Free Republic

Seems like Justin Bieber may need to put things in perspective. The newly 19-year-old pop superstar took to Twitter to whine about his “worst birthday,” which went down on Friday night. Earlier in the day, it seemed the Biebs was excited about his big birthday celebration, tweeting things like “Gonna be fun tonight” and “Big night ahead!” After receiving a customized Batman-themed bike from his dad, according to toofab, and spending the day shopping—picking up pricey items like Christian Louboutin sneakers—Bieber headed to the Cirque du Soir club in London with his pals, US Weekly reported. But the poor millionaire...

Can you name this donor? He co-founded Silicon Valley’s first great corporation. He funded and befriended every Republican President from Nixon to George H.W. Bush. His decisive actions helped save two conservative think tanks, the Hoover Institution in the 1950s and the American Enterprise Institute in the 1980s. In 1992 he declared, “the Democratic Party has been the party of socialism since President Roosevelt’s term,” and it “is indentured to union labor.” Your last clue: The foundation named for him—America’s seventh largest—is a pillar of the liberal philanthropic establishment.

When President Obama takes the oath of office for the second time, he will also usher in a new era in American power politics. Whereas the old left-wing definition of “who rules” focused on large corporations, banks, energy companies and agribusinesses, the Obama-era power structure represents a major transformation. This shift stems, in large part, from the movement from a predominately resource and tangible goods-based economy to an information-based one. In the past, political struggles were largely fought over how to divide up the spoils generated by the basic productive economy; labor, investors and management all shared a belief in...

Word is, Phil Mickelson is mad as hell about rising tax rates, and he’s not going to take it anymore. What follows is a brief portion of an interview Mickelson gave earlier today after carding a final-round 66 at the Palmer Course at PGA West in La Quinta – which I assure you, is not associated with the La Quinta next door to your local Denny’s – in which the golfer hinted that he is considering drastic career changes because of a combined tax rate nearing “62, 63 percent:”

Houston trial lawyers Steve and Amber Mostyn say they’re giving $1 million to a gun-control group formed by former Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and her husband, astronaut Mark Kelly. Steve Mostyn is a major Democratic campaign contributor, backing candidates in Texas and nationally. He gave $3 million to Priorities USA Action, a super PAC aiding President Obama’s re-election. He’s perhaps best known in Texas for launching a media campaign against Rick Perry two years ago in which he chided the Republican governor for his reluctance to debate in his 2010 reelection race with a full-page newspaper ad depicting Perry and...

R'n'B-pop diva Beyonce Knowles, "American Idol" winner Kelly Clarkson and Grammy Award-winning artist James Taylor are just some of the artists tapped by re-elected U.S. president Barack Obama to perform the country's most patriotic songs during his upcoming inauguration ceremony on January 21. Beyonce is chosen to deliver the U.S. national anthem "The Star Spangled Banner", Kelly is selected to sing "My Country 'Tis of Thee" and James is invited again to perform "America the Beautiful".

Republican Sen. Tom Coburn has released a breakdown of how much the federal government forgoes in tax revenue due to various credits and deductions that benefit everything from NASCAR owners to gamblers. It's a fairly comprehensive analysis that should get bipartisan support, but one of the categories that Sen. Coburn targets to raise taxes from may be surprising: "the rich." Coburn highlights $100 billion in tax revenue that could be raised over the next ten years by ending some of these deductions only on millionaire households. Over the 2006-2009 time period, Coburn notes, millionaires deducted over $20 billion in gambling...

With the generally upbeat spending reports on black Friday and cyber-Monday, Gallup paints a different point of view in its most recent poll that shows U.S. Consumer Spending Holds Steady, Consistent With 2011Americans' self-reported daily spending averaged $73 in November, essentially on par with September and October. It is also similar to the $71 Americans spent last November and slightly higher compared with November 2010 and 2009 -- but still much lower than in November 2008. November 2012 vs. November Prior Years U.S. Upper-Income Spending Sees Worst November on Record Upper-income Americans' (defined as those making at least $90,000 per...

Ah, the hypocrisy of tax-hikers who do everything they can to avoid the taxes they wish to impose on others. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.: He tried to avoid $500K in his home state's sales and excise taxes by docking his newly purchased $7 million 76-foot yacht in Rhode Island. Massachusetts lowered its state income tax in 2001. Given the presumably large number of rich people who pine to pay more taxes, the state allowed tax filers to check a box and voluntarily pay the old, higher rate. In a liberal state of over 3 million tax filers, how many volunteered...

Jerry Finkelstein, who made a fortune in business, real estate and newspapers, including The New York Law Journal and The Hill, and for many years was a self-styled Democratic power broker in New York City, died on Wednesday at his home in Manhattan. He was 96.

Restraint is way overrated.

Several months ago, an ad hoc consortium of self-proclaimed millionaires, sent a letter to Obama, Reid and Boehner, demanding that "for the fiscal health of our nation and the well-being of our fellow citizens, we ask that you increase taxes on incomes over $1,000,000." This grass roots initiative was formed in the aftermath of Warren Buffett's, since defunct, proposal to impose a "millionaire tax" rule. Of course, back then, as now, someone actually did the math and realized what the impact of such as tax would be in the grand scheme of the next decade of deficits, as we...

This is called surrendering before the war starts: Conservative commentator and Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol said Sunday the Republican Party should accept new ideas, including the much-criticized suggestion by Democrats that taxes be allowed to go up on the wealthy. ***** "It won't kill the country if we raise taxes a little bit on millionaires," he said on "Fox News Sunday." "It really won't, I don't think. I don't really understand why Republicans don't take Obama's offer." "Really? The Republican Party is going to fall on its sword to defend a bunch of millionaires, half of whom voted Democratic...

A counterpart to the biblical adage that the poor will always be with us is the notion that the rich will always be one tax hike away from leaving us. That's the foundation stone, after all, of the argument against raising taxes on "job creators" and of bestowing preferential treatment on capital gains (largely collected by the rich) over wage income (the sustenance of us other poor slobs). And it's a linchpin of the campaign against Proposition 30, Gov. Jerry Brown's proposal to raise income taxes on income above $250,000, topping out at a 13.3% rate on income over $1...

The release of over two decades of Mitt Romney's tax information on Friday must have been so anticlimactic for Team Obama --- not only does it turn out that Romney contributed a boatload of money towards the federal coffers, but he's also an almost wildly generous and charitable individual to boot. After the monumentally huge deal Team O made out of the tax returns, with dodgy "secrecy" ads and unsubtle fat-cat jabs out the wazoo, they don't seem to be seizing on the information with quite the fervor you would've expected.Yes, Romney is hugely wealthy, and hey, maybe some of...

Almost three-quarters of New York voters favor a tax on millionaires, a poll found, days after several hundred people marched to the homes of some of New York City’s richest financiers to protest economic inequality. Support for taxing wealthier people breached party lines, with 83% of Democrats and 55% of Republicans in favor, according to the Siena College Research Institute poll released Monday. A separate poll released by Quinnipiac University showed New York City voters support an extension of the tax by 61% to 28% percent, with Republicans favoring it by 55% to 38%. Let’s go back 160 years and...

Former Evergreen Solar CEO Richard Feldt’s five-bedroom, two-plus acre Hingham pad is on the market for $9.9 million, nearly $1.4 million more than what the company’s Devens factory sold for earlier this year. The Bare Cove Lane property also boasts four bathrooms, a pool, stone terrace and 200 feet of frontage on Hingham Harbor, according to a real estate listing. “The natural light is incredible. The views are spectacular. The finishes and millwork are masterful,” the listing says. “Rarely does a home of this caliber become available for sale.” Feldt, who left Evergreen Solar in 2010 to become CEO of...

Its biggest donation - $2 million - came from telecom billionaire Irwin Jacobs, who had not previously given to the Obama super PAC. And Priorities received $1 million each from Chicago media mogul Fred Eychaner, an Obama campaign bundler and prominent gay rights supporter who had previously donated $500,000, and star actor Morgan Freeman, a newcomer to big-political-check writing. It also received $750,000 from billionaire heir Jon Stryker, a big donor to gay rights causes, and $333,333 from billionaire media entrepreneur Haim Saban, who was among a handful of major Democratic donors who had been intensely courted for months to...

Wealthy Americans aren’t just leaving tax-heavy states like New York and California, they’re leaving the country. U.S. citizens are defecting at record levels in order to escape high taxes, the New York Post reported. About 8,000 U.S. citizens are projected to renounce their citizenship in 2012, or about 154 a week — versus 3,805 in 2011, or about 73 per week, according to immigration officials, the Post reported. They want to avoid tax bills resulting from the proposed 55-percent hike on the wealthy and the anticipated expiration of the Bush-era tax cuts at the end of the year, the Post...

WASHINGTON (AP) — A new financial report from GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney shows that his wealth remains near $250 million, about the same as last The new financial report from Romney describes sales of a large amount of stocks managed through his blind trust. Romney campaign spokeswoman Andrea Saul stressed that the trust manages investments for Romney and his wife, Ann. The new report shows that Romney still made millions of dollars over the past year in lucrative bank notes and investment funds, including nearly 40 different funds associated with his former company, Bain Capital.