Dan Rooney, Chairman of the Pittsburgh Steelers since the 1988 death of his father, wants to buy out his siblings shares of the team, according to The Wall Street Journal and the AP via ESPN.com.

Steelers Chairman Dan Rooney, the eldest of the brothers, wants to consolidate his control through a 10-year plan to buy out most of their shares, but a well-funded prospective buyer has emerged after some of Mr. Rooney’s brothers and their children raised questions about his offer.

Stanley Druckenmiller, billionaire chairman of Pittsburgh’s Duquesne Capital Management, has expressed interest in acquiring the Steelers, people briefed on the negotiations said.

However, apparently Dan’s siblings feel his offer is undervalued, and thus they had an independent analysis done to properly value the team.

But some of his brothers and younger third-generation family members have sought an independent analysis by a top Wall Street investment bank to see whether a better deal can be put together. They worry that Dan Rooney’s plan undervalues the team and takes on too much debt.

Working in tight secrecy under the code-name “Project Newcastle,” Goldman Sachs & Co. late last year valued the Steelers operations at $800 million to as much as $1.2 billion, according to documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

Apparently Dan Rooney is offering a significant amount less than this for the team.  Everyone involved is interested, and potential buyer Stanley Druckenmiller says he wants to keep Dan Rooney involved.

Mr. Druckenmiller, who has told Rooney family members that he hoped to retain Dan Rooney as a partner if he buys the franchise, also wouldn’t comment for this story.

The Rooney family’s divisions over the future of the Steelers are a classic example of the challenge facing second- and third-generation owners of a family business. Looming estate taxes and diverging interests among the children and grandchildren of the founder raise pressure for a sale, bringing emotional family issues into play.

The Rooney brothers own 80% of the Steelers through Rooney Enterprises LLC; the McGinley family, their cousins, own 20%. Rooney Enterprises also owns the Yonkers Raceway just north of New York City and its profitable casino; the Palm Beach Kennel Club, a faded Florida dog track that now has a poker room; and other holdings, including a horse farm in Maryland.

The Steelers are by far the family’s crown jewel. Art Rooney Sr. — a colorful, cigar-chomping sportsman who kept the team going in its early years through his skill as a horse-race handicapper — bought the club for $2,500 in 1933.

I’m sure Art Rooney, Sr. would want the team to stay in the hands of the Rooneys.  However, it is hard to get five siblings to agree on a matter this large, and it is certainly not fair to pay the far under market value for their shares.  As a Pittsburgh fan, I am certainly rooting that the Rooneys can work this out and keep this 75 year franchise family owned.

Talking Heads with And She Was

Blue Collar Muse has written a couple excellent posts on Eminent Domain abuse in Nashville.  The Supreme Court’s ruling that the government may atke an individual’s property for other another private citizen in Kelo v. City of New London is just over three years old.  The travesty is starting to hit pretty close to home and prove the government does not believe we as citizens have private property rights.  They feel they know what is best for our property (hint:  higher property taxes is what they are shooting for!).  Go check our his posts:

• Will the Circle Be Unbroken, Part I
• Will the Circle Be Unbroken, Part II

Here is an excerpt, but go read the whole thing:

For almost 30 years, Ford and her late husband Sherman, have operated one of the first studios on what would become Music Row at that address. While much of the rest of the Row has gone corporate with multi-million dollar facilities, CIR remains privately owned. This earns CIR the classification of an Independent label or “Indie” as it’s known in the trade. Usually reserved for recent entries into the field who don’t have the juice to or don’t want to compete with the big boys, in the case of CIR, it’s deceptive. Joy and Sherman Ford were making music, writing songs, developing artists and cutting tracks at Country International Records long before many of the current Music Row elite were born. The walls of Ford’s business are filled with pictures of the legends she’s personally worked with. Stars like George Jones, Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson, Tracy Lawrence, Tim McGraw and more.

If government has anything to say about it, that won’t be true much longer. Chas Sisk at The Tennessean, who has covered the story since March, reports,

The Metropolitan Development and Housing Agency filed papers in a Nashville court Friday to start a process that would take the offices of Country International Records at 23 Music Circle East.

The action, the city’s first test of eminent domain since the state legislature tightened condemnation laws two years ago, was taken after the agency determined that negotiations with building owner Joy Ford would not work, said Joe Cain, the agency’s development director.

“We’re not having any conversation,” Cain said. “We’re hopeful that now she will meet with us.”

The government is filing papers to take Ford’s property. When they asked her to sell she said, “No”. Problem was, Joe Cain and MDHA didn’t like that answer. Having determined “negotiations with the building owner Joy Ford would not work” (read: this woman doesn’t want to sell her property at any price) they are having her property condemned as “blighted”. If she will not sell, they’ll force her out. With the pressure on, they’re “hopeful that now she will meet with” them. Mr. Cain and the MDHA seem to be confusing conversation with coercion.

Taking one’s property for a school, highway, etc. is bad enough, but it is understandable.  However, taking one’s property to sell to another private entity is ludicrous, even though the Supreme Court says it is okay!  State and local governments need to make very strict, concise, and clear laws preventing this type of behavior.  When one does not have private property rights, one loses most of his freedoms and what makes this country great.

Here’s a summer one for you.  Nat King Cole’s Those Lazy, Hazy, Crazy Days of Summer

Eric Clapton’s Lay Down Sally

This is a test post using jott. Hope it works, we’ll see here in a couple minutes if it did. Please ignore. listen

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UPDATE:  I’m typing this part.  I used Jott.com to phone this message in, which then posted on my blog.  Very handy, and it worked very well.  Thanks to Uncle for the heads up on this one.  It looks like you can even use it to reply to e-mails on your Blackberry!  And it is FREE.

Rod Stewart singing The Motown Song to finish out June.

Tommy Roe’s Sheila (I’m not quite sure about the video, but this was the best audio.

In a headline/news story that should surprise nobody, the AFL-CIO is set to endorse Barack Obama and start spending for the upcoming election.

The AFL-CIO’s endorsement will unite all of labor’s support behind Sen. Obama. The group of unions that left the AFL-CIO three years ago, known as the Change to Win federation, endorsed the Illinois senator in late February. Unions across the labor movement have said they will spend a record $300 million to help elect Democrats to the White House and Congress this fall.

Unions are expected to focus on shoring up support for Sen. Obama among white working-class voters. “Organized labor can play an important role to bring those voters over to Barack Obama, and that could be decisive,” said Peter Francia, a professor of political science at East Carolina University.

Like him or not, I certainly don’t see any “change” in this Chicago politician.

In a 5-4 decision today, the Supreme Court once again showed that they are more swayed by public opinion and their own thoughts than by the governing document that they are supposed to use, the Constitution.

The High Court ruled that child rapists could not be sentenced to death because that violates the Eighth Amendment, which reads:

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

Somehow, the court can take this to mean punishment is sometimes cruel and unusual and sometimes not, based upon the crime.  Here is why I say they look toward public opinion rather than the Constitution:

“The harm that is caused to the victims and to society at large by the worst child rapists is grave,” [Justice Samuel] Alito wrote [in the minority]. “It is the judgment of the Louisiana lawmakers and those in an increasing number of other states that these harms justify the death penalty.”

But Kennedy said the absence of any executions for rape and the small number of states that allow it demonstrate “there is a national consensus against capital punishment for the crime of child rape.”

Kennedy also acknowledged that the decision had to come to terms with “the years of long anguish that must be endured by the victim of child rape.”

Still, Kennedy concluded that in cases of crimes against individuals — as opposed to treason, for example — “the death penalty should not be expanded to instances where the victim’s life was not taken.”

Even opponents of the Louisana law agree what their action would be:

The author of the Louisiana law, former Republican state Rep. Pete Schneider, said even opponents of the death penalty told him they would kill anyone who raped their children. “When are you going to have the courage to stand up for what’s right for all of the people — but especially the children under 12 that have been brutally raped by monsters?” Schneider said, directing his comments to the justices in Wednesday’s majority.

This will also lead to a reversal of the sentence of another Louisiana man, ”Richard Davis was sentenced to death in December for repeatedly raping a 5-year-old girl in Caddo Parish, which includes Shreveport.”  Wow!  I really can’t think of any more fitting punishment than the death penalty for this man.  However, 5 justices have overturned this.