Free Republic

hursday,Do you ever wonder why America initiated and then dominated the oil exploration and discovery industry. Its because Thomas Jefferson decided that along with the monarchy, the aristocrats and landed titles, the American Revolution would also throw out the (literally) medieval notion that although a man could own his own land, what was under it belonged to the king.

A Pasadena homeowner who fatally shot two men suspected of burglarizing his neighbor's house is cleared by a Harris County grand jury, KPRC Local 2 reports.

John McCain and his wife failed to pay house taxes and owe more than $225,000 on credit cards, it has been revealed. Newsweek, which discovered that Senator McCain and his wife Cindy, a beer heiress worth an estimated $100 million, owed $6,744.42 in delinquent property taxes on a California home, commented acidly: "When you're poor, it can be hard to pay the bills. When you're rich, it's hard to keep track of all the bills that need paying." After the magazine told the McCain campaign about the tax debt most of it was paid off immediately and an aide said...

Thousands of shorefront property owners and builders across the state are on a crash course to understand a new permit system that goes into effect tomorrow. Effective July 1, a state shoreland permit is required for excavation, filling and construction within 250 feet of shore if minimum standards for maintaining the lot's natural state are not met. Those standards are outlined in the new Comprehensive Shoreland Protection Act (RSA 483-B). ...... "It is impossible to figure out unless you are an engineer or a scientist," he said. "My basic thing is that the restrictions are so strict. In my mind...

CONFER: Protecting property rights By Bob Confer The Tonawanda News When our founding fathers penned the Declaration of Independence they noted we are endowed with unalienable rights which include “…Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” Happiness was used as an all-inclusive term, but it had its basis in the property rights of the individual. This focus was borrowed from the writings of British philosopher John Locke who emphasized life, health, liberty, and property rights in writings that appeared over a century before the Declaration. Recognizing Locke’s influence on our nation’s principles is the key to understanding just exactly what...

YEKATERINBURG — Urals fertilizer billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev is the new owner of Florida's most expensive house after paying U.S. property tycoon Donald Trump $100 million for the waterfront property. Rybolovlev, whose fortune has soared by $10 billion in the last year on an unprecedented boom in demand for fertilizers, said through a spokesman that the purchase was an investment and that he had no plans to swap Moscow life for the Florida coast. Trump more than doubled his money on the sale of Maison de l'Amitie, a 3,000-square-meter mansion on Palm Beach bought for $41.4 million at a bankruptcy auction...

Every year county appraisal districts mail notices of appraised value changes to millions of property owners across the State which prompts protests by unhappy taxpayers. Even with fewer values than usual increasing in Galveston County this year, hundreds of property owners attended classes to learn how to be effective in the protest process. I know because I taught those classes and attendees confirmed what seems to me to be obvious -- the system needs to be changed. In 2006, the Governor’s Task Force on Appraisal Reform traveled the state collecting information on problems associated with our current property tax system....

This is one of the most frightening things I've learned in a long time. Over in the US, a bill has passed the House of Representatives and is heading to Congress – with a huge amount of support. The PRO-IP bill, H.R.4279, significantly increases the state's power to detect and prosecute IP infringement, carrying with it a whole host of new law enforcement positions and capabilities. It establishes an IP Czar, someone with the job of overseeing zealous action on behalf of copyright and trademark owners, and includes such powers as the ability to seize equipment if it contains just...

"I won't be wronged, I won't be insulted, and I won't be laid a hand on. I don't do those things to other people and I require the same of them."—John Wayne, The Shootist. A tenacious group of patriotic ranchers way out West has just won a major victory for property owners nationwide. In Hage v United States, a Claims Court ruled that the federal government may not use environmentalist regulations and bullying tactics to refuse citizens use of their own land without providing them with just compensation. And it’s a story as inspiring as it is instructive. The Hage...

WASHINGTON - Both violent and property crimes declined in 2007 from the previous year, the FBI reported Monday. In preliminary figures for crimes reported to police, the bureau said the number of violent crimes declined by 1.4 percent from 2006, reversing two years of rising violent crime numbers. Violent crime had climbed 1.9 percent in 2006 and 2.3 percent in 2005, alarming federal and local officials. Property crimes were down 2.1 percent last year from the previous year, the largest drop in the last four years. "One preliminary report does not make a trend, but it's going the way we...

A half-dozen national Protestant denominations are supporting the Episcopal Church in a multimillion-dollar Virginia property dispute, saying a state law at the heart of the case could threaten them, too. The United Methodist Church and the Presbyterian Church (USA), among others, have filed court briefs in the past few weeks supporting the Episcopal Church, which is fighting 11 breakaway Virginia congregations that say the national church has become too liberal on issues from salvation to sexuality. Majorities of those congregations voted to leave and are now in Fairfax County Circuit Court over who gets to keep the property. Experts say...

SAN ANGELO, Texas - A state appellate court has ruled that child welfare officials had no right to seize more than 400 children living at a polygamist sect's ranch. The Third Court of Appeals in Austin ruled that the grounds for removing the children were "legally and factually insufficient" under Texas law. They did not immediately order the return of the children. Child welfare officials removed the children on the grounds that the sect pushed underage girls into marriage and sex and trained boys to become future perpetrators. The appellate court ruled the chaotic hearing held last month did not...

HARTLAND, Vt. (AP) — The 130-acre property was exactly what Michel Guite and his family wanted: an old Vermont farm with mountain views, rolling hills and meadows. There was, however, one wrinkle: The property included a small family cemetery — with the grave of a War of 1812 veteran — surrounded by a fence on a scenic knoll. His proposal to move the graveyard so he can build a house and barn has set off protests. The town has passed a resolution aimed at blocking the move, a descendant of one occupant of the graveyard is trying to fight him...

The View - Yes on Prop. 98/No on Prop. 99 - The Battle to Restore Private Property Rights Since California has failed to join more than 40 states in reforming its eminent domain statutes, a diverse group of business, farm and taxpayer organizations have taken a leading role in restoring private property protections for California business property by qualifying Proposition 98, the California Property Owners and Farmland Protection Act, for the June 2008 ballot. It is well documented that business owners are the most common victims of eminent domain abuse because of local governments' appetite for sales tax revenue to...

Big Government types and Prop 99 All you really need to know about the two eminent domain propositions on the June 3 ballot, 98 and 99, is that Proposition 99 is being touted by politicians and other government types as the real solution to government intrusion on private property ownership. Among them are the usual suspects, including California Sen. Dianne Feinstein and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, both of whom believe in Big Government, and both of whom describe Proposition 98 as a hindrance to solving such state problems as water quality and supply. Feinstein, in a release at the end...

Just one more association of Obama's that puts the exclamation point on Chicago politics: After an unsuccessful campaign for Congress in 2000, Illinois state Sen. Barack Obama faced serious financial pressure: numerous debts, limited cash and a law practice he had neglected for a year. Help arrived in early 2001 from a significant new legal client -- a longtime political supporter. Chicago entrepreneur Robert Blackwell Jr. paid Obama an $8,000-a-month retainer to give legal advice to his growing technology firm, Electronic Knowledge Interchange. It allowed Obama to supplement his $58,000 part-time state Senate salary for over a year with regular...

I found this editorial from the National Organization of Rural Landowners to be a poignant message that goes well beyond the issue of property rights. I believe it worth thinking about and passing on as well as discussing here.

Izzy Miyagh has been looking for a home for three years The drop in house prices might be a disaster for many home-owners, but some first-time buyers see it as a godsend. Left behind by more than a decade of soaring property values, thousands of young workers look to a slump as their only hope of securing an affordable mortgage. The Bank of England may have warned that the credit crunch will squeeze the availability of home loans. But with prices falling by 2.5% in March 2008 - the biggest monthly decline since September 1992 - plenty are optimistic...

BELGRADE (Reuters) - A Serb farmer used a grinding machine to cut in half his farm tools and machines to comply with a court ruling that he must share all his property with his ex-wife, local media reported on Thursday. Branko Zivkov, 76, told Belgrade daily Kurir he had been ready to give his wife Vukadinka her equal share of everything earned during their 45-year marriage, but was furious at being asked to give away half his farming equipment. Instead, he bought a grinder and cut in two all his tools, including large items such as cattle scales, a harrow...

Papers or Your Property! : Landlords could lose property for improper paperwork Byron Schlomach, Goldwater Institute Daily Email, March 25, 2008 The 1990 movie, “The Hunt for Red October,” has a poignant scene in which the Soviet submarine captain and his second-in-command contemplate what they will do once they defect to America. The second-in-command speculates that he might get an RV and drive from state to state. “They let you do that, don’t they?” he asks, and the captain agrees. “No papers?” “No papers,” says the captain. The movie came out contemporaneously with the collapse of the Soviet empire, and...

This Property is Condemned by: Malcolm A. Kline, March 11, 2008 ... “As a matter of first principle, I take the decidedly unpopular view that the takings clause (and other constitutional provisions) commits this nation to a system of strong property rights and limited government,” Epstein writes in Supreme Neglect: How to Revive Constitutional Protection for Private Property. “This view is at war with the major economic and social reforms of the New Deal and beyond.” Not to mention the treatment of such topics in the academic world in which he moves. “I am, of course, well aware that the...

The sordid details: In March of '07 my house in Homestead, FL was broken into by a thug gang-banger and a handgun was taken. I called Homestead PD and they came right out and filed a report. A Homestead detective followed up a week late to gather more info. I didn't figure to ever see the gun again, so I gave up on it. Late September I received a letter from the State Attorney's office requesting that I call in. They had arrested the thug up in Miami and needed to ask me some questions. I called and answered all...

CRAWFORD, Texas (CNN) — A Danish journalist came this close to getting shot Saturday by an elderly woman packing a pistol near President Bush's ranch here in what was easily the strangest incident I've ever witnessed covering the White House. Terkel Svensson, a writer for the Danish News Agency, could not get wireless Internet access at the schoolhouse to file a story. But Svensson could get his cell phone working so he called his editor in Copenhagen and started wandering across a quiet country road as he chatted away. "I was just so occupied dictating my story that I didn't...

While most developers were eyeing property in suburbia in the 1980s, Moe Mohanna was staking his claim on some rundown buildings a few blocks from the state Capitol. The Sacramento landlord began fixing up nine storefronts along K Street in an area frequented by vagrants. His properties are at the heart of the city's plans to revitalize its business district. After years of failed negotiations to rehabilitate, exchange or buy Mohanna's buildings—which the city says violate health and safety codes—Sacramento's redevelopment agency recently moved to condemn and seize his property. "We've done all of these things, and they are chasing...

No, this isn’t about the subprime housing finance fiasco. It only relates in that some people are happy to let someone else pay for their responsibilities. This is about the dastardly institution known as the homeowners association. Mutual benefit corporations are formed and owners within a subdivision pay a membership fee for their equally shared benefits. I bought a home in such an association five years ago. Okay, these arrangements are socialistic at best, but I wanted to be a good immigrant and go with the flow, as long as the association was meeting it’s obligations. We have 2 benefits...

The Pentagon has paid more than $40 million to Iraqis whose family members were accidentally killed or their property destroyed by coalition military action since the beginning of 2005, according to interviews and documents that provide a glimpse into the extent of continuing civilian casualties in the conflict. The condolence payments are meant to mitigate anger against the U.S. military as it works to reduce violence in Iraq. They are in keeping with a system in Iraqi Muslim culture in which a payment for damage or death eliminates the need for revenge. Though they have spent the money, military officials...

Troubling Times If FreeRepublic stands for America, the real Anerica where the Constitution means something, where you have the right to be let alone in peace as a law-abiding citizen, where you have a right to defend yourself and your family then I need and beg for your help. Please ping any ping lists that apply. I’m posting as a newbie – I signed up in November 2000. I probably started lurking in late 1998. Before I post I’m alerting an Admin with my one and only original handle of this upcoming post to establish my bonafides. At first I...

Story.

A state pension fund used by more than 820 Texas cities – including most of those in North Texas – faces a $1.7 billion funding shortfall. And fixing the situation will force some cities to raise taxes, cut future retirees' benefits or both. (story continued at link here.

FINANCIAL experts last night urged customers not to panic after one of the UK's largest insurers froze its property funds following a run on withdrawals. Credit crunch fears have prompted investors to pull their capital from the Scottish Equitable Property Fund, leaving it with a depleted reserve which could be unable to deal with further withdrawals. The situation has prompted fears that members of other schemes could also pull their resources out, in a scenario disturbingly reminiscent of the Northern Rock debacle. The details emerged as President George Bush called for a package of tax cuts and other measures of...

Over-the-Top Displays Inspire Loud Complaints, Even Rage; An Inflatable Santa Beheaded Jim McDilda's holiday display last year included a 28-foot lighted arch, a 50-foot tree, 50,000 lights and dozens of animated silhouettes. The spectacle -- he needed a crane to set it all up -- lit up the sky and drew thousands of gawking visitors to his Redding, Calif., house. But nearby neighbors weren't so thrilled. Cars, limos and tour buses clogged the cul-de-sac, and trash was strewn across lawns. Christmas music blasting from Mr. McDilda's display kept neighbors awake. They complained to the city, which required that Mr. McDilda...

The last thing she needed was a fight. Darlene Dixon's husband had been dead for only six months and here was a big developer telling her it wanted to tear down her home. Her neighbors on either side had said yes, agreeing to sell their rowhouses to make way for the University of Maryland, Baltimore's new west-side biotechnology park. Only Dixon, and her house filled with memories, stood in the way. But the grieving widow held her ground. The developer built around her. And now, just off Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, Dixon's little rowhouse rubs elbows with a six-story,...

Sorry for posting this in the main area, but I need some advice quickly. Over the past few weeks I've been having a real coyote problem. We're in the San Joaquin Valley and have always had issues with the coyotes, but this year seems to be expecially bad (even traveling in small packs, which I've never seen before). I need some recommendations on the proper weapon to deal with these varmints.

We finished this video to promote the Great New Orleans Gun Grab and I wanted to know what you guys think.

House prices in London dropped at their fastest pace in more than two years in October sparking fears that a serious housing slowdown will spread from the nation's capital in the year ahead. The Land Registry, the most comprehensive source of house price data, said today that house prices fell by 0.6 per cent in October in London. While price rises in most other regions of England and Wales helped the overall average increase by an anaemic 0.1 per cent, the sharp drop in London set warning bells ringing as the capital's property market usually plots a course for the...

During the Thanksgiving holiday, many of us reach way back in our memory banks to recall those old grade school lessons about the Pilgrims. Many of us were taught that the Pilgrims prospered once Squanto taught them North American horticulture, but there’s more to the story. For some years, the Pilgrims continued to suffer from famine. It turns out it was of their own making. The Pilgrims practiced communism. They shared and shared alike, farming together on community property. They starved and starved alike, too. Casting about for a solution, William Bradford, Plymouth’s long-time Governor eventually “allowed each man to...

We often hear liberals refer to a “right” to housing, or health care, or education. Of course, they always make you pay for these “rights” rather than break out their own checkbooks. The truth is, there is no such thing as a right to any material good or service. If there were, then someone else must provide that good or service whether they want to or not. After all, to refuse is to deny someone their right. And if someone must be forced into that provision, they are at best being stolen from and at worst made into the recipient's...

Every year around this time, schoolchildren are taught about that wonderful day when Pilgrims and Native Americans shared the fruits of the harvest. "Isn't sharing wonderful?" say the teachers. They miss the point. Because of sharing, the first Thanksgiving in 1623 almost didn't happen. The failure of Soviet communism is only the latest demonstration that freedom and property rights, not sharing, are essential to prosperity. The earliest European settlers in America had a dramatic demonstration of that lesson, but few people today know it. When the Pilgrims first settled the Plymouth Colony, they organized their farm economy along communal lines....

Measure passed in U.S. House aims to protect environment. A measure that would amend the General Mining Law of 1872 to establish environmental protections and eliminate land patenting passed the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday. Rep. John Salazar, D-Colo, voted with the 244-166 majority and hailed the legislation for its environmental protections and reclamation requirements on hard-rock mining. “I have heard from constituents in Crested Butte, the Summitville area, and throughout Colorado who want to protect our precious water resources,” said Salazar, whose 3rd Congressional District includes most of the Western Slope. “After 135 years, I am glad the...

Tallahassee - It's now up to Florida voters to say whether the state Legislature has given them the property tax relief they want...The average homeowner will see a $220 annual tax break..."What happened today is historic," said Gov. Charlie Crist, who campaigned last year on the need to provide tax relief. "It's now in the hands of the people."

Kristinn Taylor, co-leader of the D.C. chapter of FreeRepublic.com, is hoping that the city eventually addresses the de-facto hotel/lobbying operation run by the group Code Pink from a residentially zoned five-bedroom row house at 712 Fifth St. NE.Mr. Taylor's puzzlement is understandable, for the Code Pink provocateurs advertise the apparent zoning violations on their Web site, www.codepink4peace.org."The bedrooms vary in size and can house two to four activists in each," the far-left group writes in the D.C. section of the site.The Code Pinkies say the brownstone can handle as many as 20 activists at a time, which is an apparent...

"[T]he right of acquiring and possessing property and having it protected, is one of the natural inherent and unalienable rights of man."[1] A few years ago, one noted political reformer applauded the "demise of property as a formal constitutional limit." A new view of the right to property had, in this author's opinion, begun to replace the old constitutional formalism of the inviolable and sacred right to property. Indeed, this new conception of property "requires incursions on traditional property rights. What once defined the limits to governmental power becomes the prime subject of affirmative governmental action."[2] The object or purpose...

There is a poll posted to the front page of IndyStar.com that asks: "Do you think the property tax protesters should demonstrate during the Colts game?" Leave it to Gannett to attempt to justify tossing the Bill of Rights. FReep that poll!

(IsraelNN.com) The Hevron Jewish Community has released a sharp, detailed report accusing the Israeli Government of breach of trust, abuse, and hostility towards the Jewish owners of Arab-stolen property in the City of the Patriarchs. Entitled "The State of Israel's Management of the Stolen Jewish Property in Hevron," the report was issued this month in honor of the 78th anniversary of the Hevron massacre. In August 1929, Arabs brutally murdered 67 of their Jewish neighbors in their homes and in the local yeshiva. The Jewish survivors were then removed from Hevron, leaving behind their homes and land to be stolen...

The second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina arrived yesterday, with the White House disclosing that U.S. taxpayers have chipped in no less than $127 billion (including $13 billion in tax relief) to rebuild the Gulf region. That's more than the GDP of most nations. But we thought we'd draw attention to a little-discussed issue in New Orleans that may well determine how many residents ever return to their homes--to wit, rising property taxes due to cleaner government, of all things. Property taxes in the city are suddenly rising by hundreds and, in some cases, thousands of dollars above what they were...

When Philadelphia Media Holdings LLC acquired the Philadelphia Inquirer last year, borrowing $375 million for the purchase, the company began looking at ways to pay off its debt. One option: Sell the landmark 18-story building on North Broad Street that has been home to the newspaper since 1924. Last week the group of local investors acted, putting the 470,000-square-foot Beaux-Arts tower on the market. A person close to the company believes Philadelphia Media Holdings can fetch as much as $70 million for the building. With profits and revenue falling, newspaper companies are increasingly looking to real estate to shore up...

A man built a baseball field for his 11-year-old son and his son's Little League team, but this is not some fairy tale where the ghost of Shoeless Joe Jackson emerges from a cornfield to join the game. This is Danville, not Iowa. Someone did arrive to check out the Field of Dreams, but it was a city building inspector.

John Revelli vividly remembers the day the U.S. Supreme Court issued its infamous Kelo decision that allowed local governments to condemn private property under eminent domain, not only for public uses such as roads and schools, but also to accommodate private developers. "The Kelo decision," the former owner of Revelli Tires in Oakland noted over the phone, "came out on June 23 of '05, and the deadline that the city put up against us to move out was July 1." The five-to-four ruling spelled curtains for Revelli Tires.

Arlington, Va.—On Friday, June 15, 2007, Texas Governor Rick Perry vetoed HB 2006, an eminent domain reform measure that overwhelmingly passed both chambers of the Texas Legislature. The bill was designed to close a loophole that remained from an earlier bill Perry signed two years ago in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s infamous Kelo v. City of New London decision. Perry becomes only the fourth governor to veto an eminent domain bill since Kelo. In the three other states, however, reform still passed when the Iowa Legislature overrode one veto, New Mexico’s executive signed other reform legislation this year...

One might say, and some have, that George W. Bush, with his compassion for the plight of illegal immigrants, can be compared to Abraham Lincoln of 1863, who bravely declared the emancipation of slaves of his time. If that were truly the case, then one must assume today's illegal immigrants are the modern version of the 19th century African slaves. In fact, each group is the exact antithesis of the other, and if one considers seriously, one recognizes that Abraham Lincoln and today's president are opposites as well. Contrary to Lincoln's actions, George W. Bush is flirting with returning this...