Tag: property tax

HOME INVASIONS: ALL THE WAYS THE GOVERNMENT CAN LAY SIEGE TO YOUR PROPERTY

In Caniglia v. Strom, police want to be able to carry out warrantless home invasions in order to seize lawfully-owned guns under the pretext of their so-called “community caretaking” duties. Under the “community caretaking” exception to the Fourth Amendment, police can conduct warrantless searches of vehicles relating to accident investigations and provide aid to “citizens who are ill or in distress.”

At a time when red flag gun laws are gaining traction as a legislative means by which to allow police to remove guns from people suspected of being threats, it wouldn’t take much to expand the Fourth Amendment’s “community caretaking” exception to allow police to enter a home without a warrant and seize lawfully-possessed firearms based on concerns that the guns might pose a danger.

What we do not need is yet another pretext by which government officials can violate the Fourth Amendment at will under the pretext of public health and safety.

In Lange v. California, police want to be able to enter homes without warrants as long as they can claim to be in pursuit of someone they suspect may have committed a crime. Yet as Justice Neil Gorsuch points out, in an age in which everything has been criminalized, that leaves the door wide open for police to enter one’s home in pursuit of any and all misdemeanor crimes.

At issue in Lange is whether police can justify entering homes without a warrant under the “hot pursuit” exception to the Fourth Amendment.

The case arose after a California cop followed a driver, Arthur Lange, who was honking his horn while listening to music. The officer followed Lange, supposedly to cite him for violating a local noise ordinance, but didn’t actually activate the police cruiser’s emergency lights until Lange had already arrived home and entered his garage. Sticking his foot under the garage door just as it was about to close, the cop confronted Lange, smelled alcohol on his breath, ordered him to take a sobriety test, and then charged him with a DUI and a noise infraction.

Lange is just chock full of troubling indicators of a greater tyranny at work.

Overcriminalization: That you can now get pulled over and cited for honking your horn while driving and listening to music illustrates just how uptight and over-regulated life in the American police state has become.

Make-work policing: At a time when crime remains at an all-time low, it’s telling that a police officer has nothing better to do than follow a driver seemingly guilty of nothing more than enjoying loud music.

Warrantless entry: That foot in the door is a tactic that, while technically illegal, is used frequently by police attempting to finagle their way into a home and sidestep the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement.

The definition of reasonable: Although the Fourth Amendment prohibits warrantless and unreasonable searches and seizures of “persons, houses, papers, and effects,” where we run into real trouble is when the government starts dancing around what constitutes a “reasonable” search. Of course, that all depends on who gets to decide what is reasonable. There’s even a balancing test that weighs the intrusion on a person’s right to privacy against the government’s interests, which include public safety.

Too often, the scales weigh in the government’s favor.

End runs around the law: The courts, seemingly more concerned with marching in lockstep with the police state than upholding the rights of the people, have provided police with a long list of exceptions that have gutted the Fourth Amendment’s once-robust privacy protections.

Exceptions to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement allow the police to carry out warrantless searches: if someone agrees to the search; in order to ferret out weapons or evidence during the course of an arrest; if police think someone is acting suspiciously and may be armed; during a brief investigatory stop; if a cop sees something connected to a crime in plain view; if police are in hot pursuit of a suspect who flees into a building; if they believe a vehicle has contraband; in an emergency where there may not be time to procure a warrant; and at national borders and in airports.

In other words, almost anything goes when it comes to all the ways in which the government can now invade your home and lay siege to your property.

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NJ’s property tax and it’s collectors are ruthless pigs

An 89-year-old woman with Alzheimer’s nearly lost her Ocean Twp house over six cents. SIX F&$#ING CENTS! She had mistakenly underpaid her 2019 property taxes by six cents. September 9th, she received noticed that the township put her house up for sheriff’s sale, according to a report on NBC New York.  Of course the interest grew at a far faster rate than any of us could hope to gain in savings and the bill quickly grew to $300.

The woman is Glen Kristi Goldenthal and her daughter, Lisa Suhay, who lives in Virginia, spent a whole day on the phone with township officials trying to save her mother’s house from being sold out from under her. Thankfully she was successful and Ocean Twp Mayor Chris Siciliano was quick to apologize and admitted something must be done to change the system.
Even when the tax collector called Mrs. Goldenthal to tell her of the delinquent tax, he knew something wasn’t right. But that didn’t stop the machinery of New Jersey government from rolling full steam ahead to try and take the poor old woman’s home.

Shameful doesn’t even begin to describe, not only this incident, but the entire property tax situation in our state. It’s disgusting! It’s also not the first time it’s happened here. Luckily Lisa Suhay was able to stop the confiscation. Some other elderly residents were not as lucky. At the time, 90-year-old Gloria Turano of Lawrence Twp lost her home in 2017, after the loan she took out to pay the property taxes ran out. Her husband had built the home with his own hands in 1953. It almost happened to 107-year-old Rose Eastwick of Cranford until generous strangers stepped in to save her from losing her home last year.

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Minneapolis Tells Residents With Riot-Wrecked Buildings They Can’t Clean Up Until They’ve Paid Their 2020 Property Taxes in Full

Today the Minneapolis Star Tribune takes a long look at one reason why the aftermath of rampant destruction, as yet untended to, continues to haunt the city. As social scientists understand, such riot damage can have dire effects on development and poverty in an area for decades down the line. But one city policy in Minneapolis is ensuring, for now, that even early faltering attempts at clearing the rubble can’t move forward in many cases.

You see, you can’t rebuild or do anything useful with your land until you’ve cleared off the rubble left on it by the rioting. And you can’t do that without a permit, of course. Minneapolis is a city of order, after all.

And you can’t get the permit without paying off your 2020 property tax bill in full. As a result, only around 20 wrecked buildings have been demolished, according to the city.

The city, enforcing a state law at its discretion, is holding this demand for a full tax payment over the head of property owners trying to get themselves and the city back to something approximating normal. Owners of destroyed stores are finding they can’t even get an estimate as to what the cleanup will cost from contractors without the permit, though the paper reports costs ranging from $35,000 to as much as $400,000 for a strip mall just to get debris cleared.

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Gov’t Violates Constitution, Steals Elderly Man’s Home Over $8.41 Tax Bill

Essentially, the city is claiming that if they do not steal homes from elderly retirees over unpaid $8 tax bills, the children will suffer and the city will descend into utter chaos.

“It may sound unfair on its face,” Bursch replied. “But it’s also unfair to force those who pay their taxes to subsidize those who don’t.”

Bernstein was quick to bring up the fact that this tax bill was under paid by a minuscule amount. “It was $8,” he said. “Couldn’t it be a mistake?”

That’s when Bursch made a massive admission.

“The counties don’t want the property,” argued Bursch as to why they stole the elderly man’s home. “They want the money.” 

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