Roberts; Another Disaster from Bush

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Roberts; Another Disaster from Bush
Date: Sat, 10 Sep 2005 12:09:55 -0400
From: Warren B Appleton warnaudy@juno.com

Dear Friends;

What should we expect, appointed by one who lives by zero integrity?

Who constantly fails his Oath of Office to uphold and defend the
Constitution of the United States..

Who deliberately lied us into his unending war, proven phony by his
allowing
the unbridled invasion of our border with Mexico.

Who constantly joins with the Socialist traitors of the CFR to promote
World Government via the UN.

Who promotes his Police State legislation called the Patriot Acts I and
II and Homeland Security, which can make us all terrorists.

Who is demanding that all US school children teachers be subjected to
mental examinations..

Who appointed the CFR to cover up the facts for the 9/11 Investigative
Commission;
"Crows for Bush", guarding the cornfield..

Who covered up key facts about the 9/11 disaster, as usual..

And finally; Who, with the complicity of the Media, has kept his plans
hidden to dissolve the United States by merging it with 33 other
countries of North and South America, called FTAA scheduled by December
31 this year. The Council On Foreign Relations is spearheading this
operation, in keeping with its long time goal of World Government. The
new "Country" is to be called: "The American Union", a duplicate of the
European Union, with one passport, and a new Godless Constitution,
starting in with Mexico and Canada. Americans will no stand for this
brazen sellout of all that they hold dear, by their Commander-in Chief
and President. Something will have to give, as he becomes the most hated
man in the world, while the Godless world labels him as the most moral!

One thing is certain; he did not bring about all of his Police State laws
for nothing. They must expect to use them, as in the Patriots Acts and
Homeland Security. We are now seeing the armed Military take over the
city of New Orleans, which may become very commonplace in the near
future.

Their long awaited goal will have arrived when and if they get their
filthy hands on the approval by Congress to destroy the only thing
legally blocking them; National sovereignty, based upon the Constitution
that all the Internationalist traitors hate.

This is the most crucial danger to our liberty and freedom, which he is
determined to snuff out.

It will not happen, unless the Lord has removed His hand of blessing from
us. Even so, may His will be done!

Warren B. Appleton Massachusetts, September 9, 2005

From:

Land Rights Network
American Land Rights Association
PO Box 400 Battle Ground, WA 98604
Phone: 360-687-3087 Fax: 360-687-2973
E-mail: alra@landrights.org or alra@governance.net
Web Address: http://www.landrights.org
Legislative Office: 507 Seward Square SE Washington, DC 20003

Commentary

John Roberts:

A Supreme Property Rights Disaster In The Making

By James S. Burling

September 1, 2005

After a term marked by the Supreme Court's utter contempt for
property rights, those of us who happen to think there is something
special about allowing old widows to keep their homes, were not prepared
for an even more bitter defeat. Yet, that is what President Bush handed
us, with the nomination of John Roberts.

The battle over property rights is not a conservative versus liberal
thing. It's more a struggle between those who believe in the power of the
state to dictate how we get to use our land and homes, versus those of us
who believe that the state has no business destroying our right to make
reasonable use of our property.

That is because when government can go about destroying, with
impunity, our ability to use property, none of our liberties can be safe.

As James Madison put it:

"Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly
respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or
his possessions."

This spring, the Court handed down a series of cases that stand for
the proposition that today in America, no man (or widow) is safe.

In a case out of Hawaii, the Court held that courts had to defer to a
Legislative scheme to reduce gas prices, by controlling the rents paid by
gas stations even though it was proven in federal court that the scheme
would have no such economic effect.

In a case out of San Francisco, the Court held that landowners may no
longer have their day in federal court, when a local government has
violated their rights guaranteed by the "Takings Clause" of the Fifth
Amendment. San Francisco regularly tells hotel owners that they must pay
a "fee" of hundreds of thousands of dollars, for permission to rent
existing rooms to tourists.

Now, landowners can no longer go to federal court to argue that
bizarre and extortionate policy violates the federal Constitution's
proscription against "taking without just compensation."

But the most notorious decision of this term was the 5 to 4 Kelo
decision that upheld the raw power of the City of New London,
Connecticut, to destroy a neighborhood of homes, including that of an
87-year-old widow, who had lived in her home since 1918.

So long as a "public purpose" is met, in this case, by providing some
aesthetic value to a large corporate headquarters project, the Court will
not interfere. The language in the Constitution that property can be
taken only for "public use" were just words to the Courts words that
can be shaped and reshaped, to meet the needs of the state.

But, if an 87-year-old Connecticut widow can have her property rights
destroyed, how about dozens of elderly landowners, many of them widows
and widowers, near Lake Tahoe?

That is where Judge Roberts comes in.

In a notorious case in 2002, John Roberts, then a private attorney,
argued that several dozen mostly elderly and middle class, landowners
should not receive a penny in compensation, even after a local land use
agency had prohibited all use of their property near Lake Tahoe, for
nearly 30 years.

In a nutshell, Roberts argued that impacts to property owners must be
balanced against the utility of the regulation in a way that tilts,
almost every time, in the government's favor.

Unfortunately for the landowners, the Court agreed with him.

Of course, one might argue, Roberts was only doing what he was being
paid to do, as a high-priced lawyer to represent his client. But, then
why did he take the case for a "substantially reduced" fee, as the chief
of the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency admits?

More disturbingly, Robert's representation of the agency is entirely
consistent with the statist philosophy he expressed in a 1978 Harvard Law
Review article on land use law. He argued against clear rules that would
put boundaries on government power over property, in favor of essentially
the same government-friendly "balancing test" that he advocated for in
the Lake Tahoe case.

Even more troubling, he proposed a scheme that would deny money to
landowners whose property is taken, using the sort of rhetoric that
reminds us of Bill Clinton's prevarications over the meaning of the word
"is." Roberts wrote:

"The very terms of the Fifth Amendment, furthermore, are
sufficiently flexible to accommodate changing notions of what
compensation is just."

Put another way, what we have here, is not the "living Constitution"
so derided by strict constructionists, but a "mutating virus," infinitely
malleable in the service of the state, and undeniably threatening to the
rights of property owners. Justice O'Connor was a swing vote on property;
with Roberts it will be the property owners who will be twisting in the
wind.

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James S. Burling is a principal attorney with Pacific Legal
Foundation, the nation's oldest and largest public interest legal
organization dedicated to defending private property rights. This
commentary appeared in the August 15 issues of Enter Stage Right and The
One Republic Journal. Pacific Legal is a national firm with offices in
several parts of the country. The PLF phone in Sacramento, California is
916-419-7111.

http://eco.freedom.org/el/20050901/burling.shtml

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ALRA Action Items:

-----1. Call both your Senators at the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121.
Urge them to oppose Roberts confirmation. His confirmation hearings
begin in the US Senate on Monday.

-----2. Forward this message as widely as possible.