonization of her, and are convinced she’s stupid (she’s not, as WE out here know - she’s a damn fine Conservative American with the brains and chutzpah to do the job).

They KNOW Donald Trump through his television program, and admire his directness. They ARE ready to vote for this guy over the current douchebag - simply because he’s the loudest voice in the room at the moment (like Rush said - “approach”).

Like it or not, these people vote, and (it SEEMS) they outnumber us.

He’s got the three ingredients that seem to matter - a voice, an instantly recognizable face, and a lot of money (his own). People react to it. In a way, He’s riding the same sort of media meteor as Obama did in 2007-08.

Until we get a real conservative who is louder, more direct, and who isn’t afraid to be called an eeeeeevil racist for going after Obama, well, get used to The Donald, because I have a feeling that the well-known “wobbly streak” in the collective “moderate” GOP spine is about to show itself and put him forward.

For the record, I’m not endorsing the guy - just relaying what I’ve heard the non-politically aware saying. They love him for the most part (some hate him too - but they KNOW who he is).

For myself, I like what Trump is SAYING and the fact that he is hounding FuBO publically and relentlessly - NOBODY ELSE is doing it (except Palin, and she’s been so thoroughly mocked that “Indies” aren’t taking her seriously). Nobody else seems to have the balls (or the resources, microphone and spotlight, for that matter). I don’t like HIM personally, I think he’s an arrogant pr*ck who snaps his fingers and expects “the little people” to jump.

He’s bad on my gun rights. He’s bad on abortion. He’s bad on issues concerning property rights. That makes him seriously dangerous in my eyes - but maybe less so than the idiot we have now, since he’ll be focused on fixing the economy first and foremost.

So...to all this...what do we do if he becomes the “one”? Not vote? I don’t know (rhetorical, as I’m asking you all for answers here...).

Geez, it seems we’re always in the lesser of two evils position, and I HATE it. I was (and am) large on the “NO MORE RINOs” issue - I’ve said it out here in dozens of posts. Trump isn’t even a RINO - he’s someone who has been a big dem suporter and that would seem, on the face of things, to exclude him from our consideration.

Do we vote for him, install him as an interim while we somehow manage to get a REAL conservative (who?) for 2016 enough face-time and media time (yeah, right) so he/she is instantly recognizable (like Reagan was through his movie career) - hold and increase the House and take the Senate to block any and all his efforts at further eroding our rights?

or...

Do we NOT vote for the guy, stay home, and thereby guarantee another term for the “man” who is actively trying to erase us?

I would absolutely love for Sarah Palin to be the candidate, and with Lt Col Alan West as VIP. I would DEARLY love to see Sarah and Lt Col West debate FuBO and Biden publically.

Either way, it seems to me, NOT voting is not an option.

I DO know that the country WILL tear itself apart if we get four more years of this Marxist arsehole. And then again, maybe it’s time for a good housecleaning, and to put paid to this stalemate between liberty and socialism once and for all.

Feedback, please...

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