If I had to guess what was supposedly so offensive about that, I'd say they were making fun of people with substance abuse problems. Maybe recovery therapy sessions are supposed to be looked upon with empathy. The support group must be supported.
But no, the female in the little drama — about people seeking treatment for their addiction to Marco Rubio — was discovered to have done "soft-core pornography."
The woman, Amy Lindsay, as first reported by BuzzFeed, has appeared in multiple movies with titles like “Carnal Wishes,” “Insatiable Desires” and “Private Sex Club.” Ms. Lindsay told BuzzFeed that she was a Christian conservative and a Republican, deciding between supporting Mr. Cruz or Donald J. Trump....She applied for the acting job through the normal process and got hired. Then she was rejected because the campaign is embarrassed by the jobs she's taken in the past and their own failure to do a background check commensurate with their potential for embarrassment.
I hope the Trump campaign figures out a way to embrace this woman, who is, we're told, deciding between Cruz and Trump. Cruz — who's running another ad about how mean Trump was to an old woman who wanted to keep her house and not lose it to eminent domain — would have denied a job to a woman who's struggled in the acting industry. Here's that Cruz ad about Trump's oppression of the female homeowner:
I'd like to see an ad, copying that presentation, putting Cruz in exactly the same negative light, oppressing the ex-porn actress. I'm not saying the Trump campaign should do it. I'd just like to see it, because there are those of us who will empathize with a woman who's treated as toxic because she took a sex-related job at some point, and there are those of us who don't want to give big political power to someone who's excessively censorious about sexual expression.
ADDED: Original Mike said: "Oh, for crying out loud, Cruz. I thought you believed in redemption."
Yes, that's what I thought when Meade told me about it. I said: "Not very Christian of him."
Citation: John 7:53-8:11.
Go, and do not sin again.
Posts
117 comments:
Porn stars are people too. Even Vanna White doesn't have her naked ass on magazines anymore. She's a great clapper!
Which one is the porn star??
Best thing, really. What self-respecting soft-core porn actress would want to be associated with Ted Cruz? *shudder*
The left and the hack pro-D MSM will have no trouble beating up the former porn actress - because their feminism/holier-than-thou faux moralism is of the mummified fascist hypocrite type.
They are scrambling to use any little thing at all no matter how petty.
It's looking like a pretty desperate fight on both sides.
The complaint about the actress is of course unreasonable.
The correct answer to such is to say that denying a workman work because of past sins is Pharisaical and unChristian.
The quibble of a whited sepulchre.
Porn tends to have better dialogue than most political ads I've seen.
Campaignus interruptus!!!!!!
Oh, for crying out loud, Cruz. I thought you believed in redemption.
There really isn't any comparison between Trump and Cruz on this.
Vera Coking's house was there first, and then Trump wanted it, so he asked the government to take it away from her and give it to him. Trump is only the secondary villain there--the real villain was Atlantic City. There wasn't anything Vera Coking could have done not to be in that situation where she had something a rich man with powerful friends wanted--not without a time machine anyway.
Amy Lindsay's resume has the movies it has on it through the free choices she made. Lots of people have to give up acting because they're struggling with it, and don;t even get as far as she did. And it's not like she wasn't paid for making the ad. He didn't stop the check, did he? He's simply not using the product he paid for, which he has every right not to do.
And the triviality of the debates and campaign controversies is remarkable. And the uselessness of the US press.
In the last few days/weeks -
- Russia and Turkey are threatening each other with war, and Saudi Arabia is also about to join in, presumably on the Turkish side; the risks of uncontrollable escalation are obvious given that all sides are under severe stress.
- North Korea has tested not just an actual H bomb, but a real ICBM. At the same time a couple of days ago an official Chinese warning against South Korea obtaining anti misslile defenses, an obvious collusion with North Korea. This is new, and aggressive. It's an implied nuclear threat to Japan.
- International trade has collapsed, banks and bank regulators are contemplating negative interest rates, German banks are on the verge, the Chinese are in a depression. This is very ugly. A global Great Depression semms to have started.
And we are discussing actresses in campaign ads.
Hmmm...Scott Adams today talks about Cruz's "strategy of convincing people that he loves Jesus more than they do". He believes it will limit his persuasiveness. I think he may be correct. I see Cruz as the more dangerous zealot than any of the other candidates.
Does anyone here think for a second that if Cruz were nominated, the Dem candidate through surrogates wouldn't have made a huge stink about it?
Because if you think the mind boggling hypocrisy would stop them, you've not been paying attention since 1992.
Amy Lindsay's resume has the movies it has on it through the free choices she made. Lots of people have to give up acting because they're struggling with it, and don’t even get as far as she did. And it's not like she wasn't paid for making the ad. He didn't stop the check, did he? He's simply not using the product he paid for, which he has every right not to do.
Agreed, this happens all of the time in the real world: someone hires a person to do the job or create a deliverable and discovers that they can’t use the work product as they originally intended. It sounds like the actress was paid the amount that was agreed upon and the campaign isn’t trying to withhold payment or claim damages - they paid the bill and moved on. It would not surprise me if there weren’t dozens of political ads that get created and are never released.
"Best thing, really. What self-respecting soft-core porn actress would want to be associated with Ted Cruz? *shudder*"
If you ever need to break yourself of that porn habit, just convince yourself that all those actresses are Ted Cruz supporters.
And please, the only two mindless zealots in this election had a debate last night to prove it beyond all doubt.
Far as I'm concerned, Cruz is the only electable candidate who might be principled enough to fix things. Anyone less conservative at this point will do nothing but manage the decline while making sure conservatives get blamed for every disastrous mistake of Obama's 8 year reign of error.
Oh, for crying out loud, Cruz. I thought you believed in redemption
That was my thought as well. This could mesh with Trump's recent barrage of Tweets questioning Cruz as a true evangelical.
In the end, when the spotlight is solely shined on Trump, as the nominee, he will by his reflective powers also cast the glow onto Hillary and all her blemishes. It will be 'fair'. None of this is important or trivial, it is only politics.
Google "dropped as spokesman" for more instances of "oppression":
Democratic Party staffer Graeme Zielinski was removed as the party spokesman following his Twitter outburst in which he compared Republican Gov. Scott Walker to serial killer and cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer, sources said Monday.
Seriously, Ann, trying to take a woman's house from her by force to build a parking lot is every bit as oppressive as not letting someone represent you to the public because you don't like something they said or did? As though they have some kind of entitlement to represent you?
Vera Coking did have an entitlement to remain secure in the possession of her own house. No one has an entitlement to appear in an ad.
Maybe Cruz should hire Jared Fogle from Subway for his next ad, or perhaps Adrien Peterson or Michael Vick. I'm sure the media would then be full of warm-hearted stories about Cruz's belief in the power of redemption.
If you believe in moral rules, then you believe they apply to everyone. Selective application of moral standards to one party or candidate is hypocrisy.
"Does anyone here think for a second that if Cruz were nominated, the Dem candidate through surrogates wouldn't have made a huge stink about it?"
Who cares? If not this, they'll make a huge stink about something else. He's supposed to be principled. Show it.
Christian Acting is either the perfect sheep which is the wolf, or it is playschool among the childlike innocents.
Cruz is letting his wolf fur under coat show big time.
It's been my experience that producers know exactly who the actors are that get hired for a film/video. I've seen the portfolios each actor has to deliver.
First of all, you have to be a member of the guild. Second you have to pay over $3 grand to join the guild. Then you have to also join the Union. These people are serious about being in the business.
Cruz handlers gambled that no one would find out. But everyone knows everyone in the business.
Cruz just lost the primaries for his faint before his handlers. He needs to go back to Alberta and their tar sands...
I see no reason the ad was pulled from an ethical standpoint. Politically, it may have been a great move. It is a very good ad and now, due to the publicity, it is being seen by many more people at no cost to the Cruz campaign.
"And the triviality of the debates and campaign controversies is remarkable. And the uselessness of the US press.
In the last few days/weeks -"
Exactly !
"World ends tomorrow. Women and children most affected. "
The only thing worse than people quoting the Bible to support their position are those who don't bother to read it first.
Last line: “Go now and leave your life of sin.”
Notice that Jesus did not say "Go back to the married guy and rock on."
To achieve redemption, the person who did wrong has to sincerely repent and seek it before being forgiven.
The woman did softcore movies. I doubt she's feeling sorry about anything. She misrepresented her credits through the sin of omission and they trusted her.
Funny how if you point out Hillary's record in Libya, her shocking abuse of security regulations, her enormous speaking fees from the banks, and her supporters will scream that they're all political attacks, then snicker when Cruz's staff hired an actress in R-rated softcore movies for a campaign ad. Darned if you do ...
Why do we have to go to British newspapers to learn the truth ?
The long-running saga has paralleled the rise and fall of Atlantic City's real estate fortunes, which in recent months imploded. The decision to auction the property was made by Coking's family after they could not find a buyer in recent years, said Oren Klein of AuctionAdvisors, which is handling the sale.
A maggot, a cockroach and a crumb, that's what he is
The road to the auction block has been circuitous. Coking first took on Penthouse publisher Bob Guccione in the 1970s, who was reportedly so angered by her refusal to sell that he started building his casino above and around her property.
Trump, who bought Guccione's unfinished project, also tried to buy Coking's building to tear it down and use the land for his Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino. Coking battled with Trump and prevailed in a 1998 state Supreme Court case that blocked attempts by the state to use eminent domain to condemn the property.
Coking's one-woman battle was closely followed in the press and by the people of Atlantic City, where she and her property, sitting defiantly in the shadow of Trump's casino, have been a familiar sight for decades.
She moved to California and the family sold the building at auction.
'She could have lived happily ever after in Palm Beach, Florida; instead, she was an impossible person to deal with,' Trump told The Associated Press this week. In addition to millions of dollars, he said, he had offered Coking housing for the rest of her life in one of his properties.
The famously stubborn Trump laughed off a question as to whether he would bid on Coking's home — just to have the last word.
The woman was NOT forced out of her "home," a rooming house she bought for $20,000 in 1961.
@Michael K:The woman was NOT forced out of her "home," a rooming house she bought for $20,000 in 1961.
No, she had to go to court to prevent it from happening, and she prevailed.
It never should have happened. It never would have happened, if Atlantic City had any integrity. And it would have happened if Trump had got his way.
It doesn't matter that she later sold it, or that she didn't get as much for it as she could have if she had taken any of the earlier offers.
It was her right not to sell at that time. Atlantic City and Trump attempted to deprive her of that right. For a goddamned parking lot.
"The woman was NOT forced out of her "home," a rooming house she bought for $20,000 in 1961."
You're defending Trump on this one? I don't get it.
Why would you think Cruz made this decision? Treating politicians as omniscient and in control of every act done in their name is kind of how we came to this place where presidents and congress are blamed/praised for everything. Worse, the reflexive assumption that Cruz (or Obama) makes all pissant HR decisions indicates a poor intellectual framework, one that leads you to believe that politicians are capable of solving most of our problems, if onlywe just elected the right guy (Trump, Sanders).
One thing I like about Romney is he didn't promise that and didn't believe it. Which politicians have that reality-based view in this go round?
Oh, dear Professor! You must be getting really worried about Cruz.
I am starting to think that a Ted Cruz presidency will be the finest possible thing for this blog and its commenters.
...there are those of us who will empathize with a woman who's treated as toxic because she took a sex-related job at some point...
You mean "sympathize" unless your employment history is more interesting than you've let on.
In other news:
Cruz releases this video spoof on 'Office Space'
And it's awesome...
Trivial bullshit. Is this the new standard? Scrutinize the background of actors in political ads of opponents to see if you can find something moderately embarrassing? Really?
So, now we get to dig deep into all the Obama ads to see if any of the actors were convicted felons? I missed this at the time, my bad.
Trump, Cruz or Rubio in 16!
Trump may cause a return to Christianity by making its counterfeit version riidden around on by Cruz and Beck be exposed as a dead fraud used to to con the uneducated.
The Spirit of Truth started the Christian Way at Pentacost, and He does not use lies and made up slanders.
@Xmas,
Best, funniest ad by Cruz ever! Well done.
MSM and Trump fell into Ted's trap. Now that he's pulled the ad, it gets more plays and impressions! Just like The Daisy ad.
Ted is playing three-D chess while Trump is playing checkers. Trump not even playing Monopoly,
"It was her right not to sell at that time. Atlantic City and Trump attempted to deprive her of that right. For a goddamned parking lot."
I'm not defending Eminent Domain. My information is that Bob Guccione tried to buy her rooming house, which she has successfully misrepresented as "her home" and failed. He build his hotel and casino next door. Trump bought the property and tried to buy her rooming house. She refused. THE CITY tried to use eminent domain to take it and sell it to Trump and failed.
Once she won the fight, she could NOT sell the property for anything like the value she placed on it, a million dollars.
Eventually, the family auctioned it off.
There are lots of examples of holdouts in such cases. One was in New York City. One was in Los Angles where the Good Samaritan Hospital bought out a city block for a new hospital. The owner of an old hotel held out and the hospital now surrounds the building. I think he may have sold it to them recently and I can;t find a photo of it. No doubt the hospital marketing people avoid such photos.
Some holdouts are spectacular.
This story had NOTHING to do with Kelo.
I'm reminded (not that the situations are all that similar) of Kirk Cameron who, after converting to Christianity, had the actress then playing his girlfriend on "Growing Pains" fired because she had posed for Playboy.
Way to encourage her to come to Christ Kirk!
Michael K notes: My information is that Bob Guccione tried to buy her rooming house, which she has successfully misrepresented as "her home" and failed...
The narrative is spoiled if the "poor old woman" was in fact a landlord, so keep that information under your hat.
The heart strings that the Cruz campaign are trying to tug are the same ones in Frank Capra's "You Can't Take It With You."
I am assuming that Amy Lindsay got paid?
If so, then she has not been harmed, except maybe by the additional publicity, but if so then that would seem to be the direct result of her own deceit, so no tears here.
Somebody on the Cruz campaign or its hired ad shop needs to get fired for a failure to vet Ms. Lindsay.
Prof. Althouse is not being very neutral, cruel or otherwise, to Sen. Cruz. That makes me like him more I think.
@Michael K and chickelit:which she has successfully misrepresented as "her home" ..
The narrative is spoiled if the "poor old woman" was in fact a landlord
Horsecrap. If Bob Guccione had owned that building it would have been just as wrong for Trump and Atlantic City to do what they did. It would have been just as unjust that Coking had to defend her property in court if she had owned 500,000 houses.
Freedom, how does it work?
I'm not sure what everyone would have liked Cruz to do here, ask every woman that wants to get paid to appear in one of his ads if they were ever in a porn movie? How would that work out? Then you people would be ripping him a new one for asking such a question of a woman.
@Michael K and chickelit: You guys are going right past Trump and into Bernie territory when you suggest that what happened to Coking was not unjust, and it some who "spoils the narrative" because she wasn't poor.
What Trump tried to get Atlantic City to do to Coking is what Bernie would want Atlantic City to be able to do to Coking. In theory the "rich" are Bernie's target. In practice the rich, like Trump, make or buy friends and benefit from crony capitalism. People like Coking are always hardest hit--they own enough stuff to be interesting, but not enough stuff to have juice to defend it.
The woman got paid. Not sure how she was mistreated. But do go on, Althouse.
@Gabriel: But there's also the feigned butthurt when after she prevailed and tried to sell but couldn't get nearly what Trump had offered her.
@Gabriel: And there's Jeb's astonishment at learning that the Keystone Pipeline wasn't a public works project. All in all, I think Trump defused the eminent domain problem quite well in the last debate.
"Freedom, how does it work?"
Badly, on the whole. The alternatives can be worse.
" If Bob Guccione had owned that building"
There would not have been a rhetorical "hook" to the matter. No public interest and no public relations damage to the action under Eminent Domain. The law, and rights, do not exist in isolation.
@Chickelit:But there's also the feigned butthurt when after she prevailed...
Do you own a home, sir? Would you like to have to hire lawyers to defend it because someone wants to build a parking lot? Money for lawyers being money you will never, ever see again?
Does it matter if you plan to sell your home later someday? Does it matter if when you finally do decide--in your time, sir, not in the time decided by the city in cahoots with its developer friends--if you don't get as much then as what they city offered with a gun to your head?
Or do you prefer to live in a free country, where you don;t lose your freedom just because big shots assure you that you will be better off?
@buwaya:There would not have been a rhetorical "hook" to the matter.
Would never have come up anyway. He was too big to push around.
I can believe there are commenters supporting Trump no matter what he does, but I can't believe some of them are trying to tell me this has nothing to do with eminent domain abuses.
"Would never have come up anyway. He was too big to push around."
Wouldn't have come up, but for very different reasons.
Clearing land for a great big investment like that would have required acquiring that bitty parcel.
Big guys don't play petty games, unless they are going insane or senile. He would have made a deal, and promptly.
Trump played his game. Its often a dirty game, and he says so himself. He's got dirty laundry.
Its up to you voters to judge whether his dirt is worse or more of a problem than whatever is wrong with the other guys. I'm not even American, and I support no-one.
I don't see that Trumps case, in this matter, was an Eminent Domain abuse. This was a huge (yes, a Trumpianism, but reasonably so) construction project with major civic impact. All the other parcels required had been acquired through regular deal-making. One holdout was left. This was an appropriate use of Eminent Domain. There must be a way around in such cases, the alternative being the risk of paralysis. There is a limit to anything.
"This story had NOTHING to do with Kelo."
I don't get it. This story IS Kelo. How is it not?
And on Eminent Domain, I'll defend it; for pipelines, power lines, hospitals. This was a casino parking lot.
"I'm not sure what everyone would have liked Cruz to do here,"
Keep running the ad. There's nothing wrong with it.
"This was a casino parking lot."
Why would you defend it for a pipeline and not a casino parking lot ?
The cost of rerouting a pipeline is increased construction, financing and operating expense, reduced economic efficiency. From the states point of view, its revenues are ultimately affected by a reduction in taxable incomes.
The cost of a lack of parking at a casino - or finding more inconvenient parking elsewhere - is increased construction, financing and operating expense, reduced economic efficiency. From the states point of view, its revenues are ultimately affected by a reduction in taxable incomes.
It really isn't a different matter.
"Why would you defend it for a pipeline and not a casino parking lot ? The cost of rerouting a pipeline is ..."
Simple. Society needs pipelines. It does not need casinos. I've got nothing against casinos, but I do have something against taking other people's stuff to build one.
In this day and age, without Eminent Domain piplelines wouldn't be re routed, it wouldn't be possible to build one at all.
@buwaya:Why would you defend it for a pipeline and not a casino parking lot ?
Fifth Amendment: ...nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
Because we believe in a limited government. This is not the UK where Parliament wields ultimate power over everything, should Parliament choose to assume it. Trump's limo parking lot would not have been "public use" in the way a road or a bridge is.
From the states point of view, its revenues are ultimately affected by a reduction in taxable incomes.
All from the state. All to the state. All under the state. Nothing outside the state. Why doesn't the state just take us out of our jobs and homes and put us in the best place the state can think of to put us?
It's good of you to come right out and say it like you have; the erring sheep here will find their way back, thanks to you.
Is softcore porn actually porn? Shouldn't Laslo weigh in on the issue?
Extremely disappointing. I don't know what's worst: the incompetence in not doing background checks, the dismissal of an actress who has (as I understand it) changed her life, the failure to predict the utterly predictable fact that pulling the ad would draw the very attention they were trying to avoid, or the strong implication that those who believe Republicans are repressed prudes are right? It's quite the fail whale, Team Cruz, just as I was getting maybe a little hopeful you'd overtake Trump. But I'll take big, boisterous, vulgar, left/right/who-knows, not-spic-and-span (is that racist? Sorry, not sorry), populist Trump, who I absolutely trust not to give a flying f___ at a rolling doughnut if an actress in a commercial did porn and to veto legislation restricting my religious liberty, over some religious-right tight-ass, every day, and twice on Sunday.
"And there's Jeb's astonishment at learning that the Keystone Pipeline wasn't a public works project. All in all, I think Trump defused the eminent domain problem quite well in the last debate."
Jeb is an idiot, but the Keystone Pipeline being a private project is a red herring. I live in Madison, WI. I use natural gas 24/7 for 5 months of the year. And I use gasoline 12 months of the year. I think it's wise to have private companies build and operate pipelines (the only alternative would be to have the government do it, and we all know how well they manage projects), but they are essentially a public works project in that society could not function without them.
I thought Trump's defense of his attempted land grab by yelling "pipeline" was laughable.
"Society needs pipelines. It does not need casinos. "
Sez who ? What "society" ? Who defines need ?
The society of Monaco makes its living ultimately from its casinos. That's the livelihood and prosperity of the people. So, I think, does the "society" of Atlantic City.
"Sez who ? What "society" ? Who defines need ? "
Really? You're arguing that our modern society does not need pipelines?
Anybody else want to jump on that clown car?
@buwaya:The society of Monaco makes its living ultimately from its casinos. That's the livelihood and prosperity of the people. So, I think, does the "society" of Atlantic City.
So then, to you, an "eminent domain abuse" is a contradiction in terms. If that's the case, you've simply defined the problem away.
But our society has not defined the problem away. And you can't turn it into the sorites paradox because the law is more complex than that. To us, some justifications are illegitimate; so far precedent has not caught up to that understanding. But the public has never accepted that a government is the sole judge of what appropriate public use is.
Original Mike said: Really? You're arguing that our modern society does not need pipelines?
Anybody else want to jump on that clown car?
I think buwaya is saying that society needs both. Atlantic City reaps benefits, people get jobs, etc.,
We are forever hearing from free trade apologists (mainly Republicans) that so many poor Chinese peasants are lifted out of poverty by offshoring. Pushed to an extreme, lots of poverty can be alleviated by constant redeployment of factories to the poorest nations. Eventually, they'll come full circle back to the States.
What's moral distinction here?
buwaya wrote: The society of Monaco makes its living ultimately from its casinos. That's the livelihood and prosperity of the people. So, I think, does the "society" of Atlantic City.
In a sense, Wall Street is a giant "casino" too. Especially from the POV of a small player.
"I think buwaya is saying that society needs both. Atlantic City reaps benefits, people get jobs, etc.,"
Sure, but using that argument anybody can take anything. There is no alternative to natural gas. There are alternative ways for Atlantic City residents to make a living.
While we're denigrating casino's, I wasn't aware that Trump made his fortune on Wall Street.
I can think of a few candidates and spouses who have. Hell, isn't George Soros just a speculator?
There are alternative ways for Atlantic City residents to make a living.
Just as there are arguments that Detroit can make a living w/o making cars. Many schemes have been tried; most have failed.
Then I guess anybody (big enough) can take anything.
Then I guess anybody (big enough) can take anything.
Was there not due process in the Trump casino case we're discussing?
@chickelit:Just as there are arguments that Detroit can make a living w/o making cars.
What did Detroit do before cars were built there? It was just a howling emptiness, until the automobile was invented, and then we realized there was only One City in which they could be built, and that city is bound to do so until the End of Time?
What about the cities that don't make cars?
What about the cities that used to make cars and don't? What about the cities that do now and didn't used to?
"Really? You're arguing that our modern society does not need pipelines?"
We don't "need" natural gas pipelines, and we don't "need" natural gas. We can do without, albeit at considerable cost. Natural gas is just the current economical optimum fuel/system for a lot of requirements.
Natural gas is actually a very new fuel source relatively speaking. On the West Coast it didn't become universal till the early 1960's, in the East Coast not till the 80's or later.
We are discussing grey areas, not absolutes. I think we have not all grasped just how much "grey" there is.
What did Detroit do before cars were built there?
Detroit was perfectly poised where Minnesota iron ore and Appalachian coal could be melded to make steel. This was true of Pennsylvania as well. Easy access to worldwide shipping helped too. But when the high grade ores panned out and coal was vilified, (more accurately were regulated useless), the city naturally declined.
"Was there not due process in the Trump casino case we're discussing?"
Fine, but going to court (unless you're Trump-like) is no little thing.
I have no problem with how it turned out. I do have a problem (and this is the important point) with Trump's actions. He's asking for my vote (and he may end up getting it), but don't piss down my back and tell me it's raining. I have a problem with what he did here.
"So then, to you, an "eminent domain abuse" is a contradiction in terms. If that's the case, you've simply defined the problem away."
No, the problem exists. But it is the sorites paradox indeed, or in another point of view its a matter of fuzzy logic. There is no bright line here at all. Its no use raging at the problem because that wont change it. Every single particular case is a matter of points of view, particular facts, and judgement calls.
"We don't "need" natural gas pipelines, and we don't "need" natural gas."
Nobody else is volunteering to jump on that clown car with you.
The government is well known for seizure and recharacterization of private land through regulation, redistributive change, and eminent domain. Perhaps the city could have paid market value, seized the land, built a park or parking lot for public use, then assigned maintenance and services to public or private entities. The profits or taxes earned could be redirected for public use.
Just because Donald Trump argued that those in favor of the Keystone pipeline do not object to condemnation of property through eminent domain does not make his argument valid. Pipeline right-of-way usually does not destroy the owners right to use his property. However, access and underground use of the land is conceded. In Trump's case, the Trump Plaza was built and functioning as designed but Donald obviously didn't like the looks of his neighbor's properties that were present when his casino was built. So he asked for and received "corporate welfare" treatment from New Jersey government in the form of condemnation to be owned by a Trump company that was not long for this world. Fortunately. the courts acted rationally.
https://youtu.be/SmM4ZBoppNQ
"Nobody else is volunteering to jump on that clown car with you."
You are not engaging and trying to avoid the matter through ad hominem.
That is dirty pool.
Your point of "need" depends on, well, actual necessity. But it is not "necessity-necessity" - it is convenience.
Natural gas is not an absolute "need" because it is entirely substitutable. And, again, its simply a fact that natural gas is a recently implemented system, anywhere in the developed world.
France, say, until the 1990's.
"Natural gas is not an absolute "need" because it is entirely substitutable."
I bet you live in California.
Yeah, over the course of three or four decades we could transition to something else (though, really, I don't know what) but I NEED natural gas this year next year, the following year and, if I'm still alive, 10 years from now.
I am not engaging in dirty pool. You are being obtuse.
'I bet you live in California."
I do. California was the FIRST state to put in a complete natural gas system. It was the first major market of the first interstate pipelines. This was in the 1950's. CA has some of the oldest - well, considering how extensive it is, most of the oldest gas pipelines anywhere.
The US has been transitioning over the last three or four decades TO natural gas. People forget what there was before. Coal, coal-gas, heating oil, central steam, electricity were all in widespread use for home heating.
Exactly. Decades. I, and my neighbors, don't feel like freezing until your brave new world comes to pass.
If I was Trump, I'd hire her and film them together having lunch and talking about politics, and then end with some knife wound into Cruz's weakness.
There's a bunch of ways he could play this, and tear down Cruz for being a pussy.
People love an underdog, and she's now the countries new face against the shame of Cruz firing her for her past.
Spare me the faux concern over the actress who got paid, and is now getting tons of free publicity. If you're a porn actress (and a pretty talented one, too, if Bikini Airways is in any way representative) who auditions do to a commercial for a conservative Republican presidential candidate, you kind of have to assume (shoot, you probably intend) that it's going to come out, and that it's going to create a bit of controversy, as well as a no-win situation for the politician -- the story is either going to be "He employs porn stars! Hypocrite!" or "He won't employ porn stars! Hypocrite!" Regardless of whether Cruz should have pulled the ad, don't shed a tear for Amy Lindsay/Leah Riley/Katie Campbell/Lynsey Ames, or whatever name she's using. Now excuse me while I go check out Radio Erotica ...
Trump's not loving these Cruz ads. Trump-tweet from an hour ago:
"If @tedcruz doesn’t clean up his act, stop cheating, & doing negative ads, I have standing to sue him for not being a natural born citizen."
"Exactly. Decades. I, and my neighbors, don't feel like freezing until your brave new world comes to pass.'
This is a completely brainless statement.
You are using natural gas because you already have pipelines, with the rights of way obtained in part through Eminent Domain, etc. The projects to put in those pipelines were private economic decisions for the most part, with the active cooperation of the Federal, State and local governments. It was an ECONOMIC DECISION, not one of survival. Before you and yours were enjoying the gas, other resources were used, successfully, if at higher cost and less convenience.
So, if someone proposes to use Eminent Domain in order to produce an economic benefit, as the cheap and convenient heat you enjoy is an economic benefit, then you cannot distinguish the use of Eminent Domain in the case of a natural gas pipeline as a matter of necessity vs an economic benefit. All, every one, of these proposed uses of Eminent Domain for private development are justified by their economic benefits.
You are forced into the grey areas of particulars of each case.
"You are using natural gas because you already have pipelines, with the rights of way obtained in part through Eminent Domain, etc. The projects to put in those pipelines were private economic decisions for the most part, with the active cooperation of the Federal, State and local governments."
I. Support. Eminent. Domain.
I guess you missed that.
"I. Support. Eminent. Domain.'
I know you do. You just misunderstand the complexity of the problem.
You cant really explain on a matter of absolute values why you will support it in case A and not in case B.
Its not a matter of "necessity", because very very little really is "necessary" - and you will have a difficult time defining "necessary".
Just about everything you will define as "necessary" is really a "nice to have", including interstate highways and gas pipelines.
So you have to make economic judgments and value judgments. In a grey area. And people will disagree.
"You just misunderstand the complexity of the problem."
No I don't. What I understand is that if someone can go to the courts and argue that I need this women's house because without it people will have to walk an additional block to my casino, then anyone with resources can take anything they want.
Just curious (I don't really know, not trying to be insulting), do you consider yourself to be a conservative?
Sorry to ask a question and then leave. I have to head out to the hockey game (which, BTW, I'll be parking 5 blocks away from and then walking to get to).
@buwaya: But it is the sorites paradox indeed, or in another point of view its a matter of fuzzy logic. There is no bright line here at all.
There doesn't need to be. Create three classes:
Unambiguously legitimate uses of eminent domain -> "bald people"
Unambiguously illegitimate uses of eminent domain -> "people who are not bald"
Ambiguous cases, to be decided on a case-by-case basis -> "balding, receding, thin on top, etc."
Very, very simple. Trump's parking lot, for me, is class II.
The law does this all the time, with "reasonable" and "customary" definitions of when something is obviously legal.
"Trump's parking lot, for me, is class II."
Key here is "for me"
And above -
Definition problem of 'Unambiguously legitimate"; 'unambiguously illegitimate"
Those "classes" are in themselves fuzzy, they don't help.
Many here have noted that the Keystone Pipeline is an appropriate use of eminent domain. And yet there it is, being litigated as "unambiguously illegitimate" by some.
I am a royalist, a subject of HRH Felipe VI, and a supporter of the Partido Popular.
And simultaneously a citizen of the Republic of the Philippines and formerly a supporter of LAKAS, but lately since its split at a bit of a loss.
I am a conservative of a foreign sort, much of which does not map neatly into US categories.
Half the power of the Cruz ad is its chiming and rhyming with people's contempt for limousines. For virtue signalers, limos are way worse than SUVs. It also rhymes with the "paved paradise to put up a parking lot" meme.
A park, a wildlife refuge, a refugee tenement, a solar farm, a minnow's pool, a predator's backyard, a fire hazard, a boutique shopping mall, clearing a blighted neighborhood... The use of "eminent domain", in its many realizations, by democratic officials and bureaucrats, has a storied and repeated history.
Has anybody mentioned that Walt Disney did not use Eminent Domain to buy a fairly large tract in central Florida?
Perhaps that example has some bearing here. Anybody? I think, reading the above, there are too many assumptions made by all of you. Go think more seriously about your positions. All of you. Right now you sound uninformed and illogical on all sides.
Urban Renewal projects for new development of an entire slum area always acquire by the condemnation method because they can serve th entire world by publication and cure missing heirs issues from missing descendants.
Those Urban Renewals always go to private developers using Government programs. .
Should we let the slums stay where they are. To clear them means to have Government force private owners to accept money . And that is the end of the world. Or maybe not doing it is the end of old cities.
I'm kind of sorry that the Cruz campaign decided to dump the ad because Amy Lindsay was in it; they probably created more adverse publicity than if they'd looked the other way. You can check out her ouvre on IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0512182/?ref_=nv_sr_1
On the other hand, it wasn't a very good ad, not because (pace Althouse) it might offend people who are in therapy, but because it didn't provide a REASON why a voter who was supporting Rubio should now support Cruz. The ad with Hillary bashing the server was also a fail, in part because the "Hillary" didn't look like Hillary! at all (too thin!), and in part because Republican primary voters don't need to be reminded about how bad Hillary! is when they are deciding who should run against her.
On the eminent domain issue, I've handled a number of condemnation and related cases over the past 40+ years, for condemnors and condemnees, so from that perspective I offer these observations. The Constitution allows condemnation of private property for "public use". This has never been understood to mean that the government must be the owner of the condemned land: For example, although railroads are privately owned, they have been allowed for a very long time to acquire land for rights of way or yards by eminent domain. I don't see the (now moribund?) Keystone Pipeline as very different. But Kelo allowed land of one private owner to be condemned for the benefit of another private owner, because the government thought this would generate tax revenues and other economic benefits to the local government. That's the contentious issue these days, and that's what ought to be the focus of discussion. Tromp has done a good job of avoiding that issue, because the people challenging him don't really understand it.
"It would have been just as unjust that Coking had to defend her property in court if she had owned 500,000 houses."
The Kelo case was not involving Trump. The Trump story concerned Atlantic City trying to get land for a casino which would provide revenue. The original casino owner was NOT TRUMP.
"I don't get it. This story IS Kelo. How is it not?"
It is not because Trump was not involved in Kelo.
I think Eminent Domain is abused but that was not the issue. We had a case in California where a small city did not want another church in town because they are tax exempt. They used eminent domain to buy the property to keep it from the church.
I have spent years on planning commissions in small cities and I understand why they don't like projects that use infrastructure and don't pay taxes. Still, that was an abuse of eminent domain.
The casinos in Louisiana and Mississippi used federal flood control money to build casino parking lots instead of sea walls, especially in New Orleans.
Life is messy.
It's a lot easier than this. Is Ted Cruz running to get rid of eminent domain? Has he done a single thing to repeal or restrict Kelo? Don't run ads about eminent domain being a bad thing if you actually support its use. The only reason Cruz doesn't use it is because he's a lawyer and Senator. He hasn't had any personal reason to use it.
I've read that Trump offered her 5 million for the place. Don't know if it's true or not. As for the unfairness of having to legally protect your property, I have a significant amount of legal fees trying to defend my property from the state DNR. I wish someone would offer me 5 million for it.
Go, and do not sin again.
But that's the problem with all this excessive American prudery. It knows no bounds. No one can ever be "pure" enough.
The KJV is so much better:
And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.
Eminent domain is a dull issue that will win Cruz no votes.
No one cares.
Eminent domain is a dull issue that will win Cruz no votes.
No one cares.
It's because it always has to be qualified and further modified to read or sound something like "bad eminent domain." To be against "eminent domain" in general is a non starter.
By contrast, look at immigration. To be against simple "immigration" is also a non starter. But the simple single adjective term "illegal immigration" suffices as a campaign issue.
@Original Mike: Sieve!
"@Original Mike: Sieve!"
Were we not the losing net?
Yes, we were the losing net.
Dude1394 wrote: I see Cruz as the more dangerous zealot than any of the other candidates.
"Zealot" is an appropriate (and old term). I thank you for that. I hadn't thought of that before.
Cue the comment from R&B saying that of course modern Republicans are zealots.
Did Trump have any obligations to his investors and those employed directly or indirectly by himself or the casino? Perhaps Trump's lawyers told him "you don't press for some action and that is fraud on your part, corporate negligent malfeasance that will taint you forever as a simpleton unable to see the forrest for a tree."
Business is war, and this lady was giving Trump, and those in some way dependent on his building wealth for themselves as well as him, the business here.
What we have here is another version of "he / they are the big guy and I like the little guy because big guys bully and cheat and make me feel bad and junk." But in America, all the rich have a voice also, not just Teddy Kennedy and his little guy he talked so much about.
"No I don't. What I understand is that if someone can go to the courts and argue that I need this women's house because without it people will have to walk an additional block to my casino, then anyone with resources can take anything they want."
OM doesn't mean what he wrote of course, but many Leftists would like to rob Trump or anyone who produces things to not be able to argue in court. They figure if the rich can argue, well, game over for them, the righteous little guy.
And Teddy clapped from +**%
For the record, the casinos have not done much good for Atlantic City. If you go there, the geography basically goes: ocean, boardwalk, casinos, slums. The slums start within a couple of blocks of the casinos, depending where you are. Atlantic City had been in decline before the casinos were opened because its tourism model failed after WWII, and the casinos did little to turn the tide other than the beachhead. It's rather amazing given the city's population is only in the 40 thousand range. One would think that an economic juggernaut (for a time) and a small population would result in a revitalized city, but it didn't. AC's government has been notoriously corrupt going back to Prohibition, if not earlier.
My problem with AC's use of eminent domain has less to do with the legality of it, which I have not really thought about nor care to now, but the fact that a corrupt local government in cahoots with the only bright spot in their economy does not pass the smell test. I don't trust the AC local government to execute anything properly, including things they obviously have the legal power to do.
Kelo should have had "experts*" testify that alternative plans than the then-current homeowners had would potentially bring in more tax revenue than the people suing for the land (City of New London or something?).
"They claim an extra $233,431 over ten years after completion of their proposed project, but we the homeowners have proof, via experts, with our plan to operate a legal brothel and euthanasia leadership institute in the furnace room, that we can bring in around $233,432 more than currently if just given the chance to stay and after a small tweak in whoring and killing statutes currently undergoing advocation separately but concurrently."
Then you say "oops we couldn't get the whoring legal, guess we gotta learn to have gratitude for the status quo" if you get any grief for not following through. Kelo, in this scenario it could be called ironic, could be proof the City doesn't follow through with plans even after the evictions, so any claims of "bullshit lying Realtors" or "cooked up pipe-dream non-plans unplanned except for joking purposes" can be easily refuted without resorting to plausible deniability jingoism.
* Realtors for $100 per day plus a sandwich compensation.
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