Free Republic

California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom is behind on his property taxes again. Maybe this explains why the governor allowed his Napa Valley winery to stay open but ordered other wineries in the state to close down. ... Marin County Tax Collector's website currently lists Gov. Newsom's property taxes on his Kentfield estate as delinquent. Newsom did manage to pay his property taxes on his Sacramento mansion this year, but not without racking up a late-payment penalty of some $2,094.15. In March, Newsom became the first governor to issue a stay-at-home order in response to the Wuhan coronavirus. A month later,...

Despite being a self-described socialist and a scourge of the elite classes, Bernie Sanders is in fact a millionaire with a property portfolio that includes three homes, which are pictured in exclusive DailyMail.com photos. The 78-year-old Vermont senator’s property portfolio was mocked by presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg during Wednesday night’s debate, as he remarked: “The best known socialist in the country happens to be a millionaire with three houses. What did I miss?” “You missed that I work in Washington; house one,” responded Sanders. “I live in Burlington; house two. And like thousands of other Vermonters, I do have a...

“Through Her Eyes” is a new weekly half-hour show hosted by humanitarian and women’s rights activist Zainab Salbi that aims to explore a hot button news issue through the lens of a female newsmaker. You can watch “Through Her Eyes” every Tuesday at 8 p.m. on the Roku channel, and see full episodes at yahoonews.com. Weeks after Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., made headlines by calling for a top marginal income tax rate of 70 percent in an interview with “60 Minutes,” her fellow freshman congresswoman, Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., suggested that the rich could pay even more. “There are a...

Yes, tax the Super Rich. Tax them now. Before the other 99% rise up, trigger a new American Revolution, a meltdown and the Great Depression 2. We know the Super Rich don’t care. Not about you. Nor the American public. They can’t see. Can’t hear. Stay trapped in their Forbes-400 bubble. An echo chamber that isolates them. They see the public as faceless workers, customers, taxpayers. See GOP power on the ascent. Reaganomics is back. Unions on the run. Clueless masses are easily manipulated. Even Obama is secretly working with the GOP, will never touch his Super Rich donors. Yes,...

What do you call a tax break that delivers 88% of the benefits to upper-income families and subsidizes rich states at the expense of poor ones? If you're a Democrat, you call it a sacred cow. One provision of the Republican's tax-cutting plan that has drawn intense opposition from Democrats is the elimination of state and local tax deductions for those who itemize. Rep. Nancy Pelosi said it was "an insidious effort to raise taxes on middle class families … across America." Sen. Ron Wyden said that "hardworking middle-class folks are not going to appreciate Congress double taxing them." New...

Fox Business host Neil Cavuto engaged a scholar in earnest Socratic dialogue Thursday. Keely Mullen is a national organizer for #MillionStudentMarch, a movement that demands “tuition-free public college, cancellation of all student debt, and a $15 minimum wage for all campus workers” in response to the crisis caused by rapacious corporate education. “#MillionStudentMarch is a movement for a more equitable and fair system of education as opposed to the really corporate model we have right now,” Mullen said. Mullen is a graduate of the prestigious Francis W. Parker School and political science student at Northeastern University, according to her LinkedIn...

Fire-breathing scourge of Wall Street on the campaign trail — and reliable friend of Wall Street in the boardroom. That’s Hillary Clinton — and the big-money crowd thinks it’s in on the game. For all her populist rhetoric against hedge-funders and the like, Clinton has received more donations from CEOs than any candidate in the GOP — you know, the party of the greedy rich. More than 760 of Clinton’s presidential donors have listed their occupation as CEO or some variation, according to a Big Crunch analysis of federal election forms. That’s as many as have given to Republican hopefuls...

The richest 1% of the world’s population now owns 50% of its total wealth, according to a report by Credit Suisse. Worldwide, there are 34 million people who have a U.S. dollar net worth of at least $1 million, or 0.7% of the global adult population, and they account for 45% of global wealth. If you extend the bracket to include those with less than $1 million, but still within the top 1%, then total wealth crosses the magic 50% line. Within the top 1% is there is a much more elite club: the 0.36 percenters. These are adults with...

<p>Obama is visiting the 0.001%, the 0.0001%, and the 1% respectively, as he begins his evening at a private gathering in Manhattan with "25 to 30 people, each of whom paid $10,000" to giggle and make small talk with a man whose brain is processing the implications of a possible ground war with Pakistan.</p>

Nine people have been killed and 18 hospitalized in a shoot-out between rival biker gangs at a recruitment event in a Texas restaurant on Sunday afternoon. What started as a physical fight in the bathroom spilled out into the bar and rapidly escalated to involve chains, clubs, knives and gunfire across Twin Peaks Bar and Grill in Waco, local media reports. Diners, including young children, scrambled and many took shelter in the freezer as hundreds of gang members ran rampage around the booths, according to KXXV.

The hullabaloo over false information being propagated about Indiana’s Religious Freedom and Restoration Act (RFRA) reveals a much more serious underlying problem in America. Morality according to the 3 Percent (the gay community in America) is defined by imposing conformity, control, coercion, and oppression over those who disagree with their definition of equality, fairness, tolerance, or even love. The 3 Percent’s “outrage” cannot be about equal rights, as same-sex couples already benefit from civil unions, domestic partnerships, marriage, adoption and fostering children, in addition to receiving health benefits and other legal rights. Nor can it be about fairness. I recently...

The bureaucracy that’s being run by incumbent Gov. Rick Scott just filed a tax lien against his Democratic challenger Charlie Crist‘s wife, Gossip Extra has learned exclusively. Holy Crist! According to a document filed in Crist’s home city of St. Petersburg, the state’s Department of Revenues filed a lien against Carole Crist for non-payment of the reemployment tax for a period stretching from July 2012 through September 2013. For the oversight, the state wants millionaire Carole to pony up $352.61, which includes the actual $100-tax, a $200-penalty, $50.24 in fees and $2.37 in interest.

.... Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer seemed to hit hard in December 2012 when he announced that global banking giant HSBC would pay the government a fine of $1.9 billion.... In March 2013 Breuer’s boss, Attorney General Eric Holder, went before the Senate Finance Committee to explain why HSBC wasn’t indicted for these crimes. He said some banks may be too large to prosecute without wrecking the economy. Holder’s “too big to jail” comments caused an immediate uproar. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, the ranking Republican member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said “big bankers know that if they commit financial...

Republican Iowa Congressman Steve King responded after an organization backed by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg launched an advertising blitz against him Friday. King issued a statement saying the commercials, which were paid for by Zuckerberg's pro-immigration reform group FWD.us, show the Facebook chairman and CEO wants to "reward people for breaking our laws" in order to bring in talent for his company. "I am under attack by billionaire Mark Zuckerberg because I am one of the few who will stand up and tell the truth about amnesty," King said in his statement.

This video was taken 3/15/14 @ around 1250 @ the National City Ares Armor location

According to the New York Post, New York City’s mad cap Sandinista Mayor Bill de Blasio is about to find out a truth that conservatives have known all along, that bashing the rich can only go so far. It seems when he is not throwing little children out of charter schools or banning carriage rides in Central Park, de Blasio is on full class warfare mode and is going after New York’s one percent with a vengeance. It seems that the wealthy elite are starting to have had enough and are getting ready to decamp en masse, to Florida it...

Living large among the 1 percenters. By Jonah Goldberg If Tom Wolfe were writing The Bonfire of the Vanities today, he’d need a scene in the Grand Havana Room in New York City. It’s an Olympian den fit for what Wolfe called the “Masters of the Universe” — the super-rich gods of finance who today go by the name “the 1 percent.” Taking up the penthouse floor of 666 Fifth Avenue, the Grand Havana Room is a private, invitation-only cigar club and four-star restaurant. Through its windows, you can see the toiling salary men 39 floors below as they scurry...

Snip: But something remarkable has happened with these occupants of the White House: Neither President Obama nor first lady Michelle appear to give a damn about perception. They won the White House and, by God, they’re going to enjoy their time there, no matter the cost. And who cares what you think, anyway? How else to explain the nonstop vacations the pair keep taking during what Mr. Obama calls the “worst financial crisis since the Great Depression”? In 2013, the First Family has already enjoyed three vacations — that’s one a month. (Sorry, Joe America, you might have to forget...

Will President Obama really nominate billionaire Chicago gal pal Penny Pritzker to head his Commerce Department? "It's a done deal," according to a White House source close to the Chicago Tribune. As further confirmation, Pritzker resigned abruptly from the Windy City's school board late last week. The crony fix seems to be in. Taxpayers, beware. Pritzker is a deep-pocketed doyenne with a family history of dodging taxes -- or siphoning them away from the public for her own family's gargantuan private gain. If you want to see how she'll oversee a $10 billion government agency, look at her own...

As a senator and presidential candidate, Barack Obama said that he detested budget deficits. In 2006, when the aggregate national debt was almost $8 trillion less than today, he blasted George W. Bush's chronic borrowing and refused to vote for upping the debt ceiling: "Increasing America's debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that 'the buck stops here.'" In 2008, Obama further blasted Bush's continued Keynesian borrowing: "The problem is, is that the way Bush has done it over the last eight years is to take out a credit card from the Bank of China in the name of...