Far too much news recently
First off, I’d like to say thanks to anyone who signed a petition to give the Corporation for Public Broadcasting its funding back. It sounds like, for the most part, the House listened to us on this one.
The big news for today is that the Supreme Court, in a 5-4 ruling, decided that cities are allowed to take people’s property whenever they want, as long as it can be claimed to be for economic progress. Naturally, people must be given just compensation for the property, as mandated by the 5th Amendment. However, I personally think this was an awful ruling. As Justice O’Connor dissented, “Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private party, but the fallout from this decision will not be random… The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms.”
In other news, some going back several days since I’m behind, the Republicans are still pushing Social Security, even though the general public seems to be quite against it. The UN is still not allowed to investigate the potential abuses at Guantanamo Bay. Rumsfeld is now advocating simply not ever having an exit strategy for Iraq, because it tells the terrorists how long they need to wait before we give up. Syria is still assassinating Lebanese people who oppose them, even though they claim to be out of the country. Speaking of which, the anti-Syrians got an overwhelming mandate in the recent election, so I suspect that some sort of ethnic (?) cleansing/guerilla war will ensue soon. The Lebanese are technologically decades behind the Syrians, so this should be interesting, though bloody.
OK… that seems like it’s about it for at least the moment. There certainly is a lot of news this week!
As someone said…
I LOVE your news posts! You shuffle through the crap and just give me the important stuff. I am ECSTATIC to hear that public broadcasting is saved, this time at least. I am of course upset to hear about the propoerty thing. Of course it will be the wealthy and those with power abusing this “right,” though last time I checked, KEEPING property was a right. And the government NEVER reimburses properly. Columbia Univeristy just purchased a huge chunk of land in the Harlem neighborhood and gave the tennants, most of whom are pretty near the poverty line as is, beans for it. Since they are mere renters, they are just told a date to leave and good luck finding another spot. It is poverty housing they are removing to replace with pricey professor places.
Re: As someone said…
Hey guys! this is emily- but since im not a user i guess im anonymous. :) I also have heard of several cases of people actually having their property condemned by the government so they get very little reimbursement when the government possesed it. I also cant believe that Columbia would do that- I hope they get a lot of bad press for that. Maybe we should work on an ammendment to protect citizens and what they’ve worked hard to earn, and save the anti- burning flag ammendment for later. Also for the latest news and cultural information on Sudan go to Sudan.net