Free Republic

In what critics are describing as a government land grab, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed a change Tuesday to the Clean Water Act that would give it regulatory authority over temporary wetlands and waterways. The proposal immediately sparked concerns that the regulatory power could extend into seasonal ponds, streams and ditches, including those on private property. "The ... rule may be one of the most significant private property grabs in U.S. history," said Louisiana Sen. David Vitter, the top Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. The EPA proposal would apply pollution regulations to the country's so-called "intermittent...

...... they decided to rewrite the rules to more clearly define exactly what bodies of water are within their regulatory power — and a bunch of lawmakers, lobbies, businesses, and private citizens are worried that the end result is going to be yet another massive EPA power grab that will make big government an even more pervasive and retarding for in commercial activity and on private property.

Two California sisters told Fox News’ Megyn Kelly Thursday they are fighting back against a college professor who they say assaulted them and stole their pro-life signs because “no one has the right to take someone else’s property.” Thrin Short, 16, and her sister Joan, 21, were part of an anti-abortion protest at the University of California, Santa Barbara when they were approached by Associate Professor Mireille Miller-Young. They say Miller-Young, who teachers feminist studies, grabbed the sign from them, and when they attempted to get it back, kicked and pushed them.

Yesterday eight of the nine U.S. Supreme Court justices responded to the U.S. government's efforts to bully property owners by punching the bully square in the nose.

A barber shop in Greeley refuses service to people who smell like marijuana. The owner of Hugo’s Barber Shop said he felt he had to step in when it got bad. “I feel that it’s my right to make the statement. It’s the same thing as no shoes no service,” said shop owner Hugo Corral. When his customers, many of them with children, started expressing their frustration about the issue he decided it was time for a change. “A mother calls and says hey we can’t go in there anymore because we don’t want it to smell like marijuana when...

Oklahoma House Votes to Protect Property Rights from Feds and UN 06 March 2014 With radical U.S. government and United Nations schemes such as “sustainable development” and UN Agenda 21 being quietly implemented across America at all levels of government under a variety of names and pretexts, lawmakers in the Oklahoma House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly this week for legislation to protect the unalienable rights to private property and due process in the state. The “Oklahoma Community Protection Act,” which would nullify Agenda 21 and other outside assaults on individual rights in the state, now goes to the Oklahoma...

Governor Jan Brewer (R., Ariz.) was correct to veto SB 1062, but she should have done it for a different reason: It did not go far enough. Brewer faced tremendous pressure to kill this measure, which would have let religious business owners refuse to serve gay patrons. Many Americans understandably had a visceral reaction against this legislation that, fairly or not, was seen as a potential green light for homophobia. The fact that this bill would have allowed enterprises to spurn gay clientele due to religious liberty probably sharpened the burrs beneath the saddles of its foes. However, what Brewer...

Moonbat demigod Nelson Mandela’s collectivist legacy continues to unfold in what was once a prosperous and relatively civilized country: The Economic Freedom Fighters have stuck to their guns for the nationalisation of mines and expropriation of land without compensation. Party leader Julius Malema on Saturday unveiled the organisation’s elections manifesto at Mehlareng Stadium in Tembisa, east of Johannesburg. “We want to do away with colonial patterns of ownership in South Africa,” he said. That means if a white person owns it, the government is going to take it, just like in Zimbabwe, which has been reduced to basket case status...

Nine years after the Supreme Court’s Kelo decision gutted the right of American property owners to resist eminent-domain seizures, the neighborhood at the center of the case remains a wasteland. Fort Trumbull in New London, Conn., was bulldozed to fulfill the vision of politicians and developers eager to create a New Urbanist mixed-use “hub” for upscale living in the depressed town near the mouth of Long Island Sound.

"Local officials who abuse zoning authority powers to cower citizens into submission and deprive land owners of Constitutional rights in the enjoyment of their land must be subject to fines and actual damages they cause including attorney fees," Delegate Bob Marshall noted in support of his HB 1219 recently introduced in the Virginia General Assembly. Marshall introduced his bill in direct response to incidents precipitated by county officials who threatened Virginia citizen farmer Martha Boneta. Boneta gained national attention after she was cited and threatened with $5,000 per-day fines for hosting such 'menacing activities' as a birthday party for eight 10-year...

Del. Bob Marshall, R-Manassas, has introduced a bill that would give farmers and landowners’ property rights remedies against local zoning laws. The bill is inspired by the Martha Boneta debacle last year. But unlike last year’s “Boneta Bill,” HB1219 extends beyond farmers to anyone who owns property. The bill also tackles other issues such as the constitutional rights of farmers. HB1219 says that local governments that violate constitutional rights through zoning must pay their victims the amount of the fines they sought to impose and the actual damages, including attorney fees. The bill also allows the Virginia Attorney General to...

World War II veteran Frank Whitney is fighting taxpayer-funded attempts by a New York village to seize his private property. Officials in the village of Saltaire on Fire Island, N.Y., are trying to take Whitney’s Saltaire Market grocery using eminent domain so they can build a municipality-owned market, the New York Post reported. And in an attempt to get their hands on the 88-year-old’s property, which was damaged in 2012 by Superstorm Sandy, village officials may try to raise the $2.5 million needed to buy and refurbish his grocery store by increasing the area’s property taxes. Whitney said he has means and...

NOVI (AP) - A Christmastime turf battle is being waged in suburban Detroit. A Novi family has been ordered to remove a seven-piece nativity scene from the front yard of their home, or face possible fines of $25 to $100 per week. The order given to Joe and Betty Samona didn't come from the government. It came from their subdivision association, which said they should have sought permission from the board of directors to place the figures outside their home. Michigan courts have said homeowners who join neighborhood or condominium associations must follow the rules set by the group. Dean...

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – A video has gone viral after a Long Island man recorded a police officer who threatened to ticket him if he washed his car in the driveway. As WCBS 880′s Sophia Hall reported Friday, the incident happened on Hawthorne Road in Garden City. The 24-year-old said he was washing his 1997 Volkswagen in his driveway when a police officer told him he wasn’t allowed to do that. The officer said although the car wasn’t going to be washed in the street, which is illegal, washing it in the driveway would still be in the public’s view,...

The Bureau of Land Management held a public meeting surrounding its draft environmental impact statement surrounding greater sage grouse habitat and possible measures to protect sage grouse habitat. The EIS listed six alternatives, with alternative D listed as the preferred alternative. It’s aimed at balancing competing human interests, land uses and the conservation of natural and cultural resource values, while sustaining and enhancing ecological integrity across the landscape, including plant, wildlife and fish habitat. BLM Branch Chief for Renewable Resources and Planning Joe Tague, who traveled across parts of northern California and Nevada to discuss the DEIS and inform the...

In tropical South Florida, it's growing season. Temperatures are in the 80s, there's lots of sun and good rain, and normally, Hermine Ricketts' plants would already be in the ground. "By now, this should be probably Red Sails lettuce, which is a beautiful color lettuce, or purple mizuna, which is a beautiful filigreed purple leaf," she says. But this year, Ricketts' vegetable planting has been derailed by a legal fight over what she can plant and where she can plant it. Her garden is in the front yard of her home in Miami Shores, because that's where the sun is...

“I’ve always paid my taxes and have never been arrested or charged with any crime in my life. I am a successful small-business man. But in January of this year, I woke up to find that my business’ entire bank account — more than $35,000 — had been wrongly seized.” These are the words of Terry Dehko, who since 1978 has owned Schott’s Supermarket in Fraser, Michigan. His daughter, Sandy, began working with her dad at the store when she was 12, and now helps him run the business. Last year, the IRS conducted an audit of the store, and...

The genius of capitalism is that there is a link between effort and reward. In a genuine market economy (as opposed to cronyism), people can only make themselves rich by working harder and smarter to satisfy the needs and wants of others. The blunder of statism is that the link between effort and reward is damaged. Punitive tax rates, for instance, punish people for producing. Redistribution programs, meanwhile, create incentives for dependency. And regulation throws lots of sand in the gears of the economy, while also creating big opportunities for corrupt cronyism. I sometimes try to make this clear by...

It seems the city of Vancouver, British Columbia is demonstrating that quite literally. "Bancouver," as it will not be affectionately referenced has decided to ban door knobs. No, seriously, they have.

A Miami Shores couple is taking the city to court over veggies. For 17 years they grew vegetables in their front yard. But last May, Miami Shores’ Code Enforcement officers inspected Hermine Ricketts and husband Tom Carroll’s property and informed them that they were breaking the law by having a vegetable garden in front of their home. … Miami Shores passed an ordinance that went into effect last May which banned front yard vegetable gardens. The city threatened Ricketts and Carroll with fines of $50 a day, or about $1,500 per month, if they did not uproot the garden. Unable...