http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/…

Barack Obama and Joe Biden both get a perfect 100 from the big-government liberal Americans for Democratic Action, which probably tells you all you need to know. But I remember a dramatic moment back in 1991 when Biden made his commitment to unlimited government clear and dramatic. Clarence Thomas had been nominated for the Supreme Court, and Biden, then chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, was questioning him. Biden bore in on the possibility that Thomas might believe in “natural law,” the idea, as Tony Mauro of USA Today summarized it, that ”everyone is born with God-given rights - referred to in the Declaration of Independence as ‘inalienable rights’ to ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ - apart from what any law or the Constitution grants.” Biden singled out Cato adjunct scholar Richard Epstein and Cato author Stephen Macedo and demanded to know if Thomas agreed with them that the Constitution protects property rights. Waving Epstein’s book Takings in the air like Joe McCarthy with a list of communists, Biden demanded to know, as we very loosely paraphrased it in Cato’s 25-year Annual Report (pdf; page 14), “Are you now or have you ever been a libertarian?” As most judicial nominees do when pursued by a senator roused to defend his power like a mama bear, Thomas assured Senator Biden that he wouldn’t take the Constitution too seriously. Here’s Biden on the warpath:

Was Biden right to worry? Well, as we said in the Annual Report, four years later Thomas joined the Court in declaring, “We start with first principles. The Constitution creates a Federal Government of limited powers.” But ten years later the Court finally considered whether the Constitution protects property rights and said, “Ehh, not so much.” Thomas protested, “Something has gone seriously awry with this Court’s interpretation of the Constitution. Though citizens are safe from the government in their homes, the homes themselves are not.” Biden was right to worry that Thomas’s understanding of individual rights and the Constitution just might put some limits on the power of government.

I doubt it’s changed.

I still believe that globalistic liberal fascism will destroy us slower than the Bush/McCain globalistic neocon fascism but these types of things certainly make it no easier in the lesser of two evils descussion. Perhaps it just makes it easier to present 3rd party candidates.

http://thirdpartywatch.com/…

Green Party candidates like Cynthia McKinney, Jesse Johnson, Kent Mesplay, and Katherine “Kat” Swift offer positive solutions.The British are paying $8 dollars a gallon for gas. Goldman Sachs predicts Americans will be paying $6 a gallon next year.

Green Party candidates positive solutions. “More Trains, Less Traffic”. Build modern high speed rail across America. New High Speed rail in the intersate corridors, and light rail in communities to cut dependance on foreign oil in half. Stop wanton waste of $1 Trillion tax dollars on foriegn military misadventure. Stop the deficit spending that has brought a weaking dollar, and inflated prices. Seek political solutions for political problems. Use tax savings to balance annual $3.1 trillion federal budget, pay off $9.4 Trillion federal debt, install auditable accounting system at pentagon. Build rail with tax savings.

Kent Mesplay, ” Cut out tax payer funded oil, auto, aspault subsidies”.

Columist Charles Krauthammer wrote in the Washington Post this week. “Tax the damn thing.”

“Why have the extra $2 dollars (above the current $4) go abroad? Have it go to the U.S. Treasury as a gas tax.” To pay off the federal debt and strengthen the U.S. economy. Force conservation.

Announce a schedule of gas tax hikes of 50 cents every six months for the next two years. And put a tax floor under $4 gasoline, so that as high gas prices transform the U.S.auto fleet, change driving habits, and hugely reduce U.S. oil demand and bring down world oil prices .. the American consumer and American economy reap all the benefits”.

Don’t know if the spelling mistakes are in the original press release but I’d hope not. Couldn’t find this release on their website so I’m not sure of the source. I’m interested in the economic theory behind this along with the constitutional validation. I have a feeling the former would be overly simplistic and the latter based on the fallacious living document theory. I’m not entirely sure I understand the tax floor at $4/gallon of gas. Does that mean if prices drop the tax will become a greater percentage or the retail price? Does that imply that they will raise the tax as the gas price increases in order to at least keep the percentage the same? How will this light rail work in the nonmetropolitian areas where at least 1/6th of the population lives in? I know that where I grew up buses and light rail would be almost completely useless. Where is the justification for taxing those individuals who happen to live in rural areas where these services won’t ever reach? Will anyone acknowledge that the unconstitutional interstate highway system very likely was a major component of our current situation? Are the people advocating this claimed solution claiming that this government intervention will be different because it’d be done “right” by the “correct” people unlike the very consistent string of “wrong” individuals prior? What do they propose to do for those who couldn’t afford artificially inflated $6/gallon gasoline?

http://www.app.com/…

LONG BRANCH - Members of the Marine Terrace, Ocean Terrace, Seaview Avenue Alliance will join attorneys Wednesday in Trenton in the next skirmish of their years-long battle to remain in their homes, which Long Branch is trying to acquire through eminent domain.

Homeowner Louis T. Anzalone will be 91 at the end of the month. His wife, Lillian, already is 91, and they are the most senior residents of their oceanfront neighborhood. They will fight on, despite their hope that their twilight years would be spent differently.

“Everything depends on what these clowns are going to do to us,” said the plain-spoken Anzalone. “I’m just thinking of what our lives are going to be involved in. At 91, how many more years do I have? I wanted to have a little bit of peace at this age.”

The Anzalones will be in the courtroom Wednesday.

“It is an atrocity what they are doing,” he said of the forces that support eminent domain.

Mayor Adam Schneider, who has been demonized by eminent domain opponents, said his position is unchanged since the city decided to acquire the homes in the MTOTSA section for the second phase of Beachfront North, a proposed luxury condominium community.

Rich people want a beach front view, politicians want more tax money and have developer friends so those who have owned their property for years have it designated as blight by the town and taken from them at the threat of violence. Too bad after Kelo v. New London this really can’t be labeled “abuse” of eminent domain but expected behavior.

http://www.abcnews.go.com/…

Dorros, a 73-year-old widow, has lived in this home since 1963. She has no plans to ever leave. But she worries about ever-increasing property taxes, now totaling about $17,000 a year.

“It’s very exorbitant,” she said, of her property tax burden. That may be an understatement. New York’s Westchester County has the third highest property tax rate in the country. For people on a fixed income, such as Dorros, taxes gnaw away at their financial resources and security.

So, when Dorros heard about a proposal to allow seniors in her town to work off a portion of their property taxes, she was immediately interested.

The plan would allow Greenburgh residents over the age of 60 to earn a tax credit of up to $1,000 a year by working for the town. It could be tutoring schoolchildren, or working in a park in the summer. A retired lawyer could do legal work for the town. A former accountant could help town administrators with finance management.

It’s this kind of thing that the 2% SSI cost of living increase simply doesn’t help with. Property taxes are a complete negation of the idea that we have private property in this country (as if eminent domain wasn’t enough to prove that.) We simply lease the land from the government. This is practically indentured servitude. These people have to go find a job or work for the local government or else the police will come knocking on the door and toss you in jail. These municipalities just don’t know how to cut spending. The actual amount spent on “educating” children has doubled since the Department of Education was created yet our test scores are no better. The amount of money dedicated to schooling from property taxes has more than doubled in the same time and in what way are these seniors responsible for those children? I think it’s wonderful for retired seniors to work and keep themselves busy both physically and mentally. By all accounts it helps prolong their lives. This however is disgusting. What happens to all those who are left after all the government jobs are filled? What if there isn’t anything they can do either because their are no jobs or they are physically unable to do so? Will these people be fined? Jailed? Have their home taken? Property taxes should absolute not be a cause for a person to have to leave their home.

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http://reason.tv/…

Reason.tv host Drew Carey revisits the problem of eminent domain abuse following up on his earlier video, National City: Eminent Domain Gone Wild.The City of Los Angeles used eminent domain to take a popular Hollywood bar and numerous other small businesses so that the city could hand the land over to private developers planning to build a W hotel and million-dollar condos. Fortunately, there’s a better way to revitalize neighborhoods. In contrast to Hollywood, Mayor Curt Pringle of nearby Anaheim has found a way to encourage redevelopment by working cooperatively with property owners, without using the power of eminent domain.

Watch the previous Drew Carey Project videos here.