Free Republic

The ABC, CBS and NBC evening news shows censored news on a White House-backed "dark money" group being formed to help sell President Joe Biden’s leftist agenda to the American people. A Wall Street Journal exclusive revealed that Biden’s allies were “preparing to create a new nonprofit advocacy organization, with the White House’s approval, that will be funded by donors and seek to build support for his policy agenda, senior administration officials said.” The Feb. 17 report noted that the new group, named “Building Back Together,” will “be a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, which would allow it to operate without disclosing its...

Jim Parsons shared on The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon that he and husband Todd Spiewak contracted COVID-19 back in March. On Monday night Parsons told Fallon of his experience with the coronavirus. “We didn’t know what it was, we know we had colds and we lost all sense of smell and taste,” the Hollywood actor told Fallon. “It defied the descriptions for me, I didn’t realize how taste and smell could be gone.” After describing his time learning about his diagnosis, Parsons said that he and his partner grieved not being able to taste any of the food at...

How do you turn a fine, upstanding, conscientious and goal-driven young man into a terrorist? By fiat. That is, by treating him like a terrorist. That is, treating him very badly. Drop the whole weight of the law on him . . . for holding the wrong opinions. What opinions? you ask. Revolutionary Islam? White supremacism? Armed revolution? No. Self-defense. And now you may have figured out the problem. The hatred of self-defense, the absolute fear of it — the quivering, poltroonish over-reaction to the very idea — is common amongst today’s politicians, educators and even some benighted, cowardly law...

The bankruptcy of Colonial Bank (CNB) was the largest bank-bankruptcy in the U.S. since several large, U.S. financial institutions collapsed last year – with the most recent being Washington Mutual, last fall. However, there is one huge difference between the mega-bankruptcies of last year and the collapse of Colonial Bank a week ago. During the large bank-failures of 2008, the acquiring institutions wrote-down the “assets” on the books of these banks by an average of 18% - according to a Bloomberg article. However, when BB&T Corp purchased Colonial, it immediately wrote-down Colonial's assets by 37%, double the amount of discounting...

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Shares of BB&T Corp. rallied Friday on reports it will buy deposits and branches of Colonial BancGroup Inc. in a deal backed by federal regulators to take the struggling lender into receivership. The deal was approved by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. on Thursday night and is expected to be announced later on Friday, The Wall Street Journal reported. "The market is treating it as it was a foregone conclusion here," said Sandler O'Neill & Partners analyst Kevin Fitzsimmons. Shares of BB&T rose $2.26, or 8.8 percent, to $28.06 in afternoon trading Friday, while shares of Colonial...

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp is taking Colonial BancGroup Inc (CNB.N) into receivership and will sell the struggling lender's branches and deposits to BB&T Corp (BBT.N), Dow Jones said, citing a person familiar with the situation

OVER much of the last four decades, John A. Allison IV built BB&T from a local bank in North Carolina into a regional powerhouse that has weathered the economic crisis far better than many of its troubled rivals — largely by avoiding financial gimmickry. And in his spare time, Mr. Allison travels the country making speeches about his bank’s distinctive philosophy.

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C., Jan. 30 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- BB&T Corporation (NYSE: BBT - News), which earned $1.5 billion in net income in 2008, said today that members of its executive team will not receive annual bonuses under its short-term incentive plan. "We have traditionally set very difficult goals, and although we are among the top performers in the financial industry in 2008, we did not earn a bonus based on our targets," said Chief Executive Officer Kelly S. King. "This has been an extremely difficult economic environment, even for well-capitalized and profitable financial institutions."

WASHINGTON, Dec 12 (Reuters) - A small bank in Georgia and another in Texas became the 24th and 25th banks to fail this year, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp said on Friday. Haven Trust Bank of Duluth, Georgia, had total assets of $572 million and total deposits of $515 million as of Dec. 8, the FDIC said. BB&T Corp (BBT.N) agreed to acquire all of Haven's deposits. Haven's four branches will reopen on Monday as branches of BB&T, the FDIC said. The failure is expected to cost the bank regulator's deposit insurance fund about $200 million. The FDIC's fund has...

<p>Chairman and Chief Executive John A. Allison voiced strong reservations about the government's plan to help the mortgage market.</p> <p>In a letter to Congress dated Tuesday, Allison didn't oppose government action outright. But he suggested changes to Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr.'s proposal to inject $700 billion in fusion to liquefy mortgage assets.</p>

1. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are the primary cause of the mortgage crisis. These government supported enterprises distorted normal market risk mechanisms. While individual private financial institutions have made serious mistakes, the problems in the financial system have been caused by government policies including, affordable housing (now sub-prime), combined with the market disruptions caused by the Federal Reserve holding interest rates too low and then raising interest rates too high. 2. There is no panic on Main Street and in sound financial institutions. The problems are in high-risk financial institutions and on Wall Street. 3. While all financial intermediaries...

NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- BB&T Corp. (BBT) Chairman and Chief Executive John A. Allison voiced strong reservations about the government's plan to help the mortgage market. In a letter to Congress dated Tuesday, Allison didn't oppose government action outright. But he suggested changes to Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr.'s proposal to inject $700 billion in fusion to liquefy mortgage assets.

A corporation does the right thing for the right reasons by Tom DeWeese, American Policy Center Friday, February 10, 2006 Government is to be feared because it has the power to enforce its will on its citizens. It has guns. It has jails. It has money. The average citizen lacks all of these, making it difficult to fight back. The ballot box and the court of public opinion are about our only weapons. Yet, government has grown so large, so distant from the voters, that it frankly fears little from either.

Reason Foundation    free minds and free markets The New York Times terms it "odd." Other accounts deem it "unusual." The Volkoh Conspiracy blog wonders if Atlas is, in fact, shrugging. However, the announcement that BB&T, the nation's ninth largest bank holding company, will not participate in private economic development projects that involve eminent domain action should not shock. The decision is consistent with the corporation's values, harnesses widespread public unease with the Kelo eminent domain ruling, and is another manifestation of symbol-laden stakeholder capitalism. The reporting and commentary on the bank's policy has been so confused that the Atlas Shrugged...

Two sides of eminent domain. BB&T Gets IT!. Rox Laird editorialist for the Des Moines Register Doesn't.

BB&T Corp., the second-biggest bank in the Washington area, said yesterday that it will not lend money to developers who plan to build commercial projects on land taken from private citizens through the power of eminent domain. "The idea that a citizen's property can be taken by the government solely for private use is extremely misguided; in fact, it's just plain wrong," said John Allison, the bank's chairman and chief executive officer. BB&T Chief Credit Officer Ken Chalk said the North Carolina bank expects to lose only a tiny amount of business, but thinks it is obligated to take a...

Taking an unusual stand, BB&T Corp. said Wednesday that it will not lend money for commercial projects on land seized by the government through eminent domain. The company, based in Winston-Salem, said it wanted to publicize its opposition to a June Supreme Court ruling that such seizures are legal. Traditionally, eminent domain seizures had been restricted to land needed for public purposes. "The idea that a citizen's property can be taken by the government solely for private use is extremely misguided, in fact it's just plain wrong," Chief Executive John Allison said in a statement. BB&T, the nation's ninth-largest bank,...