This week syndicated columnist George Will threw the residents of Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, a life-line.  His scathing column about government corruption in the Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards Eminent Domain Theft Case hit all the points:  Using the the state to steal for politically connected developers; Paying consultant AKRF to find blight that only a paid consultant could find; And treating locals the way the British did in 1776.

Here’s the word from Donald O’Finn, the owner of Freddy’s Bar:

The staff and patrons of Freddy’s Bar would like to thank George Will for calling out the thieves in over 450 publications, including the Washington Post. Freddy’s Bar is in a State of Revolt against New York State’s Eminent Domain Law.  In the style of our Founding Fathers, we have guillotined the Eminent Domain Law in effigy to announce that this law was bought by Real Estate Royalty and we will not follow it.  We also installed the “Chains of Justice” on the bar itself (see Cuff Love, NY Post by Leonard Greene), for patrons to chain themselves to on the day, should the day come, when the Empire State Development Corporation (government entity conducting the theft of the bar and neighborhood for the private developer and his cronies) will try to take the bar for ACORN, Bruce Ratner, Barclays Bank, and Russia’s richest man. This week the ESDC responded to our revolt by announcing they will use the sheriff to physically remove us from the bar on the day of the siege (Daily News). If they can’t pull us out will they use tear gas?  Will they use guns?  They did not say.  They only said they would use physical force, which leave us to wonder how far these villians will go to take our neighborhood to give it to somebody else. This week’s Federal corruption case in Yonkers shows that developer Ratner (called “Developer #2” in court documents) is no stranger to government manipulations for his benefit. We will issue our response to the Empire State Development Corporation’s threat of physical force on at Sunday’s event. Because the ESDC is merely working to take the land for others,  our main retaliation for their threat will be directed at Barclays Bank.