Free Republic

Globe-trotting Secretary of State John Kerry will be retiring come January, and now that the wife, Teresa Heinz, has put his two favorite big-boy toys on the market — the $25 million manse on Nantucket and the $4 million yacht Isabel — whatever will the ex-senator do with all his spare time? “The wife giveth, and the wife taketh away,” said one island wag. “Looks like he’ll have to find a job.” . . . Kerry has said he would like to continue to work on global-warming type issues once he leaves the State Department, and with Trump looking to...

“I’m still on the raisins and love this home remedy. Not only did it completely rid my knees of RA [rheumatoid arthritis] but now the RA is gone from my left shoulder….amazing."

Kraft Heinz announced Wednesday that it would be closing seven factories and cutting about 2,600 jobs. The closing factories are in Fullerton, California; San Leandro, California; Federalsburg, Maryland; St. Marys, Ontario, Canada; Campbell, New York; Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania; and Madison, Wisconsin, Michael Mullen SVP of corporate and government affairs, said in a statement. Over the next 12-24 months, he said, production in those locations will shift to other existing factories in North America. He said the decision to close the factories came after "an extensive review of the Kraft Heinz North American supply chain footprint, capabilities and capacity utilization." Calling...

A foundation chaired by Teresa Heinz Kerry, wife of Secretary of State John Kerry, who is deeply involved in negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians, is funding a radical anti-Israel, anti-American snack bar near the Carnegie Mellon and Pittsburgh University campuses. The restaurant, Conflict Kitchen, which proudly boasts that it serves food only from countries with which the U.S. is in conflict, received a $50,000 grant from the Heinz Endowment in April to assist it in moving locations. However, the restaurant lately has been serving its hummus and baba ghanoush sandwiches in propaganda wrappers that carry quotes from Palestinians opposing the...

Heinz tomato ketchup is a household name around the world, including in Israel. But now, thanks to a court ruling, that's about to change... sort of. Osem, Israel's leading food brand and top producer of ketchup, has succeeded in its bid to knock out its lead rival, by banning it from being called "ketchup." In its petition to the courts back in January of this year, Osem claimed Heinz's product did not have enough tomato content to be called "ketchup." Now, after a long legal battle, the court has ruled in Osem's favor, and Heinz will henceforth be known as...

Heinz tomato ketchup is a household name around the world, including in Israel. But now, thanks to a court ruling, that's about to change... sort of. Osem, Israel's leading food brand and top producer of ketchup, has succeeded in its bid to knock out its lead rival, by banning it from being called "ketchup." In its petition to the courts back in January of this year, Osem claimed Heinz's product did not have enough tomato content to be called "ketchup." Now, after a long legal battle, the court has ruled in Osem's favor, and Heinz will henceforth be known as...

In the United States, Heinz is nearly synonymous with ketchup, but Israel has kicked the brand out of that category of condiments all together. Israel’s Health Ministry recently ruled that the Heinz brand product does not contain enough “tomato solids” to be labeled as ketchup in Israeli stores. It will now be relegated to the title “tomato seasoning,” Ynet reported. The ruling was the result of a lobbying campaign by Israeli food manufacturer Osem, which produces a large portion of the ketchup consumed in Israel. Israelis have long complained that local monopolies distort the economy, and especially the food market,...

Kraft Heinz says it is cutting about 2,500 jobs as part of its plan to slash costs after the food companies combined. Spokesman Michael Mullen says affected workers are in the U.S. and Canada and were to be notified in person. About 700 of the cuts were coming in Northfield, Illinois, where Kraft had been headquartered. The company would not specify where other cuts were taking place but said that all the jobs were salaried. It said none of the job cuts involved factory workers. The Kraft Heinz Co. said it had a total of around 46,600 employees before the...

Heinz is buying Kraft Foods to create the world's fifth largest food and beverage company, with sales of about $28 billion. Kraft shares surged more than 33% Wednesday. Kraft owns popular brands such as Jell-O, Maxwell House coffee and Planters peanuts. Heinz, of course, is famous for its ketchup, and also owns Lea & Perrins and Ore-Ida.

Another day, another mega-M&A deal taking advantage of abnormally low bond rates, this time however not involving biotechs or a specialty pharma seeking to purchase a debt-free balance sheet, but one involving the Oracle of Omaha himself, and his Heinz investment, which will merge with Kraft Foods whose market cap was over $40 billion this morning on the news of the merger, and create the third largest food and beverage company in the US, and 5th largest in  the world. And while the resulting company will certainly be an unprecedented food giant, one which leaves the US food industry even...

Thousands Of Layoffs Coming After Buffett Merges Heinz With Kraft, Creating 5th Largest Food Company In The World Another day, another mega-M&A deal taking advantage of abnormally low bond rates, this time however not involving biotechs or a specialty pharma seeking to purchase a debt-free balance sheet, but one involving the Oracle of Omaha himself, and his Heinz investment, which will merge with Kraft Foods whose market cap was over $40 billion this morning on the news of the merger, and create the third largest food and beverage company in the US, and 5th largest in the world. And while...

<p>WASHINGTON -- Sensitive national-security information was mistakenly released by the Treasury Department to former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, but no criminal statutes were violated, records show.</p> <p>Mr. O'Neill drew on some of the material -- part of a cache of 19,000 documents -- for a memoir released in January that was critical of President Bush. When a document stamped "Secret" was displayed on a CBS "60 Minutes" episode concerning the book, the Treasury Department sought an investigation.</p>

US Secretary of State Adivses Russian Counterpart Not To Take US President's Words At Face Value Though it went entirely unnoticed in the Western press, all major Russian news outlets – RIA Novosti, Sputnik, RT, and others – were only too happy to report on what US Secretary of State John Kerry said last week to the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in private: “Just ignore Obama’s statements.” According to Mr. Lavrov, John Kerry advised him not to pay too much attention to the US President’s harsh rhetoric directed toward his state. As recently as September, during his speech to...

Oakland restaurant Conflict Kitchen has closed until further notice after receiving a letter containing death threats, according to a post on its Facebook page... Conflict Kitchen recently has been the focus of controversy over its serving of Palestinian food with anti-Israel messages on the food wrappers.

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) is urging consumers to boycott Burger King over reports that the fast food chain is eyeing a tax-cutting move to Canada. Brown, an outspoken corporate critic, said people hankering for a burger should head to Wendy’s or White Castle, two Ohio-based chains that aren’t looking to shrink their tax bill via a so-called “corporate inversion.” “Burger King’s decision to abandon the United States means consumers should turn to Wendy’s Old Fashioned Hamburgers or White Castle sliders,” he said in a statement. “Burger King has always said ‘Have it Your Way’; well my way is to support...

Comrades, there are wreckers in our midst. The industrialist reactionaries at Burger King have declared their intention to abandon the struggle and join the ranks of the enemy in rightist Canada. That’s right. The traitorous corporation Burger King plans to take advantage of the fact that America’s English-speaking neighbor to the north maintains the second-lowest corporate tax rate of any G-7 nation. How dare they? “The iconic American fast-food brand is in talks to buy coffee-and-donuts chain Tim Hortons and move its headquarters to Canada,” Forbes reported. If concluded, this deal would create the world’s third-largest restaurant company and allow...

The new owners of H.J. Heinz Co. have offered buyouts to all workers in Pittsburgh, where the ketchup-and-food giant has been based for decades, but insist the offer doesn’t signal a plan to move the company’s headquarters. Instead, Heinz officials said the buyout is being offered because the new owners Berkshire Hathaway and Brazilian investment firm 3G Capital recognize the company’s new culture might not be “the perfect fit” for longtime Pittsburgh-based employees. Heinz officials said any workers who quit will be replaced, leaving the company with the same number of workers in Pittsburgh. …

Add Arnold Waldo of Carrick to the list of people disappointed with recent changes being made at the H.J. Heinz Co. Mr. Waldo, 82, who retired from the Pittsburgh food company in 1985, received a letter in late November notifying him that Heinz was reducing its contribution to a retiree reimbursement account used to cover certain medical expenses, such as co-pays for doctor visits and health insurance premiums. "Beginning in 2014, Heinz will contribute $1,093 per year, per household to your RRA," the letter dated Nov. 21 said. The cut, not the first to the retiree benefit, takes the level...

Yesterday in this space, the focus was on the latest wrinkle in the Left's developing strategy for dealing with dissent. It began with using the IRS regulatory power to suppress conservative, Tea Party and evangelical dissenters. The new wrinkle is expanding the tax agency's activity to impose new restrictions on permissible activities of 501(C)(4) nonprofit advocacy groups and to require reporting the names of donors and the amounts they contributed. The avowed purpose of these initiatives is to put an end to what is known throughout the politically correct precincts of the mainstream media as “dark money.”Dark money is funding...

H.J. Heinz Co. is closing three plants in North America and cutting 1,350 jobs in an effort to operate more efficiently. The food maker said Thursday that it will close facilities in two states and Canada over the next six to eight months. The cuts total 200 jobs in Florence, S.C., 410 jobs in Pocatello, Idaho and 740 employees in Leamington, Ontario, in Canada. …