The Great Land Grab Continues--ACORN Helps

The Supreme Court's unconscionable Kelo decision continues to wreak havoc in states which have not passed legislation preventing government takeovers of private property for "public purposes" rather than the constitutionally-allowable "public use." That stylized "ghost" picture you see at the right is the proposed Atlantic Yards project superimposed over the existing private property being grabbed from those pesky "poor people."

Brooklyn will be the site of the new government gift to developers who need to get rid of generational landowners who just aren't producing those wonderful tax payments that the government so desperately needs to feed its social welfare programs. And if 220 years of protection of the rights of private property ownership and eminent domain have to be perverted by a Kelo-like takeover, so be it.

Bruce Ratner's Forest City Ratner Companies LLC is a huge real estate development firm with strong connections to the Democratic political machine that wishes to build a $4.9 billion, 22 acre mixed-use project on the ashes of the homes of the marginal working class residents (who foolishly vote consistently Democrat). Before Kelo, the project would have been out of the question since it would take private property and turn it over to other private parties. Only land taken by the government for governmental use on behalf of the public was allowed under the laws of eminent domain. This is a takeover of private property for private use which may or may not eventually provide a public benefit by virtue of taxes proposed to be earned from the private development. In common parlance, "a pig in a poke."

But oh, what a magnificent project! It would include the Barclay's Center (a mega bank) and multiple large wholesalers, retailers and financial institutions, as well as a sports arena that would become the new home of the New Jersey Nets basketball team (we westerners found it a little odd that a New York football team had a home field in New Jersey, but now that we're used to it, we won't find a New Jersey basketball home court in New York quite so strange).

Now all of this would be bad enough, but we also get to demonstrate how politics makes strange bedfellows. Those of us who have actually read corporate reports know that megacorporations are not the home of evil Republicans but are almost exclusively multinational Democrats. So the local crooks joining up with the development crooks shouldn't be much of a surprise. But guess who the surprise bedfellow behind the curtain is. None other than ACORN.

ACORN is the criminal enterprise which claims to stand for the little guy, the poor, the oppressed against the ravages of Republican big business. They have been among the loudest opponents of "gentrification" of poor neighborhoods which forces up property values and makes the area too expensive for Democratic/socialist proles to live in. In other words, exactly the same situation being created by this development.

ACORN has signed a binding agreement with the developer in which it agrees to support the project, no matter what. For its efforts, ACORN accountant Anita MonCrief reports that ACORN is receiving a $1 million loan, plus $500,000 in "donations" from the developer. A promissory note provided a low interest rate for the loan of 4.58% with a final balloon payment of $100,000 due May 31, 2011.

In order to do a really poor job of covering up this nefarious arrangement, Forest City Ratner wrote a letter of intent to ACORN in which it would disburse the $500,000 "grant" to the ACORN Institute. The Institute is an accounting gag which was created along with hundreds of others to put the money into ACORN tax-exempt nonprofit affiliates. In fact, ACORN will become a paid lobbyist for Forest City. Now that's what I call community organizing! Particularly since the only people not involved in this faustian bargain are the community homeowners who would like to continue living on their own property, thank you very much.

So why would a fine upstanding businessman (conservative credentials, no doubt) like Ratner become involved with a crypto-communist organization like ACORN? Well, think again folks. The mega-rich Ratner makes Van Jones look like Calvin Coolidge. His sister Ellen is a strong leftist commentator on National Public Radio. His role model is George Soros. His brother, Michael, is a Che Guevara superfan, and is president of the Marxist Center for Constitutional Rights, which incidentally also represents ACORN in its suit against the federal government for withholding future public funds formerly earmarked for ACORN.

Ratner and ACORN have a powerful ally in Congress. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) the two-faced (literally, this porcine legislator has at least two faces) has vociferously supported the project and nearly went ballistic over the withholding of Congressional grants to ACORN. But not to worry. On December 18, the ban expires, and Nadler will lead the pack in restoring millions of dollars of the taxpayers' money to ACORN's public feeding frenzy.

Are you scared yet? Coming to your town soon: The ACORN-Nadler-Ratner superdevelopment. Hope you don't live in the wrong part of town.