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Billionaires, Insiders Plan To Place $10-Billion Tax Hike On 2012 California Ballot Acting as the Think Long Committee, they want to change the tax system to increase money for public schools and universities and for local governments. By Anthony York, Los Angeles Times November 20, 2011 Reporting from Sacramento— Joining the battle over California taxes, a group of billionaires and political insiders say they will place a $10-billion tax increase on the November 2012 ballot. The Think Long Committee, which includes Google Chairman Eric Schmidt, former governors Gray Davis and Arnold Schwarzenegger and Los Angeles philanthropist Eli Broad, says its...

A Georgetown University law professor says Americans are “slaves” to the U.S. Constitution as their adherence to that document — written by a “tiny group of white slave-owning men” — has turned the country into a “war zone.” Rosa Brooks made the comparison yesterday on MSNBC’s Joy Reid show and highlighted the recent mass shooting in Highland Park, Illinois. “[T]here are people all over the world who have lived during armed conflicts, and when does the mortar fall on your house, when does the soldier or the tank come down the street and just kill you,” Brooks said. “We are...

His name is Nicolas Berggruen, and he is the subject of a new profile in Bloomberg Markets magazine. Berggruen's art-dealer dad gave him a $250,000 trust fund and he's multiplied that by 10,000—a $2.5 billion fortune. He hasn't had a home address since 2000; now he "constantly roams the world on his Gulfstream IV jet, living out of five-star hotels," reports the magazine. Berggruen might not share Soros' poor-to-rich background, but he shares Soros' passion for politics and even some of his specific policy proposals, such as a more integrated Europe.