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House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and her Republican counterpart, Majority Leader Eric Cantor, are the wealthiest members of the U.S. House leadership, according to financial disclosure forms. Pelosi, 72, of California tops the list of House leaders, with $40 million to $187 million in financial assets she reports with her husband, San Francisco commercial real estate investor Paul Pelosi. Most of their assets are listed as rental properties in California and partnership income in companies including investment management and restaurants. ... Pelosi, who yielded the speakership to Boehner after Republicans won control of the House, and her husband [also] own...

Every time windows are smashed and clashes erupt with police at Occupy protests in Oakland and San Francisco, one group is in the thick of it: masked, black-clad anarchists known as the Black Bloc. Police say they are pure trouble and point to conflicts at last week's May Day rallies as the most recent example. Most pacifist protesters wish they would go away. Hard-core Occupiers say they like having them around to diversify their movement's tactics. Exactly who makes up the Black Bloc is, by design, a bit of a mystery. Adherents rarely reveal their identity and say they aren't...

he Hollywood studio run by one of President Obama’s biggest donors is under investigation by the Securities Exchange Commission for bribing Chinese officials to secure exclusive film rights in the communist country—rights secured in secretive negotiations that included Vice President Joe Biden. The SEC is investigating at least five Hollywood studios—including 20th Century Fox, Disney, and DreamWorks Animation—for allegedly making illegal payments to Chinese officials, Reuters reported Tuesday. DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg is the largest donor to the Obama reelection super PAC Priorities USA... Read more: http://nation.foxnews.com/obama-donor/2012/04/26/obamas-biggest-donor-under-investigation#ixzz1tBZxsEcC

Earlier this week Elizabeth Warren was asked by the Boston Globe a seemingly simple and straightforward question about her taxes: In 2011, did she pay the 5.85% rate (which is voluntary) on her Massachusetts state tax form? Since 2001, as I explained in a previous post, residents of the Commonwealth have had the option – if they so choose – to pay a higher tax rate than the 5.3% minimum. And since the former consumer advocate raked in more than $700,000 last year, the Globe believed their inquiry was an appropriate and reasonable one. At the time, however, she refused...

UPDATED: Executive chairman Sumner Redstone made an unchanged $20.3 million last year, while his CEO overtook Viacom's Philippe Dauman to become the highest-paid Hollywood CEO so far this reporting season. CBS Corp. said late Friday that president and CEO Leslie Moonves received higher compensation worth $69.9 million last year, driven by option awards. The total pay package, details of which were disclosed in a regulatory filing, was up 21 percent from the $57.7 million the media mogul had made in 2010 and makes him the highest-paid Hollywood CEO so far this reporting season. In 2010, the highest-paid CEO in the...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama and his family paid more than $160,000 in federal taxes last year on earnings of $789,674, the White House said Friday. The president's 2011 federal income tax return shows that about half of the first family's income is the president's salary. The rest comes from sales of Obama's books.

Alec Baldwin, Stanley Tucci and a bunch of lobbyists are crawling all over Capitol Hill attempting to steal more money out of our pockets to fund "artists" who don't have the talent to survive on private donations and earnings. What a racket: Robert Lynch, president and CEO of Americans for the Arts, the premiere lobbying org for arts groups, said that while "some of the rhetoric is negative," the records of Santorum and Romney both reflect some support for arts funding. He's encouraged by President Obama's request to increase funding for the NEA to $155 million, restoring it to the...

In my column for The Fiscal Times today, I remind readers that budgets are statements of priorities. Barack Obama’s budget shows his priorities on many levels, both at the macro and micro level. Given the large amount of new spending and higher taxes, it’s very easy to conclude at the macro level that Obama doesn’t think that spending reductions are a priority at all. How about on the micro level? Changes to three different programs give an even clearer indication of Obama’s priorities: "One is to the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program that helps poor children opt out of failing public...

So just who are those top 1 percent of Americans that we're all supposed to hate? If you listen to President Obama, the protesters at Occupy Wall Street, and much of the media, it's obvious. They're either "trust-fund babies" who inherited their money, or greedy bankers and hedge-fund managers. Certainly, they haven't worked especially hard for their money. While the recession has thrown millions of Americans out of work, they've been getting even richer. Worse, they don't even pay their fair share in taxes: Millionaires and billionaires are paying a lower tax rate than their secretaries. In reality, each of...

PRINCETON, NJ -- Politically, the wealthiest 1% of Americans -- those in households earning $500,000 or more annually -- are somewhat to the right of the remaining 99%, but more in terms of party identification than self-professed ideology. One-third of the nation's "1%" identify themselves as Republicans, 41% as independents, and 26% as Democrats. This is a mirror image of the "99%," a third of whom are Democrats, with 39% independents and a quarter Republicans. When the party leanings of independents are taken into account, 57% of the nation's wealthiest adults associate themselves with the Republican Party, compared with 44%...

The class war is on. It's the 99% of "us" versus the 1% of "them." In the rhetoric of this war, we are fighting the 1% because they possess most of the nation's wealth, bankroll their handpicked political candidates, control the banks and get million-dollar paychecks and billion-dollar bailouts; yet they don't pay enough taxes or invest their wealth in creating American jobs. They're the "millionaires and billionaires" President Obama has called out as needing to pony up more for progressive reforms of our healthcare, banking, tax and political systems. They are the enemy of "us" — the 99% who...

Rajat K. Gupta, a former Goldman Sachs, Procter & Gamble, and American Airlines director and retired McKinsey & Company managing director, surrendered to the Federal Bureau of Investigation on Wednesday morning, according to The New York Times, to face criminal charges of insider trading. Gupta, as a McKinsey veteran, embodied the “trusted advisor” consulting ethos and personified the McKinsey “advisor to CEOs” business strategy and brand. McKinsey’s value to its clients and its effectiveness as an advisor requires knowing their secrets and holding them close to the vest. Gupta’s name first came up in connection with the charges against now...

Occupy’s busting out on a new path … So Adbusters is asking people all around the world to march on Oct. 29. “We want to send a clear message that we the people want to slow down this global casino.” And Adbusters does have one specific demand, a 1 percent tax on financial-sector transactions. Some form of that idea, known as the “Robin Hood” tax. Dominant Social Theme: We want justice for the world and the UN will give it to us. Free-Market Analysis: Kalle Lasn, founder of Adbusters magazine, based in Vancouver, B.C. – the magazine that issued the...

They have branded themselves the 99 per cent, camping out in New York's financial district to protest against corporate greed and financial inequality. But on the ground at the epicentre of the Occupy Wall Street demonstration, a closer look at some of the impassioned protesters is starting to suggest that while many of them have genuine grievances, all may not be completely as advertised. The flash of a designer belt, a watch or even, in one case, a huge wad of cash reveals many activists are not quite so hard done by.

When Americans evaluate today's political landscape, most feel something between impotence and disapproval. So, while citizens shake their heads or shrug at the mainstream media's “top tier” presidential candidates, it is extraordinary how many are becoming overjoyed about one lesser covered candidate. Tens-of-thousands have joined the appropriately named Ron Paul Revolution, joining Meetup.com groups, putting up signs, and crossing states to attend rallies. Congressman Ron Paul's genuine message and untarnished record of promoting individual liberty for everyone, a free-market economy of wealth and abundance, and a foreign policy of non-intervention, peace and free trade, has attracted vast support from diverse...

SEATAC, Wash. — The Christmas trees are going back up at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. Port of Seattle officials had ordered the trees taken down over the weekend after a local rabbi threatened a lawsuit if a menorah wasn't also displayed at the airport. Airport officials say they took that action out of concern that if they allowed the addition of a menorah, they would also have to display symbols of other religions and cultures, which was not something airport workers had time for during the busiest travel season of the year. Rabbi Elazar Bogomilsky says he never asked that the...

Friday's lead story in America's largest newspaper must have made for sober reading at AEI and the Council on Foreign Relations, the twin dorms that house the Wilsonian wings of our national parties. Americans, it appears, have had a bellyful of interventionism and globaloney. Reporters Susan Page and David Jackson merit quoting at length: "In a USA Today/Gallup Poll, nearly half of those surveyed said the United States 'should mind its own business internationally and let other countries get along as best they can on their own.' ... "The leave-us-alone mood is apparent not only in the proportion of Americans,...

While watching the news for the past few days, I have seen a commerical for a group called the ONE campaign. The goal of this group is to get the American people to rise up and influence our elected leaders to donat one percent of the US budget to ending poverty, hunger, disease and death in Africa. The ONE foundation is supported by Bill Gates, and has such celebrity backers as Bono,Dikembe Mutombo, Michael W. Smith and Michael Stipe.

Elton John has said stars are scared to speak out against war in Iraq because of "bullying tactics" used by the US government to hinder free speech. "There's an atmosphere of fear in America right now that is deadly. Everyone is too career-conscious," he told New York magazine, Interview. Sir Elton said performers could be "frightened by the current administration's bullying tactics", The singer likened the current "fear factor" to McCarthyism in the 1950s. "There was a moment about a year ago when you couldn't say a word about anything in this country for fear of your career being shot...

<p>WASHINGTON - The Senate dealt an election-year defeat Wednesday to a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, rejecting pleas from President Bush (news - web sites) and fellow conservatives that the measure was needed to safeguard an institution that has flourished for thousands of years.</p>