Free Republic

On April 17 and 18, Colorado Parks and Wildlife received reports of livestock depredation by wolves in Grand County. The agency confirmed that four cattle were killed... Four yearling cattle have been killed by a wolf or wolves in Grand County. Colorado Parks and Wildlife believes the depredation occurred between Monday night and Tuesday morning. In an email to Sky-Hi News, Parks and Wildlife officials stated that they responded to a possible livestock depredation incident on Wednesday morning and then again on Thursday morning. Both incidents occurred on the same property. On Wednesday, the agency investigated three yearling cattle that...

The Institute for Justice says its data show that a century-old Supreme Court doctrine created a huge exception to the Fourth Amendment. Police can traipse onto the vast majority of private property in the country without a warrant thanks to a century-old Supreme Court decision, according to a new study by the Institute for Justice, a libertarian-leaning public-interest law firm. In a study published in the spring 2024 issue of Regulation, a publication of the Cato Institute, Institute for Justice attorney Josh Windham and research analyst David Warren estimate that at least 96 percent of all private land in the...

Our Founding Fathers recognized private property rights and understood they were a chief basis of prosperity and freedom. But of late, the administrative state has been usurping vast amounts of land and has overstepped its authority. State and local governments -– and, needless to say, citizens and businesses -– have no part in the decision-making. Your land could any time cease to be yours at the federal government’s will.This extensive land-grab in America is part of the global ‘Half Earth’ agenda, initiated by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) at the Earth Summit 2012 in Rio de...

Americans are growing increasingly frustrated at property tax levels, a new poll has shown. According to a new UChicago Harris/AP-NORC poll, around two thirds of Americans surveyed believe their property tax rate is too high. The poll was conducted in 2023, between December 14 to 18, with 1,024 participants across all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The survey found 69 percent of adults in the U.S. believe their property tax rates were "unfair", with 27 percent saying they were "about right", and 3 percent claiming they are taxed too little. Across the country, property taxes, also known as...

The decision provides important protection for property rights, and features a powerful concurring opinion by prominent conservative Judge Amal Thapar. In many states, asset forfeiture laws allow law enforcement agencies to seize valuable property based on mere suspicion that it was used in a crime, and then keep it even if the owner was never convicted of any crime. On top of that, some force owners to wait many months before they even have a chance to challenge the forfeiture in a hearing. Yesterday, in Ingram v. Wayne County, the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit issued a...

Like a lot of Coloradans, residents of Costilla County balked at the changes to their property values because of what it means for their property taxes. Higher values, higher taxes. The county assessor is in charge of determining that value, but the values that people are getting back don't make much sense to them right now. Whether you are Joe C. Rodriguez who has lived in southern Colorado for 79 years, or Tom Philips who moved out there in 2021 for his retirement home, it's the same problem across the board. They both got increased values out of what they...

Two recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions are victories for anyone dealing with government administrative agencies, say lawyers interested in the cases. One constitutional scholar warns that the decisions are only the first steps in the fight to maintain our form of democracy. “Administrative power is the greatest threat to our constitutional rights,” Phillip Hamburger, a Columbia University School of Law law professor and CEO of the New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA), told The Epoch Times. Mr. Hamburger is the author of “Is Administrative Law Unlawful?” a treatise on the dangers of administrative law. Lawyers interviewed by The Epoch Times believe...

Ownership of electric vehicles may be on the rise, but one Florida homeowner is still getting grief from his homeowners’ association about his new Rivian R1T. Weston Hills Country Club resident Glenn Gordon describes his surprise when he received a letter from his HOA telling him that his pickup is against community regulations and that he could not keep it parked in his driveway overnight, local news station WPLG reported. The neighborhood rules, which were reportedly written in the 1980s, stipulate that trucks, trailers, RVs, and commercial vehicles cannot be parked in the community overnight. The HOA says that Gordon...

The Bureau of Land Management announced new rules that will greatly increase the cost of oil and gas development on public lands. Critics say if the rules become final, it will likely make oil and gas production in Wyoming uneconomical. The Bureau of Land Management has announced new rules that, if finalized, will increase bonding requirements, royalty rates and minimum bids for oil and gas drilling on public lands. Statements by the bureau on the proposed rules say they will lead to more responsible leasing and development processes. Critics say it’s just a step toward the elimination of oil and...

SPENCER, Iowa — Iowa landowners opposed to proposed liquid carbon dioxide pipelines crossing their property won a legal victory Wednesday, when a judge ruled a state law giving surveyors the right of entry to private property is unconstitutional. Ruling in a Clay County case, District Judge John Sandy said the law violated Iowa's constitution because it does not provide for just compensation for certain damages to landowners for their loss of the right to deny entry onto their land. "The court can find no other reasonable interpretation in which Iowa Code (section) 479B.15 passes 'constitutional muster,'" Sandy said in his...

If you’ve opened your property tax assessment you’ve already had your coronary. Your property value has gone up between 30% and 70%.. That means because the Legislature, under Democrat Gov. Bill Ritter, froze mill levy rates (preventing them from lowering) and because voters foolishly repealed the Gallagher Amendment in 2020, your property taxes are going to go up some 30% to 70% next year. But don’t worry. The same people who have put you in this bind are going to pantomime rescuing you just as the clock runs out on their legislative session. What heroes. The Colorado state Legislature, with...

It was a dream come true—or rather about to come true—when the Halls bought their forever home. It had everything they needed and more: five bedrooms, four bathrooms, a family room, a dining room, a roomy garage, good schools, and a good neighborhood. Sure, a fixer-upper, but they felt up to it. Prentiss Hall, a home improvement contractor, made it his life project, and everybody lent a hand—his wife, Tawanda, and six children, cousins, and friends. “We were really excited,” Tawanda told The Epoch Times. They negotiated the price down to $67,000—a bargain, perhaps, but the home demanded a daunting...

Homeowners across Colorado are bracing themselves for a hefty increase in their property tax bills. This is the year county assessors re-value homes and properties. On Wednesday, those assessors warned homeowners that the values are increasing from 30% to more than 60% in some counties. ... "The fact is that there is no reprieve for homeowners this year. From corner to corner of Douglas County and probably the state, all values have gone up quite significantly. If it's rural, if it's suburban, if it's large, if it's small, if it's expensive or inexpensive, all properties in Douglas County in the...

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis wants to steamroll local zoning and land-use rules in favor of his own vision for planning and development across the entire state? Not so fast, say Colorado’s cities. Their opposition first popped up when their chief lobbyist at the Capitol, Kevin Bommer of the Colorado Municipal League, labeled Polis’ plan a “breathtaking power grab.” That was upon its unveiling a few weeks ago as Senate Bill 23-213. It was just the start of the push-back. As reported by Colorado Politics, the CEO of Colorado’s No. 2 city, Colorado Springs Mayor John Suthers, turned up at the...

In his annual letter to shareholders, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon suggested that the U.S. government and climate conscious corporations may have to seize citizen’s private property to enact climate initiatives while there still time to stave off climate disasters.

“The Supreme Power cannot take from any Man any part of his Property without his own consent. For the preservation of Property being the end of Government, and that for which Men enter into Society, it necessarily supposes and requires, that the People should have Property, without which they must be supposed to lose that by entering into Society, which was the end for which they entered into it, too gross an absurdity for any Man to own. Men therefore in Society having Property, they have such a right to the goods, which by the Law of the Community are...

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said in his annual shareholder letter Tuesday that the government may need to seize private property to advance clean energy initiatives. Dimon discussed the need to quickly begin investing in solar projects and other green initiatives and suggested that the government should use eminent domain to seize property for those projects. “At the same time, permitting reforms are desperately needed to allow investment to be done in any kind of timely way. We may even need to evoke [sic] eminent domain – we simply are not getting the adequate investments fast enough for grid, solar,...

The three liberal justices on the Supreme Court joined together with the appointees of former President Donald Trump in deciding in favor of Montana property owners fighting a federal land grab. The Washington Examiner reported liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson united with Trump appointed Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh in the majority opinion. Justice Clarence Thomas, who was appointed by former President George H.W. Bush, along with Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, two appointees of former President George W. Bush, voted in the minority.

This is bad, real bad! I don’t want to see that in my country! Swiss citizens are now facing forced evictions to house Ukrainian refugees. Just one step further and officials in Switzerland will start requisitioning private property and possessions for Ukrainian refugees. This has already started in Germany… In the latest news, the municipality of Seegräben in Canton Zürich is throwing out a long-term tenant out of his apartment because they are unable to find apartments to accommodate asylum seekers from Ukraine. I think this is just the beginning… Fight for your rights… Swiss tenant has to leave apartment...

The Gunnison Stockgrowers’ Association filed a 22-page comment with the Colorado Wildlife Commission detailing the group members’ concerns about the Draft Wolf Plan process laid out by Colorado Parks and Wildlife. Ken Spann, who has delivered public comment to the CPW Commission on behalf of the group, said the endorsement of the comments lies in every acre of agricultural land in Gunnison County. The basis of their concerns is the survival of the area’s long standing ranching operations as well as the existing big game and other wildlife in the Gunnison Valley. According to Spann, established in 1894, the Gunnison...