Free Republic

Recently I revisited The Visual Craft of William Golden, a book published in the early-Sixties about the legendary CBS creative director. There is an essay in the book by CBS exec John Cowden that sheds light on Golden’s artistic integrity, and helps to explain why the advertising work created under his guidance remains to this day the strongest body of advertising ever created for a TV network. Golden’s world revolved around graphic design, illustration and advertising, but I find his experiences to be relevant to creative people working in any commercial field, and especially animation. For example, Cowden recounted how...

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Time Warner Inc will eventually sell the Time Inc magazine unit and could buy holdings in its core entertainment category, Gordon Crawford, managing director of its largest shareholder, said during a presentation this week. "Time Warner just spun off their cable division, they are going to sell their print division, they are going to spin off AOL and they're just going to be Warner Brothers, HBO and the Turner Networks," said Crawford, managing director of The Capital Group.

WASHINGTON -- In her maiden Supreme Court appearance last week, Justice Sonia Sotomayor made a provocative comment that probed the foundations of corporate law. During arguments in a campaign-finance case, the court's majority conservatives seemed persuaded that corporations have broad First Amendment rights and that recent precedents upholding limits on corporate political spending should be overruled. But Justice Sotomayor suggested the majority might have it all wrong -- and that instead the court should reconsider the 19th century rulings that first afforded corporations the same rights flesh-and-blood people have. Judges "created corporations as persons, gave birth to corporations as persons,"...

For the next several days, I will publish letters and Essays by Vladamir Lenin On the United States. Examine Bolshevik views on the US way of life and free market. I hope you all find it very interesting EXCERPT The sharpening of the struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie is to be observed in all the advanced capitalist countries. The tendency is the same everywhere, though it manifests itself differently in accordance with the difference in historical conditions, political systems and forms of the labour movement. In America and Britain, where complete political liberty exists and where the proletariat...

The founders were wary of corporate influence on politics — and their rhetoric sometimes got pretty heated. In an 1816 letter, Thomas Jefferson declared his hope to “crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country.” This skepticism was enshrined in law in the early 20th century when the nation adopted strict rules banning corporations from contributing to political campaigns. Today that ban is in danger from the Supreme Court, which hears arguments next month in a little-noticed...

Anger is a risky emotion. It inhibits clear thinking and leads to unwise actions. We would do well to control our anger, and direct it where it belongs – at terrorists, murderers, rapists and child molesters – rather than at those who disagree with us politically.

Michelle Obama, February 2008: Obama explains that she and her husband made the choice to give up lucrative jobs in favor of community service. “We left corporate America, which is a lot of what we’re asking young people to do,” she tells the women. “Don’t go into corporate America. You know, become teachers. Work for the community. Be social workers. Be a nurse. Those are the careers that we need, and we’re encouraging our young people to do that. But if you make that choice, as we did, to move out of the money-making industry into the helping industry, then...

Like any individual citizen, corporations have a stake in the outcomes of federal elections. A candidate’s economic, foreign, social and environmental policies can either threaten or provide hope for a particular organization. The stakes for corporations aren’t necessarily greater than those of the individual, but they are on a greater scale of complexity and scope. It’s no surprise, then, that corporations have long played a role in influencing the outcome of federal elections. For as long as campaign finance has existed, corporations have been a part of it – pushing the candidates who are best for business to the top....

The Environment: Wednesday's airwaves, print media, cable news shows and Webosphere will be filled with nonsense about the scourge of capitalism, corporations and humanity. All of it will ignore the real truth. Buried beneath all the badgering and fear-mongering about lavish Western lifestyles is a reality that the stuck-on-green left won't talk about and the average American isn't aware of: The world, especially in developed nations, is a cleaner — and greener — place than it was when the environmental movement began. Every year Steven Hayward, a scholar at the Pacific Research Institute and the American Enterprise Institute, compiles his...

How did we get into this mess? How did we become the land of the “Government Bank and Auto Industry” take over and the home of the too scared to invest in our own stock markets? You ever heard the term, “Too Big to Fail”? [That and a Congress that soldout the American people are the reasons why!]

Surprise and even shock were among the reactions to my recent column about how elite members of the World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in Davos, Switzerland, were considering a proposal for a new global television network to usher in a state of "global governance." It sounded authoritarian, even totalitarian, to some. Here are more of the troubling details. The media proposal, which was included in "The Global Agenda 2009" report, is to create "a new global network" with "the capacity to connect the world, bridging cultures and peoples, and telling us who we are and what we mean to each...

President Obama held a "very sober meeting" about the economy with 10 of the nation's business leaders at the White House Wednesday as the House debated his proposed $825 billion economic stimulus package. "They understand when it comes to rebuilding our economy, we don't have a moment to spare," Mr. Obama said of the chief executive officers attending the meeting. "They are looking for action from Washington, bold and swift." Mr. Obama characterized them as being "on the frontline of people who are seeing enormous problems in the economy right now" and said the economic difficulties were a reason for...

It is hard to believe, but a majority of Americans (including Christians and conservatives) seem oblivious to the fact that there is a very real, very legitimate New World Order (NWO) unfolding. In the face of overwhelming evidence, most Americans not only seem totally unaware of this reality, they seem unwilling to even remotely entertain the notion. On one hand, it is understandable that so many Americans would be ignorant of the emerging New World Order. After all, the mainstream media refuses to report, or even acknowledge, the NWO. Even "conservative" commentators and talk show hosts such as Rush Limbaugh,...

President Obama’s pick for Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner, is being urged to lay the foundation for “global governance” by considering “international taxation” measures to loot more money from U.S. taxpayers. The recommendation is included in the report, “The Global Agenda 2009,” which is being considered by the World Economic Forum (WEF), meeting in Davos, Switzerland, January 28th - February 1st. The WEF is not an official government group but does include dozens of government, corporate and labor leaders at its annual meetings. Media companies such as News Corporation (parent of Fox News, the Fox Business Network, and the Wall Street...

California Rep. Henry Waxman said Thursday the environment and U.S. economy depend on congressional action to confront the threat of climate change. Waxman, chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, spoke as he opened Congress' first hearing on climate legislation. A group of 14 corporate

A case before the Wisconsin Supreme Court could have a major impact on the power of corporations and their relationships with unions, banks and vendors. The court will decide whether owners can make business decisions for their personal benefit at the expense of creditors, workers and the corporations themselves or whether they have obligations to those interests. Oral arguments are set for Jan. 7. The case involves the former owners of a company in Lancaster, Wis., about 80 miles west of Madison, that manufactures components for stereo speakers. The company, then known as Communications Products Corp., defaulted on loans in...

No other stimulus provision will be as immediate and as effective,' says small business lobby Posted: December 14, 2008 10:51 pm Eastern © 2008 WorldNetDaily WASHINGTON – Big business bailouts and "economic stimulus packages" are all the rage in the Capitol these days. Most involve massive transfers of wealth from taxpayers to government-directed projects. But a new and very different bill, proposed by a heretofore little-known congressman from Texas, is gaining traction from Republicans – and even a few Democrats, according to the sponsor. It's called "the tax-holiday plan." And one version of it picked up support from the National...

Google this week admitted that its staff will pick and choose what appears in its search results. It's a historic statement - and nobody has yet grasped its significance. Not so very long ago, Google disclaimed responsibility for its search results by explaining that these were chosen by a computer algorithm. The disclaimer lives on at Google News, where we are assured that: The selection and placement of stories on this page were determined automatically by a computer program. A few years ago, Google's apparently unimpeachable objectivity got some people very excited, and technology utopians began to herald Google as...

Democrats in the U.S. House have been conducting hearings on proposals to confiscate workers' personal retirement accounts - including 401(k)s and IRAs - and convert them to accounts managed by the Social Security Administration. Triggered by the financial crisis the past two months, the hearings reportedly were meant to stem losses incurred by many workers and retirees whose 401(k) and IRA balances have been shrinking rapidly. The testimony of Teresa Ghilarducci, professor of economic policy analysis at the New School for Social Research in New York, in hearings Oct. 7 drew the most attention and criticism. Testifying for the House...

Gonna need a little help from the freepers. This one can be voted on multiple times.

The problem was the first chart in the report. It showed that 60 percent to 70 percent of companies in the U.S. pay no taxes. That led to an Associated Press story with the startling headline, ``Most Companies in U.S. Avoid Federal Income Taxes,'' and to a frenzy of business bashing by leading Democrats. Byron Dorgan, the Democratic senator from North Dakota, said in a statement, ``It's shameful that so many corporations make big profits and pay nothing to support our country.'' House Speaker Nancy Pelosi piled on, arguing that the data revealed a fundamental unfairness in the U.S. system,...

WASHINGTON - Five years ago this week, a federal election regulator predicted that corporate sponsorship of political conventions would eventually be as common as it is for football bowl games. "I look forward to the day, by 2008, when Americans can turn on their TVs and watch the Nokia Democratic Convention, or the AT&T Republican National Convention," joked Bradley Smith, then a Republican member of the Federal Election Commission. That day has pretty much arrived. The Democratic and Republican conclaves this summer in Denver and St. Paul, Minn., will be financed overwhelmingly by private money from some of the nation's...

The latest number of Fortune magazine brings the news that more Fortune 500 companies — the largest American firms ranked by revenues — are now headquartered in Texas than in New York. An Associated Press dispatch datelined Dallas summed it up this way: "The Lone Star State passed New York as home to the most big companies in the latest list compiled by Fortune magazine. Texas now boasts 58 headquarters, three more than New York, the previous No. 1." The wire, not generally known as a font of supply-side economics, went on to report, "Business experts say it's a matter...

The master of "astroturfing" has a second firm that shapes public opinion for corporations. David Axelrod has long been known for his political magic. Through his AKP&D Message and Media consultancy, the campaign veteran has advised a succession of Democratic candidates since 1985, and he's now chief strategist for Senator Barack Obama's bid for President. But on the down low, Axelrod moonlights in the private sector.

Companies Are Piling Up Cash By DIANA B. HENRIQUES At least someone knows how to fill a piggy bank. Unlike most American consumers, whose failure to save has exasperated economists for years, the typical American corporation has increased its savings so sharply that it probably has enough cash on hand to completely pay off its debts. That should be good news in an economy unsettled by rising energy prices, tightening credit, gyrating stock prices and declining values for the dollar and the family homestead. Indeed, the Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, cited strong corporate balance sheets as a bright...

One major concern I discussed a few weeks ago regarding the Trans Texas Corridor is where the land will come from. Another concern is where the money will come from. Official government websites for the TTC assure that public-private partnerships will shield the taxpayer from bearing too much of the cost burden, but a careful reading shows the door is definitely open to public funding sources, while at the same time there is no doubt of the intention to charge tolls on the road. Taxpayers already pay for their transportation system through hefty gasoline taxes, vehicle registration fees, and other...

After the subprime crisis erupted and began taking a large toll on the entire credit market, the American government rushed to rescue those hardest hit. Stimulus packages and bailouts ensued, attempting to limit both the economic and political damage. Now another crisis might soon arrive, and Washington might find it more difficult to address: U.S. and European banks, already reeling from persistent losses on mortgage investments, are facing a new hit as the global financial crisis spreads to deteriorating corporate debt. UBS AG and Credit Suisse Group last week announced the write-down of a combined $400 million in the value...

NACOGDOCHES — The rows of extra chairs brought into the The Fredonia's biggest meeting room Thursday night were not enough to accommodate more than 750 people who attended an open house and public hearing on the proposed TTC-69 highway. Texas Department of Transportation officials heard hours of public testimony that continued late into the night overwhelmingly opposed to the construction of new roadways through East Texas. Applause throughout the hours-long meeting never swelled as loudly as it did when the first speaker of the night, state Rep. Wayne Christian, told TxDOT representatives emphatically that "our answer is 'no' on the...

A so-called “NAFTA Superhighway� earned support from the city’s mayor and discussion among residents Monday during a public hearing on the Texas Department of Transportation’s I-69 project. TxDOT held a public hearing at the Brownsville Events Center Monday to explain the progress of the Trans-Texas Corridor, a future segment of Highway I-69, which will link the U.S.-Mexico border to the U.S.-Canada border. After a short presentation, the floor was open for comments. Among the local politicians, college students and retirees at the hearing there was a wide range of opinion on the project. According to Mario Jorge, district engineer for...

Several recent studies, papers and a popular weight-loss book argue that eating is an automatic behavior triggered by environmental cues that most people are unaware of -- or simply can't ignore. Think of the buttery smell of movie theater popcorn, the sight of glazed doughnuts glistening in the office conference room or the simple habit of picking up a whipped-cream-laden latte on the way to work. Accepting this "don't blame me" notion may not only ease the guilt and self-loathing that often accompanies obesity, say the researchers behind the theory, but also help people achieve a healthier weight. To make...

Why should so many Americans resent and distrust the very institutions that make possible our productivity, pleasure and opportunities? Given the fact that major corporations provide virtually every one of the commodities and comforts we consume, it makes no sense to feel hostile and contemptuous of the corporate organization of the contemporary economy. As I write these words – and as you read them –we all rely on the products of major companies with increasingly far flung and international operations. Leave aside for a moment the obvious example of the complex combination of brilliantly designed computer hardware and software that...

Zeke lived with an FFA teacher because he had no other home. He worked for his room and board; he fed the pigs and chickens, and helped with the milking. The summer between the 8th and 9th grades, Jasper, the FFA teacher, took Zeke to a neighbor's ranch and let him pick out a day-old Hereford bull for his first FFA project. The deal was that Jasper would pay for the calf, and for the feed, and Zeke could repay Jasper when the calf grew to become the Grand Champion Steer at the state fair, and sold at the fair's...

With all the madness in the world, I meditated Tuesday on two matters of great gratitude. One is that through vigilance and good fortune we have, so far, gone six years without another major attack on U.S. soil. The other is that I wasn't one of the Texas officials who was forced to attend a workshop in Austin in which PR flacks would try (under a $20,000 contract) to teach me techniques for selling Gov. Perry's massive toll road boondoggle. It was a small part of a $7 million to $9 million campaign that will include feel-good ads pushing Perry's...

A British pro-life group warns that a new type of embryo research, likely to be approved this week by a U.K. government panel, undermines human dignity. Britain's Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority is expected to give a green light this week to U.K. laboratories seeking to create the first animal-human embryos for medical research using eggs taken from dead cows. British scientists want to use the hybrid embryos in order to research genetic diseases. Anthony Ozimic, political secretary for the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, opposes the embryo-destructive research. He says that an "a-nucleated" cow egg will only...

New Life Decisions International Boycott List Identifies Corporate Planned Parenthood Sponsors Life Decisions International (LDI) will soon release a revised edition of The Boycott List, which identifies corporations that are boycott targets due to their support of Planned Parenthood, the world's leading abortion-advocacy group. "As a direct result of the commitment, action and prayers of pro-family people, at least 153 corporations have stopped funding Planned Parenthood," said LDI President Douglas R. Scott, Jr. It is estimated that the boycott has cost Planned Parenthood more than $35 million since the Corporate Funding Project (CFP) began some 15 years ago. "This should...

The Supreme Court loosened restrictions on campaign financing this week by ruling that corporations and unions are entitled to run a wider variety of political ads in the final weeks of federal elections. This was good news for corporations and unions. And bad news for Shannon Tracey. Tracey is local projects director of Democracy Unlimited of Humboldt County, a grassroots group dedicated to repealing the notion of corporate personhood -- a legal distinction that grants constitutional rights to businesses and other organizations. "It's awful that the court is continuing to uphold the idea that companies have what should be rights...

Everything that is wrong with America

"One World, One Dream" is China's slogan for its 2008 Olympics. But there is one nightmare that China shouldn't be allowed to sweep under the rug. That nightmare is Darfur, where more than 400,000 people have been killed and more than two-and-a-half million driven from flaming villages by the Chinese-backed government of Sudan. That so many corporate sponsors want the world to look away from that atrocity during the games is bad enough. But equally disappointing is the decision of artists like director Steven Spielberg -- who quietly visited China this month as he prepares to help stage the Olympic...

Northrop Grumman Corp. (NOC) shareholders may get a say on executive pay after all. The Los Angeles defense company had sought to block a vote on the matter at its 2007 annual meeting, but regulators at the Securities and Exchange Commission rejected that, saying "we do not believe that Northrop Grumman may omit the proposal from its proxy materials" for the annual meeting on May 16. Northrop spokesman Daniel McClain confirmed the company had received the SEC staff's response in a Feb. 14, letter, and said the firm plans to include the proposal in proxy-voting materials. The proposal calls for...

Cellular subscribers are paying hundreds of millions of dollars each year to subsidize land-line telephone service, enriching big telecommunications companies while providing little or no benefit to cell-phone users. The subsidies are intended to reimburse the companies for providing traditional phone service in rough terrain and rural areas where stringing lines can be costly. But rampant development has transformed some of these backwaters into booming subdivisions, with no real adjustment to the distribution formula; others, such as the oceanfront celebrity playground of Malibu, are receiving subsidies simply because of their difficult topography. Outdated formulas for tabulating the surcharges -- coupled...

Why our CEOs are warming to Kyoto. (Editor's note: We reintroduce today the Potomac Watch column from Washington. It will appear on Fridays and be written by Kimberley Strassel, a member of The Wall Street Journal's editorial board. She joined the Journal in 1994 and has worked as a reporter in Europe and as an editor and editorial writer in New York.) Washington this week officially welcomed the newest industry on the hunt for financial and regulatory favors. Big CarbonCap may have the same dollar-sign agenda as Big Oil or Big Pharma, but don't expect Nancy Pelosi to admit to...

WASHINGTON - Chief executives of 10 major corporations urged Congress on Monday to require limits on greenhouse gases this year, contending voluntary efforts to combat climate change are inadequate. The call for immediate action came on the eve of President Bush's State of the Union address in which he is expected to reiterate that the industry on its own is making progress in curtailing the growth of heat-trapping emissions without the need of government intervention. But the executives and leaders of four major environmental organizations said in a letter to Bush that mandatory emissions caps are needed to reduce the...

Milton Friedman famously declared that the sole business of the managers of a publicly held corporation was to maximize the value of its outstanding shares. Any effort to use corporate resources for purely altruistic purposes he equated to socialism. He proposed that corporation law should prevent managers from straying off the reservation to join the altruists, a power now almost universally granted them by state legislation. At a conference 34 years ago, celebrating Friedman's 60th birthday, I presented a paper questioning that dictum by noting that the vast part of apparently nonprofit-oriented behavior by corporate managers was really--and necessarily--a profit-maximizing...

YUZHNO-SAKHALINSK -- Oleg Mitvol, the state official leading the charge against Shell's Sakhalin-2 venture, warned Thursday that he would seek to shut down work at the $20 billion project for purportedly causing $50 billion of damage to the environment. "The project must be stopped and all that's been done must be reworked," Mitvol, deputy head of the Natural Resources Ministry's environmental watchdog, told reporters after a daylong tour of sites that have borne the brunt of the project's environmental effects. "For every destroyed tree or damaged river, we want to bring a criminal case," Mitvol said. The Natural Resources Ministry...

Like many other baseball fans, Joe Kosa, 28, is spending his Sunday glued to a TV. But relaxed he's not. Instead, the ESPN (NYSE:DIS - News) production assistant is stationed in front of dozens of flat-screen TVs tuned to global sporting events at the headquarters of the Disney-owned network. He's furiously jotting down notes to weave into a storyline that will be read in 60 seconds flat on tonight's 6 p.m. SportsCenter broadcast. With the San Diego Padres leading the Chicago Cubs 9-0, the outcome is hardly in doubt, and writing the highlights should be easy. Then, Clay Hensley, who...

Editor’s note: As we went to press, and as if to illustrate the point of the following article, Fortune released its 2006 list of largest corporations, showing Exxon Mobil, not Wal-Mart, on top. For all the gnashing of teeth over the current dominant position of Wal-Mart in the standings among America’s largest corporations, one might think that it has held the top ranking forever. It hasn’t. Wal-Mart has been the top-ranked firm in the Fortune 500 only since 2002. It has been in the top 500 only since 1995. Other corporations have held the top ranking for most of the...

Marchers had to duck into fast-food restaurants for water when they first took to Chicago's streets in support of illegal immigrants five months ago. At the next two marches, family-owned grocery stores offered free bottled water from trucks emblazoned with their names. This time, as demonstrators march from Chinatown to House Speaker Dennis Hastert's (R-Ill.) Batavia office this weekend, they will have Miller Brewing Co., as a sponsor. The brewer has paid more than $30,000 for a planning convention, materials and newspaper ads publicizing the event. The support of a major corporation for a controversial political cause shows how fierce...

by Mark Finkelstein September 1, 2006 - 07:34 In a recent comment on an editorial cartoon in the Boston Globe showing an all-white group of execs gloating over increasing profits as a bedraggled worker hung by his hands, I noted that the Globe's commitment to "diversity disappears when portraying corporate meanies." Great news - just two days later, the Globe has rediscovered diversity! Oh, to be sure, the two corporate meanies in Dan Wasserman's cartoon are both white males. One even sports a suspiciously Nixonian five-o'clock shadow. But an African-American does turn up - as the victim. The cartoon accompanies...

It would be easy to jump on the bandwagon when it comes to the subject of illegal immigration-but whose bandwagon should I jump on, and where is it headed?

Asking “Who is to blame for America’s obesity epidemic” among children, Ann Curry of NBC’s “Today” show introduced a condensed edition of a story to air later that evening on “Dateline NBC.” Reporter Stone Phillips went on to suggest corporate advertising was to blame for America’s chubby kids. But Phillips left out of his report that his featured psychologist is the co-founder of a group that calls for regulation of advertising to children. “Food marketing to children is a $10-billion-a-year industry, and some parents’ advocates and lawyers are saying it’s out of control,” noted NBC reporter Stone Phillips as he...