Freestar Media CEO files application to demolish SCOTUS Justice's home to build hotel
 

http://www.freenation.tv/hotellostliberty2.html
Unfortunately, nobody who has a .tv domain instead of a regular top-level domain extension is going to scrape together enough cash to do this, but it's a fun idea. I hope that the show at least gets some airtime aroudn here.

Now this is good.

I love this. Awesome!

Well they will have to play the game just like the developers in other areas and pay off the 3 Selectmen. Shouldn't cost too much. They will probably be able to influence a low "just compensation" price as well.

I love it! :lol:

I may have to take a vacation in New Hampshire if this hotel actually gets built.

I'd reserve a room were this to happen.

Eminent domain is just crap anyway! Now the government can take people's property in the name of greater tax revenue only. That is incredible.

I heard about this on the way into work this am. I'd like to see all the majority opinion justices hit with something like this, as well as the CEO's of the company that initiated the lawsuit. Good for the goose, good for the gander.

It is a very amusing attack back at one of the worst decisions by SCOTUS. I predict that there will be a lot of people rioting, etc. when developers buy off a town's property board and go in and start taking over houses.

I'm not too sure if this guy has the necessary capital to run his idea through to completion, but it would be great to see it done.

I just read this on BoingBoing and burst out laughing. Absolutely hilarious, and proves why the ruling was so unbelievably bad.

I really hope it works.

Sounds like he might want to start looking for investors if he doesn't have the capital to fund it. What a great way for people to express their feelings about the decision in a capitalist society.

Earlier this evening I saw Logan Darrow Clements on Hannity and Colmes. He was well-spoken and seemed intelligent.

I'd send some money. Where do I sign up? :lol:

Amusing.

Here's a question. Can a SCOTUS decision be reversed? I'm curious as to the legalities.


Mr Mephisto

aha!...it came back and bite him in the arse.

SCOTUS decisions can be reversed either through deciding differently on a similar case after the first case, or through legislative (read: Constitutional amendment) means.

state rep. neal kurk (r - weare) whose wife is a town selectman said he also disagrees with the court's decision and sees clements' action as poetic justice but added he'll oppose any government seizure of souter's home

"Justice Souter's property will be protected by the good sense of New Hampshire townspeople,'' he said

screw him too

Gotta love Karma....I hope this goes through.

I find it quite amusing that those who don't like the law would rather use it than change it.

As I have stated on another thread this "law" was on the books in the city of New London. The SC basically upheld a local law.

You can change this ruling by having your community/state put on the ballot a simple law that makes this illegal. As the AG of Georgia pointed out, that state already has the law that makes this illegal.

I swear some people listen too much to others and would rather work up into a frenzy than look at the true facts.

I guess it's just easier to blame others for laziness than to get out and do something.

Oh irony....

Anyways, they are 'using' the law to point out how stupid the 'law' is, which is, in this case, poetic justice.

And if you think its that easy to change a city council, I have some soon to be confiscated by the government property to sell you.

maybe, but between now and then, someone is losing their house. kind of a strange time for the supremes to get all state's rights. not that i'm a fan of big federal gov...but this would seem to be a pretty clear cut case of "that's fucked up."

So the Supreme Court can effectively reverse its previsous decisions?

Mr Mephisto

Only if a case similar gets picked to their docket and reviewed by the sitting justices.

If it says anything about it, it's easier to get an Amendment passed.

I agree it is fucked up but the SC is screwed either way. If they strike the law down, they'd have people saying, "WTF look how the SC refuses to let us make our own laws." And as it did pass, "WTF look how the SC legislates from the bench." Even though it was a LOCAL law they upheld.

It's not that hard to change your area to make sure you get a law protecting land. Unlike someone above believes, you can fight to change laws.

This would not be hard at all since the media coverage is already there. Here's how you do it:

Call your local elections board and find out how many signatures (*by law EVERY state must allow this) it take on a petition to get something on the ballot.

Also, make sure you know the wording needed, or after you turn it in they may reject it for terminology forcing you to start all over again.

Then you ask if anyone has filed the necessary paperwork (if needed yet) if so then you find them and sign the petition.

OR you call the Dems. or GOP or both headquarters in your area to see if either knows of a petition going around and if so how to sign.

You work to get the needed signatures, turn it into the elections board and get it on the ballot.

Now if someone is losing their house and you have jumped through the hoops, gotten the signatures and it's on the next ballot, you have a justifiable reason to get a cease and desist order preventing the loss of land until the vote.

You can do this on local or state level.

It sounds much harder than it is.

*.... in order for a territory to become a state, one of the major requirements in their state constitutions is a way for people to be able to put laws on the ballot..... I.E. petitions. so every state may have slightly different petition requirements but in every state you can by law petition to get a law made.

I don't agree that it's easier to get an amendment passed than for the supreme court to reverse it's previous standpoint. For the most recent example that I'm aware of, reference:

Bowers v. Hardwick 478 U.S. 186 (1986) overturned in Lawrence v. Texas 539 U.S. 558 (2003)

I agree with smooth. It's easy for SCOTUS to overturn decisions, once they're given a similar case. They don't (entirely) control which cases are brought to their attention, sometimes a case similiar might not make it all of the way up the appeals chain, but if they are presented with one, they can just go ahead and overturn the previous ruling.

I predict that will probably happen some time in the future with this ruling, as it's really a horrible decision. Yes, they're only upholding the local law, but the local law is crap and should be struck down.

I think it will be overturned, but will take awhile. In the meantime I see people petitioning and protecting themselves.

once again, i doubt seriously that the folk whose knickers are all in a twist about this ruling gave a damn about the exercize of this same eminent domain question when it was used over and over during the past 50 years or so by cities around the country to herd poorer folk around like cattle so that vital urban developments like convention centers could be built where once homes were. why? because the class position of most of the folk who are o so outraged by this ruling would enable them to imagine themselves being serviced by these convention centers, they think of them as a place they would like to go to, and do not think about the fact that many of them going to were built ontop of razed lower-income neighborhoods--classical case in point--yerba buena in san fransisco--
so one can only conclude that the destrcution of THOSE residences via eminent domain was and would now be just fine--but once it appears that the middle class itself can be effected by laws that previously had functioned to further its political and economic interests--o the horror.
on the argument that private property is sacrosanct is simple nonsense---what you are really saying is that YOUR proterty is sacrosanct--the property of folk LIKE YOU socially, economically--THAT is sacrosanct.

what's good for the goose is good for the gander indeed.


btw i think the action in weare is quite funny.
in that kind of har-de-har way that most such actions are.
but i dont think anything about it speaks to or legitimate the sanctimonious "outrage" above.

While I agree with your point, I'm curious if these convention centers and the like are maintained by the local government for the public good, or are they private enterprises? I honestly don't know the answer to this question, and to me it's one of the more interesting parts of what I know about the ruling.

I can't speak for other cities, but i know that minneapolis' convention center is run by the city, and is actually the only entity run by the city to make money.

A good example is Dodger Stadium in LA. 10,000-30,000 poor people were forced out of their homes to make way for the stadium. They were promised new housing that never materialized.

pigglet,
in the specific case of yerba buena, the center is run by a non-profit organization. That isn't always the case, however, and I understand roachboy's point to be that in situations like that the "public good" speaks to a particular class level and people similarly situated.

the poor people swept out of the way to make room for the center aren't likely to ever enjoy it, have time to visit the center, or really be preoccupied about anything other than living day to day (not that they wouldn't necessarily enjoy a multicultural arts center--but when would they visit it and would its presentation be relevant to them; it might only become relevant to them at the expense of relevancy to the citizens it's aimed at caputuring...after all, eminent domain is and always has been about revenue)


but in the main, we might consider that the meme put out by conservatives over the past decades has been that privitization is and always will be necessarily better than government. That the free market is an "good" end in and of itself, rather than a means to achieve freedom for the people within the market.

So then we have the interesting dilemma that when these projects are undertaken, they are constructed by private companies for corporate gain and often run by private companies for profit--or "non" profit as the case may be. But the idea that a portion of the downtown area be bracketed off for public consumption at no cost is pretty repugnant to the main conservative view--they would much rather private interests become involved and develop that space into a strip mall or business renovation or anything that will generate revenue (perhaps if I studied the context of this art center more I might find whether the proposal anticipates revenue generation from the visitors to the surrounding businesses or if the poverty housing units were eyesores and devalued the surrounding areas).

Well, from my understanding, eminent domain has lotsa times been used for business interests and seldom for non-profit construction. Yet, roachboy's point doesn't hinge on that, I think. We might question why the low-income housing can't be understood as a "public good." and this ties to the processes of hegemony we both brought to the table in an earlier discussion...


so here conservatives are faced with a gnarly proposition...they have to deal with a glaring inconsistency in the internal coherence of their politics: how do they resolve the fact that in order to keep their personal property they need the government's protection to shield them from corporate interests, yet this same government, by its nature and increasing presence in their lives, violates their personal liberties.

Ordinarily this wouldn't be so problematic. Roachboy already outlined in what some are referring to as his "racist" post ;) the release valve that is traditionally utilized: us vs. them. but in this case, the "us" and the "them" are problematized by the fact that the middle class are not provided with an "us" to align with...they are surrounded by "thems"--the people they would ordinarily thrust on their asses for development, the elites who want to strip them of their property, the judicial system that can't seem to follow what they believed to be the tenents of the Constitution in regards to individual liberty.

So then they have to make sense of their position in the world, what they are being hit with. All humans do this, in my opinion, I'm not flaming conservative ideology or particular peoples--it just doesn't really help in this particular situation and so I'm speaking about it in this particular thread. As they cast about for an appropriate "them" we get characters who perform as though they are an "us" (Bush & Co., which by all standards is anything but an "us" to most people milling around the United States) telling the people to calm down...we have identified the "them." Luckily, the threat is external...we just need to unify...go to war...kill them...save us...track them down...we are secure...we are safe...we can overcome adversity as long as we are the same...think the same...act the same...beieve the same...we do believe the same...we are great...our nation is tops...our ideals are tops...never regret...stay the course...keep the resolve...do not question...do not fear...bush is here...

and you'll this stuff replicated throughout the years to come...and you'll notice it was replicated throughout our history. If Bush's speechwriters were better at their jobs, or if they had more confidence in their listeners' historical knowledge, they would be able to incite a hella lot more jingoism. But perhaps they have accurately judged the apathy of many people and don't really need to incite the kind of following past leaders have obtained.

so here in this case, we have a crack in the institution of capitalism, and some people are going to put their fingernail in it and probe the crack, pry it open, peer into it, see what's behind that curtain...

how do the people make sense of their context? why can't they be capitalist, why not own their land and lease it out, are they not part of the owning class? but they certainly are not part of the non-owning class, right? caught in some no-man's land...a very precarious situation for the working-class conservative just trying to raise a family and live his life...

Yes but there's also wider gaps between overtures (is that the right word?): Plessy v Ferguson in 1892 and Brown v Board of Education in 1954.

Of course with two possible imminent replacements on the SCOTUS now, this is liable to be quickly overturned if someone (with legal funding) does end up getting their property siezed in such a manner.

I would consider most highways non-profit. I'd also wonder if Clinton's end-of-term seizure of a great deal of western land wouldn't be considered non-profit. The question is whether it fits the definition of "eminent domain."



So the recent eminent domain decision is Bush's fault? That's quite a stretch.

O'Conner was VERY much against this ruling and wrote a scathing disenting opinion.

At best her replacement will do the same.

I actually don't see this being overturned anytime soon. Most of the cases cited above (Bowers, Plessy v. Ferguson, etc.) deal with hot button social issues. As much as the current takings jurisprudence is wrong, it will only affect only a few people on a limited basis. There won't be enough of a catalyst to effect the change.