Donald Trump’s Eminent Domain Love Nearly Cost a Widow Her House

Since he shot to the top of the presidential polls, Donald Trump’s serial bankruptcies and bullying nature have made big headlines. But no one seems to have brought up a bullying business practice he’s particularly fond of: eminent domain.

The billionaire mogul-turned-reality TV celebrity, who says he wants to work on behalf of “the silent majority,” has had no compunction about benefiting from the coercive power of the state to kick innocent Americans out of their homes.

For more than 30 years Vera Coking lived in a three-story house just off the Boardwalk in Atlantic City. Donald Trump built his 22-story Trump Plaza next door. In the mid-1990s Trump wanted to build a limousine parking lot for the hotel, so he bought several nearby properties. But three owners, including the by then elderly and widowed Ms Coking, refused to sell.

As his daughter Ivanka said in introducing him at his campaign announcement, Donald Trump doesn’t take no for an answer.

Trump turned to a government agency — the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority (CRDA) — to take Coking’s property. CRDA offeredher $250,000 for the property — one-fourth of what another hotel builder had offered her a decade earlier. When she turned that down, the agency went into court to claim her property under eminent domain so that Trump could pave it and put up a parking lot.

Peter Banin and his brother owned another building on the block. A few months after they paid $500,000 to purchase the building for a pawn shop, CRDA offered them $174,000 and told them to leave the property. A Russian immigrant, Banin said: “I knew they could do this in Russia, but not here. I would understand if they needed it for an airport runway, but for a casino?”

Ms Coking and her neighbors spent several years in court, but eventually with the assistance of the Institute for Justice they won on July 20, 1998. A state judge rejected the agency’s demand on the narrow grounds that there was no guarantee that Trump would use the land for the specified purpose. “TRUMPED!” blared the front page of the tabloid New York Post.

It wasn’t the only time Trump tried to benefit from eminent domain. In 1994, Trump incongruously promised to turn Bridgeport, Connecticut, into “a national tourist destination” by building a $350m office and entertainment complex on the waterfront. The Hartford Courant reported: “At a press conference during which almost every statement contained the term ‘world class,’ Trump and Mayor Joseph Ganim lavished praise on one another and the development project and spoke of restoring Bridgeport to its glory days.”

But alas, five businesses owned the land. What to do? As the Courant reported: “Under the development proposal described by Trump’s lawyers, the city would become a partner with Trump Connecticut Inc and obtain the land through its powers of condemnation. Trump would in turn buy the land from the city.” The project fell apart, though.

Trump consistently defended the use of eminent domain. Interviewed by John Stossel on ABC News, he said: “Cities have the right to condemn for the good of the city. Everybody coming into Atlantic City sees this terrible house instead of staring at beautiful fountains and beautiful other things that would be good.” Challenged by Stossel, he said that eminent domain was necessary to build schools and roads. But of course he just wanted to build a limousine parking lot.

In 2005 the Institute for Justice took another eminent domain case to the Supreme Court. By 5-4 the Court held that the city of New London, Connecticut, could take the property of Susette Kelo and her neighbors so that Pfizer could build a research facility. That qualified as a “public use” within the meaning of the Constitution’s “takings” clause. The case created an uproar.

Polls showed that more than 80% of the public opposed the decision. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor issued a scathing dissent: “Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private party, but the fallout from this decision will not be random. The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms … The Founders cannot have intended this perverse result.”

Conservatives were especially outraged by this assault on property rights. Not Donald Trump, though. He told Neil Cavuto on Fox News: “I happen to agree with it 100%. if you have a person living in an area that’s not even necessarily a good area, and … government wants to build a tremendous economic development, where a lot of people are going to be put to work and … create thousands upon thousands of jobs and beautification and lots of other things, I think it happens to be good.”

When Donald Trump says: “I give to everybody. They do whatever I want,” this is what he’s talking about: well-connected interests getting favors from government. Vera Coking knows the feeling.

In the Kelo case— there is now a vast empty area where the houses in New London were located. Pfizer pulled out and shut down their “R&D” facility-AFTER they pushed the people out at a “fair” price (not). Why did they leave? Because Pfizer is NO longer (distinguished from it’s WWII credits) an R&D pharma company. The history over the last 12 years plus has been— “acquire a company” for a “revenue stream” of their products (hence not needing any real creation of their own) to pump up their stock value with “revenue” cooked in the books, then fire all the employees in the acquisition and “market” the products.

Don’t let anyone tell you, having acquired Parke-Davis/Warner-Lambert, Upjohn/Pharmacia, and the behemoth Wyeth-— that Pfizer has invented anything (aside from the prick pill viagra- how fitting) and is largely responsible for the “buying” of Congress to get obamaumao-care approved. Why? so that in it’s supposed “business” plan, it’s number one partner is to be the US govt. and the verrry few insurance companies left- so that Pfizer can control most of the market of medicines in any category dispensed and paid for by govt. agencies and the mandated “taxed” “insured” general public forced to participate. In short— the very essence of corporate cronyism and venture socialism- the Eurotrash model. What all will notice is that, particularly for Pfizer, pharmaceuticals have not, as a result of these “efficiencies” reduced in price. This was never their intent- rather to push their margin and volume in government sanctioned price fixing. There is no way shape or form that this is conservativism- no matter the PR campaign.

Their actions in New London are but a living testimony of buying a Supreme Court decision (because they have the money to do so in various “covered” ways and “foundations”)and the extremely low regard for people’s property rights (not their OWN of course). A travesty.

http://www.breitbart.com/

CALIFORNIA TO SEIZE FARMS FOR JERRY BROWN’S WATER TUNNELS

by DANIEL NUSSBAUM18 Aug 20152,344
The State of California is planning to use eminent domain law to acquire hundreds of farms in the Delta for a controversial, multi-billion-dollar underground water tunnel project proposed by Gov. Jerry Brown.

According to documents obtained by environmental group Restore the Delta, state water exporters and the Delta Design Construction Enterprise (DCE) division of the Department of Water Resources are planning to acquire 300 pieces of land from Delta farms to ensure right of way for the Bay Delta Conservation Plan tunnel project.

The $15 billion project, under development for the last eight years, has long been favored by Brown, who wants to use the twin underground tunnels to move water from the northern part of the state to the south by diverting it around the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.

But the project has faced stiff opposition from environmental groups like Restore the Delta and others who say the tunnels are not environmentally sustainable.

In a statement, Restore the Delta executive director Barbara Barrigan-Parilla blasted the “arrogance” of state officials for using eminent domain to acquire farmers’ land.

“While Delta and good-government activists are busy mobilizing comments in a democratic process, we discover state agencies view public oversight as simply a distraction,” Barrigan-Parilla said. “These documents arrogantly envision groundbreaking ceremonies as early as July 2016. Bulldozers and cement trucks are ready to roll! Red ribbons are budgeted! All for a $60 billion boondoggle without even one permit. Clearly, water officials under the Brown Administration view the Delta as a colony.”

Brown has tussled with environmental groups over the tunnels before. In May, the governor told critics of the proposal to “shut up, because you don’t know what they hell you’re talking about.” Brown said that “millions of hours” had gone into poring over every aspect of the tunnels, and has called the project an “imperative” that “must move forward.”

Yet despite the governor’s enthusiasm, the tunnel project has not yet been approved.

Water exporters and some agricultural interest groups support the tunnels. Californians for Water Security, a group made up of the California Chamber of Commerce and various farm and labor groups, has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on television and radio advertisements in support of the project.

But California’s plan to use eminent domain to acquire the land has created an increasingly rare moment of unity between environmental groups and Delta farmers.

“It is wrong and premature that the Department of Water Resources has a unit creating a secret land acquisition plan to take 150-year-old farms, like ours, through condemnation,” Courtland farmer Richard Elliott said in a statement, noting that his family has never sold any of its land. “The entire plan doesn’t make for sustainable food policies, smart land use practices, or even common sense.”

According to the documents, the state would make Delta farmers one offer to purchase their land, after which the farmers would have 30 days to accept or reject a deal. But after those 30 days, the state could still plan to force the owners to sell using eminent domain law.

The plan also calls outright for minimal “external” oversight.

“All transactions are conducted, reviewed and approved internally by DCE staff and managers to maintain control and avoid unnecessary delays to schedule,” the documents state. “DCE shall seek to minimize external review and approval requirements.”

Tony Francois, an attorney at the Pacific Legal Foundation who specializes in water and property rights, tells Breitbart News that the use of eminent domain does not allow for a proper system of “checks and balances,” even for controversial state infrastructure projects.

“The fact that they don’t have the project approved has generally not been a bar to acquiring the property,” Francois said. “If the project is controversial, they don’t need any special approvals to acquire the property, and that starts making the project look more inevitable. [State contractors could say] ‘Hey, we’ve already spent the money acquiring the property, we better get started building it.”

Francois added that the use of eminent domain exempts the state from being subject to California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) environmental impact reviews, which have caused stalling on some infrastructure projects for years, or even decades.

“If these reports are correct, then we have further confirmation that the tunnels project has been a foregone conclusion,” state Sen. Lois Wolk (D-Davis) told the Associated Press on Monday. Wolk said the environmental impact review, “which should be used to choose a project, is simply being used to justify a favored project.”

Francois says the state is on solid ground for claims of eminent domain to acquire the property, as long as it can prove the water tunnel project constitutes a “public good.” Less clear, he says, is the issue of “just compensation” for the land the farmers will be giving up.

“Are they only taking the property they need for the underground tunnels, or are they taking the surface estate as well?” Francois said. “It’s the cutting [the land] up that creates a significant problem that farmers think they are not getting properly compensated for.”

According to the AP, the tunnel project is officially in a public comment phase until October.

So my question is: Why is it ok for California and not someone else? David Boaz is a liberal writer, and so is the people he writes for, and they really had to dig deep down to find something they think is so damning on Trump that this is going to turn our support away from him, I think NOT....

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