Free Republic

Gov. Larry Hogan never met a highway project he didn’t like. He’s a 1950s type of politician – solve all the state’s transportation gridlock and congestion by paving the countryside with lanes of new concrete.He’s got a $9 billion plan that is a lollapalooza: Let construction giants build and pay for toll lanes on the Capital Beltway and the busy I-270 corridor from the beltway to Frederick – 70 miles of exclusive Lexus lanes – and let those companies reap the toll rewards so they can recoup a staggering $7.6 billion investment (the actual cost is likely to be substantially...

In a recent video posted to YouTube, Dallas city councilperson (we don’t want to accidentally misgender anyone) Sandy Greyson can be seen ranting about how upset she (oops, we assumed its gender) is that the city can’t just claim eminent domain over a man’s land. “This is an eminent domain case for a much needed water line” Greyson starts off. She continues with “And the Council is being asked today to go to settle this case with a man who has fought us for years and has cost Dallas taxpayers millions of dollars and intends to cost us millions more...

Least terns. A federal lawsuit. Greenpeace. Vandals. Industrious beavers. Angry homeowners. Bureaucratic delays. These were among the obstacles and setbacks that had to be overcome before the Creek Turnpike was built. At one point, the chairman of the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority declared it a “total disaster” and exclaimed: “The Creek Turnpike in Tulsa, God only knows when that’ll be completed,” John Kilpatrick said, as reported by the Tulsa World’s Wayne Greene on Oct. 19, 1990. “If we had it to do all over again, we wouldn’t do that project,” the exasperated Kilpatrick said after federal bureaucrats held up construction of...

Can someone please help me find information, or convey information concerning the true story behind Donald Trump and eminent domain as it concerns the grandma in Georgia and her property. A Christian friend, way too influenced by the main stream media, was trying to convince me that DT is an evil, uncaring man with the story about the grandma's property. I was trying to help him understand that DT is a compassionate and caring person. I remember reading something on FR about the true story, which wasn't anti Trump at all. I told my friend that I would try to...

(this is pretty good) Please click to the link, for the article. Includes a video.

President Trump plans to unveil a new White House office on Monday with sweeping authority to overhaul the federal bureaucracy and fulfill key campaign promises — such as reforming care for veterans and fighting opioid addiction — by harvesting ideas from the business world and, potentially, privatizing some government functions. The White House Office of American Innovation, to be led by Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, will operate as its own nimble power center within the West Wing and will report directly to Trump. Viewed internally as a SWAT team of strategic consultants, the office will be...

The Supreme Court’s 2005 ruling in Kelo v. New London was that year’s blockbuster. Literally. The Court gave its blessing to the use of eminent domain to destroy blocks of housing so that city officials could pursue their dreams of a more wondrous community by seizing private property for a planned commercial development. That taking had been challenged on the grounds that the precise wording of the Fifth Amendment’s provision allowing eminent domain – that the property had to be taken for “public use” – did not countenance takings where there was merely a purported “public purpose” in doing so....

Former U.S. secretary of State George P. Shultz believes it's crucial to fight global warming to protect national security. Global warming is created by burning fossil fuel, he says, and payments for foreign oil sometimes wind up financing terrorism. And Shultz, who's also a former Treasury secretary, thinks the nation suffers an "economic vulnerability" because of its oil addiction. "While we have benefited from low-priced energy," he says, "we've also suffered from periodic spikes in the price of oil. Usually recessions go along with it." Moreover, continues the man who set up the Environmental Protection Agency four decades ago, "There's...

BERLIN — The seemingly endless saga of the house in which Adolf Hitler was born has taken a new turn, with the owner challenging an Austrian law that allows the government to seize ownership and, possibly, demolish the property. The house in the town of Braunau, just across the Inn River from Bavaria, has been in limbo for decades. The Austrian government took over the main lease in 1972 in an effort to ensure that the property would not fall into the hands of someone seeking to glorify its link to a dark history. Hitler was born in the building...

A dispute that threatens decade-old plans to build a western access road to O'Hare International Airport is headed to a federal agency, as the Illinois Toll Highway Authority sues the Canadian Pacific Railway. In a petition filed today, the tollway asked the U.S. Surface Transportation Board to allow it to force CP to sell or grant easements to the tollway for portions of railroad property immediately to the north of the railway's huge Bensenville Yards. The tollway indicated it also may eventually need access to the yard itself. The Surface Transportation Board is the federal agency that regulates railroads, and...

OKLAHOMA CITY--The 1600 square foot home on S.E. 15th came crashing down in a matter of minutes. It was demolished on Monday to make way for the new Eastern Oklahoma County turnpike. “It happened because they were ignorant of their rights and were victimized by the state,” said Steve Maguire. Maguire helped start Victims of Eminent Domain Fund, a non-profit dedicated to telling the stories of homeowners in that part of the county and stopping the turnpike from coming through. He says the owners of the home on S.E. 15th were told false things by the people acquiring the property...

A state agency that lost its bid to seize the home of piano tuner Charlie Birnbaum in state Superior Court last month plans to continue its lengthy legal battle to acquire the Oriental Avenue property.The Casino Reinvestment Development Authority, or CRDA, on Wednesday filed a notice appealing the Aug. 5 decision from Superior Court Judge Julio Mendez, who wrote the state agency's effort to condemn Birnbaum's property is a "manifest abuse of the eminent domain power." The agency has targeted the brick walkup that has been in Birnbaum's family for more than four decades as part of a mixed-use development project in...

A flag desecration charge was dropped Monday for a man who protested a crude oil pipeline that crosses his property by hanging an American flag upside down at his home, online court records show. Homer Martz, 63, was charged Friday under a state law that makes it illegal to defile, cast contempt upon, satirize or deride a flag. That law, however, was declared unconstitutional by a federal judge in December 2014 and state prosecutors were told not to enforce it. The law, which lawmakers have not removed from the books, says law enforcement officers have a duty "to enforce the...

As mayor of Oakland in the 2000s, Jerry Brown supported redevelopment. Then he returned to the governor's office in 2011 and inherited a $25 billion budget shortfall. Feeling the squeeze, Brown saw an opportunity to make $1.7 billion by eliminating redevelopment agencies and shifted. He liked redevelopment as mayor, he explained to the League of California Cities, but also: "I didn't quite understand it. It seemed kind of magical. It was the money that you could spend on stuff that they wouldn't otherwise let you spend." In Sacramento, fiscal restraint can only last so long. The urge to "spend on...

U.S. officials appear poised to make history by approving the first private space mission to go beyond Earth's orbit, according to people familiar with the details. The government's endorsement would eliminate the largest regulatory hurdle to plans by Moon Express, a relatively obscure space startup, to land a roughly 20-pound package of scientific hardware on the Moon sometime next year. It also would provide the biggest federal boost yet for unmanned commercial space exploration and, potentially, the first in an array of for-profit ventures throughout the solar system. The expected decision, said the people familiar with the details, is expected...

A little known Swedish-Canadian oil and mining conglomerate human rights groups have repeatedly charged produces “blood minerals” is among the Clinton Foundation’s biggest donors, thanks to a ($100 million pledge) in 2007, a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation has found.“Blood minerals” are related to “blood diamonds,” which are allegedly mined in war zones or sold as commodities to help finance political insurgencies or despotic warlords. When the Vancouver, Canada-based Lundin Group gave its $100 million commitment to the “Clinton Giustra Sustainable Growth Initiative,” the company had long been cutting deals with warlords, Marxist rebels, military strongmen and dictatorships in the...

One of the main reasons why America was so attractive to hard-working people used to be that if you were successful, you could enjoy your rewards and use your property as you thought best. Sadly, that is less and less true. One immigrant who can testify to that is Hinga Mbogo, who is about to be forced to close his auto repair business in Dallas. He came to the United States from Kenya in 1974 with some skill in repairing machinery and found a job working as an airplane mechanic. By 1985, he had accumulated the capital necessary to open...

Ah so! It seems T. Boone Pickens is not the disinterested environmental pioneer that his ads make him out to be. Michelle Malkin exposes the grand scale corruption that is behind Nancy Pelosi’s desire not to drill for more oil. It seems that she has stock in companies that create and run wind farms – T. Boone Pickens companies. Though she seemingly backtracked on labeling drilling a "hoax" this week, Pelosi refuses to consider GOP energy proposals that don't include massive government subsidies for so-called eco-alternatives that have never panned out. Which brings us to Madame Speaker's 2007 financial disclosure...

In 2005, the Fort Trumbull area of New London Connecticut was a growing middle class neighborhood. The people there were hard working and spent much of their lives building their homes and living out prosperous lives. That came to an end in 2000 when Liberal Fascist Democrats in City hall and in the state capitol of Hartford made a deal with Pfizer corporation to allow them to build a research laboratory and upscale housing in Fort Trumbull. According to estimates by the same lying fascists, over 5000 new jobs would be created. Connecticut was one of the states hardest hit...

BREWER, Maine — When Ken and Jo-Ann Arbo moved into their home in Eddington 22 years ago, they thought they found the perfect place to live.“I hunt right there. I fish out there. I snowmobile out there,” Ken Arbo said of the woods and fields near the couple’s home. “That is why we moved out there.”Now the Arbos face the real possibility of moving again.Their Lambert Road home is within the path of the controversial I-395/Route 9 connector, a proposed two-lane road from Brewer to Eddington meant to ease heavy truck traffic and improve safety on nearby routes 46 and...