The crazy moron made some big bucks by fronting the Texas Rangers, which he found the money to buy into by dumping his HARKEN shares on inside information before the bottom fell out on the stock. Here's a nice overview from DU's friends at Online Journal on the Rangers. The second piece from CBS MarketWatch describes HARKEN and how Bush avoided prison. Last is a nice overview of how a drunken greedhead got the Curtis Mathes family kicked out of their own house and off their own property so a private baseball stadium could make more money off parking.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3095970

But maybe they only want to face the jack-booted thugs of the federal government

To prevent landowners from holding railroad construction hostage by demanding a ransom for their land which was needed to complete the railroad, legal precedents were established to allow "common carriers" to condemn land under the power of eminent domain as a part of their legislative charter..

has been tried before. Check out the potato famine in Ireland for some of the same dirty tricks happening today.

brought about corporatism, large stock markets, and other trappings of capitalism (and the abuses of the process which came with them), I doubt that any reasonable person could make light of the benefits brought to society and the economy by the rail network prior to the advent of the internal combustion engine.

It was only the steam railroad (and the steam riverboat) which allowed the Union to conquer and defeat the rebellious south. If no railroad, the union could not have maintained large enough armies in the field with logistics support (if they want indepedence, the south should have seceded in 1830 rather than 1860).

Capitalism did NOT create the steam driven railway system in America anymore than it created money.

Home of the brave...... unless there's a buck to be had.

It's one thing if the gov. determined the land was needed for a highway, or national park, or reservoir, etc (even then, there should be public discussion and, where appropriate and possible, market-level compensation).
. . . but eminent domain for a private pipeline (especially, as in Nebraska, for a Canadian company)? or (New London, CT a few years ago) a private commercial development?

I don't get it. To me, it's an abuse of the concept.

If it is in the area of "common good" (such as raising a new tax base- the powers to be will condemn your land. A while back a new shopping center off the highway was being purposed but the farmer family on land owned for time going back to THE Revolutionary War and George Washington's time refused to sell. Eminent domain was invoked for the mall would provide taxes for an area whose local one-horse towns could no longer - it was for the common good. About 5 small towns had their thumbs in that pie and a new , sparkling shopping mall was built.

the farmer is not being asked to sell his family farm. Enbridge wishes to put an underground pipeline across his property.

not even to mention the damages that can happen if the pipe leaks or explodes someday.

(It's my understanding this is a crude pipeline, so while any sort of leak is terrible, the chance of an explosion is extremely rare.)

The pipeline is underground and does not remove farmland from production.

I think Enbridge is also a Canadian firm.

through the ground, the joints of those lines seep a little too.

I hope the farmer can afford to drag eminent domain claim out in the courts for many, many years.

It is his right to contest everything in the offer, for his land through the courts. But that takes lots of money. The oil corp. could up the offer to a sum he won't refuse.

going across our property, including farmland.

tangled up in this swindle. He is a big investor in swindles like this. (The "Swift Boat" sponsor)
Marathon Oil is his partner in crime on a lot of his ventures.

Foreign corporations will run roughshod over the American citizen.