{"id":1662,"date":"2005-06-29T13:41:40","date_gmt":"2005-06-29T20:41:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2005\/06\/29\/whacky-activists-target-souter-for-eminent-domain-ruling\/"},"modified":"2005-06-29T13:41:40","modified_gmt":"2005-06-29T20:41:40","slug":"whacky-activists-target-souter-for-eminent-domain-ruling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=1662","title":{"rendered":"Whacky Activists Target Souter For Eminent Domain Ruling"},"content":{"rendered":"

The controversial decision of the Supreme Court on June 23rd regarding the issue of eminent domain in the case The Kelo v. City of New London<\/a> has sparked some interesting conversations, and now some rather humorous actions on the part of angry citizens. The 5-4 ruling went against homeowners in favor of a business wishing to construct an office complex. Supreme Court Justices Stevens, Ginsburg, Souter, Kennedy and Breyer were the majority in this ruling, while Supreme Court Justices O’Connor, Rehnquist, Scalia and Thomas were the dissenting minority.<\/p>\n

Supreme Court Justice John Stevens wrote for the majority:<\/p>\n

“The city has carefully formulated an economic development that it believes will provide appreciable benefits to the community, including — but by no means limited to — new jobs and increased tax revenue.”\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The decision made last Thursday allows local governments to seize a home or business against the owner’s will for the purpose of private development. Interestingly enough, this decision seems to be one that strikes a chord among most people across party lines as dangerous, if not outright wrong. I’ve heard decent arguments on both sides of the issue, but my sympathies tend to fall on the side of the homeowners. In a humorous turn of events, Logan Clements, CEO of Freestar Media, LLC<\/a> has contacted the local government of Supreme Court Justice David Souter’s hometown in New Hampshire, attempting to get the property seized so that Clement’s organization can construct a new hotel.<\/p>\n

According to Clement;<\/p>\n

\n“Although this property is owned by an individual, David H. Souter, a recent Supreme Court decision, Kelo v. City of New London, clears the way for this land to be taken by the government of Weare through eminent domain and given to my LLC for the purposes of building a hotel. The justification for such an eminent domain action is that our hotel will better serve the public interest as it will bring in economic development and higher tax revenue to Weare.”\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I laughed and laughed. Honestly, I couldn’t help it. While I’m fairly convinced that no sane government would allow an act that is pretty deliberately malicious and spiteful to pass, if nothing else, it’s a clever shenanigan worth at least a few nod’s of humorous appreciation. In an interview with World.net Daily<\/a>, Clements elaborates on his position:<\/p>\n

\n“This is not a prank” said Clements. “The town of Weare has five people on the Board of Selectmen. If three of them vote to use the power of eminent domain to take this land from Mr. Souter we can begin our hotel development.” […]<\/p>\n

The activist says he is aware of the apparent conflict of someone who is strongly opposed to the Kelo decision using it to purposely oust an American from his property.<\/p>\n

“I realize there is a contradiction, but we’re only going to use it against people who advocated” the Kelo decision, Clements told WND. “Therefore, it’s a case of retaliation, not initiation.”\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The controversial decision of the Supreme Court on June 23rd regarding the issue of eminent domain in the case The Kelo v. City of New London<\/a> has sparked some interesting conversations, and now some rather humorous actions on the part of angry citizens. Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,111,92],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1662","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-elections-and-politics","category-supreme-court-issues","category-whatever"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1662","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1662"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1662\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}