Tag: private property

‘Fraud On A Mass Scale’ – Why Trump Should Repeal Real Estate Tax

This is the short version of the Amicus created for ZeroHedge. For the full print version of the Amicus Brief Supporting Property Owners and School Districts and Accounting Fraud, both of which are being delivered by hand to President Trump click here and here.

Introduction of Argument 

The Home Affordability and Probability of Bankruptcy graphic below shows Taxation of Unrealized Gains, which is a violation of the 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Market Value is the mechanism in Texas and most States in the Union, from which the Assessed Value is created. 

Under current Texas Law you can protest your Market Value but not the Assessed Value. If the Market Value is fraudulent, then so is the Assessed Value. 

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The Disturbing Truth About the Home You Think You Own

The North Dakota Referendum That Could Have Changed Everything

In 2012, North Dakota held a referendum to become the first US state to abolish property taxes.

The measure aimed to amend the state constitution, eliminating property taxes and requiring the government to find alternative revenue sources.

Proponents argued that property taxes were unnecessary since North Dakota already had ample income from state taxes and oil revenues. They also pointed out that property taxes disproportionately burdened low-income homeowners and senior citizens. Eliminating them, they claimed, would provide financial relief, boost economic growth, and attract businesses and residents.

However, a coalition of bureaucrats and special interest groups fought against the referendum.

In the end, voters overwhelmingly rejected the measure—78% chose to keep their property taxes.

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The Government Says Money Isn’t Property—So It Can Take Yours

As a lawyer who sues the government, you get used to the different kinds of arguments that government lawyers use to justify abuses of individual rights—sweeping claims of government power, bad-faith procedural obstacles, and more.  

This was a new one: The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) argued that confiscating $50,000 from a small business did not infringe the business’ right to private property because money is not property.  

“Money is not necessarily ‘property’ for constitutional purposes,” the government’s brief declared—putting the very idea of property in square quotes. Reading at my desk, I practically fell out of my chair. 

The DOJ gave three rationales for the argument, all packed into a doorstopper of a footnote: (1) the government creates money, so you can’t own it; (2) the government can tax your money, so you don’t own it; and (3) the Constitution allows the government to spend money for the “general welfare.”

If a libertarian was asked to write a satire of a government lawyer’s brief, this is what they might come up with. But here it was, in black and white. 

Whose money, specifically, was the government saying wasn’t property? That of Chuck Saine, the owner of C.S. Lawn & Landscaping, a small landscaping business outside Annapolis, Maryland, which he has operated for over 40 years. 

Saine became a client of the Institute for Justice (I.J.), a public interest law firm, when the federal government sought to impose over $50,000 in liability on his business through a “trial” held deep inside the bowls of a federal administrative agency. At said trial, both the prosecutor and the judge were employed by the same federal agency. 

I.J. sued, arguing that before the government can impose that kind of liability, it has to provide a real trial before a real judge and jury. The specifics of what the government claims Saine did wrong (in short: arcane labor law) are beside the point. If the government wants to confiscate over $50,000 from your business, you must have the chance to argue your defense to an impartial judge and jury—not an agency bureaucrat. 

Now, the DOJ argued that Saine has no right to a real judge and jury because the government was only trying to take his money, not his property. They claimed that fiat currency is a legal fiction that the government can as easily destroy as create. Lest anyone miss the implicit connection to the history of the gold standard, DOJ’s footnote prominently cited the Legal Tender Cases—where the Supreme Court upheld laws forcing people to accept paper currency, rather than gold and silver, as payment for debts. 

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The Climate and Nature Bill will destroy the UK economy and end private property

The Climate and Nature Bill has its second reading in Parliament on 24 January 2025. If it becomes law, it will bring in compulsory re-wilding of more than 30% of the UK and place controls on travel and consumption.

“You may think that all the bills that have gone through Parliament already in the last six months have been disastrous and have been an attack on our way of life our culture and our economy. But there’s something else coming up which is as bad or even worse as everything that has gone before. And this is something called the Climate and Nature Bill,” David Kurten said.

“It will destroy the economy, essentially, and it will give the Government powers over your private property …  Because of [something to do with] the climate or … nature then the government can essentially take your property,” he warned.  “Because everything that happens in the country will have to be beholden to the targets in this Climate and Nature Bill.”

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‘Wildly Off-Base’: New Push for Supreme Court to Reverse Case That Allows Property Confiscation

Ruling denied ‘the core protections of individual citizens.’

The U.S. Supreme Court bizarrely ruled in 2005, in the Kelo case, that a government could take privately owned property from one owner to give it to another, just, well, just because.

That original ruling came down to dollars and cents, when the city of New London, New York, used eminent domain to confiscate a home belonging to Susan Kelo to give it to Pfizer for one of its business operations.

She sued, but the Supreme Court said a procedure to use eminent domain “to transfer land from private owner to another private owner” did not violate the Constitution.

Actually, the authority vested in eminent domain would be for purposes of taking property to build a highway, or some similar public benefit.

That New London scheme actually failed, as the company was unable to obtain financing for its plans, and the site remained an undeveloped empty lot.

The move already has prompted 47 states to strengthen their own eminent domain laws, and now it’s time for the national precedent to be reversed, according to constitutional lawyer Jonathan Turley, who not only has testified before Congress as an expert on the Constitution, but has represented members in court.

He said that one case, Kelo, “has long stood out for me as wildly off-base and wrongly decided.”

He explained, “There is now a petition before the Supreme Court that would allow it to reconsider this pernicious precedent. The court should grant review in Bowers v. Oneida County Industrial Development Agency precisely for that purpose,” he explained.

“Many of us expressed outrage at the actions of the city leaders of New London, Connecticut, when they used eminent domain to seize the property of citizens against their will to give it to the Pfizer corporation,” he said. “This anger grew with the inexplicable decision of the Supreme Court in Kelo v. City of New London to uphold the abusive action. After all the pain that the city caused its own residents and the $80 million it spent to buy and bulldoze the property, it came to nothing. Pfizer later announced that it was closing the facility — leaving the city worse off than when it began.”

He said the new case involves New York developer Bryan Bowers who challenged the decision of a county redevelopment agency to condemn his property and then give it to another developer to use as a private parking lot.

Turley noted that Justice Chase, shortly after the Bill of Rights was written, explained the injustice.

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The Biden-Harris Govt Is Helping China Buy Land Near U.S. Bases.

The Biden-Harris government’s Department of Agriculture is quietly reclassifying numerous property developers and other companies in what appears to be an effort to work around restrictions on Chinese land ownership near U.S. military bases and installations. The move comes despite continued warnings from the U.S. intelligence community and other agencies in the Biden-Harris government that China poses an increasing national security risk and is actively opposing U.S. interests through domestic and foreign counter-intelligence actions.

At the center of the Department of Agriculture controversy is the recent change in designation for Walton Global, a property developer that has been considered one of the top Chinese-controlled U.S. land owners for years. The company has expanded its footprint in China since 2018 and was—until recently—listed by the U.S. government as one of the five top Chinese owners of U.S. agricultural land.

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Hysterical, power-hungry EPA will require all property owners to have “no detectable level of lead dust in the air” – an impossible feat

Lead exposure is a serious health concern, especially for children, whose developing brains are drastically affected by the heavy metal. However, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is going a step too far in regulating the heavy metal on private property.

According to new rules released by Biden’s EPA — homes, apartment buildings and child care facilities must test completely negative for lead. Under most circumstances, this is completely implausible. Lead particulate matter is ubiquitous is air measurements across the world.

Instead of taking realistic steps to mitigate the risk of heavy metal exposures, this new rule gives the EPA unlimited power and uses hysterical measurements to seize control over private property.

All air and soil contain detectable levels of lead, but there’s no reason to panic

Under the new rules, any detectable level of lead dust in a building would be considered a “lead hazard” and property owners would be ordered by the EPA and the courts to clean up the building. If remediation efforts are not good enough (and they won’t be in most cases), then the building may be condemned or torn down.

This is what happens when hysteria takes over the regulatory agencies: they virtue signal about detecting irrelevant concentrations and then use their findings to justify abusing their power. In the study National Trends in Lead Concentration in 2010-2023, the ambient lead level in the atmosphere across the US is just over 0.025 ug/m³. This is based on measurement of 79 sites across the country. Similarly in Europe, soil levels of lead are routinely measured at 25-35 ng/m³, which is approximately the same level.

According to the study, the average concentration of lead hasn’t gone up in the last decade. A recent document from the EPA shows that the dust in the air, averaged across all monitoring sites, ranges from 0.015 to 0.045 µg/m³.These are detectable levels of lead across the Earth’s atmosphere and throughout the soil, but the existence of lead at these levels does not mean everyone’s lives are in danger and it must be remediated at all costs!

The EPA, on the other hand, disagrees now, and will be able to take any detectable level of lead and seize power over the situation, claiming a public health threat in a building, and ordering the expensive remediation and takedown of properties throughout the country. While there has been a natural 87% decrease in the national average of lead in the Earth’s atmosphere, the EPA could still find a meaningless, detectable level of lead somewhere and claim dominion over that property, demanding remediation.

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Pennsylvania Angler Fights Back Against Warrantless Property Searches by Fish & Boat Commission

In a bold move to defend his constitutional rights, Tim Thomas, a resident of Susquehanna County, has filed a federal lawsuit against the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission.

The case challenges a state law that allows waterways conservation officers (WCOs) to enter private property without a warrant. Thomas, with the support of the Institute for Justice (IJ), hopes to strike down this law and restore the Fourth Amendment protections against warrantless searches.

Thomas and his late wife, Stephanie, bought their peaceful lakeside cabin on Butler Lake in 2014, but their sanctuary was soon disrupted. In 2023, Officer Ty Moon of the Fish and Boat Commission entered their property on two occasions without a warrant based on unfounded fishing violations.

Moon ignored multiple “No Trespassing” signs, walked around their home, and even confiscated fishing rods from Thomas’ dock. Both citations were later dismissed in court.

When WCO Moon entered the Thomases’ side yard, Stephanie (Tim Thomas’ wife) was taking a bath in the cabin, which has an uncovered window facing the yard; WCO Moon walked within 3 feet of that window as he walked through the side yard and into the backyard.

What troubles Thomas most is the sense of invasion. “We bought this cabin for peace and privacy,” he said, recalling how Moon passed by his windows, even as his wife, battling stage four cancer, was inside. “The first time was bad enough, but the second time felt even more intrusive.”

Thomas’ lawsuit, filed in September 2024, highlights the conflict between Pennsylvania law and the U.S. Constitution’s Fourth Amendment, which protects citizens from unreasonable searches.

The law in question grants WCOs sweeping authority to enter private land and conduct searches without a warrant, a power far beyond what is granted to typical law enforcement officers.

John Wrench, an attorney with IJ, emphasized the gravity of the case. “You don’t lose your constitutional rights because you live near a lake,” he said. “If the government wants to search your property, they need a warrant. That’s a fundamental right in this country.”

The lawsuit follows other similar legal battles challenging the so-called “Open Fields Doctrine,” which permits law enforcement to search rural lands without warrants under certain conditions. Recent victories, like one in Tennessee earlier this year challenging warrantless trespassing and surveillance on private land, suggest a growing push to restore Fourth Amendment protections against such overreach.

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What Happens When FEMA Buys Your House?

It’s been a rough hurricane season. Between them, Hurricanes Helene and Milton have devastated many communities throughout the southeast. Rebuilding what was lost will take years. 

But as devastating as these storms have been, they are sadly not unique. Property damage from storms and flooding is on the rise. Storms resulting in over a billion dollars in damages have become more frequent in recent years. 

The prospect of repeatedly having to rebuild properties in storm-prone areas has led some governments to pursue an unusual solution to the problem: buy the properties themselves. Some local governments, in partnership with federal agencies such as the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), have developed programs that use disaster relief funds to purchase homes in flood- or storm-prone areas. This isn’t the only way, or even the best way, to reduce the destruction from increasingly severe natural catastrophes. But the idea is that keeping such vulnerable properties vacant will save money in the long run because they won’t need to be continually rebuilt after storms.

Such buyouts are hardly ideal and can lead to some perverse situations. In 2021, an NPR investigation revealed that HUD was selling homes in flood-prone areas to unsuspecting buyers even as it was buying out homes in the same neighborhoods under a flood mitigation program. While not ideal, in a world where government disaster relief is a given, a voluntary buyout program could make fiscal sense in some circumstances. Voluntary buyout programs have been implemented in over a thousand counties and have been used to relocate almost 50,000 households throughout the country. 

The situation is very different when the buyout ceases to be voluntary. A little-known provision in the Hazard Mitigation and Relocation Assistance Act of 1993 authorizes local governments to implement a mandatory buyout program for flood-prone areas. So far, just three localities—Cedar Rapids in Iowa, Minot in North Dakota, and Harris County in Texas—have adopted a mandatory buyout program. The Harris County program is the largest of the three and is expected to forcibly purchase 585 households and 390 businesses by 2026 and turn the land into green space.  

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California County Fines Man $120,000 for Refusing to Evict a Family From His Property

Hundreds of people live in trailers and campers on the streets of Santa Clara County, California—a very visible sign of the ultra-expensive county’s homelessness crisis.

Despite the scale of vehicular homelessness in the county, county officials have spent years focusing their enforcement actions on a single trailer parked on private property.

For years now, winery owner Michael Ballard has allowed his longtime vineyard manager, Marcelino Martinez, and his family to live rent-free in a trailer parked on the winery’s property.

County officials say this violates a county ordinance prohibiting recreational vehicles (RVs) parked on residential parcels from being used as dwelling units. Therefore, Martinez’s trailer has got to go.

Ballard has been trying to fix the violation by building a permanent home for Martinez and his family on the property. But getting all the needed permits from the county for that home has taken years.

In the interim, Ballard has refused to evict Martinez’s family from the property.

“I’m not going to remove this trailer because that will cause them to be homeless and I’d be putting this family on the street and I’m not going to do that,” Ballard tells Reason.

In response, the county has issued Ballard daily fines for every day he refuses to remove the trailer. These fines total some $120,000.

Ballard is now suing the county in federal court, arguing the fines violate the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition on excessive fines.

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