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City wants back rent from Kelo residents

In the adding insult to injury category, the city officials that triumphed over a group of Connecticut homeowners in a landmark Supreme Court property-rights case are expecting those residents to pay the local government rent dating back to the year 2000.

Source: WorldNetDaily, August 20, 2005

Pa. legislators criticized over pay raises

Not only did legislators increase their salaries 16 percent to 34 percent to at least $81,050 - more than any state except California - they crafted the package in secret without debate or public scrutiny, then left town.

Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer (online), August 10, 2005

Taking of developer's land for open space OK'd

In a twist on this summer's Supreme Court decision allowing a Connecticut city to seize private land and turn it over to developers, a New Jersey appeals panel has OK'd the taking of property from developers to assure the area remains as open space.

Source: WorldNetDaily, August 5, 2005

For N.J. family, ruling may doom beach cottage

Denise Hoagland has lived in her beachfront cottage on the New Jersey shore for 12 years.

Hoagland's is one of about 36 residential properties and vacant lots the city of Long Branch, N.J., wants to raze and turn into high-end condominiums. City officials are prepared to use eminent domain if necessary.

Source: USA Today (online), August 2, 2005

Alabama limits eminent domain

Alabama yesterday became the first state to enact new protections against local-government seizure of property allowed under a Supreme Court ruling that has triggered an explosive grass-roots counteroffensive across the country.

Source: The Washington Times (online), August 4, 2005

House approves limits on eminent domain

Private property owners would be protected from state and local governments seizing their land for economic development purposes under a bill overwhelmingly approved by the Texas House Sunday night.

Source: Houston Chronicle (online), July 18, 2005

States Trying to Blunt Property Ruling

Alarmed by the prospect of local governments seizing homes and turning the property over to developers, lawmakers in at least half the states are rushing to blunt last month's U.S. Supreme Court ruling expanding the power of eminent domain.

Source: Yahoo! News, July 19, 2005

Amendment would protect Californians' homes

Hoping to prevent government from seizing Californians' land for use by private developers, a state senator is introducing an amendment to the state constitution to guarantee property rights.

Source: WorldNetDaily, July 14, 2005

Latest property snatch: Missouri

The latest region worrying about property seizures by the government under eminent domain is the St. Louis suburb of Maplewood, Mo., where city officials are looking at the possibility of improving an area mostly filled with private businesses.

Source: WorldNetDaily, July 14, 2005

The selling out of America

For nearly 200 years, governments in America rarely bought private property, except "... for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dock-yards and other needful buildings," as specified in the U.S. Constitution. In the last 30 years, however, all governments – federal, state, and local – have gone on a buying spree, gobbling up land everywhere to protect and preserve, which, incidentally, is not one of the purposes authorized by the Constitution.

Source: WorldNetDaily, December 4, 2004

Congress aims to blunt court's eminent domain ruling

Lawmakers are trying to blunt a Supreme Court decision that says local governments can seize people's homes to make way for shopping malls and other private development.

Source: USA Today (online), June 30, 2004

Property battle heads to states

At least 10 states already forbid the use of eminent domain for economic development unless it is to eliminate blight and others, alarmed by the Supreme Court's decision clearing the way for the forcible removal of homeowners and business owners from their property, are considering new property rights protections.

Source: WorldNetDaily, June 27, 2005

Will Ruling Affect Ga. Homeowners?

Georgia Attorney General Thurbert Baker said Thursday’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling on private property rights will not affect state homeowners because of protections in the state constitution.

Source: News11 (online), June 23, 2005

Family May Lose Business To Court's Eminent Domain Decision

A landmark decision by the Supreme Court regarding eminent domain paves the way for local government to take your home or business to make way for private development -- and that's exactly what's happening to a business owner in downtown Hollywood [Florida].

Source: Local10 (online), June 23, 2005

Freeport business loses ground to eminent domain

You dreamed of the day you would own it. You saved money to buy it and hoped to live in it for years. So what would you do if the city bulldozed your home in the name of economic development? It can.

The city [in Texas] wants to use eminent domain to take 300 feet of Western Seafood's property for private economic development.

Source: KHOU (online), June 23, 2005

Decision Puts Issue Of Eminent Domain Back In States' Hands

The Institute for Justice had bold aspirations for the Kelo v. New London case. Before the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case, the Institute had been battling in state courts from Ohio to Connecticut to prevent governments from using their eminent domain powers to promote economic development....

Source: New London (CT) The Day, June 24, 2005

Private Property Pilfering

The Supreme Court is currently hearing arguments about whether or not you can keep you own property.

The specific case has to do with the city of New London, Connecticut, which wants to condemn some private property so that private developers can build an office facility. The city claims it has the right to take property under eminent domain for the sole purpose of increasing tax revenue. The owner of the property, obviously, has his own arguments against such a move.

Source: Business Reform (online), April 29, 2005

U.S. intel once considered causing huge quake

Months before the end of World War II, an American intelligence agency launched a top-secret project aimed at devising ways to trigger massive earthquakes and tsunamis that would wreak havoc among enemy civilian populations, recently uncovered documents reveal.

Source: WorldNetDaily, April 8, 2005

Woman arrested over 96 cents

A Mansfield, Ohio, woman was arrested and jailed for failure to file a 2001 city income tax bill totaling 96 cents.

Source: WorldNetDaily, March 6, 2005

Supreme Court reviews our right to keep private property

The Supreme Court is hearing a case that will affect the property rights of us all. The city of New London, Connecticut wants to condemn some private property so that private developers can build an office facility. The city claims it has the right to take property under eminent domain for the sole purpose of increasing tax revenue.

Source: WorldNetDaily, March 1, 2005

Schools snub Christian group despite ruling

A Christian group is battling a Maryland school district, charging officials are trying to circumvent a federal court ruling allowing the evangelistic ministry to advertise on campuses.

Source: WorldNetDaily, December 4, 2004

Students: Professors inject politics in class

A new poll finds that nearly half of students at 50 leading American colleges say professors frequently inject political comments into classroom discussions, even if those comments have nothing to do with the subject being taught.

Source: WorldNetDaily, December 1, 2004

American despotism

Last week, Washington Post columnist George Will penned a column "Despotism in New London" (Sept. 19, 2004). In it, he described how Connecticut's Supreme Court, by a 4-to-3 ruling, allowed the New London Development Corp. to use laws of eminent domain to condemn much of the city's Fort Trumbull neighborhood, near a $270 million Pfizer research facility, and lease it to luxury hotel, condominium and office building developers. New London, Conn., is hard up for tax revenues, and if the property is taken away from middle-class homeowners and transferred to wealthy interests, it will yield the city more tax revenue.

Source: WorldNetDaily, September 29, 2004

Court Takes on Question of Seizing Land

The Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to decide when governments may seize people's homes and businesses for economic development projects, a key question as cash-strapped cities seek ways to generate tax revenue.

Source: My Way (online), September 28, 2004

U.S. Videos, for TV News, Come Under Scrutiny

Federal investigators are scrutinizing television segments in which the Bush administration paid people to pose as journalists praising the benefits of the new Medicare law, which would be offered to help elderly Americans with the costs of their prescription medicines.

Source: New York Times (online), March 14, 2004

The Water Buffalo Affair

On the night of January 13, 1993, Eden Jacobowitz, a freshman at the University of Pennsylvania, had been writing a paper for an English class when a sorority began celebrating its Founders' Day beneath the windows of his high-rise dormitory apartment. The women were singing very loudly, chanting, and stomping. It had prevented him from writing, and it had awakened his roommate. He shouted out the window, "Please keep quiet," and went back to work. Twenty minutes later, the noise yet louder, he shouted out the window, "Shut up, you water buffalo!" The women were singing about going to a party. "If you want a party," he shouted, "there's a zoo a mile from here." The women were black. Within weeks, the administrative judicial inquiry officer (JIO) in charge of Eden's case, Robin Read, decided to prosecute him for violation of Penn's policy on racial harassment. He could accept a "settlement" -- an academic plea bargain -- or he could face a judicial hearing whose possible sanctions included suspension and expulsion.¹

Report: Pentagon Auditors Altered Files

Pentagon auditors spent 1,139 hours altering their own files in order to pass an internal review, say investigators who found that the accounting sleuths engaged in just the kind of wasteful activity they are supposed to expose.

Source: Guardian Unlimited (online), January11, 2004

Court: School discriminated against Christians

A federal court in New Orleans ruled a Louisiana school district unconstitutionally denied after-hours use of its facilities to a Christian group while allowing non-religious organizations full access.

Source: WorldNetDaily, August 3, 2003

School’s Padded Room Draws Ire

Several Shelter Island parents are accusing the school district of abusive discipline for using a darkened, padded "time-out" room to punish children who misbehave.

One parent, Deborah Ross, says her son, Jordan, 7, was put in the padded room, forced to his knees and rolled up in a gym mat on the afternoon of May 21. She said she told school officials earlier in the year not to use the room to discipline her boy.

Source: Newsday.com, July 11, 2003

Eminent-domain abuse widespread

If you believe your home is your castle or that the government can only take it for public use, you should be warned otherwise, says a public-interest law firm that documented thousands of cases nationwide where governments have abused eminent domain.

Source: WorldNetDaily, April 22, 2003

Kofi Annan's arrogance

On television screens around the world, Kofi Annan said: "The members of the Security Council now face a great choice. If they fail to agree on a common position, and action is taken without the authority of the Security Council, the legitimacy and support of any such action will be seriously impaired."

Source: WorldNetDaily, March 14, 2003

Armed Pilots: TSA 'Dragging its Feet' Implementing Law

The coalition that orchestrated two legislative victories to ensure that commercial airline pilots may carry handguns to defend their cockpits said Thursday that the federal agency charged with implementing the law is still resisting its orders from Congress.

Source: CNS News, January 31, 2003

How to rig an election

All you need is the power to draw district lines. And that is what America provides: a process, called redistricting, which, through back-room negotiations too boring for most voters to think about, can distort the democratic system itself.

Source: The Economist (online), April 25, 2002

Report: Clinton Gifts Total $400G

President Clinton (news - web sites) left office with more than $400,000 in gifts, including $75,000 in china, crystal, and furniture received in his last weeks in office, according to a congressional report.

Source: Yahoo! News, Feb. 12, 2002

Thieves in the night

Like thieves in the night, a handful of U.S. senators have set into motion a new law that can steal the property rights from private owners in the name of protecting wildlife.

Late in the evening of Dec. 20, while the media focused on Daschle's refusal to allow a vote on the economic stimulus package, while senators were racing to wind up business to get home for the holidays, Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., called for "unanimous consent" to pass S. 990 – The American Wildlife Enhancement Act of 2001. The bill passed.

Source: WorldNetDaily, December 29, 2001

California Lottery Sold Millions of Scratch-Off Tickets After Top Prizes Won

Although the odds of winning a big lottery prize are always low, for some people who bought scratch-off lottery tickets in California, the odds of winning might be even lower: none at all.

Source: Fox News, December 21, 2001

Sell Your Land or We'll Take It

Private developers and local governments, using the power of eminent domain, are increasingly joining together to force property owners from their land, coercing the transfer of property from one private owner to another.

Source: WorldNetDaily, June 24, 2000

Bush executive-privilege claim draws ire

President Bush's claim of executive privilege in rejecting a congressional subpoena for records related to both a Clinton-era campaign finance probe and a 30-year-old Boston mob case – in which a man the FBI knew to be innocent was imprisoned for 30 years – has drawn the ire of lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

Source: WorldNetDaily, December 22, 2001

Under Clinton, the Presidential Pen Is Mightier Than Ever

Clinton is continually stretching his executive and regulatory authority to put his stamp on policy. He has issued a blizzard of executive orders, regulations, proclamations and other decrees to achieve his goals, with or without the blessing of Congress.

Source:  New York Times June 28, 1998

BLM Tries to Ignore Input From Citizens

The Bureau of Land Management presents options on managment plans to the public for comment, but the BLM has already decided which option to accept. According to Idaho Attorney General Alan Lance, as reported in the Deseret News Web Edition (Utah)

Source: Deseret News (Utah)

President Clinton Wants to Redistribute Income

Having cashed in the ultimate of political dividends from his class-warfare victories, President Clinton seems determined to continue playing that game. The latest evidence is his revised tax-cut plan, which he unfolded Monday. Two conclusions are self-evident: The president is determined to use the tax system to redistribute income; and, his definition of "rich" in no way conforms to reality. Piggy-backing child tax credits and his Hope Scholarship on top of the earned-income tax credit, his plan is more akin to welfare than tax relief."

Source:  Washington Times, July 2, 1997

Senator Orrin Hatch (R, Utah) Doesn't Care

GOP Delegates at the 1997 state convention voted against a US bill co-sponsored by Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Senator Edward Kennady (D-Mass.) to provide federal assistance to needy children. In response, Hatch "'lovingly' and with 'great respect' lecture[d] delegates in a half-hour response that articulately told them he didn't care what they said - he was going to help poor, sick kids anyway."

Source: Deseret News (Utah), Sunday, May 11, 1997)