Michelle Malkin is Right: Donald Trump and Eminent Domain

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Acckkk! I feel so awful saying that. Maybe if I hose myself down with Lysol, I'll feel better.

Anyway, I've been meaning to post about Donald Trump and his goonish attempt to evict an elderly lady from her home in Atlantic City several years back. "60 Minutes" ran a segment about it. MM is on the case. Hat tip to her for reminding me of the lady's name.

Donald Trump's Eminent-Domain Empire

While casting himself as America's new constitutional savior, Trump has shown reckless disregard for fundamental private property rights. In the 1990s, he waged a notorious war on elderly homeowner Vera Coking, who owned a little home in Atlantic City that stood in the way of Trump's manifest land development. The real estate mogul was determined to expand his Trump Plaza and build a limo parking lot — Coking's private property be damned. The nonprofit Institute for Justice, which successfully saved Coking's home, explained the confiscatory scheme:

"Unlike most developers, Donald Trump doesn't have to negotiate with a private owner when he wants to buy a piece of property, because a governmental agency — the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority or CRDA — will get it for him at a fraction of the market value, even if the current owner refuses to sell. Here is how the process works.

"After a developer identifies the parcels of land he wants to acquire and a city planning board approves a casino project, CRDA attempts to confiscate these properties using a process called 'eminent domain,' which allows the government to condemn properties 'for public use.' Increasingly, though, CRDA and other government entities exercise the power of eminent domain to take property from one private person and give it to another. At the same time, governments give less and less consideration to the necessity of taking property and also ignore the personal loss to the individuals being evicted."

ETA: I guess this thread ran right around the time of Kelo v. City of New London:

I wonder if Donald Trump will get Vera Coking's home now.

One more: Michael Forbes (farmer)

Trump claimed that Forbes' property was a slum that would spoil the view from his new hotel. Forbes retorted that Trump can "shove his money up his arse".

[w8liftinglady]

1. The same thing happened in Arlington,Texas when Cowboy Stadium was built

Michelle Malkin!? man,talk about a stopped clock....

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

2. What's under that rock?

[blm]

3. Malkin had no problem with Bush family's use of eminent domain, did she?

.