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Politics

Crony Capitalist Endorses Barack Obama

Rapper Jay Z profited from eminent domain abuse in Brooklyn.

Damon Root | 11.6.2012 10:03 AM

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As the Washington Examiner's Tim Carney observed yesterday on Twitter, President Barack Obama has secured the endorsement of a well-known crony capitalist: the rap star Jay Z. As a part-owner of the New Jersey Nets basketball team, Jay Z profited at taxpayer expense when the state of New York abused its eminent domain powers to seize privately-owned homes and business and then handed that land over to fellow Nets owner and real estate tycoon Bruce Ratner, who built a new arena for the Nets to call home in Brooklyn.

A few months before the state-sanctioned bulldozers came through, Reason.tv visited Freddy's Bar, one of the many local establishments that was demolished for the economic benefit of folks like Jay Z and Ratner. Check that video out below.

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NEXT: Cameron Supports Allowing Assad to Leave Syria

Damon Root is a senior editor at Reason and the author of A Glorious Liberty: Frederick Douglass and the Fight for an Antislavery Constitution (Potomac Books).

PoliticsBarack ObamaCultureEconomicsPolicyElection 2012Eminent DomainCrony CapitalismMusic
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