Houston trying to steal land from two churches
Fascists: Having failed to intimidate religious leaders when the city of Houston tried to subpoena their sermons, the city is now trying to use eminent domain procedures to shut down two churches.
The fifth ward is located just outside of downtown. Property values in the area have skyrocketed and continue to climb. The City of Houston offered to purchase the churches. When the churches refused, the city came back with threats of using eminent domain to acquire the property as part of an urban development plan.
More here. Texas state law, written and passed after the Supreme Court decision in Kelo v New London, expressly forbids this kind of eminent domain taking. Moreover, the taking appears to specifically violate the first amendment rights of these two churches.
Quick! Guess what to which political party the Houston mayor belongs!
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Fascists: Having failed to intimidate religious leaders when the city of Houston tried to subpoena their sermons, the city is now trying to use eminent domain procedures to shut down two churches.
The fifth ward is located just outside of downtown. Property values in the area have skyrocketed and continue to climb. The City of Houston offered to purchase the churches. When the churches refused, the city came back with threats of using eminent domain to acquire the property as part of an urban development plan.
More here. Texas state law, written and passed after the Supreme Court decision in Kelo v New London, expressly forbids this kind of eminent domain taking. Moreover, the taking appears to specifically violate the first amendment rights of these two churches.
Quick! Guess what to which political party the Houston mayor belongs!
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Fascists is right, Bob.
Kelo was lockstep anti-First Amendment and liberty, and what is happening now is disgusting. Who is rallying for the churches to shine the antiseptic light of day on this calumny? I bet the support would be overwhelming.
When assaulted, punch back twice as hard.
“Quick! Guess what to which political party the Houston mayor belongs!”
That’s a tough one Bob. How many chances do I get?
“Kelo was lockstep anti-First Amendment and liberty”
I think you meant to say “anti-Fifth Amendment and liberty”. Kilo was a Fifth Amendment issue, and the SCOTUS allowed governments to confiscate property for fun and profit. In the case of Kilo, it was for profit. In the case of this post, it is confiscation for fun — specifically revenge for disagreeing with the King — er — mayor.
you are right that this case is also a First Amendment case, as the mayor is intentionally trying to prohibit the free exercise of religion for these churches.
To be fair, the SCOTUS ruled that Kelo was lawful under Connecticut’s Constitution, and the ruling all but urged Connecticut to make a new law to change that. Unfortunately, that never happened.
The project for which land was seized under Kelo was never built.
So, I watch the local Houston news and they tell stories of the Mayor battling with preachers from the 5th ward churches. I just learn like most everyone else as the story unfolds. You want to take sides one day and then change sides the next. Bob’s perspective is far ahead of the local news and interesting to read.
Another interesting and controversial story in Houston near the Johnson Space Center is the Exploration Green Conservancy movement that is approved by the Major of Houston to pay $50M for. See http://www.explorationgreen.org
They are planning to turn about 200 acres of an old golf course into a water runoff reservoir that additionally receives up to 15 million gallons of treated sewage water per day. The old golf course is embedded in a residential neighborhood. If you want to learn about what Exploration Green officials are not talking about, go to http://www.savetheogc.org.
The project never got off the ground because Pfizer “unexpectedly” abandoned the New London, CT research site (and with it 1,000 jobs). Follow the money !
Related:
“Good Intentions”, “solving problems” and tyranny, listen to a former Marxist about where such things come from and lead to.
https://youtu.be/5KHdhrNhh88
Fascists: A shame the ruling and law didn’t come a lot earlier. Might have prevented the seizure of land to build a new stadium for the Texas Rangers, then co-owned by one George W. Bush.
Quick! Guess what to which political party the former president belongs!
http://static.espn.go.com/mlb/bush/timeline.html
Hey, Doug, if you read my webpage you will notice that I don’t have much respect for the Republicans either, especially the establishment Republican leadership led by the Bush family. Both Bush presidencies were a disaster, failing badly to rein in government while producing terrible foreign policy failures.
Nonetheless, the Democrats these days are the far more corrupt party, a party which is also far more willing to use the power of government to squelch freedom. Pointing at Republican corruption doesn’t change this.
The creation of political false equivalencies is a distraction at the minimum and at the maximum specifically designed to create a circular dead end, non sequitur type argument so no issue can be understood or resolved. False equivalency arguments are a natural phenomenon of discussion but ultimately are intellectually dishonest.
Both party’s suck, they are both leading this country down the One World Government, gutted Constitution road, each for their own perverted reasons, lets every body get that through their heads!
The people grow tired of these distractions and treachery, BY BOTH PARTY”S!
Garry,
Ruling that it is lawful under Connecticut’s constitution also means that they ruled that it is lawful under the U.S. Constitution. There are any number of problems with this ruling. For one, the property was not being confiscated for public use but for private use. Obviously, Kilo is an example of crony government, as in the use to which the new owner would put it was supposed to generate more tax revenue than was collected as private housing.
The entire purpose of the last phrase in the Fifth Amendment was to prevent governments from confiscating property at their whim. It was intended to make sure that property rights were strong, and that we do not have to fear that we will lose the enjoyment of our property unless it was truly needed for public purposes AND that we would be justly compensated, not cheated out of our property, as happened in the case of Kilo. Outside of the damage to the original owners, and to our rights, the shame (or is it karma?) of Kilo is that the local government has lost virtually all of the tax revenue of the unjustly confiscated property without gaining the revenue they confiscated it for.
The shame of Houston is that the mayor is trying to use eminent domain as a personal punishment rather than as a public service. I await news that the citizens of Houston organized a well deserved recall election.
Both Parties? There are two parties and not just two branches of the same party? Huh. I guess I misread American politics.
[Sarcasm alert]
It remains to be seen if their will be just two party’s of consequence or three in the next presidential election. Don’t be surprised if the next president is of neither the Democrat or Republican party.
Watch this and understand that there is such a universal feeling of dread and disgust in America today that things like this video, although hilarious, identify what I will call a growing political phenomenon that will be a part of the next election.
https://youtu.be/DP6S3KE2DaI
(no sarcasm alert)
Oh, I agree that the ruling was disturbing. My take on it was that SCOTUS felt that, given the precedents, it had no choice but to find Kelo lawful under Connecticut’s law and Constitution, and made sure to emphasize that the state could avoid future instances by amending the Constitution or just passing a law.
I’m happy to see that Texas has done so, but Connecticut still hasn’t.
A year after Kelo I ran into my state rep in a crowded post office and publicly called him and the other reps for not doing so, despite SCOTUS’s urging. He bleated some excuses about the reps from the big cities didn’t want to fix it because they wanted wide latitude in using eminent domain. I responded that this was a chance to show leadership, by bringing the public into the debate, so that the public could put pressure on those state reps who wanted to obstruct.
He gave no response, and seemed to be in shock about my basic description of how representative government is supposed to work.