Free Republic

Margaret Thatcher, when she was British Prime Minister, used a simple formula to describe the economic freedoms due to a properly free people: "A man's right to work as he will, to spend what he earns, to own property, to have the state as servant and not as master." This was, in her view, "the British inheritance." Her thinking, influenced by centuries of English jurisprudence and political philosophy, provides a modern statement of the same rights that America's founders sought to bestow upon their posterity. Thatcher's phrase embodies the conservative view of the role of government and of citizens' rights...

"The ad is very misleading. In fact, it outright lies about a widow's home being bulldozed," Pierson tells Breitbart News in an exclusive interview. "When you look at the facts, there is a process in place for eminent domain which was followed in this instance. Ms. Coking ended up keeping her property for years, because Mr. Trump didn't purchase it, and it ended up saving him a fortune," Pierson adds. In 2014, 16 years after the court battle ended and several years after Coking moved to California, her grandson sold the house at auction for $530,000, far less than Trump...

Please click the link for the video of this report from the Institute for Justice who represented Vera Coking against Donald Trump and won in court. Here is a transcript of the same: In the video: Dana Berliner of the Institute for Justice (appears to be a property rights advocacy group), Donald Trump, John Stossel, Vera Coking -------------------- Clip of ABC News report playing interviewing Trump. TRUMP: In life you have a thing called condemnation and cities have the right to condemn for the good of the city - whether it's New York, whether it's Los Angeles, whether it's any...

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...

YOU MAY BE REQUIRED TO MOVE WITHIN 90 DAYS AFTER YOU RECEIVE THIS NOTICE. IF YOU REMAIN IN POSSESSION OF THE PROPERTY AFTER THAT TIME, CRDA MAY BE ABLE TO HAVE YOU AND YOUR BELONGINGS REMOVED BY THE SHERIFF. Vera Coking received this letter telling her to move out of the house she has lived in for 36 years. So did Joseph and Gilda Ann Rutigliano, who have operated a small motel in Atlantic City for over 30 years, Vincent Sabatini, who has run his Italian restaurant for the last 32 years, and Peter Banin, who had just purchased his...

Libertarian Solutions: Property rights in America: Your 'castle' is under siege by Bill Winter, LP News Editor & Jon Trager, LP News Staff Writer EDITOR'S NOTE: How can Libertarianism solve America's problems? Each issue, LP News showcases how "Libertarian Solutions" -- or interim steps in a libertarian direction -- can help improve our nation. [May 24] In 1994, Vera Coking received an ominous letter from the New Jersey Casino Reinvestment Development Authority. Coking, a widow who had lived in her Atlantic City home for 35 years, was notified that her house had been seized under the state's eminent domain laws....

Tuesday at the Birch Run Expo Center in Michigan, when pushed for the details of how he will get things done, Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump touted his ability to get what he wants.

Trump Plaza Hotel & Casino closed its doors early Tuesday, the fourth Atlantic City casino to go belly-up so far this year. When it opened on May 14, 1984, Donald Trump called it the finest building in Atlantic City, and possibly the nation. But since then, The Donald has left town and cut ties to its casinos. And the Plaza, like many Atlantic City casinos, has seen better days.

She once called Donald Trump "a maggot, a cockroach and a crumb." This week, he remembered her as "an impossible person." The woman who became a folk hero for resisting decades-long efforts by big-name developers like Trump to displace her Atlantic City boardinghouse is now 91 and, at last, ready to sell. But it remains to be seen if anybody still wants to buy. Vera Coking has moved to California to be near her family. And the 29-room property she and her husband bought for $20,000 in 1961 and fought to hold onto is on the auction block Thursday for...

After Donald Trump’s bizarre announcement last week that he was running for president, it occurred to me that many observers are misreading Trump. Many consider him a joke. Not true. Trump knows when he is being outrageous — and acts that way consciously to build his brand. Some consider him a menace, pointing out polls that show he would do well if he abandoned the GOP after the primaries and ran as an independent. But Trump is too smart to waste money on a futile effort to capture 270 electoral votes. He will conclude — like Michael Bloomberg, another...

Wednesday, September 1, 2004 The power of the rich Posted: September 1, 20041:00 a.m. Eastern By Walter Williams © 2004 Creators Syndicate, Inc. The truly rich don't deserve all the political hype we hear – they're only a tiny percentage of our population and not that important. According to recent U.S. Treasury statistics, the top 1 percent of income earners have an adjusted gross income that starts around $300,000. While $300,000 or $400,000 a year is nothing to sneeze at, it's a far cry from being rich – it's not even yacht-and-Gulfstream-jet money. The truly rich Americans are those with assets like...

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...

How rich bastards like me rip off taxpayers for millions of dollars Law grinds the poor, and rich men rule the law. -- Oliver Goldsmith Ronald Reagan memorably complained about "welfare queens," but he never told us that the biggest welfare queens are the already wealthy. Their lobbyists fawn over politicians, giving them little bits of money -- campaign contributions, plane trips, dinners, golf outings -- in exchange for huge chunks of taxpayers’ money. Millionaires who own your favorite sports teams get subsidies, as do millionaire farmers, corporations, and well-connected plutocrats of every variety. Even successful, wealthy TV journalists. That’s...

BROOKLYN, NY-On Monday the Empire State Development Corp. approved the modified General Project Plan for the Atlantic Yards project and authorized eminent domain to seize the final properties needed for the project to go forward. The Public Authorities Control Board is the final hurdle developer Forester City Ratner Cos. must overcome. The PACB is expected to vote on the plan Dec. 20, although given the board’s track record it is uncertain if the project will receive the unanimous decision required. “Today’s approval is another important milestone in the creation of tens of thousands of construction jobs, thousands of permanent jobs,...

It was September 1986, and Annabel Hill, 66, was facing an auction where she would lose the farm that had been in her family for five generations. Hill’s husband, Lenard, had committed suicide eight months earlier, 20 minutes before a scheduled auction, in a last-ditch attempt to save his property with life insurance money. The life insurance money wasn’t enough, covering only $175,000 of debts than ran in excess of $300,000, from two years of a drought that Hill said had ruined their livelihood. Even when several hundred acres of the 1,300-acre Waynesboro, Georgia, farm were sold, the now-widowed Annabel...

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump may have raped his ex-wife Ivana Trump, according to a 1993 biography of the real estate mogul uncovered by The Daily Beast. Trump's attorney on Monday denied the allegation, claiming “you cannot rape your spouse.” “You’re talking about the front-runner for the GOP, presidential candidate, as well as private individual, who never raped anybody," Michael Cohen, the Trump Organization’s special counsel, told The Daily Beast. "And, of course, understand that by the very definition, you can’t rape your spouse.” The biography, Lost Tycoon: The Many Lives of Donald J. Trump, by Harry Hurt III, details...

Donald Trump suggested that he would not support ending taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood's non-abortion services in two interviews Tuesday. "We have to help women," Trump told Fox News' Sean Hannity in an interview that aired on Tuesday night. " So we have to look at the positives, also, for Planned Parenthood." Trump said he opposes federal grants going towards Planned Parenthood's abortion practices, but noted that abortions make up a "small part" of the organization. ... Trump appeared to support shutting down the government rather than fund Planned Parenthood in an interview last week. "Asked directly by conservative radio...

Real-estate mogul and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump scored second place in a New Hampshire poll released Tuesday. "Jeb Bush continues to lead, but Donald Trump has emerged as an anti-Jeb Bush alternative in New Hampshire," said David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center. Trump's relatively strong performance in the poll quickly drew notice from political journalists

We’re days away from Congress failing to block a deal that will exponentially increase the chances of a nuclear flash over Tel Aviv or New York, and all conservatives could talk about for the past 72 hours was Donald Trump’s insult of Megyn Kelly, an insult that caused firebrand pundit Erick Erickson to lapse into Dean of Students mode to ensure that his Red State Gathering was a Safe Space — safe from the current GOP frontrunner. And we wonder why people are deeply alienated from politics? First, let’s just tell the truth: Approximately 98 percent of the professional politicians,...

On June 15, while Donald Trump was announcing his candidacy for President of the United States, I began to write. My article was published here on June 16, and I was way out front in how Donald Trump would resonate with the American people. Needless to say, I received tons of flak and ridicule. Also, the majority of pundits smirkingly dismissed it as an absurdity to think Trump would make a serious run. Well, my dear fellow Americans, it is now two months since he made his announcement and I must say—while I feel there are some terrific candidates—Trump towers...