Free Republic

I would like to offer my sincerest condolences to the Scalia family after the passing of Justice Scalia. Justice Scalia was a remarkable person and a brilliant Supreme Court Justice, one of the best of all time. His career was defined by his reverence for the Constitution and his legacy of protecting Americans' most cherished freedoms. He was a Justice who did not believe in legislating from the bench and he is a person whom I held in the highest regard and will always greatly respect his intelligence and conviction to uphold the Constitution of our country. My thoughts and...

http://dailysignal.com/2015/09/16/connecticut-homeowners-fight-to-prevent-city-from-taking-their-homes-for-redevelopment/ Energy News Connecticut Homeowners Fight to Prevent City From Taking Their Homes for Redevelopment Melissa Quinn / @MelissaQuinn97 / September 16, 2015 / Janet Rodriguez's house on First Avenue in West Haven, Conn., is one of the homes the city is approved the use eminent domain on to make way for a $200 million high-end mall. (Photo: Janet Rodriguez) Every day, Janet Rodriguez sits at her home in West Haven, Conn., and she waits. She waits for a knock at her front door, a knock she fears will bring news that Rodriguez and her family will be forced to...

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...

If you're hoping to hear the Word of God being preached from the pulpit next time you go to church, you might want to brush-up on your lip reading skills. A new Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rule that goes in to effect on June 12 mandates that anyone or organization that uses a wireless microphone operating in the 700 MHz band must cease and desist. Countless ministers across the nation will likely be struggling to amplify their voices for their congregations to hear this weekend. Do not be alarmed if your church minister is suddenly arrested by federal agents during...

Every now and then, even in Oregon, environmental activists and property rights advocates find themselves on the same side of the political fence. One of those politics-makes-strange-bedfellows issues has been brewing in the Oregon Legislature and may still find its way to the governor's desk if Senate strategists can get it to the floor for a vote. House Bill 3058, which passed the House a couple of weeks ago, would allow private companies seeking to construct "linear utility or transportation" facilities to apply for removal and fill permits for wetlands on other people's property. These companies already have the considerable...

A dispute over the proper valuation of 10 acres of property in Eisenhower Valley has two of the city’s oldest families and the Sanitation Authority pitted against each other, with the sellers asking for $40 million and the city holding out for $10 million less. The Hoof-Fagelson Tract, formerly a go-kart track that now serves as a maintenance parking lot for Thrifty Rent-A-Car, is landlocked on one side by Carlyle development, and on the other side by I-495. While the tract sits next to Alexandria’s Waste Treatment facility, it also adjoins a proposed $150 million office and retail development at...

Six months ago, Alexander Sterin was running a laundromat in East Camden with 6,000 square feet of fluffing and folding. He paid his workers and his taxes, and still had plenty of quarters left to support his family. Today, Sterin is a financial mess and the Wash House is abandoned. Graffiti covers the walls, weeds wind through the parking lot. Men loiter near the boarded-up entrance, ignoring the signs that read No Trespassing: Property of the State of New Jersey. For this, Sterin - and Camden - have the New Jersey Schools Construction Corp. (SCC) to blame. The SCC condemned...

WASHINGTON, April 26 — The Supreme Court ruled, 5 to 3, today that Arkansas state officials were wrong to take away the home of a Little Rock man for nonpayment of real estate taxes.

This kind of government tyranny should be disavowed by every decent American. Stepping up to the plate is Branch Banking and Trust Company, headquartered in Winston-Salem, N.C. BB&T is a full-service bank with 1,100 offices throughout the Southeast. On Jan. 25, BB&T announced that it will not lend to commercial developers that plan to build condominiums, shopping malls and other private projects on land taken from private citizens by government entities using eminent domain.

After more than a decade fighting county officials and developers over a Midvale shopping center, Pearl Meibos and her family have finally come out on top. The Utah Supreme Court sided with the family this week in a fight over the Family Center shopping complex, which boxed in her family's century-old homestead with little room to spare. For shoppers, the ruling means the Ross Dress for Less and Bed, Bath & Beyond stores on Fort Union Boulevard could be partially torn down. Some of the Wal-Mart parking lot also could be torn out. For members of Meibos' Croxford family -...

This Land Is Not Your Land by Laurence M. Vance Vance Publications This land is your land, this land is my land, From California, to the New York Island, From the redwood forest, to the Gulf Stream waters, This land was made for you and me. ~ Woody Guthrie, "This Land is Your Land" My fellow Americans – this land is not your land. This land belongs to the federal government. And what it doesn’t own it can take through its power of eminent domain. The FY2004 Federal Real Property Profile has now been released. In it we see that...

ON JULY 1, Oakland took possession of two properties that housed two viable businesses -- Revelli Tires and Autohouse, which provided the livelihoods of John Revelli and Tony Fung -- by eminent domain so that a private developer can build apartments in the redevelopment zone. On Aug. 1, Oakland took possession of a parking lot about one block away -- on which owner Alex Hahn says he wants to build housing -- so that Sears can relocate its Auto Center to that lot. If you had to re-read the above paragraph, it is because this story makes no sense. Oakland,...

THE MORAL emptiness at the heart of the national Democratic Party organization was on sorry display July 22 when national Democratic Chairman Howard Dean spouted off not just with his usual inane insults, but with demonstrable lies. Really, there are too many decent people in the country who call themselves Democrats for them to be represented in party leadership by a man as off the wall as Dr. Dean. The national committee members who keep him in power do a disservice to their party and to the country. For months, Dr. Dean has been spewing an apocalyptic analysis of Republican...

Second Thoughts on Kelo A proper understanding of property rights suggests that the Kelo decision wasn't so bad after all. by John Hinderaker 07/05/2005 12:00:00 AM THE SUPREME COURT'S DECISION in Kelo v. City of New London has sparked a great deal of comment, most of it critical. Conservatives, in particular, have denounced Kelo's holding that economic development projects are a "public use" that municipalities and other government units can use eminent domain to carry out. George Will's analysis was representative: The question answered yesterday was: Can government profit by seizing the property of people of modest means and giving...

Also costs taxpayers $40M+ to boot! Be afraid...be very afraid.

After the extinguishment of quaint 18th Century notions like "property rights" and "public use" by the Supreme Court, "Just compensation" is not only the next thing to go from the Constitution, it is already effectively dead in consequence of this SC decision. It should not take an Alan Greenspan to figure this out. The value of a piece of property is based on supply, demand and location, location and location in free and fair open market bidding. Demand for urban real estate in particular comes from competition among real estate investors and individual homeowners. But if developers and investors can...

OGDEN - The city Redevelopment Agency took the first steps Tuesday toward condemning three properties in a downtown neighborhood to make way for a Super Wal-Mart. The Ogden City Council, acting as the agency board, voted 5-2 to negotiate or, if necessary, exercise its right of eminent domain to condemn two homes and a vacant lot. The owners of one home and the lot have died and heirs could not come to agreement on selling the properties to the city, said City Attorney Norm Ashton. The owners of the second home have moved out of state and have not been...

A state Capitol imbroglio has erupted over a proposal critics say would permit governments to hand over private property to developers with too little oversight. Senate Bill 5 would permit private developers to build public projects such as fire stations, parks, office buildings and roads for local governments without competitive bids. The governments could form public-private partnerships with developers to finance the projects, condemning any private property needed under eminent domain — the legal right to seize land. The process of selecting projects also would be secretive, with no details released until the government essentially approves the project. The companies...

I do think that I have at least one issue that I talk about on the air that most ... not all ... but most of my listeners agree with. Private property rights. I believe, and nobody has presented me with any evidence to the contrary, that no political system based on liberty and economic freedom has ever survived once private property rights came to be ignored. Now .. let me tell you a quick story about something called Fanplex. Fanplex was a the bright idea of some politicians representing a district adjoining Atlanta's Turner Field, the home of the...

In Ohio, and across the country, homeowners are battling cities and developers conspiring to seize their property.From his office at the top of Rookwood Tower, the seven-story, glass-and-steel building that his family’s real estate company built, Jeffrey Robert Anderson Jr., or J.R. as he is known here in Norwood, Ohio, can easily survey his empire. Directly below the tower and its 185,000 square feet of professional and financial services offices is Rookwood Pavilion, 23 acres of shopping and eating. A little farther to the left is Rookwood Commons -- not, Anderson advises me, a shopping plaza, but a "lifestyle center"...