Thursday, June 30, 2005

Vacation in New Hampshire

That's what I'm talking about!

I know I'm a little late with this one and some friends have already noted it, but in the interests of NMTE's small dedicated readership who are not blog whores like myself, I repeat the news item here.

Logan Darrow Clements, the Billy Jack of private property is attempting to seize Souter's home in Weare, NH to build the Lost Liberty 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," Clements wrote.

. . .

Each hotel room would offer guests a bedside copy of Rand's "Atlas Shrugged."

The proposal pleased 100 or so conservatives at the regular Wednesday morning strategy meeting hosted in Washington by Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, a conservative organization.

"Let's go rock and roll," Norquist said after hearing of Clements' idea.
(For some reason that scene from office space of the copier massacre springs to mind.)

For those of you who have been on a news blackout during the past week, Clements is, of course, inspired (and empowered) by the recent Supreme Court ruling that cities can seize people's homes for private development. According to the court's majority opinion (Souter of course, having voted with the majority), this line in the Fifth Amendment--"nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation"--means that private property can be taken for private development because that development will bring with it jobs and income for the city. Um, yeah, okay. Not really the way I read it, but hey.