Free Republic

Last week, responding to President Obama's latest populist assault on the wealthy, I issued a commentary in which I explained why his ideas about American economic history were fundamentally flawed. As dangerous and erroneous as those views are, at least I can cut the President some slack for commenting on a subject in which he really has no basis for expertise. Hailing from academia and local community organizing, Barack Obama likely did not spend huge amounts of time boning up on economic history. However, there are other subjects where he should find firmer footing. Constitutional law certainly comes to mind....

Up to a dozen Secret Service agents in Colombia for President Barack Obama’s trip there have been relieved of their duties amid allegations of misconduct. The Secret Service did not detail the accusations but said they did not affect security for the president, who landed in the country Friday for a weekend at the Summit of the Americas. The Associated Press reported that the allegations involved prostitutes. The actions happened before the president’s arrival on Friday, the AP reported, citing unnamed sources. “There have been allegations of misconduct made against Secret Service personnel in Cartagena, Colombia prior to the President’s...

Remember the stimulus plan? The big spending package enacted at the height of hope and change, its legacy reads like a litany of broken campaign promises. It was “only” supposed to cost $787 billion. It was intended to create or save 5.5 million jobs. It was going to keep unemployment from spiking to more than 9 percent. Even before Barack Obama was sworn in, members of his economic team were predicting that unemployment would peak at 7.9 percent sometime in 2009 before falling below 6 percent by April 2012. Does it sound like an alternate reality? Well, prepare to enter...

CARTAGENA, Colombia (AP) — A dozen Secret Service agents with President Barack Obama at an international summit have been relieved of duty because of allegations of misconduct. The Associated Press received an anonymous tip that the misconduct involved prostitutes in Cartagena, Colombia, the site of the Summit of the Americas. A Secret Service spokesman would neither confirm nor deny the allegation.

President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama had a combined income of $789,674 in 2011 but paid a lower tax rate than the president's secretary, who made less than $100,000, the White House confirmed Friday. The Obamas paid an effective rate of 20.5 percent. White House aides would not reveal presidential secretary Anita Breckenridge’s tax rate but confirmed it was higher than the first family's rate. Breckenridge earned $95,000 last year. The Obamas' rate is less than the 30 percent the president wants millionaires to pay under his proposed Buffett Rule.

Now, again, there are words like “egocentric megalomaniac” being ascribed to the White House, and warnings about detention camps and government surveillance of its citizens. But where previous generations of warnings emanated from lone wolves with their fax machines in dusty spare rooms, the current alarms are being issued by the likes of Investors Business Daily, First Amendment authority Nat Hentoff, New York Times best-selling author Robert Ringer and their equals...

By: Larry Walker, Jr.There's no way Obama's secretary paid a higher effective tax rate than the Obamas. You don't believe it? Are income taxes such a mystery that we can't find out? Well, let's run the numbers and see. According to Jake Tapper of ABC News, Mr. Obama released his 2011 federal income tax today, with he and his wife reporting an adjusted gross income of $789,674. The Obamas paid $162,074 in total tax – an effective federal income tax rate of 20.5%.The White House also reported that President Obama’s secretary, Anita Decker Breckenridge, makes $95,000 a year. White House...

Levin asked, “How stupid does the president think we are?” He said that the idea that the most left-wing president, who wants to fundamentally change America, invokes Ronald Reagan amazes him. “I have news for him, we’re not that stupid.”

U.S. taxpayers can now use their iPhone to compare how much different plans to tackle the federal deficit would cost them in their yearly income taxes. Debt Bomb — based on the U.S. tax code and publicly available data from the Congressional Budget Office and other government sources — allows users to project how a raise in taxes would cost in their personal income taxes over the years. In order to make a projection, users input basic income tax data — modeled after what a household pays in taxes — into the app. “Debt is going to be one of...

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...

Here’s President Barack Obama in his younger years, hair grown out, stunna shades on (see “stunna shades” here). Write your captions in the comments section below. We’ll post the winner and some runners-up tomorrow. Caption that photo!

Wrapping the flag around big-government excess isn’t going to workVice President Joe Biden says paying higher taxes is patriotic. He must have forgotten that America was founded on a tax revolt. While pitching the Obama administration’s plan on Thursday to boost the burden on upper-income groups, Mr. Biden said, “Wealthy people are just as patriotic as middle-class people, as poor people, and they know they should be doing more.” This skewed take on patriotism was quickly retweeted by the White House. The message fits with the shameful class-warfare appeals that claim tax hikes are needed to keep firefighters on the...

President Obama’s Secretary Paid Higher Tax Rate Than He Did President Obama today released his 2011 federal income tax, with he and his wife reporting an adjusted gross income of $789,674. The Obamas paid $162,074 in total tax – an effective federal income tax rate of 20.5%. The Obamas also reported donating approximately 22% of their income to charity — $172,130. President Obama has been making a big political push for the “Buffett Rule,” which would require millionaires to pay a minimum of 30% of their income in taxes. To illustrate the point, the president has pointed out that billionaire...

CARTAGENA, Colombia (AP) — Barack Obama will be on the defensive heading into this weekend's Summit of the Americas, with the U.S. stubbornly clinging to positions opposed by most Latin American and Caribbean leaders as its influence in the region wanes. The American president can expect even some of Washington's friendliest allies to protest U.S. insistence on excluding communist Cuba from the gathering. There will be vigorous discussion on drug legalization, which the Obama administration opposes. And Obama can expect to be in the minority in his opposition to Argentina's claim to the British-controlled Falkland Islands. Obama remains popular in...

President Barack Obama released tax forms on Friday that reveal he will probably pay a higher tax rate on lower income than likely Republican opponent Mitt Romney in 2011, adding fuel to a Democratic election-year effort to raise taxes on the wealthy. Obama paid an effective tax rate of 20.5 percent on income of $789,674 last year, the White House said. Romney has estimated he will pay a 15.4 percent tax rate on income of $20.9 million, though he has not filed his return yet. Obama and his fellow Democrats have spent much of the week touting the "Buffett Rule,"...

At the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce meeting in downtown Miami, Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz used the widely referenced term ‘Obamacare’ when referring to President Obama’s Affordable Care Act. In 2011 while on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, Congresswoman Schultz took umbrage with several Republican members of Congress for using the term ‘Obamacare’ in referencing the Affordable Care Act .

GOP Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney applauded House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa and Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley for their efforts to investigate the Obama Justice Department’s lethal Operation Fast and Furious scandal today during a speech at the NRA Annual Meeting Leadership Forum in St. Louis. This is the first time any GOP presidential candidate has mentioned the Fast and Furious scandal by name in a public event speech, officially bringing the scandal into the 2012 general election with President Barack Obama. Romney also embraced the NRA’s calls for Attorney General Eric Holder to resign or be fired for his...

Could George Zimmerman be the October surprise? Depending on the timing of legal developments in Florida, the court proceedings and possible trial of Trayvon Martin’s killer - one of the highest-profile and most racially charged cases in years - could be thrust into the middle of the 2012 presidential election. Legal experts and political consultants disagree over what that would mean for President Barack Obama and the presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney. In recent press appearances, Zimmerman’s attorney, Mark O’Mara, predicted that it would be at least six months and possibly as long as a year before his client faces...

President Obama and his wife, Michelle, reported adjusted gross income of $789,674 in 2011 and paid just over 20 percent of it to the federal government in taxes. Their income declined nearly $1 million from the previous year, when the president was reaping larger amounts from sales of his bestselling books. The numbers were disclosed in the Obamas’ federal income tax return and gift-tax return, released Friday by the White House, along with those of Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. Mr. and Mrs. Obama paid $162,074 in income taxes, an effective tax rate of 20.5 percent. In a statement,...

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.