Free Republic

President Biden and his family have returned to their favorite Thanksgiving holiday haunt at the Nantucket home of billionaire David Rubenstein. Air Force One touched down at Nantucket Memorial Airport on Tuesday night, and the first family and their Secret Service detail immediately left for the 13,000-square-foot home at Rubenstein's 14-acre compound on Rabbit Run Road, the Nantucket Current reported. The Biden family will also celebrate the president's 81st birthday, which was Monday, with a traditional coconut cake, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Monday. Biden has a planned call with U.S. military service members on Thanksgiving...

Michelle Obama and her daughters indulged in a traditional Moroccan iftar with Princess Lalla Salma, the wife of King Mohammed VI, on Tuesday evening. The Obamas were joined by actress Meryl Streep and other members of the Moroccan Royal family at the sumptuous dinner to break the fast during the holy Muslim month of Ramadan at King's Palace in Marrakesh. The first lady travels to Spain on Wednesday. Michelle wore a conservative $2,995 dress by Altuzarra while Malia opted for an even more expensive outfit by Burberry Prorsum worth $4,295. Earlier on Tuesday, Mrs Obama told Moroccan teenage girls that...

In Afghanistan, wedding celebrations are a unique opportunity for people to show their hospitality. But the size and scale of the events has prompted the government to consider a new law aimed at curbing the extravagant feasts that weddings often become - especially given the level of unemployment and poverty in the country. Officials and other tribal leaders now want to limit the number of guests, as well as the items on the menu, which would instead be drawn up by the municipal authority.

"Madison is just the beginning!" AFL-CIO chief Richard Trumka told a union rally in Annapolis on Monday. "Like that old song goes, 'You ain't seen n-n-n-n-nothing yet!' " Fresh from defeat in Wisconsin, union leaders are planning a new campaign not just to head off future challenges to their collective bargaining powers but also to make the case that organized labor's benefits and prerogatives -- wages, health care, and pensions that are more generous than those of comparable workers in the private sector -- are the moral equivalent of rights won by black Americans

Is Queen Rania the Next Target of Middle Eastern Violence? Posted by Sasha Brown-Worsham on February 9, 2011 at 1:25 PM Comments (4)| Likes (5) Share 18 Queen Rania of Jordan is undoubtedly an international celebrity. Most of this is due to her marked beauty and taste for fine things. But her lavish lifestyle may soon come to end as Jordan is showing some signs that it could be the next Egypt or Tunisia. Recent revolts, like the ones that took out Tunisia's Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and currently threaten Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak, have been played out on...

What the great French historian Alexis de Tocqueville would make of today’s Obama administration were he alive today is anyone’s guess. But I would wager that the author of L’Ancien Régime and Democracy in America would be less than impressed with the extravagance and arrogance on display among the White House elites that rule America as though they had been handed some divine right to govern with impunity. It is the kind of impunity that has been highlighted on the world stage this week by Michelle Obama’s hugely costly trip to Spain, which has prompted a New York Post columnist...

Somali Pirates have Lavish Life Style or Rot in Jail 20 Nov, 2008  In Somalia, almost all the coastal villages are supporting piracy at sea.Piracy at sea is successful in Somalia because Somali pirates are well organized and they hire necessary muscle power from unemployed youth to use weapons and communication equipment.buy sophisticated guns, Rocket Propelled Grenade launchers, satellite phones and luxury vehicles from foreign businessmen.hire poor fishermen to provide their boats and navigational skills at sea to capture the vessel.look after hostages well and they try their best to provide good food, drinks and cigarettes.successfully collect ransom. Interesting information...

SAN DIEGO – Downtown San Diego developer Doug Wilson threw a party so posh this summer that it violated state and local gift limits for the public officials who attended, barring five of them from working on his projects for a year. It was hardly the splash he wanted. San Diego City Councilman Jim Madaffer and four Centre City Development Corp. staff members, including President Nancy Graham, are disqualified from reviewing or recommending any of Wilson's projects until next summer. They, along with other public officials and hundreds of invitees, attended the lavish party Wilson threw in July for a...

State Senate boss Don Perata throws impressive parties, and this one was a doozy. The guests, some of Perata's best donors among them, feasted on buttery Dungeness crab and sipped California Chardonnay. Then they settled into their plush luxury box seats to watch the Oakland Raiders play the New York Jets in a game with playoff implications. It was mid-December 2000, and the state senator had just dropped $43,600 on an oversize luxury suite at the Oakland Coliseum for a single afternoon of festivities. At the time he said he was trying to convince East Bay business leaders to buy...

Critics charge that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is abusing the perks of power by asking for a jumbo military jet with sleeping accommodations for her flights across the country. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Pentagon agreed to provide the speaker, who is second in the line of presidential succession, with a military plane for added security during trips back home. Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert, an Illinois Republican, flew in a small commuter-sized Air Force jet. Pelosi wants a larger aircraft that can fly to her San Francisco district without stopping to refuel. Some sources are claiming that Pelosi...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's inauguration next week may be even a little more lavish than expected. In the last two weeks, contributions from corporations and many of the governor's longtime political backers have more than doubled, to $1.4 million, the amount Schwarzenegger has on hand to fund the two-day affair, his inauguration committee said Friday. The committee also offered the first details of how the money will be spent. Festivities will kick off Jan. 4 outside the Capitol with a public gathering highlighting the greenhouse gas reduction law Schwarzenegger signed, as well as the state's other environmental conservation and clean technology...

A tax accountant embezzled $10 million from a client, then used it to fund a lavish lifestyle that included a $2.2 million California mansion, a $74,000 bat mitzvah for his daughter and the production of three horror movies, authorities said Tuesday. Prosecutors said Denis I. Shusterman blew through the $10 million over eight years, spending about half on the three B movies. They said he also wrote off many of his good times as business expenses when he filed his income taxes. As Shusterman's embezzlement and fraud trial opened in federal court, prosecutors also said he gave $495,000 to one...

Mugabe plans a lavish party as nation suffers By Peta Thornycroft in Harare (Filed: 22/02/2006) Zimbabwe's leader Robert Mugabe turned 82 yesterday in robust health, in contrast to the state of his country. Life expectancy for Zimbabweans is plunging, three quarters of the population is short of food and inflation is 613 per cent. However, President Mugabe is as healthy as a man his age could be. He recently told the state press that a doctor said his "bones were not exactly as a boy of 26, but certainly someone of 30". A shortage of bread has pushed the price...

As your jet starts its descent, you are glued to your window. The scene below is astonishing: a 24-square-mile archipelago of coral-colored islands in the shape of an almost finished puzzle of the world. In the shallow green waters between continents, the sunken shapes of the Pyramids of Giza and the Roman Colosseum are clearly visible. In the distance are three other large island groups configured as palms within crescents and planted with high-rise resorts, amusement parks, and a thousand mansions built on stilts over the water. The palms are connected by causeways to a Miami-like beachfront chockablock with full...

It's a question that plagues the successful and the aspiring: How much does a family need to net each year to lead a comfortable affluent life? We are not talking about great riches; there are millions of Americans who work hard to be able to afford the best for their families--and themselves--but who don't entertain notions of owning private jets, sprawling country estates or closets full of the latest fashions. Their goals are more grounded: a good education for their children, a nice house, a weekend place, the occasional trip, a night out once a week and a little money...

new Government Accountability report shows that private airport screeners do a better job at detecting dangerous object than the bureaucrats at the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). This report is the last in a long series, all of which demonstrate the poor performances of the 45,000-employee bureaucracy. So isn't it time for Congress to acknowledge its mistake and abolish TSA? After the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, Congress ordered all but five commercial airports to switch from privately employed screeners to a government workforce. Three years after the federal takeover, TSA is inundated with complaints. The GAO reported several times on...

The Taxpayers League of Minnesota has started a great feature, which highlights extravagent government structures in that state, The "Taj Mahal of the Week." Nearly every day, I drive past a stunningly beautiful and extravagent public school campus in berkeley. Perched on a prime hillside lot, with incredible views of the Bay, bridges, and mountains, the building itself features a large glassed-in atrium, the finest materials, and beautiful lanscaping on its oversized grounds. It must have cost at least 50 million dollars. To the causal eye, it looks more like an elegant corporate headquarters building than a school. Of course,...