Taking Takings To A Whole New Level

Figures. Seems like when I've just finished a really long post, I make one last pass through the blogosphere before shutting down for the evening, and always seem to stumble over something interesting.

But this story caused me figuratively, and almost literally, to (you should pardon the expression) shit my pants clear through my chair:

The U.S. Supreme Court recently found that the [City of New London's] original seizure of private property was constitutional under the principal of eminent domain, and now New London is claiming that the affected homeowners were living on city land for the duration of the lawsuit and owe back rent. It's a new definition of chutzpah: Confiscate land and charge back rent for the years the owners fought confiscation. [emphasis added]

Can you f'ing believe this? But that's not the end of it:

Not only that, but according to O'Connell, the New London Development Corporation (NLDC) is offering compensation for homeowners at the [appraised values] of the year 2000! Since there has been a considerable rise in the value of real estate in the last five years, this means that the residents will not only lose their homes, not only be charged rent for the time they were fighting this bizarre interpretation of the Takings clause (now embraced by a slim majority of the Court), but they will probably be paid less in compensation than they are assessed in rent... and far too little to buy a new house to replace the one seized.

Oh, did I remember to mention that the article claims that the NLDC also insists that all rent collected from tennants of the people who thought they were the owners of their own property actually belongs to the City of New London, and must also be forked over, forthwith? This, too, could amount to tens of thousands of dollars that the hapless home(less)owners now owe the city... for having had the temerity to object to being treated like Mediaeval serfs, ousted at will by the local lord.

These erstwhile owners are in the process of having their lives utterly destroyed by the city in which most were born.

Oh. My. God. Can you imagine? I can't. I don't want to. I don't want to even try. What are these poor bastards supposed to do? Where are they supposed to go? Where are they supposed to get all this cabbage? Take out a second mortgage? On what? The f'ing city has already f'ing seized their homes. God Almighty damn, it's one thing to live above your means and get overextended, but this...shinola, can they even declare bankruptcy?

And lest there be any misconception, these are real people we're talking about:

One defendant, Matt Dery, owes the NLDC, according to its own estimate, $6100 per month, or $73,200 per year that he dared to try to hang onto the house he lived in and the house his mother was born in and lived in all of her life. It comes to over $300,000.

That tab would, suffice it to say, exceed my family's combined take-home income. See why I don't want to imagine it? And can anybody blame this woman for her bitter sarcasm?

Susette Kelo, who own[ed] a single-family house with her husband, learned she would owe in the ballpark of 57 grand. "I'd leave here broke," says Kelo. "I wouldn't have a home or any money to get one. I could probably get a large-size refrigerator box and live under the bridge."

I said it before and I'll say it again: This Kelo travesty is BS and it will...not...stand.

I'll take bets on any Democrat senator on the Judiciary Committee even using any words containing the letters "K," "E," "L," or "O" in the John Roberts hearings, unless it's to distance themselves from the kind of High Court "balance" that led to this "this barbaric and despicable abuse of power."

Republican senators, OTOH, should talk about little else.