Free Republic

Well this is my 2nd installment in my legal battle of legendary titans: The showdown between me and Jeffrey Bozos. Just as a matter of record, are you aware that Mr. Bozos made something like 40 billion dollar last year. And I come along and asked for a paltry, measly, infinitesimally small teeny weeny, baby amount of a mere 600 dollars for their negligence and another about 4,000 for the poor business practices and he's not willing to part with a dime. Hmm, let's see. I'm not good with math but 40 billion minus 4,950 dollars = well, he's got...

Squeezed into tighter and tighter spaces, airline passengers appear to be rebelling, taking their frustrations out on other fliers. Three U.S. flights made unscheduled landings in the past eight days after passengers got into fights over the ability to recline their seats. Disputes over a tiny bit of personal space might seem petty, but for passengers whose knees are already banging into tray tables, every inch counts.

Actor Andy Serkis is set to direct an upcoming movie adaptation of George Orwell’s classic novel Animal Farm. But there will be a slight deviation from the story’s original focus: rather than serve as a cautionary tale about Communist totalitarianism, this updated version will address Hollywood’s predictable, go-to embodiment of evil, the Darth Vader of our time: corporate greed. Orwell’s brilliant allegory Animal Farm was written during World War II as a satire on Soviet Communism (and very nearly wasn’t published, critical as it was of our Russian ally). It has since been adapted to film twice, a British animated...

POLITICS Obama courting CEOs on immigration widens conservative split, raises issue of corporate motives Published November 10, 2013 FoxNews.com President Obama's courting of top U.S. executives this week to help get the Republican-controlled House to pass immigration reform is furthering the divide among conservatives, with a top GOP senator and others suggesting corporate America is lending its support with hopes of getting more access to low-cost immigrant labor. The president said before the White House meeting Tuesday that he and others who support comprehensive immigration reform passed in the Senate know the “politics are challenging” in the House and that...

It’s official now. This explains a lot of what’s happened recently. Rupert Murdoch is moving his NewsCorp headquarters to Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. You can kiss fair and balanced FoxNews good-bye. Breitbart has the story here: “News Corp chief Rupert Murdoch announced on Tuesday that the Gulf emirate of Abu Dhabi is to become the headquarters of his global media empire in the Middle East. Addressing some 400 delegates at the opening of the Abu Dhabi Media Summit, Murdoch said his corporation had started out as a small Australian firm to become a US-based international company that employs 64,000...

NEW YORK -- Even as the nation's biggest financial firms were struggling and the federal government was spending hundreds of billions of dollars to save many of them, the companies as a group were boosting the perks and benefits they pay their chief executives. The firms, accounting for more $350 billion in federal bailout funds, increased these perks and benefits 4 percent on average last year, according to an analysis of corporate disclosures filed in recent months. Some chief executives, such as Kenneth D. Lewis of Bank of America and Jeffrey M. Peek of CIT Group, the major small-business lender...

Verdict reached in Scrushy trial Updated: Thursday, 18 Jun 2009, 9:54 AM CDT Published : Thursday, 18 Jun 2009, 9:54 AM CDT BIRMINGHAM, AL (WBRC) - A verdict was reached Thursday in the civil lawsuit against former HealthSouth chief executive Richard Scrushy. The decision was scheduled to be announced before 11 a.m. Shareholders filed suit on behalf of HealthSouth seeking $2.6 billion in damages from Scrushy, whom they claimed directed a massive accounting scam. Scrushy, who is serving time in federal prison on an unrelated criminal conviction, testified during the trial, denying any wrongdoing. He agreed that he made lots...

Starbucks Corp. told employees the company will no longer guarantee that it will make a company match to their 401(k) accounts next year. In a letter to employees sent last week, the coffee giant said it will switch to a "fully discretionary match" from a "fixed employer match" starting Jan. 1 for employees "future roast" retirement savings plans. That means the company can decide whether or not to make matching contributions to participants in the retirement plan for future years. The Wall Street Journal reviewed the letter and the company confirmed it. "In order to invest and grow responsibly and...

At least three deaths and more than 1,600 adverse reactions including spontaneous abortion and paralysis have been connected to Merck & Co.'s new vaccine for the human papilloma virus, a treatment the company has lobbied state lawmakers to make mandatory for young girls across the nation. The report comes from Judicial Watch, the Washington-based public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption.   "The FDA adverse event reports on the HPV vaccine read like a catalog of horrors," said Tom Fitton, Judicial Watch president. "Any state or local government now beset by Merck's lobbying campaigns to mandate this HPV vaccine...

ALBUQUERQUE Defense contractor Lockheed Martin Corporation plans to open an Albuquerque call center that would field requests for immigration information. A company spokesman, Joe Wagovich, says Lockheed expects to have the call center in full operation in three to four months. Some 350 workers would field toll-free phone calls to a hot line operated by U-S Citizenship and Immigration Services. Callers will generally be foreign nationals or lawyers seeking information about immigration and naturalization status.At least 30 percent of the center's workers must be able to speak Spanish. Lockheed also has plans to expand a call center in Indianapolis as...

Lori Wenzel lives in a nice house in a nice subdivision in Grand Blanc, Mich. She's worked hard to get there. She hired into an auto parts plant, now Delphi East, in 1977 when she was 18 years old, some 28 years ago. Now the Delphi bankruptcy, the largest industrial meltdown in U.S. history, threatens to shatter her world and the world of her coworkers. Delphi's skid into an economic ditch raises a fundamental question: How do U.S. firms compete in an increasingly rough-and-tumble global economy? Historically, U.S. firms have succeeded through innovation and high productivity, not low wages. Indeed,...

Spotlighting the Outsourcers: A 2004 Congressional Voter´s Guide (PDF): Overview | Voter's Guide Manufacturing Policy Scorecard for U.S. House Members:  National

Letters to the Editor The cost of illegal immigration Regarding "Rounding up all illegals 'not realistic' " (Page 1, Friday) by Jerry Seper: Asa Hutchinson has once again clearly demonstrated that he is not up to the task of protecting the U.S. borders. His statements and inaction show that rich bureaucrats have little view of reality from the gated communities in which they live. Mr. Hutchinson speaks of a lack of will on the part of the American people to uproot illegal aliens in the United States. How did Mr. Hutchinson arrive at such a conclusion? The only lack of...

Hundreds of people were left to die inside a blazing supermarket after security staff locked doors to prevent customers from running out without paying, it emerged today. Initial reports suggested as many as 340 people were killed when the fire tore through a large shopping centre in the Paraguayan capital of Asuncion after an industrial propane tank exploded. Police have charged the store's owner Juan Pio Paiva and his son Daniel with homicide after they allegedly ordered security personnel to lock down every exit. Firefighters had to batter down the locked main entrance to the complex before they could reach...

Despite a friend's comment that I am the most high-strung person she has ever known, I like to think of myself as fairly laid back.      Granted, everything is relative.      Current public sentiment, however, has me boiling over.      While perusing message boards on the web recently, I have been amazed at the current uproar against "corporate greed."      While comments range from specific complaints to absurd accusations, the common theme seems to be this: "corporations are only out to make a profit."      What truly angers me about this concept is that "profit" is seen as a negative...

The New York Times -- unrelenting champion of the underprivileged, mighty battler against all corporate evils, and vehement opponent of Republican tax cuts for the "rich and powerful" -- lives by a far more self-serving motto:All the corporate welfare that's fit to collect.You won't see it reported on the Times' front page, so here's the scoop: The Gray Lady is a greedy leech, siphoning off millions of dollars in state taxpayer subsidies for private real estate development disguised as a public good. Now, the company stands to benefit from a federal tax-exempt bond program intended to help businesses devastated by...

American Drops Bonuses, Retains Special Pension Plan By Adrian Schofield American dropped retention bonuses for top executives on Friday in the face of union criticism, but will leave protections in place for executive pensions. CEO Don Carty apologized to employees for American's failure to "communicate effectively" about the retention bonus plan, created a year earlier to make sure key executives stayed with the airline in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, but stopped short of saying the plan itself was wrong. American won't reverse funding of the Supplemental Executive Retirement Plan (SERP), however, contending it represents a benefit already...

China's First Disney Breaks Ground in Hong Kong Hong Kong Disneyland, the first of its kind in China, officially started construction in Hong Kong on Sunday afternoon. Covering 126 hectares on North Lantau Island, Hong Kong Disneyland, the eleventh Disney park in the world, will comprise of a theme park, two hotels as well as retail, dining and entertaining facilities. It is scheduled to open in 2005/06 to estimated 5.6 million annual visitors. Against the backdrop of Lantau Island's mountains, the waters of Penny's Bay, Hong Kong Disneyland is praised for the spectacular surrounding and is the first to...

New York, Dec. 18 (Bloomberg) -- New York Times Co. is raising the newsstand price of the weekday edition of its flagship newspaper to $1 in the New York metropolitan area, its first price increase in more than three years. The increase is effective Dec. 30. The New York Times has sold for 75 cents from Monday to Saturday in the New York area since September 1999. It has cost $1 outside the region since 1995. The price of the Sunday edition of the newspaper will stay at $3 in New York and $3.75 elsewhere, and home-delivery rates will remain...