Free Republic

Sally Jewell on Thursday breezed through a committee vote to lead the Interior Department but the agency’s proposal to list the sage grouse as an endangered species threatens to block her nomination from reaching the full Senate. ... some Republican lawmakers were not satisfied with Jewell’s responses to written and oral questions about her past association with the National Park Association’s lawsuits against the government and future plans to list the sage grouse as an endangered species. Sen. James Risch (R-Idaho) threatened to put a hold on Jewell’s nomination before it goes to a floor vote unless the agency commits...

SIERRA VISTA — The individual freedoms of Americans are being eroded to the point that future generations of citizens may see their living space compressed to something like was shown in the movie “The Hunger Games.” That is the view of two people who spoke out against the United Nation’s Agenda 21 project, where the United States will see its citizens giving up property rights, the ability to live wherever they want and to see America’s wealth given to other countries to, in effect, create a financially- and politically-level playing field.

Actual (very long) headline: The rugged outdoorsman who has been dubbed the 'Last American Man' is facing a government shutdown of his camp in the Appalachian Mountains for not adhering to building codes A man who has dedicated nearly 30 years to building and living off of his 500-acre farm is facing having his entire way of life shut down by the state government. Eustace Conway, 51, who has been called ‘The Last Great American Man’ for his rustic way of living, could lose his camp in the Appalachian Mountains, his home for the past three decades. The Watauga County...

There is a new bill that is Agenda 21ish and basically infringes on personal property rights in a slick way. A few highlights of the bill: Federal grant funded American Planning Association’s  model comprehensive planning legislation for states Common theme is government control of land use with no regard for private property rights Conflicts with U.S. Constitution’s 4th Amendment The bill: http://www.legis.state.tx.us/tlodocs/83R/billtext/pdf/SB00565I.pdf#navpanes=0 Policies of group promoting the this ideology: http://www.smartgrowthamerica.org/complete-streets/changing-policy/policy-elements

In 2009, Deputy Attorney General David Ogden, presumably speaking on behalf of the newly inaugurated Barack Obama, issued the so-called Ogden memo, instructing federal prosecutors to not target medical-marijuana patients..... "Do you intend to carry this all the way through forfeiture?" Guilford asked U.S. Attorney Greg Parham. "Yes, absolutely, your honor," Parham responded. "The only evidence in this case is a $37 purchase of medical marijuana and an anonymous comment on a website that anybody could have written," Pappas says. "For this, they want to take a $1.5 million building."

The Hage family last Thursday filed a writ of certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court, appealing a claims court judgment that stripped away part of their $14 million award in a suit against the U.S. Forest Service over grazing rights in Monitor Valley. Nye County Commissioner Lorinda Wichman said Tuesday she’s afraid the ruling by a court of appeals for the federal circuit overturning part of the judgment in the Wayne Hage case — that only hand tools are allowed to be used to maintain roads in the national forest — could jeopardize the $250,000 the county spent on the...

MANAGUA, Nicaragua — The classical definition of a hero is a person who puts himself at risk for the benefit of others. That certainly describes Adolfo Calero, who died June 2 at the age of 80. The obituaries of this remarkable man hardly do justice to his courage, perseverance, faithfulness and humility. Here is the Adolfo Calero I knew, admired and called a friend for nearly three decades: A graduate of Holy Cross High School in New Orleans and the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind., he was a devout Roman Catholic and educated to be a...

Nearly 200,000 American citizens in Los Angeles and Ventura Counties could lose free use of their private lands and property if the proposed Rim of the Valley National Park converting two national parks becomes law! A continuation of United Nations sponsored, Agenda 21 aims of shoving American citizens into carefully defined clusters of living space around large urban populations, the Rim of the Valley plan would severely affect personal liberty! Urgent action is needed to stop this huge new federal land grab threat says Chuck Cushman of the American Land Right Association. (1) “It will start with a small scope...

Instagram just set off a bomb inside its new privacy policy and terms of service. New wording essentially makes it possible to turn people’s photos posted after Jan. 16 using Instagram into advertisements. In other words, that sutro-toned picture of your beloved Lhasa apso freshly coiffed after her grooming might well become an ad for Classy Canine Dog Salon. The language at issue: [Y]ou hereby grant to Instagram a non-exclusive, fully paid and royalty-free, transferable, sub-licensable, worldwide license to use the Content that you post on or through the Service, except that you can control who can view certain of...

Withdrawing from the Outer Space Treaty and claiming the moon as sovereign American territory would allow the United States to sell land parcels and mineral rights on Earth’s nearest neighbor. The moon is filled with natural resources, including platinum, water (useful for creating rocket fuel and for sustaining space settlers) and helium 3, a substance that does not exist in nature on Earth that could be used to fuel limitless and clean fusion energy. The proceeds of selling pieces of the moon could be used to retire part of the national debt. The United States will need to defend its...

A jury delivered Norva Plastics a big victory Wednesday, awarding the 70-year-old company a multimillion-dollar payout and delivering yet another blow to city leaders in the ongoing fight over eminent domain.

We've got to celebrate the freedom-endorsing little victories won by the Supreme Court while we've still kinda-sorta got it (one shudders to think of what what the highest court in the land may look like after four more years of President Obama), and the justices logged one in favor of private-property rights with their unanimous decision on Arkansas Game and Fish Commission v. United States on Tuesday.Per the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment ("nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation"), the question was whether a series of floods coordinated by the U.S. Army Corps...

International Land Grab Imagine waking up in a country where a high-ranking government official stands in front of citizens and rails against personal property rights: “The American system of justice must be changed to conform to that of the rest of the world, and there must be a shift in attitudes. Individual wants, needs and desires are to be conformed to the views and dictates of government planners. In the process of implementing Sustainable Development, individual rights will have to take a back seat to the collective.” The shocking line that individual rights should be relegated to the rear has...

The government has the power to seize your assets for a crime you did not commit. That's essentially the argument being made in a Boston federal court this week as the U.S. Department of Justice and Tewksbury (Mass.) Police Department work to take Motel Caswell away from its owner, Russ Caswell. The libertarian-leaning legal team Institute for Justice took on Caswell's case pro bono, attorney Scott Bullock told me, because this case "is really taking civil forfeiture where it has not gone in the past." The government wants to take Caswell's motel, not because Caswell is guilty of dealing drugs...

Johnny Ramsey, the 79-year-old Korean War veteran who collected and sold junk to pay for medications for his ailing wife, said just minutes before court Thursday evening: “If I have to go to jail, I guess I am ready.” ....Clover Police officers handcuffed Ramsey – whose nephew is a sheriff’s deputy, whose son is in Afghanistan on his fourth deployment to war – and walked him outside the court building and put him in a police car.

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana -- A property rights nonprofit says the federal government made an illegal land grab by listing 1,500 acres of private land in St. Tammany Parish as critical habitat for the endangered dusky gopher frog. ... "This case is about a federal land grab in one parish in Louisiana -- but it's also about property rights from coast to coast," attorney M. Reed Hopper of the Pacific Legal Foundation said in a news release Monday. "Never before have federal officials attempted to rope off private property as 'critical habitat' for a species, where the land is manifestly not...

Utah is Leading America in taking back STATES rights...get YOUR State Senators and Reps to follow suit....

The New York Post reported Egyptian-American columnist Mona Eltahawy has been arrested for defacing an anti-Muslim ad in the New York subway system. The video shows her spraying pink paint on the ad while a supporter of the ad tries to block her. She's a journalist for censorship. Eltahawy, a former Reuters correspondent, has been a recent favorite of CNN and MSNBC’s weekend morning shows to discuss Egypt, and she often smears together the Islamist “right wing” and the American right wing, as she did on Melissa Harris-Perry just 11 days ago [video and transcript below]: Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tim-graham/2012/09/26/cnn-and-msnbc-pundit-arrested-vandalizing-anti-muslim-ad-ny-subway-syste#ixzz27cSJt84l

Chinese protester opposing government takeover of village land 'is crushed to death by state-controlled road-flattening truck' • Protester He Zhu Hua, appears to be crushed in shocking images • He opposed being moved after government tried to claim land for commercial use • Reports claim government then tried to hide body and sent security to quell anger from residents This is the horrifying moment a Chinese protester was allegedly brutally crushed to death by a government road flattening truck over a land dispute. The demonstrator had apparently resisted a government relocation when he appeared to be crushed by the huge...

Tunisia’s western city of Sidi Bouzid is now dry... Chanting “al-Charab haram” (“alcohol is sin”), dozens of Salafists burst into Sidi Bouzid’s Horchani hotel on Monday, September 3. The throng of men quickly homed in on the hotel’s liquor stock, seizing bottles of alcohol and throwing them against the walls or smashing them on the floor. The incident comes around four months after the city’s Salafist community first launched a war against alcohol consumption, pressuring or intimidating several bars into shutting down. Those who tried to resist saw their businesses come under attack, much like the Horchani hotel. ... I...

By Roger Chesley The Virginian-Pilot © September 8, 2012 Ken Cuccinelli rarely misses a chance to pontificate in front of cameras, microphones and reporters' notebooks. So it was no surprise that the state attorney general traveled to Norfolk this week, where he assailed proposed seizures of property around Old Dominion University. Eminent domain has been one of Cuccinelli's signature issues - when he's not railing about Obamacare or global warming. This time, at least, I agree with Cuccinelli's stance. Eminent domain is one of the most powerful tools that governments wield over citizens. Most people understand the need to seize...

The story about the abuses by Fauquier County against Martha Boneta, the farmer, of pitchfork protest fame, just gets creepier and creepier. It also exposes how environmental groups combine unlawfully with government to impose dangerous anti-property rights agendas. Martha, as you may have already read, was fined by Fauquier County,Virginia for selling her farm produce and holding a birthday party for eight little girls.... .....Piedmont Environmental Council (PEC) wholeheartedly backed that illegal, anti-liberty winery ordinance. The PEC seems to have an unusual if not disturbing amount of influence over Fauquier County officials.On the board of the PEC sit some powerful...

"Property is theft."  Proudhon's classic anarchist paradox is more than a catchy slogan for international leftism.  It encapsulates a complete and comprehensively absurd view of humanity -- one which finds its contemporary apotheosis in President Obama's more prosaic rendition, "You didn't build that."  In other words, "You didn't build that" is just "Property is theft" without the irony.

A chill has just fallen upon the markets in Vermont as business owners can now be forced to do business against their consciences. A Roman Catholic family was recently sued by two lesbians from New York who wanted to use The Wildflower Inn in Lyndonville, Vermont as the site for a homosexual “wedding” reception. An employee from the inn informed the inquirers of the owners’ feeling about hosting such a reception and politely turned them down. That polite refusal brought down the wrath of the ACLU and Vermont Human Rights Commission upon Jim and Mary O’Reilly, who could not match...

STEVENSON, Ala. (AP) -- James Davis is fighting to keep the remains of his late wife right where he dug her grave: In the front yard of his home, just a few feet from the porch. Davis said he was only abiding by Patsy Ruth Davis' wishes when he buried her outside their log home in 2009, yet the city sued to move the body elsewhere.

.....Forced "sharing" is coercion plain and simple. Government-enforced "sharing" is coercion at the point of a gun: "your prosperity or your life." Go back over the list of implications of "shared prosperity" that I offered a few paragraphs back. This time, each time you see the word "sharing," try substituting "relinquishing at the point of a gun." Now you can see exactly what Obama's "new vision" for America really means. It means that you will no longer own yourself. You will no longer have first claim -- or any meaningful claim, for that matter -- on your goods, your time,...

To the surprise of the pundits, pollsters and predictors who think they are smarter than the rest of us, Ted Cruz won the nomination for U.S. Senator from Texas. A few months ago, he rated only 2 percent in the polls, but in the primary runoff, he coasted to a 14-point win. His victory wasn't because he had more money or more prestigious endorsements or more valuable connections or more political experience. Maybe he defeated the establishment-backed candidate because he touched some hot-button issues that the grassroots care about but are ignored or even belittled by the mainstream media. Take,...

Caltrans has filed a lawsuit over people who cut down trees, shrubs and other plants along state highways, including a Wheatland business owner who cut trees near his business last year. According to the suit, filed in June in Yuba County Superior Court, business owner had a crew damage, trim or destroy 16 trees along Highway 65 at Evergreen Drive, near where Sharma had an encroachment permit to allow a left-turn lane on and off his commercial property. "The defendants, and each of them, intentionally or recklessly trespassed on State owned property and injured and destroyed State owned tress, in...

A new law in Indiana authorizes the general public to use deadly force against public servants (including law enforcement officers) who unlawfully enter private property. The measure, approved by Gov. Mitch Daniels in March, (who himself is a Bilderberg member, making the situation even more interesting) is a real game changer as the script has been flipped on the police when it comes to deadly force.

The above picture is what some gays/lesbians are calling on for dress on Fridays when going to Chick Fil-A My question is whether businesses have the right to require a dress code, and also be allowed to expel patrons for lewd behavior. There are Gay/Lesbian groups calling for boycotting/protests at Chick-Fil-A restaurants every Friday. What rights do businesses have today? Does this vary depending on the state? Can very skimpy dress (bikinis, etc) be grounds for expelling people from the business? What about behavior by adults that would be bad examples and considered lewd behavior in front of children....

CANYON LAKE [CALIFORNIA} (CBS) — A city in Riverside County will consider a plan to force all pet owners to spay and neuter their pets. KCAL9′s Jeff Nguyen reports not everyone in the guarded and gated city of Canyon Lake located just east of Lake Elsinore likes the proposal. Marlene Marich’s dog Skylar is fixed and has a microchip, but she doesn’t like the idea that the Canyon Lake city council is considering a plan to make the spaying, neutering and microchipping of cats and dogs mandatory. “That’s going too far, asking them to do that,” said dog owner Marlene...

Actually this is an old story that has been going on for some time. Turns out the neighbors, not the city was the ones who had the beef with Michael Salman. Guy really ticked off his neighbors who all sided against him. From the story: But then Salman announced that he was planning to build a church right there in his backyard. He talked about not just Sunday services, but weeknight Bible studies, a workout room and basketball court, even a Christian day care center. "He gave us a lecture on the fact that all of us were going to...

Property Rights: Few have heard of Agenda 21, the U.N. plan for sustainable development that tosses property rights aside. But Alabama has, and it recently secured a victory as important as that over union power in Wisconsin. After Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's stunning triumph over the excesses and abuses of public-sector unions, the London Telegraph's James Delingpole, an indefatigable opponent of global warming fraud, opined in a piece titled, "How Wisconsin And Alabama Helped Save The World," that we should take note of "an equally important but perhaps less well-publicized victory won in the Alabama House and Senate over the...

Officials with the Taos Police Department say they are still working to get to the bottom of the alleged beating of a Taos landowner over the removal of political signs from in front of his property. In an interview with The Taos News Friday, property owner Roy Cunnyngham and his wife Joni recounted the events when they returned home, across from Casa los Córdovas May 1. According to the police report filed the same day, Eighth Judicial District Court judge candidate Ernestina Cruz was having a “meet and greet” event at Plaza de Colores. At the same time, across the...

Editor's Note: This column was authored by Justice Gilpin-Green Individual rights must take a backseat to community interests. Sound familiar? That’s probably because it’s been the ideology that American presidents have been agreeing to since 1992. Enter Agenda 21, the 40 chapter document from the United Nations that establishes environmental “principles” at local, national, regional, and international levels-and the object of Ayn Rand’s nightmare. Defined these days as “sustainable development,” Agenda 21 seeks to transform humanity with “new global ethics.” At the most basic level, beyond the soft words like “sustainability” and “eco-friendly environments”, Agenda 21 takes away private property...

This week, the universally stupid brainchild of US Senators Chuck Schumer and Bob Casey known as the Ex-PATRIOT Act inched a bit closer towards becoming law. ‘Ex-PATRIOT’ is an absurd acronym that stands for “Expatriation Prevention by Abolishing Tax-Related Incentives for Offshore Tenancy”. I call it the Tax Slave Act… and it proposes three key provisions: 1) Individuals who are deemed, in the sole discretion of the US government, to have renounced US citizenship in order to avoid US taxes, will be permanently barred from re-entering the United States. 2) Such individuals will also be required to pay a 30%...

"Star Wars" creator George Lucas could, indeed, make good on his idea of building affordable housing right next door to the high-income NIMBYs who blocked his plans for a production studio near his Lucas Valley ranch complex. His Marin County neighbors and conservationists have dismissed Lucas' musings as sour grapes, and say low-income housing could never be built in such a remote and environmentally sensitive location.But those in the know disagree.There's a feeling on the Board of Supervisors, which has final say over the project, that it fits into the county's desire for more low-income housing - and by the...

A few days ago I realized that we who are participating on the Agenda 21 thread have amassed an impressive amount of data and links which are quite important for the educating of anyone who is wondering what “Agenda 21” is all about. There is absolutely no question in the minds of any of our participants at this stage that “Agenda 21” is real, and is NOT a tin-foil hat conspiracy. There are quite a number of people on this forum who were way ahead of us, and have been quite patient with us while some (like myself) have played...

In 2006 California’s Senate Bill 107 codified a requirement that by 2010 all electricity retailers in the state were to procure 20% of their electricity from “renewables.” That same year L.A. County Supervisor Michael Antonovich established Nuisance Abatement Teams that started combing the Mojave desert hitting isolated residents with ever-expanding lists of code violations, imposing whatever it took to drive residents out, and they made their intentions perfectly clear . . . . . . Apparently it is not enough that our green crony capitalists are getting billions in taxpayer subsidies, or that that rate-payers are forced to buy their...

"I don't worry about the Constitution," said Rep. Phil Hare, Democrat of Illinois, at a town hall meeting where voters questioned his support of the legislation that became Obamacare. You can find the clip on youtube.com, where it has 462,084 hits. That was before the 2010 election, in which Hare, running for a third term in a district designed by Democrats to elect a Democrat, was defeated 53 to 43 percent by Bobby Schilling, proprietor of a pizza parlor in East Moline. A lot of politicians are worrying about the Constitution these days. Liberal commentators were shocked this past week...

A Supreme Court decision last week involving an Idaho couple had special meaning for one Sacramento lawyer. For Damien Schiff, the ruling was the skier's equivalent of an Olympic gold medal, or a tennis player winning Wimbledon. At the age of 32, Schiff accomplished something few attorneys ever experience: He argued a case before the U.S. Supreme Court – and won. On March 21, the court declared Schiff and his clients victorious in a case against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The decision overturned decades of lower-court precedent that prevented property owners from suing the agency after being served with...

The Property Rights Alliance is pleased to herald the publication of the 2012 International Property Rights Index (IPRI), the world’s most comprehensive measure of intellectual and physical property rights among nations. Sixty-nine international organizations partnered with the Washington, DC-based Property Rights Alliance and its Hernando de Soto Fellowship program to produce the sixth annual IPRI. The IPRI utilizes three primary metrics to create a composite score: Legal and Political Environment (LP), Physical Property Rights (PPR), and Intellectual Property Rights (IPR). Most importantly, the IPRI stresses the great economic disparities among countries with strong property rights and those without. Nations comprising...

An explosion on Monday rocked the suburban Atlanta home of a man known for his fight to keep chickens on his property, and emergency officials say a body was found inside. Marshals had been on the scene for about two hours trying to evict Andrew Wordes, who's known as the "Chicken Man," when the explosion happened around 12:45 p.m., said Antonio Johnson of the Fulton County marshal's office. Minutes before the explosion, Wordes told them to leave the property that was in foreclosure. Other than the body found inside the house, which officials did not immediately identify, no one was...

Federal agencies are out of control. The grant of virtually unlimited power with no accountability has gone to the heads of some unelected bureaucrats, and nowhere is that more true than at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Even the Supreme Court has had enough. All nine justices agreed Wednesday that the agency has finally gone too far. EPA has long been the darling of big government’s fans. They imagine bad, corporate fat cats are itching to dump toxic waste into pristine rivers and other navigable waterways, only to be thwarted by the noble public servants enforcing the Clean Water Act....

The Supreme Court has sided with an Idaho couple in a property rights case, ruling they can go to court to challenge an Environmental Protection Agency order that blocked construction of their new home and threatened fines of more than $30,000 a day. Wednesday's decision is a victory for Mike and Chantell Sackett, whose property near a scenic lake has sat undisturbed since the EPA ordered a halt in work in 2007. The agency said part of the property was a wetlands that could not disturbed without a permit. In an opinion by Justice Antonin Scalia, the court rejected EPA's...

A 20-year-old United Nations plan aimed at fostering sustainable development around the world is “destructive and insidious,” in the words of a resolution that won approval in the Republican-controlled Tennessee House of Representatives on Thursday (March 15). Tennessee Republicans say the plan, known as “Agenda 21,” amounts to “extreme environmentalism, social engineering and global political control.” With the help of six Democrats, they won approval for the nonbinding state resolution in a 72-to-23 floor vote. Agenda 21 was adopted by 178 governments at a U.N. conference in Brazil in June 1992. The plan calls on local, state and national governments...

Those who are pushing to implement the UN Sustainable Development program (Agenda 21) have decided to set up nationwide indoctrination sessions for elected officials and municipal government professionals. This is a clear indication that the tireless efforts of ordinary citizens to educate and combat Agenda 21 in their communities is working. Predictable Progressives are now resorting to the same tactics they’ve successfully used on our children… Indoctrinate the teachers in Universities to arm them with the propaganda needed to indoctrinate our children in public school classrooms. In this case, they’ll indoctrinate local officials to arm them with the propaganda to...

Contributing the overall decline in worldwide economic freedom was the drop of the massive economy of the United States from 6th worldwide to 10th., in part due to the Obama administration creating the most rapid increase in debt in US history. This, combined with a lessening of property rights, such as the failure of the Democratic-led auto bailout restructuring team to honor the debt obligations of General Motors to its shareholders to push the US down in the index.

Just when you thought things couldn’t get any weirder… The Obama Administration now wants to demolish three dams in northern California to supposedly save the salmon… But the whole reason to support the move was based on shoddy and inconclusive scientific data.