October 17, 2015

"Obama is no socialist. A socialist would have nationalized General Motors, instead of returning it to capitalistic solvency."

"A socialist would not have presided over a doubling of the stock market, without adding significant new taxes to Wall Street’s biggest beneficiaries. For true socialism in action, look to the billionaire Trump. As a developer, he’s tried to use eminent domain — 'state-sanctioned thievery,' in the words of National Review Online — to get other people’s property. There’s your communist. He has no problem taking from others to serve the public 'good.'"

That's Timothy Egan in a NYT op-ed called "Guess Who Else Is a Socialist?"

The NYT deploys a National Review Online quote — presumably for corroboration, conservative opinion backing up liberal — but doesn't bother to give us a link. Here's the article, from April 2011, "Donald Trump and Eminent Domain." Excerpt:
The Constitution’s Fifth Amendment allows the government to take private property for “public use,” so long as “just compensation” is paid. In the infamous 2005 Kelo decision, the Supreme Court held that “public use” could include, well, private use, so long as the new property owner paid more in taxes than the previous one. In other words, it allowed developers and the government to gang up on homeowners. The developer gets more land, the government gets more tax money. The only losers are the original owner and his property rights.

A decade and a half ago, it was fresh on everyone’s mind that Donald Trump is one of the leading users of this form of state-sanctioned thievery. It was all over the news. In perhaps the most-remembered example, John Stossel got the toupéed one to sputter about how, if he wasn’t allowed to steal an elderly widow’s house to expand an Atlantic City casino, the government would get less tax money, and seniors like her would get less “this and that.” Today, however, it takes a push from the Club for Growth to remind us of Trump’s lack of respect for property rights....
The "this and that" link goes to a John Stossel 2004 article at Reason.com titled "Confessions of a Welfare Queen/How rich bastards like me rip off taxpayers for millions of dollars." Excerpt:
It looked to me like the government was robbing Vera Coking to pay off Donald Trump. The government officials wouldn’t talk to me about it, but Trump did.

Stossel: In the old days, big developers came in with thugs with clubs. Now you use lawyers. You go to court and you force people out.

Trump: Excuse me. Other people maybe use thugs today. I don’t. I’ve done this very nicely. If I wanted to use thugs, we wouldn’t have any problems. It would have been all taken care of many years ago. I don’t do business that way. We have been so nice to this woman.
"Nice" is Trump's favorite word. People think it's "huge," but it's actually "nice."
Trump: Do you want to live in a city where you can’t build roads or highways or have access to hospitals? Condemnation is a necessary evil.

Stossel: But we’re not talking about a hospital. This is a building a rich guy finds ugly.

Trump: You’re talking about at the tip of this city, lies a little group of terrible, terrible tenements -- just terrible stuff, tenement housing.

Stossel: So what?

Trump: So what?...Atlantic City does a lot less business, and senior citizens get a lot less money and a lot less taxes and a lot less this and that.

Sadly, claims that people will be deprived of "this and that" can now be used by politicians to condemn your house. It didn’t seem right to Vera Coking. "This is America," she said. "My husband fought in the war and worked to make sure I would have a roof over my head, and they want to take it from me?"
Stossel goes on to say that Trump lost that case: "Vera Coking got to keep her home. She still lives there, surrounded by Trump’s hotel." That was written back in 2004. I looked up Vera Coking to see how she's doing these days, found a Wikipedia article, and it had this picture of her house:



That's one of what Trump called "terrible, terrible tenements." I guess if you say the adjective more than once it seems more true.

(The structure built around Coking's house in the picture isn't Trump's. It's an erection of Bob Guccione's that never achieved completion and got torn down later as Trump was building his hotel in 1993 and offering Coking a quarter of what Guccione had offered in the 1970s. Trump wanted to put a parking lot in that area. Trump built his hotel, which went out of business in 2014, which was also the year Coking finally sold her house. She got twice the amount Trump had offered in 1993, half what Guccione had offered in the 1970s.)

81 comments:

rhhardin said...

Obama used GM to pay off the unions. Take from owners and give to unions.

rhhardin said...

The legal rules of contract no longer apply, queering every private transaction, of which since then there have been a lot fewer.

Ann Althouse said...

The New Yorker had an excellent article last month about the decline of Atlantic City, "The Death and Life of Atlantic City/Zeno’s paradox down the shore." It's not mostly about Trump — it's mostly about Revel — but there's this:

"Two weeks after the shuttering of Revel, Trump Plaza closed—the fourth casino to do so in 2014. The first was the Atlantic Club, né the Golden Nugget, built in 1980 by Steve Wynn, with financing by Michael Milken and one of the earliest iterations of the junk bond, and then owned (and rechristened), in succession, by Bally’s, Hilton, and Resorts International. Two competitors, Tropicana (owned by Icahn) and Caesars (controlled by the private-equity firms Apollo Management and TPG Capital), bought out the bankrupt Atlantic Club, closed it, and divvied up the scraps. Next came the Showboat. It was profitable, but its owner, Caesars, hobbled by debt, needed to consolidate. (The amputation failed: in January, Caesars declared bankruptcy; another of its holdings, the Bally’s casino, has been rumored to be the next to go.) Meanwhile, Trump Entertainment Resorts declared bankruptcy (its fourth), and Icahn, who’d bought up Trump’s debt, played a game of chicken with the casino workers’ union and the state. (Donald Trump himself no longer runs the company or the casinos, and he has sued to have his name removed.) In December, the Trump Taj Mahal was about to close; Icahn, having squeezed the state and the union for concessions on taxes and benefits, found twenty million dollars to keep it open, and since then it has limped along, a zombie casbah."

(It was Icahn who bought Coking's house.)

campy said...

"It's an erection of Bob Guccione's that never achieved completion ..."

I see what you did there.

traditionalguy said...

Taking people's real estate sounds bad. Buying people's real estate for more than it is worth sounds good. And then there is Sanders' Socialism that actually takes it but pays no one but the Emperor who did it.

Humperdink said...

Ask GM's bondholders if the our president is a card-carrying member of the Worker's Party.

Robert Cook said...

"Obama used GM to pay off the unions. Take from owners and give to unions."

Yes, and behind his rubber mask he is actually Sauron.

Hahahaha! This is a fun game...asserting fantasy as truth!

Robert Cook said...

"And then there is Sanders' Socialism that actually takes it but pays no one but the Emperor who did it."

Wow! I see you're playing rhhardin's fun fantasy game too!! It's fun to make shit up in your head and pretend it's real!

Michael K said...

Cookie, what you make up in your head is amazing.

I am not that happy about Trump, either.

The Kelo decision was the Supreme Court reneging on their role of protecting us from violation of property rights which is what this country is about.

Trump was not the problem. The Court was.

Anonymous said...

Egan has never met a Republican that he likes.

http://www.nytimes.com/column/timothy-egan

Unknown said...

Our current system is a compromise between the crony capitalists and the crony socialists.

The private sector gets to keep the winnings, the losses are socialized and monetized as debt for future generations to choke on.

Rusty said...

Robert Cook said...
"Obama used GM to pay off the unions. Take from owners and give to unions."

Yes, and behind his rubber mask he is actually Sauron.

Hahahaha! This is a fun game...asserting fantasy as truth!


And that's exactly what happened. The bond holders got stiffed.

Ann Althouse said...

"Trump was not the problem. The Court was."

1. A businessperson can pursue all the advantages that are available within the law and the Court is responsible that eminent domain may be used to convey private property into the hands of a private business (where the public will benefit, such as by tearing down a block of terrible, terrible tenements for some urban renewal that is predicted to revitalize the local economy for everyone).

2. The fact that a legal path is available to a businessperson doesn't immunize him from our criticism if we don't like what he's done to a city or we think he's treated people badly. It wasn't against the law is a relatively low standard. Public opinion is built on more than that, and the businessperson should take public opinion into account and maybe avoid doing some of the things that are legal. You can go for a higher standard.

3. A businessperson who wants to leverage his business success into political success cannot expect us not to scrutinize his various business dealings, even when those dealings were within the law. This is especially so when the man has zero experience in office. How are we supposed to judge Trump's suitability for office? Just by looking to see if he followed the law. Of course he tried to follow the law. Lots of money was at stake, lawyers worked hard to ensure that there wouldn't be problems, and presumably he took advantage where he could. How does that translate into suitability for political office? What are we supposed to be able to look at? If everything's off limits, we have no substance to look at.

4. The businessperson, if he becomes President, will be appointing new members of the Supreme Court (if there are any vacancies). So if you think the main problem is the Court, you ought to worry about who this man would put on the Court.

Michael K said...

"The businessperson, if he becomes President, will be appointing new members of the Supreme Court "

I am very worried about Trump, as I pointed out in my link.

Gusty Winds said...

In Elmhurst, IL they built a great hospital over the last decade where Celozzi-Ettleson Chevrolet used to be. The campus took out a lot of the homes in the area. One guy held out, maybe for a better price. I don't know what happened, but they built the massive parking lot around his house. Now his McMansion sits like a little island in a sea of blacktop and cars, and no one would want the house.

In each case, the need vs. the property is different. Hospital vs. Casino. In the situation above, the guy should have sold. Now he has the worst location in town, unless, of course, he needs to go to the emergency room.

Robert Cook said...

"And that's exactly what happened. The bond holders got stiffed."

"Finally, what about the bond holders who many conservatives say were shortchanged in the deal receiving just pennies on the dollar of the value on their investment? Well, buying the bonds was a bet that in this case did not pay off and many of the bondholders purchased the bonds at fire side sale prices to begin with."

The union members got stiffed, too. GM's problems had and have strictly to do with GM's poor management.

Michael K said...

A similar situation happened in Los Angeles when Good Samaritan Hospital was building a new huge structure. An old hotel held out and the hospital now surrounds it. It probably worked out pretty well for the hotel. You can actually see the hotel in this video although I get dizzy looking at it. The hospital may have since bought the hotel.

Michael K said...

Cookie, your comment about the bond holders is a lie. Most were retirees.

JHapp said...

So Obama and Trump both use the government for there own benefit and rise to power. Dah?

Gusty Winds said...

Michael K said...I am very worried about Trump, as I pointed out in my link

I'm not. There are other Republicans I would rather see get the nomination, but I would vote for Caitlyn Jenner over Hillary, so if it is Trump I'll vote for him.

And I'd vote for Carly Fiorina over Trump so it's got nothing to do with "you're afraid to vote for a woman" which we will hear endlessly during the general election.

Even in this discussion regarding eminent domain, Trump doesn't hide or apologize for what he did is his business dealings. That what his mix of followers like, and why they give him a pass. And when he changes his position, or his mind, he says so.

This is one of those posts where I get the feeling the professor is pre-justifying her vote for Hillary. Hillary is a crook. And as Secretary of State, she handled classified information about as responsibly as my 13-year-old son handles the placement of the remote control for the TV.

rhhardin said...

Most uncompensated takings are environmental.

Michael K said...

"Trump doesn't hide or apologize for what he did is his business dealings."

As I pointed out, I don;t blame Trump and more than I blame sharks for biting surfers. It's what he does. I blame the court and Ann's response was bit odd.

"It wasn't against the law is a relatively low standard."

Yes and that is why we have courts. I worry about Trump for his other opinions.

amielalune said...

Had to chuckle at Ann's comment that "it wasn't against the law" is a relatively low standard.

Do I even have to say it? We all know it's the standard the Clintons have always lived by. :)

rehajm said...

Yes the problem with the GM decision was the administration inappropriately orchestrated placing the bondholders subordinate to other creditors and stakeholders. It was a power grab that still has negative consequences.

rehajm said...

Unless he is a Democrat a businessperson who wants to leverage his business success into political success cannot expect us not to scrutinize his various business dealings.

Fixed.

Fernandinande said...

the Supreme Court held that “public use” could include, well, private use,

Government lawyers = creative geniuses.

rehajm said...

A socialist would not have presided over a doubling of the stock market, without adding significant new taxes to Wall Street’s biggest beneficiaries.

Obama is someone who wanted to raise the living standards of those with no or average incomes and failed. So Egan's admitting he's a failure.

rehajm said...

Obama nationalized the major banks and the health insurance industry. Score 2-1 socialist!

Gahrie said...

Given their ideology, how can Democrats possibly attack Trump on eminent domain without their heads exploding?

SE Flores said...

Campy beat me to it but,
"It's an erection of Bob Guccione's that never achieved completion..."
I'm surprised Althouse didn't tag this with "Erections" and/or doesn't have an "Erections" tag.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Toddlers average one shooting per week this year

I repeat my demand: when will moderate pre-schoolers denounce this orgy of violence.

Skipper said...

Not gonna defend Trump's exploitation of eminent domain, but how is that any different from demanding and getting tax money to build a football stadium?

James Pawlak said...

Obama is not a socialist! Yes!

He IS a traitor who has done all that is possible to weaken, if not destroy, the USA as a democratic republic.

Known Unknown said...

"I repeat my demand: when will moderate pre-schoolers denounce this orgy of violence."

The price idiot gun owners pay for not keeping their own guns in safe places.

jr565 said...

""A socialist would not have presided over a doubling of the stock market, without adding significant new taxes to Wall Street’s biggest beneficiaries. For true socialism in action, look to the billionaire Trump. As a developer, he’s tried to use eminent domain — 'state-sanctioned thievery,' in the words of National Review Online — to get other people’s property. There’s your communist. He has no problem taking from others to serve the public 'good.'"

But donald Trump I'd imagine would preside over a doubling of the stock market without adding significant new taxes on wall street (I'd imagine) and would not nationalize GM. So then using the same logic, Trump wouldn't be a socialist.

However, his stance on eminent domain is pretty bad.

Roger Sweeny said...

Obama is not a socialist; he's a crony capitalist. I feel so much better.

Bob Ellison said...

Socialism is communism is fascism is dictatorism. Lefties are mostly too afraid to admit this.

Gahrie said...

I repeat my demand: when will moderate pre-schoolers denounce this orgy of violence.

You know, a bunch of pre-schoolers drowned last week too. I guess we'll have to ban water.

MayBee said...

I'm so sick of the argument that Socialism means the government taking over the private industries. That's old timey, text book socialism. But there is no denying the socialism of Europe, even though there are still private means of production.

It's the loophole lefties lean on to pretend Obama isn't something he pretty much is.

Rusty said...

Robert Cook said...
"And that's exactly what happened. The bond holders got stiffed."

"Finally, what about the bond holders who many conservatives say were shortchanged in the deal receiving just pennies on the dollar of the value on their investment? Well, buying the bonds was a bet that in this case did not pay off and many of the bondholders purchased the bonds at fire side sale prices to begin with."

The union members got stiffed, too. GM's problems had and have strictly to do with GM's poor management.


Not exactly an authoritative choice, but if you're getting your economics from the Huff Post I guess I can see where you're coming from.

The bondholders still haven't realized any resolution.
The Union Membership got to keep their jobs and most of thier contracts.


Jesus

Rusty said...


Blogger EMD said...
"I repeat my demand: when will moderate pre-schoolers denounce this orgy of violence."

The price idiot gun owners pay for not keeping their own guns in safe places.

You'll find that most of those were collateral deaths as a result of gang violence. Get rid of drug gangs and gunshot deaths will go down.

Original Mike said...

"GM's problems had and have strictly to do with GM's poor management."

Yeah, like handing over pay and benefits they couldn't possibly afford in the long run.

Original Mike said...

Obama's abrogation of GM bondholder's contractual rights has a lot to do with the subsequent poor recovery. If you can't trust contracts to mean what they say you are leery of entering into them.

traditionalguy said...

Trump's Great Southwestern Wall will use Eminent Domain because the owners will want a cut of the construction costs set by a local jury. They don't accept a fair offer or give their property away.

Trump is just getting the Wall Project going in his super fast mind.

n.n said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
n.n said...

What's the difference between using eminent domain for private property development and redistributive change (e.g. welfare, coercion) for property development?

Neither directly serves the public interest. And while the former reassigns risk to a private enterprise, the latter is actually a massive transfer of wealth for private (i.e. individual) profit.

Quaestor said...

"It's an erection of Bob Guccione's that never achieved completion ..."

It's axiomatic that the erections of men who fill the space betwixt navel and neck more with gold adornments than shirt seldom achieve completion.

Wince said...

If anything, Obama is a predatory socialist who used inside information about GM's ignition switch scandal to sell all the government's GM holdings before the stock dropped.

Charlie Currie said...

Let's remember that eminent domain is a "government" taking, not something that a private citizen can initiate. And, government is something we chose to do together.

Trump did not lose the Coking case, the city of Jersey City lost the case...court cases are brought by the property owner against the government, not the government or eventual developer against the property owner. Most cases are brought over differences in valuation.

Michael K said...

"the owners will want a cut of the construction costs set by a local jury. They don't accept a fair offer or give their property away."

Most of that land is unusable by the owners now due to violence, I have friends who own a large ranch south of Tucson and it extends near the border. They have a manager who runs it and lives on-site, At night no one goes outside.

I doubt that the land taken by the fence will be contested. It will add considerable security and therefore value.

n.n said...

A Homeowner’s Refusal to Cash Out in a Gambling Town Proves Costly

On July 31, the property, at 127 South Columbia Place, will go up for auction. The reserve price, or the lowest the seller will accept, is $199,000, but brokers insist it will go for more. As recently as eight years ago, Donald Trump was willing to pay at least 10 times that amount so he could expand Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino. In the 1980s, Bob Guccione, the publisher of Penthouse, also made offers in the seven figures to clear the way for a casino of his own.

Etienne said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Achilles said...

AReasonableMan said...
"Toddlers average one shooting per week this year

I repeat my demand: when will moderate pre-schoolers denounce this orgy of violence."

The title of that article should have been: Democrat voters are too stupid to have guns.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Rusty said...
You'll find that most of those were collateral deaths as a result of gang violence.


Did you read the article? These are deaths by the actions of 3 year olds.

Achilles said...

Robert Cook said...
"And that's exactly what happened. The bond holders got stiffed."

"Finally, what about the bond holders who many conservatives say were shortchanged in the deal receiving just pennies on the dollar of the value on their investment? Well, buying the bonds was a bet that in this case did not pay off and many of the bondholders purchased the bonds at fire side sale prices to begin with."

That is a disgusting lie. Most of the bond holders were retirees who put a significant amount of their saving in corporate paper. You should be ashamed for even posting that.

"The union members got stiffed, too. GM's problems had and have strictly to do with GM's poor management."

Trying to differentiate GM management and the unions is stupid. The primary competitive disadvantage GM had was it cost them an additional $2500 per vehicle to make a car due to labor costs compared to Toyota or Honda. Most of that cost was pensions. Japan paid the pensions of ex-Toyota factory workers much like SS and the Japanese companies didn't have that cost. Japan doesn't have a terrible Social Security system like we do.

Brando said...

Obama isn't really a hard core socialist in the European way, but he does seem comfortable abusing the power of the government to manage the economy in ways that set an awful precedent. His GM and Chrysler schemes created serious conflicts of interest and picked winners and losers in the name of "saving jobs" which can justify any heavy handed takeover. He may have reprivatized the companies but we shouldn't be having the Feds step in and pass around ownership like this.

Trump is just a bully who abused the power of the government. But the real shame is on the government that played along with this. It's similar to sports team owners that demand cities build them ballparks and give them tax write offs--the cities should tell them to fund their own businesses.

Michael K said...

"the cities should tell them to fund their own businesses."

As Instapundit says, "Not enough graft."

In Los Angles, the Dodgers were owned by the O'Malley family who had moved them from Brooklyn. Peter O'Malley who was then the owner, and who owned Dodger Stadium near downtown LA, was interested in an NFL franchise. He offered to build a second stadium for football on the same property and share the parking lot and access roads. The city turned his offer down because Mark Ridley Thomas, a black city councilman, who is now an LA County Supervisor, refused to allow an NFL team that did not use the Colosseum, which was in his district. O'Malley sold the team and it has been mired in scandal with the new owners ever since. Plus no NFL team.

cubanbob said...

RC be a sport and reimburse me the forty grand in GM bonds that Obama stiffed me to payoff the unions. I know it must be a stretch for you but Obama's changing the bankruptcy code without legislation stiffed me. Lesson: never but a bond from anything unionized or "to big to fail".

Birkel said...

Call Obama and the rest of the Democrats collectivists, because that label is obviously true.

Also, pretending that bondholders "bet" as the PuffHo author Robert Cook quoted above asserts is itself a lie. The bondholders bought a set of rights. These rights were disrupted in contravention of the law.

Charlie said...

From the Times column:

".....a system where secretaries pay a higher percentage of their earnings in taxes than billionaires who do nothing."

Every time I hear this trope (started by Warren Buffett) I want to ask the person for some evidence, or facts to back up the claim.

Rusty said...

AReasonableMan said...
Rusty said...
You'll find that most of those were collateral deaths as a result of gang violence.

Did you read the article? These are deaths by the actions of 3 year olds.


As a rule I don't address the bloviating left wing sites you and garage and bobby tend to loiter in.

This is, of course an atttempt, by you, to derail the original direction of this thread.
Why don't you post it at your website so no one can read it.

n.n said...

Michael K:

A lot of black billionaires and millionaires in Africa. America must have done something right to have developed a robust middle class.

Michael K said...

"America must have done something right to have developed a robust middle class."

Not that they will admit it. I know some successful black people who are not government employees, Our concerns are almost exactly the same; adult children who are still dependent, decent behavior by other people, the slums and violence of the urban underclass. I have black neighbors in "all white" Mission Viejo. They wave when I drive by and our (their kids) play on the same Little League teams.

As Khrushchev said, they voted with their feet.

hawkeyedjb said...

The sad fact that we didn't have a revolution and some necks hanging from lampposts after the Kelo decision is testimony to what bowed-down wimps we citizens have become. Imagine the American revolutionaries accepting a government that so blatantly steals from the people, and calls it The Public Good.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Rusty said...
As a rule I don't address the bloviating left wing sites you and garage and bobby tend to loiter in.


It was the Daily Mail, hardly a left wing site. Facts and you are not close friends.

narciso said...

well to be fair, the Daily Mail is strong on foreign policy, some domestic policy coverage, but is terribly disposed toward the Crump and Joyce Foundation templates,

narciso said...

how could the curtis cheng shooting and this happen in Australia,

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/fugitives-gino-and-mark-stocco-still-on-the-run-after-police-shootout/story-fni0cx12-1227572825330

Original Mike said...

"Lesson: never but a bond from anything unionized or "to big to fail"."

Exactly.

The Godfather said...

In my career I handled several condemnation cases, sometimes on the condemnor side, sometimes the condemnee. Pre-Kelo, the conventional wisdom was that, if the legislature decided that a taking was for a public use, the court wouldn't second guess that decision. The property owner was protected by the guarantee of just compensation.

It would be funny to hear conservatives argue that it would be a "public use" if the condemned land were used for a government-owned public housing project, but not if the land were turned over to a private developer to create new housing or business space -- even though conservatives generally think the private sector does a better job in providing housing and/or economic development than the government

What's changed, I think, is the growth and abuse of public-private cooperation, often called crony capitalism. Kelo appeared to many to be a case in which the condemnation was primarily for the benefit of a developer, not the public. The rationale was that the municipality would benefit if a run-down neighborhood were turned into a successful development, but there was no assurance that this public purpose would be accomplished.

I don't think that there's an easy cure to the Kelo problem.

I also think there are a lot better arguments not to nominate Trump than that he's taken advantage of the willingness of governments to support his development plans, by condemnation or otherwise.

n.n said...

Our concerns are almost exactly the same

Exactly. People that share common principles, interests, and concerns can coexist. The creation of urban ghettos, coerced integration, ignoring development, pro-choice doctrine (e.g. selective exclusion, institutional discrimination, superior classes), etc. have been a principal cause for the lucrative promotion of prejudice and sustained conflict.

richardsson said...

I think it was originally Jane Jacobs who wrote about the folly of condemnation-redevelopment scams. She said the grandiose plans rarely work out, and the existing communities are destroyed. In Los Angeles, the downtown real estate elite pushed the Bunker Hill project and cleared out the Charles Bukowski set and the land was vacant dirt except for several buildings for 30 years. The only thing Gov. Brown has done I agree with is eliminate these redevelopment scams. It's just a license for politicians to steal. And, they fix it so they have no skin in the game, if the project goes broke, Oh well, so sorry. What happened to the Kelo property is typical; they were supposed to have a boat marina, condos, and "elegant shops." Instead, they have vacant lots. Condos are apartments for the financially ignorant. You own nothing and have less rights than you would have as a renter. I am not surprised that the Casinos went broke, they ran out of chumps and suckers. Trump himself said, in his The Art of the Deal "Do I gamble? No, I'd rather be the house." Yes, of course, sooner or later even the chumps catch on too.

Rusty said...

It was the Daily Mail,

Exactly.


Now. Do you have any more distractions you'd like to get out of the way?

mikee said...

If Althouse has ever gone into such detail over any Hillary misbehavior, I haven't seen it. How long after she votes for Hillary will Althouse take to realize that the woman she helped put in the White House is a corrupt, lying sack of self-entitled totalitarianism?

tds said...

I'm waiting for Vox article: "If she sold it to Guccione in the 70s and put it into stock market, she would be billionaire by now"

JamesB.BKK said...

Said Rehajm: "Yes the problem with the GM decision was the administration inappropriately orchestrated placing the bondholders subordinate to other creditors and stakeholders. It was a power grab that still has negative consequences."

This move probably remains the worst of many by this crowd running the Executive Branch. Very thirdworldlike.

JamesB.BKK said...

The Godfather wrote: "It would be funny to hear conservatives argue that it would be a "public use" if the condemned land were used for a government-owned public housing project, but not if the land were turned over to a private developer to create new housing or business space -- even though conservatives generally think the private sector does a better job in providing housing and/or economic development than the government"

It would be a good time to question the premise whether a government-owned public housing project is a "public use" at all.

Guildofcannonballs said...

Did or does Trump have any responsibility to the people who would benefit from emminent domain cases Trump is involved in, both those groups directly affiliated with Trump brands--employees of his company for example--and ancillary entities?

Suppose a CEO finds a "loophole" that allows for negative externalities through following the letter of the law, should that CEO use an ideology, that views negative externalities as harmful to the long term success of a community but highly prudent for the company's bottom line, therefore not produce as much growth for the company but instead claim the opportunity cost from not producing negative externalities produces goodwill which ultimately is more beneficial to the company over a long term perspective (with always-changing assumptions built on lies to begin with a cynic might claim)?

If a CEO of a publicly traded company has a duty to shareholders to help at least potentially fully realize the company's long-term success and also short-term metrics of success to an extent, at least on the surface this is my layman's understanding, does a private employer have any responsiblity to those people whom their company's success would benefit, short and long term as far as can be reasonably ascribed? What if the private employer strongly implied future benefits to current associates for their current sacrifices to the company based upon a strong fiscal outlook?

Aside: The great thing is using the legal system to disclose someone fighting for their, and those who would benefit from their possible success, pursuit of property's happiness in a way that disregards entirely the corruption of lawyers who, because of their idiotic* ethos "truth is subjective and always-elusive so I can say whatever the Hell I want if it might convince some rubes to free my rapist" as proven by Hillary's attacks and laughter at the 12 year old girl her client raped without the ramifications such acts require by decent, moral citizens in a community.

*Being, at times, for some, highly paid doesn't excuse this immoral idiocy, although as I age I am becoming increasingly unblind to the fact our legal system has elements of suck because people do. The Catholic Church had and has elements that chose (choose) evil acts where the Grace of God should have been, and if it can happen there I guarantee it is rampant everywhere bu·reau·crats bureaucrat.

Guildofcannonballs said...

What are the moral hazards of returning companies not solvent, within the structures of capitalism but excluding quid pro quo government corruption which can be rightly considered a pillar of "capitalism" as understood currently by many, especially those in a titled power, from the trajectory the company took to become unsolvent through capitalism without puke-worthy cronyism?

Are there any examples of companies that were not chosen to return to solvency through capitalism by taxpayer money?

Tort.

Tort em all.

These Leftist Obama lawyers seem to get unanimous decisions against their arguments at the Supreme Court level, and the many honest and foundationally necessary lawyers I should like to think can and will be able to convice jurors that the Federal government ruining some* by saving-from-capitalism certain, other Combine connected companies is worthy of personal recompense from the former title-holders involved, from Lehman Brothers and Goldman to Gibson Guitar and every other guitar manufacturer in America and abroad who weren't targeted Fast and Furious style, IRS style, NSA style, and John Doe style.

Guildofcannonballs said...

http://www.badgerordnancehistory.org/LandAcquisition-People.html

"Land Acquisition - Why Here?

Preparation of industrial facilities like Badger Ordnance Works began in the late 1930s when the War Department began purchasing and warehousing specific manufacturing equipment. At this same time they started the process to locate and acquire appropriate sites for these manufacturing facilities. One of those sites was the north east part of the Sauk Prairie located in Sauk County Wisconsin.

Criteria for site location included:

Rural location away from large metropolitan areas

Close to large volume water supply

Good source of Electrical energy

Access to rail and highway transportation

250 miles from the nearest border (for security)

Soil base able to support the heavy equipment and buildings

Available labor force

The site on the Sauk Prairie met all of these criteria except the last one. To expect a large available labor force in a rural area away from a metropolitan area proved not very realistic.

In the fall of 1941 word came to the Sauk Prairie that this was to be the site of the largest ammunition plant in the world. The farmers whose farms were to be taken, organized to protest and implore the Government to consider other suitable sites and spare this area of some of the best farm land in the state of Wisconsin. People from other locations that wanted the proposed plant, and government officials joined in the effort to get the plant built at a different location. Their efforts were for nothing as the decision had been made and was not going to be changed. The area of interest was 10,500 acres located in Sumpter and Merrimack Townships bounded on the west by U. S. Hwy 12/State Hwy 13, on the north by the Baraboo Bluffs, on the east by farm land and Lake Wisconsin, and on the south by farm land. State Hwy 78 crossed the area on the east side away from planned production areas and was not affected."

Maybe if Ted Kennedy were around then, with the power he abused when he actually had it, he would have fought successfully (meaning he gained politically) for the little guy and a different spot gets chosen and we lose WWII.

My bias is farmers are more spiritually connected to their vast real estate, even to the extent the dirt/land itself is a major part of their identity, than city folk were or are.

Delmar O'Donnel.

Please visit http://www.badgerordnancehistory.org/ I think I copied and pasted half the website.

I was looking for stories of suicide I heard about, no luck.

Guildofcannonballs said...

"Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA)/Ho-Chunk Nation

The BIA declined to accept any land (1553 acres) for the Ho-Chunk Nation, citing no authority to incur excessive cost for performing their own environmental assessment in addition to the work completed by the Army and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. The Ho-Chunk Nation has been unsuccessful in changing the BIA's position."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Badger_Army_Ammunition_Plant

Guildofcannonballs said...

http://www.badgerordnancehistory.org/PowderPlant.htm

The reporting-writing is more surfacely flawed than mine, making me think the 1942 transcriber/author distinction rivals that of the learning/performance, much more deeply than I was predisposed to consider cogently, and to my perhaps detriment.*

The history is particularly apt when comparing the newspaper story linked above in this comment to the formal reasons quoted by me in this post previously in a differnt comment, a forced taking of real land and lifestyles by the State in months, using Government Sector Velocity in 1942.

*Heuristics and superstition remain because for many people the implementations of the concepts "work," in the sense regardless of correlation or causation or the disparities betwixt, the answer to Hamlet's question has been for these people 100% unequivocal: to be.

Not knowing as the omniscient* do, just knowing what hasn't failed yet, is, and will be, plenty to do as they do.

*om·nis·cient
ämˈniSHənt/Submit
adjective
knowing everything.
"the story is told by an omniscient narrator"
synonyms: all-knowing, all-wise, all-seeing
"he thought I was some kind of omniscient guru"

This is great, Google equates knowledge with wisdom and vision, via the chickenshit cop-out "synonyms" label.

The only answer, I will tell you again, not because you're slow but indeed quite the opposite, is the Divine.

All the knowledge in the world is a concept which is stupid compared to a religious examination of wisdom's everborn fruits.

What does it gain the entity who can bestly answer "how many angels fit on the tip of a pin," assuming the entities and their knowledge of angels? What good is being all-knowing when the universe contains the unknowable and also infinite things that can be known, including sacred ideas, people, and things?

Tom Reagan in Miller's Crossing saw "all the angles" yet I wouldn't compare him to God.

The "all-seeing" eye in LOTR kept not seeing the characters for different reasons.

But all-wise?

My bias is I conflate all-wise with God, meaning all-good.