Free Republic

Howard Lorber anticipates slow sales to continue until fall. Douglas Elliman is preparing for an unforgiving market ahead. During an earnings call for the brokerage’s parent company, Elliman chairman Howard Lorber said the firm cut staff by 25 percent, reduced all salaries by 15 percent and is seeking to consolidate offices and negotiate “rent reductions, deferrals or holidays” with landlords nationwide. And that’s despite not yet feeling the full effects of the “severe decline” in sales activity. At the end of last year, the brokerage had 125 office leases in the seven states where it operates. Elliman reported a net...

A very disturbing video was posted on Twitter this weekend. A homeowner in Los Angeles claims the local government is preventing him from removing a homeless encampment from his property.

(warning upset West Hollywood, California home owner that is not happy about street bums living on his property uses a little profanity) Look at the homeless epidemic in Los Angeles due to failed liberal policies, high taxes, and high crime. Police are now demanding citizens allow homeless people to camp on their private property, threatening this man with arrest if he moves them. https://twitter.com/MichaelCoudrey/status/1233928266764828672 

Funny how the environmental objectives of the "Save the Planet from the Flying Global Warming Monster" squad and that of Marxism line up so neatly. Of course you shouldn't have personal autonomy or private property. It's bad for the 'planet'. And by the planet, we mean the red planet. So it's no surprise that The Nation, where the synergy of the red and the green meet, should roll out a story like this, "If we want to keep cities safe in the face of climate change, we need to seriously question the ideal of private homeownership." ... And give up...

Families will argue this Thanksgiving. Such arguments have a long tradition. The Pilgrims had clashing ideas about how to organize their settlement in the New World. The resolution of that debate made the first Thanksgiving possible. The Pilgrims were religious, united by faith and a powerful desire to start anew, away from religious persecution in the Old World. Each member of the community professed a desire to labor together, on behalf of the whole settlement. In other words: socialism. But when they tried that, the Pilgrims almost starved. Their collective farming -- the whole community deciding when and how much...

A New York judge earlier this month recommended a landlord pay $17,000 in fines for threatening to call immigration authorities on an undocumented tenant. This is the first case related to housing where threatening to call Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to harass or intimidate a tenant has been found to be a violation of law, according to a spokesperson for the New York City Commission on Human Rights. Holly Ondaan, the tenant and an undocumented immigrant at the time the case was filed, testified in court that she became "an emotional wreck" when her former landlord, Dianna Lysius, threatened...

Yang: Climate Change May Require Elimination of Car Ownership Imagines 'constant roving fleet of electric cars' as alternative Graham Piro - SEPTEMBER 19, 2019 2:05 PM Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang said the United States may have to eliminate private car ownership to combat climate change during MSNBC's climate forum at Georgetown University Thursday morning. He told MSNBC host Ali Velshi that "we might not own our own cars" by 2050 to wean the United States economy off of fossil fuels, describing private car ownership as "really inefficient and bad for the environment." Privately owned cars would be replaced by...

 Tristan Justice Montana Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) introduced legislation Monday condemning socialism as the 2020 Democratic presidential field pulls the Democratic Party further to the left in the midst of the campaign season. “A radical, socialist, far-left movement is growing across this country. And it has taken root as the new voice of the Democratic Party,” Daines said on the Senate floor Monday, taking aim at Democrats’ Green New Deal and “Medicare-for-All” proposals pushed by candidates on the presidential campaign trail. The proposed resolution would make it the official position of the U.S. Senate that Marxism and socialism are...

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-VT, continued to defend Democratic socialism and argued that Americans would be "delighted to pay more in taxes" if his policies are carried out. On Wednesday, Sanders attempted to sway voters into the ideology of Democratic socialism and argued in favor for what he called an "Economic Bill of Rights," where every American would have a right for items like free health care and education. He also insisted that President Trump is a "corporate socialist" for providing billions in subsidies and tax breaks for corporations. During an appearance on CNN, the Democratic candidate was asked how he...

The name of a Navy veteran may be cleared after he was convicted, fined, and imprisoned for digging ponds in a wooded area near his Montana home, to supply water in case of fire. The Supreme Court has vacated a lower court ruling against Joe Robertson, who was sent to federal prison and ordered to pay $130,000 in restitution through deductions from his Social Security checks. Any definitive legal victory for Robertson would be posthumous, since he died March 18 at age 80. But his lawyers describe the Supreme Court’s action as a “big win” for Robertson’s widow, Carrie, who...

The first and chief design of every system of government is to maintain justice: to prevent the members of society from incroaching on one another’s property, or seizing what is not their own. The design here is to give each one the secure and peacable possession of his own property. - Adam Smith Utilizing property greatly advances a person’s opportunity to investment their time, intellect, labor and money. Coupled with limitless and competitive exchanges of ideas and products, these investments propel commerce, science, art and charity. Civilization advances. The USA: How Government Confiscates Private Property People seeking freedom throughout the...

The dusky gopher frog is a critter that can be found in certain areas of Mississippi — and nowhere else. Yet the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decided to “protect” the dusky gopher frog by using the Endangered Species Act to designate a 1,500-acre tract of private forestry land in Louisiana as “critical habitat necessary for the species’ survival,” even though the land is not inhabited by the frog, and is in fact unsuitable for the species. Naturally, the owners objected — the economic hit would have been up to $34 million, though the FWS refused to take that into...

In 2004, the Supreme Court ruled, in the Kelo v. City of New London decision, that eminent domain could be used to seize private property from one owner and give it to another in the name of "economic development."  It remains one of the most controversial decisions the court has made this century. Yesterday, Congress belatedly addressed the troubling issues raised by the decision by passing the Private Property Rights Protection Act.  As Ed Morrissey at Hot Air points out, no major media outlets covered this seminal issue regarding the rights of citizens to be secure in their property. Amazingly, not one major media outlet picked...

A troubling trend has occurred for ranchers in NE Washington ... cattle are experiencing breeding issues since the migration of wolves to the area... the rate of female cows .. that didn’t become pregnant has increased from five percent to about 20 percent. A cow must raise a calf every summer for the rancher to recoup costs ... Diamond M also has a winter range to cut costs, but when wolves came into the area about a decade ago, they’ve seen their cattle attacked ... Texas A&M University agreed with the open cow side effect from wolves, and an Eastern...

Over the weekend, David Hogg, the foul-mouthed anti-gun teen demagogue dubbed the “king of the snowflakes” on Twitter, held a “die-in” which prompted the supermarket chain Publix to temporarily stop all political contributions. Apparently, Hogg thinks that’s the answer to the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms, and now wants a repeat performance at a Trump Hotel. “So when are we doing a die-in at Trump Hotel?” Hogg tweeted Monday afternoon.

Lissa Lucas, a candidate in this year’s Democratic primary for West Virginia delegates, was escorted out of the Charleston state house because she read a list of House members and how much they pocketed from oil and gas companies. Newsweek reported that the meeting was about a proposal, the Co-Tenancy and Majority Protection Act, or H.B. 4268, that would allow these companies to drill on “minority mineral owners’ land without their consent.” The report said that some landowners worry that the bill will allow these companies to drill on their properties for the minerals located below. The West Virginia Oil...

Nightmare Before Christmas: Trump Re-Nominates Architect of Obama’s LGBT Agenda Chai Feldblum to EEOC. ( Full title ). President Donald Trump has re-nominated radical sexual identity activist Chai Feldblum, the architect of former resident Barack Obama’s LGBT agenda, to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Feldblum is a nightmare of a nominee for those who value religious freedom, private property rights, and the science-based standard that there are two sexes – male and female. As Obama’s most liberal gender ideology activist, Feldblum has said that whenever LGBT issues conflict with religious liberty and private property rights, religious liberty and private...

Ready for Thanksgiving? Before you eat that turkey, I hope you think about why America has turkeys for you to eat. Most people don't know. Everyone's heard about that first Thanksgiving feast -- Pilgrims and Indians sharing the harvest. We like the drawings of it we saw in schoolbooks -- shared bounty. Fewer people know that before that first feast, the Pilgrims nearly starved. They almost starved because they acted the way some Bernie Sanders fans want people to act. They farmed collectively. But communal farming creates what economists call "the tragedy of the commons." Think about what happens if...

Do you still think you are free? What happens if you live off-grid? If you live independent of utilities, water, and sewer, and provide your own energy through solar panels, have your own sewer system, and use rainwater, you may run into problems with your local government. Robin Speroni of Cape Coral, Florida, was sued by local officials that her off-grid home was illegal, citing the International Property Maintenance Code. She was found guilty of not being hooked to the water supply. “Speroni is still being hassled by the municipality of Cape Coral for not having a connection to city...

A jury has ruled that a real estate developer broke the law by destroying a swath of graffiti art in New York City, in a verdict that could provide legal protections for street artists across the US. The federal jury made its decision after a group of artists sued Jerry Wolkoff, who painted over their work at the 5Pointz building in Queens, New York City, in November 2013. 5Pointz, a former factory owned by Wolkoff, was a haven for graffiti artists from around the world and became a prominent tourist attraction. Wolkoff had given the artists permission to use the...