New Developments in Supreme Court vs. Homeowners Case07-07-05
However, shocking details that cast this entire farce in its true light have flown under the radar of mainstream media reports.
Those details came to the fore today during an interview on The Alex Jones Show, nationally syndicated on the Genesis Communications Radio Network, on which Michael Cristofaro, one of the New London Connecticut homeowners fighting the unconstitutional decision, appeared as a guest.
Cristofaro's family have lived in New London for forty two years and the city had already previously seized his first home by imminent domain in 1971.
Cristofaro related a series of actions by local government officials and their hired New London Development Corporation thugs that amount to nothing less than outright intimidation, harassment and extortion.
These include;
- An insulting offer of $60,000 from the government on a home worth $215,000.
- Unannounced visits to Cristofaro's elderly parent's home demanding they sign a contract to hand over their property.
- Intimidating and harassing phone calls at all hours of the day.
- Parking bulldozers and wrecking balls outside the houses pointing at the property with threats of "your house is next."
- Revving the engines of the bulldozers outside the houses in the early morning hours of the morning.
- Cristofaro's mother becoming distraught and suffering a heart attack after being served with condemnation papers that said she no longer owned her property and had ninety days to leave.
- A death bed plea from a 93-year-old resident begging "what about my house, what about my house?" The man had been living in his home for 80 years. The contractors would park construction vehicles on his property, make his house literally shake and would, Waco-style, shine bright floodlights into his home as his blind wife cowered in fear.
- A threat to charge residents back rent if they lost the case, effectively meaning the homeowners will have to pay the city to be kicked out of their own homes. One resident, William von Winkle (pictured above), would owe the city $200,000 in back rent
- When the Supreme Court decision was made on Thursday, the city had police cruisers and a fire truck casing the neighborhood because they feared the residents would riot. "What were they planning on doing? Hosing us down?" stated Cristofaro.
- Real Estate agents paid by the government to force residents to sign contracts to hand over their homes were on an $8,000 commission to get the signatures by any means possible.
- William von Winkle apartment tenants were forcibly evicted and locked out from their homes in the early morning hours during winter with snow on the ground, before the city even owned the property. Von Winkle had to break back into his own apartment block to prevent his tenants from freezing to death.
Cristofaro said 75 different families, most elderly and sick, were subject to this brutal torment.
Imagine if your neighbour hired a bulldozer, parked it outside your house, and started revving it up and threatening to demolish your property if you didn't sign a document and hand your home over to him. He'd go to jail but the city government can do it to elderly people and the Supreme Court backs them up every inch of the way.
The Supreme Court also ruled twice in the past that blacks weren't human beings, are we supposed to just blindly follow their every dictate or should we stand up and fight these robber barons?
Cristofaro compared the situation to living in the Soviet Union. "Welcome to Russia," he stated, "that's what it feels like, you have no rights, the US Supreme Court just took away our property rights."
Alex Jones drew the analogy of Mafia tactics in assessing how the city government had treated the New London residents.
"These corporations come in and pay off city council members and then they come and steal your land and don't even pay you what it's worth."
"You take my cousin Luigi, you put him on as a store manager, you pay him $30,000 a year or we're gonna burn your business down."
"It's extortion ladies and gentlemen, it's racketeering."
Jones compared the activities to the Godfather movie, where the individual is given an 'offer he can't refuse' and told "sign the contract or your brains are going to be on it."
Cristofaro described the bulldozers aggressively revving their engines in front of the houses.
"Can you imagine seeing these big bulldozers pointing at your house revving their engines and you see a little smoke stack up on top of the little lid opening and closing with all that black smoke billowing. And all they'd do is rev it for about five or ten minutes, turn it off, turn it back on then they'd raise the front of the bulldozer."
The New London residents plan to fight the government to the bitter end and are currently pursuing numerous different legal options.
Support these brave residents in their stance against the New London city Mafia government and the New London Development Corporation. E mail this news article to all the radio hosts, World Net Daily, the Drudge Report, all the TV news stations, your Congressmen and Senators. The mainstream media ignored the very worst aspects of the case, the Soviet style harassment and intimidation of the New London homeowners. Demand that they bring these details to their reader's attention.
Click here to listen to the full MP3 interview from today's show.
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Cities may seize homes for economic development, court rules
Associated Press | June 23 2005
Comment: This gives the government carte blanche to take your property for any reason they make up on the spot. This sends a very clear message. We're being treated the same as the Palestinians or the Iraqis, who are thrown off their land at the whim of the government.
WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court ruled today that local governments may seize people's homes and businesses - even against their will - for private economic development.
It was a decision fraught with huge implications for a country with many areas, particularly the rapidly growing urban and suburban areas, facing countervailing pressures of development and property ownership rights.
The 5-4 ruling represented a defeat for some Connecticut residents whose homes are slated for destruction to make room for an office complex. They argued that cities have no right to take their land except for projects with a clear public use, such as roads or schools, or to revitalize blighted areas.
As a result, cities now have wide power to bulldoze residences for projects such as shopping malls and hotel complexes in order to generate tax revenue.
Local officials, not federal judges, know best in deciding whether a development project will benefit the community, justices said.
"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,'' Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the majority.
He was joined by Justice Anthony Kennedy, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer.
At issue was the scope of the Fifth Amendment, which allows governments to take private property through eminent domain if the land is for "public use.''
Susette Kelo and several other homeowners in a working-class neighborhood in New London, Conn., filed suit after city officials announced plans to raze their homes for a riverfront hotel, health club and offices.
New London officials countered that the private development plans served a public purpose of boosting economic growth that outweighed the homeowners' property rights, even if the area wasn't blighted.
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who has been a key swing vote on many cases before the court, issued a stinging dissent. She argued that cities should not have unlimited authority to uproot families, even if they are provided compensation, simply to accommodate wealthy developers.
The lower courts had been divided on the issue, with many allowing a taking only if it eliminates blight.
"Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private party, but the fallout from this decision will not be random,'' O'Connor wrote. "The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms.''
She was joined in her opinion by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, as well as Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.
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Supreme Court Rules That No One Owns Their Home
Gives free reign to roving land barons, their agents and banks
Alex Jones | June 24 2005
Private property rights are the foundation of freedom. Now developers can pay off your local politicians and then come in and steal your property without even giving you best use price. Imagine middle class neighborhoods across America being bulldozed because developers have written up a proposal for making more money off of your property. Either it's your property or it isn't.
The United States is simply going back to feudalism. In medieval England, before the Magna Carta, in 1214 the local lord would decide what you could and could not do with the King's property.
This ruling overturns 800 years of common law and common sense. It butchers the Bill of Rights. To put it frankly, it's gone.
So many Americans are asking why the Justices would make such a decision, overtly, 180 degrees away from freedom. That's the point. It's in your face.
The big police state dog is off the porch, and they think there is nothing you can do about it.
The all-powerful Imperial State has thrown down the gauntlet. They have slapped the American people upside the head and brutally raped us, and we have put up with it. So, now they're placing what's left of American freedom on a spit so they can roast and eat us.
The founding fathers said over and over again that the level of tyranny under which we will live is the exact amount that we will accept. A group of hard-core criminals has gained control of our society. They could care less about the future of this country or the general public's welfare. What we are witnessing is a mad gold rush of corrupt politicians and corporations strip-mining western society.
We are being looted and sacked like ancient Rome by a heard of blood-thirsty
barbarians.
The only difference is the barbarians of today have high-tech public relation firms and cable news channels launching their psychological warfare barrages: "lie down, lie down, don't resistGovernment loves you. Give up liberty for security..Tasering 82-
Year-old Alzheimer patients is good..Mercury in vaccines is nutritious..Open borders means safety..Submit to us..Trust us..We don't lie.."
The fact is, just because the Supreme Court says we don't have any property
rights doesn't mean it's true. A previous court ruled that black Americans were not human beings and thus had no rights. Would you follow a similar decree today?
Despots know the power of setting precidents. That's why they've been bragging about their unprecedented ruling. I for one am glad that the mask is beginning to slide from the demon's face. They've been land-grabbing for a long time. Now it's just going to be more overt. So let it come, and let everybody know what you are: a pack of wolves, a pack of criminals, a pack of liars, and a pack of scum.
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