Free Republic

Gov. Kathy Hochul attended a secret meeting this week at the Upper East Side townhouse of Alexander Rovt — a billionaire mega-donor to her campaign whose hospital network was bailed out by the state in April. A source provided The Post a video of Hochul — who is already under fire over accusations of pay to play campaign donations involving an overpriced, no-bid $637 million COVID test contract — entering Rovt’s mansion on East 68th Street Thursday morning. Rovt, 70, is chairman of the board of One Brooklyn Health Systems Inc., which runs a network of medical facilities where the...

Another US billionaire in the oil/gas industry (or in commodity markets) blamed the Biden administration’s energy policies for soaring fuel costs and said it would magnify the current crisis.John Arnold, former Enron trader and hedge fund manager, known as the “king of natural gas,” unleashed a tweetstorm Tuesday directed at Biden for the worsening supply outlook that sent natgas futures to 13-year highs. US Natgas supplies are trending below a 5-year mean. Source: Houston-based energy firm Criterion ResearchHe said the federal government should invoke the Defense Production Act to spur increased production, or prices could rise even more and cause...

Lakers star LeBron James has officially become the first active NBA player to obtain a net worth of $1 billion, according to Forbes. Legendary NBA superstar Michael Jordan has also reached the lofty billion-dollar mark, but he didn’t accomplish that feat until 2014, long after he retired from the league. Only $41 million worth of James’ considerable financial fortune comes from the Los Angeles Lakers team he plays for. The rest comes from shoe, movie, and clothing deals, the lion’s share of which is connected to Nike, which is among one of the dozens of international corporations linked to slave...

Well, well, well, roughly a quarter of the 2.2 billion dollars being spent on Obamaphones, has gone to a company owned by Carlos Slim. Todd Shields of Bloomberg reports: Slim's TracFone Wireless Inc. received about a quarter of the funds from the U.S. government's Lifeline program, according to the latest figures. Today, a House subcommitteeasked why the program, paid for by fees charged to U.S. phone subscribers, tripled in cost since 2008. How many other markets have grown 300% in the years since the crash? Slim is often called the richest man in the world, and owns the cell phone monopoly in Mexico,...

Sen. Joe Manchin reportedly told the White House last week that he would be willing to support a version of the billionaire tax in President Biden’s Build Back Better agenda, in a reversal from his previous criticism . Three people familiar with his private offer informed the Washington Post this week of his endorsement of the plan, saying it was included in a list of spending and revenue proposals that he supports. It remains unclear if the West Virginian Democrat included a revenue estimate.

NEW YORK - A rare first printing of the U.S. Constitution sold at Sotheby’s in New York for $43.2 million, a record price for a document or book sold at auction. The buyer, Chicago hedge fund manager Kenneth Griffin, will loan the document to the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas, for public exhibition, Sotheby’s announced Friday. Griffin, founder and CEO of multinational hedge fund Citadel, outbid a group of 17,000 cryptocurrency enthusiasts from around the world who crowdfunded to buy it over the last week. “The U.S. Constitution is a sacred document that enshrines the rights...

Guess this was one tax hike that hit too close to home for Nancy Pelosi. The speaker of the House of Representatives — who is reportedly the sixth-wealthiest member of Congress at over $100 million — took issue late last month with plans by fellow Democrats to levy a tax on unrealized capital gains to help pay for President Biden’s massive $1.75 trillion social spending bill, according to a report. The California Democrat reportedly described the wealth tax as “a publicity stunt.”

Ken Griffin, the Chicago billionaire who runs hedge fund giant Citadel and owns the enormous market-making firm Citadel Securities, says he’s "all-in" to back a candidate to try and defeat fellow billionaire and Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker of Illinois. "I’m going to make sure that if he runs again, that I am all-in to support the candidate who will beat him," Griffin said Wednesday during comments he made at the DealBook Online Summit hosted by The New York Times. "He doesn’t deserve to be the governor of our state."

China Points the Way to Anti-Free Speech American LibsAny American over the age of 40 is painfully aware of how quickly a society can change and freedoms can erode. Don’t be pedantic — 40 is close enough for this cautionary tale.If you want a glimpse into the future that American leftists are driving us toward, you don’t need a crystal ball. Twitter will do just fine:Outspoken billionaire Sun Dawu jailed for 18 years in China https://t.co/Ig0NtB143s— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) July 29, 2021Outspoken! The horror.The details of the story are even creepier.BBC.com:A prominent Chinese billionaire has been sentenced to 18...

**SNIP** Right now, the number of rocket flights is very small: in the whole of 2020, for instance, there were 114 attempted orbital launches in the world, according to Nasa. That compares with the airline industry’s more than 100,000 flights each day on average. But emissions from rockets are emitted right into the upper atmosphere, which means they stay there for a long time: two to three years. Even water injected into the upper atmosphere – where it can form clouds – can have warming impacts, says Marais. “Even something as seemingly innocuous as water can have an impact.” Closer...

A major bitcoin investor has suddenly died, leaving behind a cryptocurrency fortune reportedly worth more than $2 billion. Mircea Popescu, a Romanian national, drowned last week off the coast of Costa Rica, local reports said. He was 41. Popescu drowned at Playa Hermosa, according to Teletica.com, which reported that Popescu was swept away by the current and died. His death has prompted questions surrounding what will now happen to Popescu's enormous bitcoin fortune. Popescu, a controversial figure sometimes referred to as "the father of bitcoin toxicity," is known for launching a "bitcoin securities exchange" called MPEx in 2012, according to...

Robert L. Johnson, the founder of Black Entertainment Television LLC, better known as BET Networks, says it’s time for America to “atone” for its sins of the past by “paying black people of all stripes — the rich ones, the poor ones, and the middle — out of our pocket.”And by “of all stripes,” America’s first black billionaire includes himself on the list.America’s first black billionaire says taxpayers need to fund $14 TRILLION in reparations https://t.co/Zn2zO1mZdu— Daily Mail US (@DailyMail) June 30, 2021As reported by Vice on Tuesday, Johnson, the 75-year-old media magnate, who owns several homes, heads an asset...

Robert L. Johnson, founder of BET, wants reparations. Razzing him.

43. Wyoming | John Mars City: Jackson Net Worth: $31.3 Billion Rank: 48 Source Of Wealth: Candy, Pet Food John Mars is an heir to Mars candy and pet food fortune. His sister, Jacqueline, is the richest person in Virginia.

One of the most curious things about America is how many of our most celebrated billionaires sound like socialists. Bill Gates and Warren Buffett love talking about how more and more of their wealth should be taxed. Jeff Bezos bought The Washington Post, enabling it to wage relentless war on the Republicans. That's why it seemed a little funny for the socialists at National Public Radio to report some public hatred of Bezos as news. The headline was "Tens Of Thousands Sign Petition To Stop Jeff Bezos From Returning To Earth." On July 20, Amazon's founder and his brother Mark...

Colorado’s Secretary of State is connected to Soros and Hillary Clinton money so it’s no surprise she doesn’t want a legitimate audit performed in her state. Yesterday, Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold released a statement that claimed she would not allow outside auditors to come into Colorado and perform an election audit of the 2020 results in Colorado. Maybe Griswold doesn’t want an audit in Colorado because then the citizens there would wake up and see their state’s election process is totally corrupt. One very quick statistic tells us this. In the 2020 Election, there were half a million...

I don’t begrudge anyone their success and couldn’t care less how much money someone has. But our culture puts people who have a lot of money on a pedestal more for having a lot of money and less for how they got it or what they do with it. More often than not, what they do with it is, quite frankly, stupid. “A fool and his money are soon parted,” as the saying goes. But sometimes a fool has so much money that there’s nothing they can do to be parted from all of it, which frees those people up...

A liberal redistricting group funded largely through secretive donations by a Swiss billionaire is hitting the airwaves with a well-funded ad campaign attacking the "billionaires buying our elections." The new ad from the National Redistricting Action Fund, a partisan lobbying group helmed by former attorney general Eric Holder, goes after the power billionaires wield through anonymous "dark money" contributions. Unmentioned is the at least $3 million funneled anonymously to the National Redistricting Action Fund in recent years by Hansjörg Wyss, a foreign billionaire who has quietly emerged as a liberal megadonor in the United States. Wyss's dark money contributions made...

The Czech Republic’s richest man, billionaire investor Petr Kellner, was one of five people killed in a helicopter crash in Alaska, officials have confirmed. The 56-year-old founder of investment group PPF was among four passengers on a heli-ski tour who died alongside their pilot Saturday near Knik Glacier northeast of Anchorage, Alaska State Troopers said. “An unbelievable tragedy,” said Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis, who offered “sincere condolences” to Kellner’s wife, Renata, and his four children.

MacKenzie Scott, philanthropist, author and former wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has married a Seattle science teacher. Dan Jewett made the announcement in a letter to the website of the nonprofit organization the Giving Pledge on Saturday. Jewett said he never imagined he would be in a position to talk about giving away significant wealth during his lifetime in order to make a difference in other people's lives. He expressed gratitude "for the exceptional privilege it will be to partner in giving away assets with the potential to do so much good when shared." Jewett has been a teacher...