Category Archives: Duck Dynasty

Busy Beavers in Colorado High Country

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A lot of areas in the Rocky Mountains have problems with beavers gnawing trees. But this state has a much bigger problem with humans who are busy as beavers gnawing away at large sums of money that belong to their neighbors. The story linked below contains an interesting line: “…it’s just the latest in a series of extraordinary embezzlement cases throughout the Fifth Judicial District, which includes Eagle, Summit, Clear Creek and Lake counties.”

imagesIt’s sad to think about, but these areas include some pretty ritzy communities with million dollar vacation homes. It must be that people put in a position of trust handling large sums of money just somehow think they’re entitled. Why shouldn’t rich people just allow us to wander through their bank accounts at will? What right do they have to complain?

(colorado embezzlements)

 

Another Brag About Website Numbers

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Hi Gang,

Since you’re all part of what’s getting our message out there, here’s an end-of-the-year look at website numbers.

A record 514,000 logins were recorded in 2014. And 4.8 million pages of material were either downloaded or read.

When you submit a guest blog here, just know that you’re having an impact.

Happy New Year!

A Handicapped Youngster? Screw ’em!

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Great guest post by Dave Russell yesterday, good enough that I’d like to add to it.

Around the country, Homeowners Associations continue to wildly discriminate against families with handicapped youngsters. They’re shunned, they’re fined, they’re labeled ‘bad people’ who aren’t allowed to use the common areas. These stories are as disgusting as they are endemic. And they should serve as a warning to any potential home buyer that HOA property is fundamentally diseased, unfit for Americans who believe in human rights.

Yes, H.U.D. occasionally comes to the rescue on behalf of a damaged family. But these federal lawsuits are so rare they can, at best, be described as ‘show trials’ similar to the massive HOA racketeering case now being conducted in Nevada. A show trial is exactly what it sounds like. The feds ride onto the scene like rodeo cowboys, crack a few whips, and hope that other criminals across the country will be deterred from committing similar crimes. They never are.

The only solution to human rights violations by the HOA system is federal fines massive enough to stagger the imagination. Under the current system the feds win an occasional lawsuit, the HOA insurance company pays for the lawyers and fines, and the homeowners never have a hint about what really happened.

How to solve the problem? When an HOA commits an ongoing violation of federal law confiscate the entire neighborhood under public nuisance laws. Every house, every family gets evicted without compensation.

Outrageous, you say?

Impossible and illegal you say?

Hey, just look at a 2006 Supreme Court decision called Kelo. The government essentially confiscated an entire neighborhood simply for the crime of “not looking nice enough.” Actually, there was some underlying corruption there. A pharmaceutical company wanted the neighborhood for a construction project and the state gave it to them. The irony is that the drug firm decided they didn’t really want the land after all. Now this former neighborhood is just a field of weeds.

Maybe what this country really needs is a few more weeds.

(link to story on cerebral palsy family driven from Kentucky neighborhood)

 

The Ghosts of Christmas Past- Update

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guest blog by David Russell
On December 3, 2014 I wrote a guest blog about 3-year-old Cooper Veloudis who has cerebral palsy. Cooper’s therapist suggested that a playhouse be built in the backyard of the family’s home. The playhouse cost about $5,000 and was set up to help little Cooper with his disability.However, the Andover Forest Homeowners Association, in Lexington, Kentucky, said little Cooper’s house had to go because the HOA had determined it’s a structure and is prohibited. Cooper’s parents were fined $50 a day until they complied. What the HOA didn’t say is that there are other such structures in the same development. But nobody seemed to really care about those.

I hoped In time, just like in the Christmas Carol, written by Charles Dickens, each board member and the pond-scum attorneys who represented Andover Forest Homeowners Association would receive a visit from one of Dickens’ghosts.

Well whoever said that dreams don’t come true, and that Santa isn’t real, must have not seen the new lawsuit just filed by the United States of America vs. Andover Forest Homeowners Association, and their management company EMG Management Services, LLC. Seems like the ‘Ghost of Christmas Past’ is paying some folks a visit down in Lexington.

Yes, Cooper, there is a Santa Claus, and he’s fixin’ to put some reindeer hoof prints on those board members’ foreheads who took away your little therapy house.

(Here’s a link to the lawsuit filed against the management company and Andover Forest Homeowners Association, by the United States of America)

Do You Really Believe In The 1st Amendment?

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Many of our founding fathers believed so strongly in Freedom of Speech that there was no question it would be first in the Bill of Rights. Curiously, protection of religion was listed first, however I have to believe there were loud arguments that protection of speech should be listed first. For without Free Speech, there would be no religion, no right to peaceably assemble, no right to petition for redress of grievances. Free Speech was so incredibly important it’s doubtful that any other form of government could have come about without it.

Obviously there are limits. Speech must not be used to cause physical injury to others or for sedition or incitement to riot. Even so, the Supreme Court has never been clear on exactly where the limits should be set. One example is pornography. What some see as clearly evil others see as art. One of the earliest attempts at creating a motion picture using an 1880 zoopraxiscope involved a naked lady video that could have tested the bounds of free speech.

My point is this: One of the things demanded by the homeowners’ rights movement is to stop Homeowners Associations from restricting free speech. It’s is a very real problem when HOA officials refuse to allow political signs, bumper stickers, any material that advocates for candidates who are not on the ‘approved’ HOA candidate list. It’s problematic when HOAs pass rules that a Christian may not hold Bible studies in his home. It’s more than annoying when an HOA president can have a birdbath featuring a nude woman, but that same board official outlaws religious statuary.

HOAs were created, among other things, to control bad taste. But if the U.S. Supreme Court is incapable of deciding what’s in bad taste, how is a typical HOA board member any wiser? The HOA gets away with governing taste by claiming it’s a private club or corporation where taste can be anything the board says it is.

Homeowners rights advocates are gradually winning a few 1st Amendment battles here and there. We might even see more such victories in the future. But as we keep increasing our volume alerting legislatures to the outrages of abusive HOAs, and as a tiny segment of our society takes advantage of the chance to be outrageous and obnoxious to neighbors, we’d better get ready to answer a question the U.S. Supreme Court could not: “What are the outer limits of bad taste?”

(the nation’s nastiest neighbor)

(zombie nativity scene barred)

(university outlaws Christmas decorations in the name of diversity)

($500 fine for too many Christmas lights)

(salvation army banned from public property)