Free Republic

BISBEE — A recent court decision that held the Border Patrol liable for occupying private property in California might be applied to lands in other places near the U.S.-Mexico border, including Cochise County. Otay Mesa Property LP, Rancho Vista Del Mar and Otay International LLC filed a lawsuit in March 2006 seeking compensation for the use of 750 acres of valuable development land in San Diego County. Without permission from landowners, the Border Patrol buried numerous sensors, and then entered the property when the sensors indicated movement of potential illegal immigrants. On Tuesday, the U.S. Court of Federal Claims held...

JOHN DAY -- Ranchers and environmentalists have locked horns over cattle grazing for years. Now a battered economy and a looming court decision are fueling a full-on battle in Grant County. On one side, ranchers and the county chairman say proposed grazing limits could deal a knockout punch to more than a dozen cattle operations and, because of job losses and lost tax revenue, county social services.On the other side, an environmental group says wild steelhead are in decline because of stream bank damage caused by grazing cattle. "The mood here is not good," says Mark Webb, chairman of...

PITTSBURGH – The government will begin taking land from seven property owners so that the Flight 93 memorial can be built in time for the 10th anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks, the National Park Service said. In a a statement obtained by The Associated Press, the park service said it had teamed up with a group representing the victims' families to work with landowners since before 2005 to acquire the land. "But with few exceptions, these negotiations have been unsuccessful," said the statement, which was to be released later Thursday. The seven property owners own about 500 acres still...

When the Pilgrims landed in 1620, they established a system of communal property. Within three years they had scrapped it, instituting private property instead. Hoover media fellow Tom Bethell tells the story. There are three configurations of property rights: state, communal, and private property. Within a family, many goods are in effect communally owned. But when the number of communal members exceeds normal family size, as happens in tribes and communes, serious and intractable problems arise. It becomes costly to police the activities of the members, all of whom are entitled to their share of the total product of the...

Ever since the noisy demonstration at the Democratic Party's Unity Luncheon two weeks ago, everyone keeps saying the tiff between labor and the far left is much ado about nothing. But that's not how it seems. There will be a City Hall rally today at noon organized by the Building Construction and Trades Council, which opposes to a proposal that could make it harder to renovate or raze buildings in neighborhoods deemed historic. Union spokesman Mike Theriault said he expects a crowd total "in four figures." The proposed planning code changes are being pushed by former Board of Supervisors President...

Economic development can and has occurred regularly without the forced taking of a private citizen’s home or business. The “Private Property Rights Protection Act of 2009” H.R. 1885, assures investors that their property will not be auctioned off to the highest bidder in the name of the public good.

To the framers of the U.S. Constitution, property was as sacred as life and liberty. The inalienable right to own -- and control the use of -- private property is perhaps the single most important principle responsible for the growth and prosperity of America. It is a right that is being systematically eroded. Private ownership of land is not compatible with socialism, communism, or with global governance as described by the United Nations. Stalin, Hitler, Castro, Mao - all took steps to forcefully nationalize the land as an essential first step toward controlling their citizens. The UN, without the use...

What is happening in the cradle of the modern civil rights movement? Jimmy McCall would like to know. 'It was more my dream house,' he laments, 'and the city tore it down ... It reminds me of how they used to mistreat black people in the Old South.' In 1955, Rosa Parks took on the whole system of Jim Crow by refusing to give up her seat on a segregated Montgomery bus. Today, McCall is waging a lonely battle against the same city government for another civil right: the freedom to build a home on his own land. Though McCall's...

Beverly Anderson is mad as hell. She just started to get tickets for parking in her own driveway. That's right. The District of Columbia is ticketing people who park their cars in their own driveways. ---- So what does the law say? "Any area between the property line and the building restriction line shall be considered as private property set aside and treated as public space under the care and maintenance of the property owner." ----------- Basically what that means is most property owners in the District don't own the land between their front door and the sidewalk, but they...

Tim Clements was excited about getting his new business up and running. Several weeks ago, he put up an impressive sign on the gate of his 10-acre horse farm on remote Hampstead Drive, tucked away in a pastoral setting in southeast Hernando not far from the Pasco County line. He named the business the CJ Dude Ranch, combining his last name and that of David Jennings, co-owner of the property. "I just named it for us two dudes,'' he said. "Two guys on a farm with horses.'' Clements put the finishing touches on a new Web site, cjduderanch.com, that features...

Last Monday began the PBS Series, "WE SHALL REMAIN" with their first Episode "After The Mayflower". The ones that will get my attention begin next week, Monday April 20th, 2009, and especially the April 27th "Trail of Tears" episode which will feature "The Ridge", the Cherokee leader and his clan who I wrote about in "Jesus Wept" An American Story. It will be VERY interesting to see how PBS deals with this situation or if they will be overtaken with the usual political correctness and historical rumor. My story is taken from documented records as well as family letters saved...

SIERRA VISTA - A group of Cochise County ranchers had a message for two federal government representatives on Saturday: Border Patrol agents need to be on the border, not miles away from it. U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., and the Border Patrol Tucson Sector Chief Robert Gilbert listened to the ranchers on Saturday during a more than two-hour meeting. "The border is unpatrolled," said veterinarian Dr. Gary Thrasher. When it comes to the much-touted border fence, he said, "I see more welders repairing the border fence than I see Border Patrol agents patrolling." Rancher Derek Garland echoed that message. "My...

Governor Markell Set to Sign Senate Bill 7 WEB RELEASE: April 3, 2009 CONTACT: Bob Ewing (703) 682-9320 Arlington, Va.—For the second time in as many years, the Delaware legislature has passed historic eminent domain reform. Both houses of the Delaware legislature voted unanimously to approve S.B. 7, which will protect homes, small businesses, farms and houses of worship from the abuse of eminent domain for private profit. The legislation heads to Governor Jack Markell, who has said he would sign the bill. “Delaware just shot to the head of the class,” said Steven Anderson, an attorney at the Institute...

Looking back three years ago, it is hard to fathom how much has changed from the frenzied pace of development then going forward. Land and housing prices were still rising, ever-larger development projects were being launched, and growth debates were raging across Southern California. That’s all gone now. As key real estate players suddenly find themselves without jobs, as more developers file bankruptcy, and more projects bite the dust, the depth of this “downturn” is sinking in. Many, of course, have “been through this before.” By that they mean, they’ve weathered the cyclical postwar busts that have intermittently interrupted the...

WASHINGTON — Congress on Wednesday set aside more than 2 million acres in nine states as protected wilderness - from California's Sierra Nevada mountains to the Jefferson National Forest in Virginia. The legislation is on its way to President Barack Obama for his likely signature. The House approved the bill, 285-140, the final step in a long legislative road that began last year. The vote came two weeks after the House rejected the bill amid a partisan dispute over gun rights. The measure was brought up again in the Senate and approved last week, setting up Wednesday's vote. The bill...

Like so many others, I have long been a visitor to New Orleans. In my case, the first visit was 1979, when we studied the city to influence the design of the new town of Seaside. I have been back often – for New Orleans is one of the best places to learn architecture and urbanism in the United States. My emphasis on design might seem unusual, but it shouldn't be, for the design of New Orleans possesses a unique quality and character comparable to the music and the cuisine that receives most of the attention. During those visits, sadly,...

Breaking news alert from Fox News, the House has approved the 90% tax on bonuses given out by firms that accepted bailout funds.

Every time it rains here, Kris Holstrom knowingly breaks the law. Holstrom's violation is the fancifully painted 55-gallon buckets underneath the gutters of her farmhouse on a mesa 15 miles from the resort town of Telluride. The barrels catch rain and snowmelt, which Holstrom uses to irrigate the small vegetable garden she and her husband maintain. But according to the state of Colorado, the rain that falls on Holstrom's property is not hers to keep. It should be allowed to fall to the ground and flow unimpeded into surrounding creeks and streams, the law states, to become the property of...

Contrary to a parade of films and books demonizing life in the 'burbs, those who live there love it ___ Suburban angst makes for good novels and films, but people who live between the country and the city in the United States like their lawns and driveways. Suburbanites are significantly more satisfied with their communities than people who live in cities, small towns or rural areas, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center's Social & Demographics Trends Project. "Ever since there have been suburbs, there have been harsh critiques of suburbs - a common one being that they...

Think tanks have long ranked not just countries, but U.S. states, according to their economic freedom, and Reporters Without Borders grades nations on their respect for press freedom. Until recently, though, nobody has really tried to assess the attitude toward personal freedom prevailing at the state level, or to really get a handle on the best place to live in the United States for people who want the government to just leave them alone. A new report from George Mason University's Mercatus Center takes on that job, finishing the work started last summer by Reason magazine. In Freedom in the...

SENATE, No. 2641 STATE OF NEW JERSEY 213th LEGISLATURE INTRODUCED FEBRUARY 26, 2009 Sponsored by: Senator KEVIN J. O'TOOLE District 40 (Bergen, Essex and Passaic) STATEMENT This bill, the "New Jersey Right to Home Defense Law," authorizes a person to use force, including deadly force, in those instances where the person reasonably fears imminent peril of death or serious bodily harm from an intruder or attacker in his home or residence. The bill sets forth the circumstances under which a person is presumed to have a reasonable fear of imminent peril of death or serious bodily harm. Those circumstance include...

MIDDLESEX, Vt. - Paul Gillies, a Montpelier attorney, traveled a slow and circuitous route on an unpaved mountain track until he reached a hairpin bend in the route. Nearby, where fresh snow resembled a dazzling white comforter, a gap between the pine trees appeared to expose remnants of an old, unused road. Gillies, 60, was in his element. He studied the landscape, gauged the possibilities, and wondered whether he had stumbled on yet another of the thousands of forgotten roads that have vanished from the map. In Vermont, the issue has become more than just a matter of curiosity about...

Supervisor Chris Daly plans to introduce a series of new laws that's intended to help renters during these tough economic times -- a proposal that is likely to anger landlords. The proposals include the suspension of any rent increases that would cause a tenant's rent to exceed one-third of their income; expansion of the rights of tenants who want to add roommates to help pay their rent; and limiting the amount of "banked" rent increases -- where annual rent increases allowed under city laws are saved up and then imposed at one time -- to 8 percent.

THE lawns are green and well-tended. The swimming pools are filled with water, not mosquitoes. Steve Cushman, head of the local chamber of commerce, counts just 27 empty storefronts out of 410 along the city’s main shopping street—a rate that many cities in California would envy. In the past year Santa Barbara County has seen a slight increase in employment. The secret to its health? Hostility to development and lack of youth. Nowhere in California is immune to recession, but the oldest areas are proving most resistant. Of the ten counties with the lowest unemployment rates, nine, including Santa Barbara,...

Whole Foods Market, the national natural food supermarket chain that represents itself as supporting local communities, found itself under attack Wednesday when a large group of East Bay residents gathered outside its Emeryville headquarters vociferously protesting the company’s decision not to renew the lease of Ashby Flowers, a family-owned business that rents a small building in the corner of the parking lot at the company’s 3000 Telegraph Ave. location in Berkeley. In an interview with the Planet at his company’s regional headquarters Wednesday, Whole Foods Regional President David Lannon said that the company was not renewing the lease since it...

The ACLU finally gets one right by taking the side of a beleaguered bait shop owner in Clearwater, Florida that is under attack by city officials over a mural of game fish painted on the outside walls of his bait shop. City officials are claiming that the fish painting is an "advertisement sign" that falls under a beautification ordinance prohibiting large signs for businesses. The City has fined the shop's owner Herb Quintero $700 and is warning that a further $500 a day fine can be imposed unless he paints over the fish. But Quintero feels there is a fallacy...

IF YOU LOOK at projections for the Pacific Northwest, through the 21st century, a population equivalent to 15 Seattles will move into this "livable" corner of the planet. "We have one last chance to get this right," says Gene Duvernoy, president of the Cascade Land Conservancy. What is "right?" The answer -- strike a balance that preserves what makes us "livable." According to a recent Pew Research poll, spaces and cities of the West exert a powerful draw on Americans. Denver, Seattle and San Diego topped the list of where folks would like to move. So as not to wreck...

International Property Rights Index is out and the United States ranks overall the 15th best in the world. The index focuses on three areas: Intellectual Property, Physical Property, and Legal and Political environment. US rank number one in copyrights, Patent Rights and Inheritance rights.

HOUSE BILL No. 6394 September 3, 2008, Introduced by Reps. Elsenheimer and Walker and referred to the Committee on Intergovernmental, Urban and Regional Affairs. A bill to amend 2006 PA 110, entitled "Michigan zoning enabling act," (MCL 125.3101 to 125.3702) by adding section 409.

"Dale Henderson, a prominent Maine landowner who owns two pieces of land that the new trail runs through, is challenging the state over ownership of parts of the new Sunrise Trail. About 50 miles of the project recently was opened to hikers, bikers, cross-country skiers, snowmobiles and all-terrain vehicles. But Henderson isn’t waiting for the courts to decide his fate. He already has taken matters into his own hands. The landowner recently erected barricades to stop users from traversing his property. In the town of Hancock, Henderson put up a berm on the tracks at one end and a stone...

Arizona rancher Roger Barnett initially faced the possibility of paying $32 million to compensate several illegal immigrants he stopped at gunpoint on his land. He walked away instead with a verdict that rejected any notion he violated the trespassers' civil rights and affirmed that U.S. citizens can still detain aliens crossing the border. What remains to be seen, though, is what impact the $77,800 in damages that a jury Tuesday ordered Mr. Barnett to pay will have on America's larger immigration debate and the efforts of some illegals to get compensation from a country they aren't even allowed to enter....

For Dale Allee, a second-generation cattle rancher in southern Colorado, the idiom that nothing is certain but death and taxes is now a reality. "I just turned 80 last week. You know what that means? That means I'm not going to be around here very long, and somebody's going to have to pay those taxes," said Allee, who fears federal estate taxes will thwart his plans to pass his 4,200-acre Pueblo County ranch to his children. Land-rich but cash poor, Western ranchers are lobbying Washington to exempt them from the estate tax, which can force heirs to sell their inheritance...

The financial meltdown has produced a vast patchwork of foreclosed and abandoned single-family homes across America, accelerating the decades-long migration of our nation's poor from cities to the suburban fringe. In 2005, as rising property values reduced affordable-housing stock in inner-city neighborhoods, suburban poverty, in raw numbers, topped urban poverty for the first time. The trend will continue. By 2025, predicts planning expert Arthur C. Nelson, America will face a market surplus of 22 million large-lot homes (a sixth of an acre or more), attracting millions of low-income residents deeper into suburbia where decay and social and geographic isolation will...

Like many other artists inhabiting the cluster of old brick ware­houses in Fort Point, Andrew Woodward had cast a wary eye toward the wave of development sweeping the neighborhood near the Boston waterfront. But rather than getting priced out, Woodward is moving into a 92-unit converted warehouse topped by a gleaming glass-and-steel canopy. Woodward and his wife, a furniture maker, were able to purchase one of three affordable live/work spaces at FP3—which opened last summer with penthouse units starting at $1.8 million and studios at $350,000—thanks to a program aimed at keeping artists in Boston. With its concierge and swanky...

A federal jury on Tuesday ruled that an Arizona rancher did not violate the civil rights of 16 Mexican nationals he detained at gunpoint after they had snuck illegally into the United States in 2004, but the jury awarded $78,000 in actual and punitive damages to six of the illegal immigrants on claims of assault and infliction of emotional distress

TUCSON, Ariz. — A jury in Tucson has found that a southern Arizona rancher didn't violate the civil rights of a group of illegal immigrants who claimed he detained them at gunpoint in 2004. The federal jury also found Roger Barnett wasn't liable on claims of battery and false imprisonment. But the jury did find him liable Tuesday on four claims of assault and four claims of infliction of emotional distress. The jurors ordered Barnett to pay nearly $78,000 in damages. The bulk of that is punitive.

It didn't take Jim Risch long to show his true colors. On his very first vote in the U.S. Senate, Risch joined Mike Crapo and 10 other liberal Republican and 54 Democratic senators to stop a Republican filibuster, which would have continued debate and allowed for possible amendments to a huge omnibus public land-grab bill. The Omnibus Public Lands Management Act of 2009 will cordon off more than 3 million acres from energy leasing by restricting various areas as "federal wilderness" or "wild and scenic" riverway. The act includes 160 separate land measures, including Sen. Crapo's Owyhee Canyonlands wilderness. It...

Few cases better illustrate how dysfunctional this country's immigration and “justice” systems are today than that of Roger Barnett - a Cochise, Ariz., man who is being sued in federal court by a group of illegal aliens who accuse him of violating their “civil rights” for holding them at gunpoint after catching them trespassing on his property. The illegals, who are suing Barnett with the assistance of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF), seek $32 million for civil-rights violations, the infliction of emotional distress, and other things - $1 million in actual damages and $1 million in...

The Obama administration this week will announce a "good, solid" plan with the goal of stemming mortgage foreclosures and putting a floor under falling real estate prices, a senior White House aide said on Sunday. Speaking on "Fox News Sunday," senior adviser David Axelrod said the plan that President Barack Obama plans to announce on Wednesday will aim to stem foreclosures, provide immediate help to homeowners who are "right on the edge" of foreclosure, and ultimately help in "raising home values that have been plummeting." Mr. Obama plans to unveil his housing plan during a visit to Phoenix. As part...

<p>One of the 16 illegal immigrants allowed by a federal court to sue an Arizona rancher for stopping them at gunpoint after they sneaked across the U.S.-Mexico border is a convicted felon deported from this country after a 1993 arrest by U.S. authorities on drug charges, court records show.</p>

When clothes dryers account for at least 6% of the electricity used by U.S. households, is it any wonder that line-drying is coming back? In places where the practice is banned as an unsightly nuisance to neighbors, right-to-dry activists and blogging eco-moms are forming an alliance. Their cause: to reduce energy consumption and to call upon sunlight rather than bleach to get those whites even whiter. The movement also includes homeowners pinched by rising electric bills as well as some celebrity converts. Yes, there's even a blog dedicated to tracking who's who in L.A. line-drying. (For the curious, it's blog.linedryit.com/eco_facts/,...

While everyone is distracted with the Pelosi Reid Obama artery–choking, cardiac arrest, Pork Barrel Spending Bill, congress is sneaking-ly trying to pass the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009. Left-wing environmentalists are behind this bill to purposely undercut current progress toward affordable domestic energy. Essentially they will be stealing 300 million barrels of proven oil and 8.8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas from any future use.

Dogs do in chickens at center of Worthington controversy Tuesday, Dean Narciso 3:21 PM By Dean Narciso THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH Lael Weyenberg stands outside the chicken coop in her backyard in Worthington. Chris Russell | Dispatch Lael Weyenberg stands outside the chicken coop in her backyard in Worthington. Hillary, Veronica and Cindi are dead. The backyard chickens -- the subjects of a neighborhood pecking match that spilled over into a packed Worthington City Council debate last month -- fell prey to two loose dogs on Sunday, police said. Lael Weyenberg and her husband, Andrew Rozmiarek, returned from a friend's house...

An Arizona man who has waged a 10-year campaign to stop a flood of illegal immigrants from crossing his property is being sued by 16 Mexican nationals who accuse him of conspiring to violate their civil rights when he stopped them at gunpoint on his ranch on the U.S.-Mexico border. Roger Barnett, 64, began rounding up illegal immigrants in 1998 and turning them over to the U.S. Border Patrol, he said, after they destroyed his property, killed his calves and broke into his home. His Cross Rail Ranch near Douglas, Ariz., is known by federal and county law enforcement authorities...

TENAHA — A two-decade-old state law that grants authorities the power to seize property used in a crime is wielded by some agencies against people who are never charged with, much less convicted, of a crime. Law enforcement authorities in this East Texas town of 1,000 people seized property from at least 140 motorists between 2006 and 2008, and, to date, filed criminal charges against fewer than half, according to a San Antonio Express-News review of court documents. Virtually anything of value was up for grabs: cash,.......... ------------------------- This is an excerpt for free and open discussion. Go to provided...

Mexicans say Barnett violated their civil rights BISBEE — A trial started Monday in federal court in Tucson against a Douglas rancher and others charged with conspiring to violate the civil rights of some illegal immigrants along the U.S.-Mexico border. The defendants of the lawsuit are Roger Barnett, his wife, Barbara, and his brother, Donald. The plaintiffs are five women and 11 men who were in a wash in Douglas in 2004. The trial is taking place before Judge John Roll in U.S. District Court and is scheduled to run through Feb. 13. The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational...

Accessory apartments benefit society and the economy, and it's time for tax credits to promote them ___ Twenty years ago, we separately produced publications urging that governments should provide incentives for the creation of accessory apartments (sometimes called "mother-in-law apartments") in owner-occupied housing. Our writings pointed out that there was a shortage of small-unit housing; that household sizes had dropped, rendering many large homes ripe for partial use by renters; that it was irrational to maintain regulations that discouraged extended families from living next to each other; and that Germany, Japan and Finland had provided such incentives as housing policy....

HELENA Two bills put before lawmakers Thursday would put on the books a widely recognized right to use a gun on home intruders posing a serious threat, but one Republican says the Legislature needs to go farther in protecting Montanans’ Second Amendment rights. Sen. Larry Jent, D-Bozeman, and Rep. Kendall Van Dyk, D-Billings, presented their bills in Senate and House hearings Thursday morning with the backing of law-enforcement officials and prosecutors from across the state. The identical bills would enshrine the so-called “Castle Doctrine,” a common-law concept that holds a person can use deadly force in their own home if...

Forget the notion that dogs are man's best friend. To Sen. Ken Jacobsen no dog could compare to his beloved cat, Sam. So when the spunky 23-pound family pet died several years ago, Jacobsen was left wondering what to do with him. "I realized Sam would have wanted to be buried with my remains, right in North Seattle," Jacobsen said Tuesday. The idea first started as a joke, but when Jacobsen later decided to see if humans and pets could be buried together, he discovered it isn't allowed in cemeteries meant for humans. This week, the Seattle Democrat known for...

Shortly after homeowner Herbert Harris started to build a wheelchair ramp for his wife and an extra bedroom for his ill daughter, he learned of the violations. Harris lacked permits for the projects, which violated city regulations. So he applied to the Board of Zoning Appeals for a variance, or an exception to zoning rules. At last week' s board meeting, he got the variance, as did eight other property owners. But afterward, Kay Wilson, a city attorney, made a plea to the board's seven members. "Gotta know what the hardship is. Please," she said, a trace of strain in...