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North Dakota voters resoundingly defeated an attempt to abolish the state’s property taxes Tuesday and were set to allow the University of North Dakota to rename its controversial mascot, which critics say denigrates Native Americans. More than 70% of voters rejected a grass-roots effort to eliminate state property taxes, according to unofficial returns, even though North Dakota has a budget surplus that exceeds $1 billion, in part due to an oil boom. More than 27,000 residents had signed a petition to get the measure on Tuesday’s ballot.

"part of a growing movement of Americans who have come to realize that no matter how much or how long they pay on their homes, all it takes to lose it to the state is failing one time to pay annual property taxes. Unlike a sales tax, which is a one-time charge, property taxes come up every year, meaning the levy is like a recurring lien on your home and land. And as long as it's around, you will always live under the threat of having your property confiscated."

North Dakota is the very definition of a red state. It voted 58 percent to 39 percent for Romney over Obama, and its statehouse and senate have a total of 104 Republicans and only 47 Democrats. The Republican super-majority is so conservative it recently passed the nation’s most severe anti-abortion resolution – a measure that declares a fertilized human egg has the same right to life as a fully formed person. But North Dakota is also red in another sense: it fully supports its state-owned Bank of North Dakota (BND), a socialist relic that exists nowhere else in America.

North Dakota, according to the freedom index, is the freest state in the United States. It scores exceptionally well on regulatory and fiscal policy. Moreover, North Dakota scores slightly above average on personal freedom. It is also the state that improved the most over the last decade.

As of June 1, 2011, the State of Maryland has passed a law, which was passed as part of the Budget Reconciliation and Financing Act of 2011, that effectively exposes the mindset of government, wherein no individual is entitled to have; personal liberty, equal protection, due process of law, or individual ownership of property. This law states that if the State government determines...

Canadian Grants for Property Owners – Are You among the Top 10 Advantage Takers?

It is a general view that Canadian housing and property grants are beneficial only for the first-time home buyers. The fact is that there are many other categories of home and property owners who can take advantage of these government loans. By extending this financial help, the governments in various parts of Canada have made life easier and more comfortable for different homeowners. Go through the top 10 homeowner types who can make the best out of these grants; a list you will find nowhere else

Civil forfeiture threatens the property rights of all Americans.

These laws allow the police to seize your home, car, cash or other property upon the mere suspicion that it has been used or involved in criminal activity.

Georgia has some of the worst civil forfeiture laws in the country. But, in an attempt to at least ensure civil forfeiture is subject to public scrutiny, state law requires local law enforcement agencies to annually itemize and report all property obtained through forfeiture, and what they did with it, to their local governing authorities.

In Auburn, New York, the city is threatening to invoke eminent domain to seize private property for a private hotel conference center, saying the public good outweighs the private property rights of some citizens.

A rural Oregon man was sentenced Wednesday to 30 days in jail and over $1,500 in fines because he had three reservoirs on his property to collect and use rainwater. Gary Harrington of Eagle Point, Ore., says he plans to appeal his conviction in Jackson County (Ore.) Circuit Court on nine misdemeanor charges under a 1925 law for having what state water managers called “three illegal reservoirs” on his property – and for filling the reservoirs with rainwater and snow runoff.