This is better than make-believe: Your local government says, for the sake of a large corporation, that you have no constitutional right to your home (What Fifth Amendment? We don’t need no stinkin’ Fifth Amendment ’round here!) - and the U.S. Supreme Court says that sure sounds OK - but then the large corporation turns around and leaves vacant the property the local government stole for you.
Irony is so cool.
It happened last week in New London, Conn., where the city took private property for the sake of Pfizer Corp., the “public use” required to grab private property from unwilling sellers being the additional tax dollars from an upscale development next door to the company. The U.S. Supreme Court ending up saying, “Sure, if the state doesn’t protect against this sort of thing, the U.S. Constitution has room in it to define more tax dollars as a public use, just as public as a use as roads or a post office.” One of the lawyers who plays here might check the exact wording, but I’m fairly certain that the 5-4 majority in the Kelo case said essentially that. But, it turns out that all of the particulars are of little consequence. Pfizer is up and leaving New London. Read the rest of this entry »
