Free Republic

Pray for an Easter Miracle.The CDC has overblown the coronavirus pandemic EVERY STEP of the way since January when Dr. Fauci said Americans should not be worried about the coronavirus.The experts told the American public the masks did not work.Now the experts want everyone to wear a mask when you go outside your home.The Navy hospital ship USNS Comfort docked in in New York City on Monday, March 30, 2020. The ship was expected to bolster a besieged New York City health care system by treating non-coronavirus patients while hospitals treat people with COVID-19.But after three days in the harbor only three patients had been transferred to the...

Common life events that can cause homelessness You’ve heard it before: the root cause of homelessness is the lack of affordable housing. That’s still true. However, anyone can become homeless. Setting aside the structural factors and systemic failures, here are the most common individual causes of homelessness. Because this is a more personal look at the subject, I’ve included examples of someone who became homeless in these various ways. Eviction or Foreclosure Unsurprisingly, losing your home can result in homelessness. It did for William when he lost his Detroit home to foreclosure in 2007 while undergoing treatment for colon cancer....

New Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that there were 665,000 jobs lost in January, a blunt finding that confuses the heralded report that 151,000 jobs were created in January in non-farm payrolls. But who got them? The very same BLS finds that jobs to "native born" and immigrant workers dropped. Ditto for men and women. It is possible that many employees took on a second job, according to analysts. But a difference of 816,000 is too big, one said. Same for the differences in the two surveys the BLS uses to gauge jobs, household data from the Current Population Survey,...

Please pray for my brother tonight as he checks himself into the hospital for alcohol abuse. He recently lost his job while at the same time celebrating the birth of his third child. He feels lost and inadequate.

After Congress approved and President Obama subsequently signed into law the Budget Control Act of 2011 — complete with the provision that automatic spending cuts that came to be known as sequestration would kick in on March 1st, 2013 if the so-called “super commitee” failed to come up with more specific deficit reduction measures — we were treated to all kinds of warnings about how absolutely necessary it was that Congress learn to cooperate, because sequestration would be beyond devastating. Teachers and firefighters would start receiving pink slips; TSA lines at airports would grow to prohibitive lengths; the White House...

Producers have the chance to be rehired – at lower salaries CNN cut or reduced 50 positions across multiple divisions on Thursday, changing roles and reducing positions and salaries across the board, a CNN executive told TheWrap. “There is essentially no head count change,” a network executive wrote in an email. “Fifty positions have been impacted. Roles will [be] changed.” CNN President Jeff Zucker met with newsroom reporters on Thursday to tell them the bad news, an insider told TheWrap. The cuts mainly affect news producers and managers, some of whom will be invited to reapply for new or “updated”...

The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) forthcoming climate change regulations for new and existing electricity generating units have been appropriately labeled the “war on coal,”[1] because the proposed limits for carbon dioxide emissions would essentially prohibit the construction of new coal-fired power plants and force existing ones into early retirement. However, the casualties will extend well beyond the coal industry, hurting families and businesses and taking a significant toll on American manufacturing across the nation. Congress should stop the EPA and all other federal agencies from regulating carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions. Driving Energy Prices Up, Economic Activity Down...

The City Council moved Wednesday to cut off the pipeline of puppies purchased in Chicago that come from for-profit breeders condemned as puppy mills. With downtown Ald. Brendan Reilly (42nd) casting the only dissenting vote, aldermen approved a somewhat watered-down anti-cruelty ordinance championed by City Clerk Susana Mendoza. It would limit the retail sale of dogs, cats and rabbits at Chicago's 16 pet stores to those animals that come from shelters and humane adoption centers. ... "As a person who grew up with three dogs, I think it's the right thing to do. And I'm proud of the city and...

Wells Fargo cuts 700 employees, including 203 in the Twin Cities, as demand for mortgages declines.Wells Fargo & Co. said Wednesday that it is cutting 700 employees, including 203 in the Twin Cities, as demand for mortgages continues to shrink. The San Francisco-based bank said it notified affected employees Wednesday, and that almost all of them work at the Wells Fargo Home Mortgage campus in south Minneapolis. Some work elsewhere in the Twin Cities. The cuts follow scattered layoffs in the Twin Cities in January in which Wells Fargo laid off fewer than 30 mortgage-related workers. “We currently expect mortgage...

LYNN HAVEN, Fla. General Dynamics has sent letters to 730 of its employees at the ObamaCare call facility that they are being laid off. That's about half of the workforce at the facility in the old SalleMae facility at the Lynn Haven Industrial park. U.S. Rep. Steve Southerland, II of Panama City says the loss of 730 Bay County jobs is a stark reminder of America’s transformation into a part-time, short-term society. The Congressman told NewsChannel 7, " I am saddened that these hardworking men and women are paying the price for the Obama administration’s unyielding pursuit of a job-crushing,...

The Brayton Point Power Station, the largest coal-fired power plant in New England, is shutting down amid a prolonged slump in energy prices that is forcing power operators nationally to rejigger their budgets and seek out more affordable production strategies. The closure will result in 240 job losses at the Somerset, Mass.-based facility. Its owner, an affiliate of New Jersey-based private equity firm Energy Capital Partners, said in a statement that steps would be taken to mitigate the effects of the job cuts for Brayton Point’s former workers....

Chicago Public Schools officials announced late Thursday that 2,113 teachers and other employees would be laid off Friday, largely due to a giant pension obligation increase that’s straining the system. “In fiscal year ‘14 we’re facing a historic deficit of $1 billion that is driven primarily by a $400 million increase in our annual teacher pension payments,” said CPS spokesman Becky Carroll. “Absent pension reform in Springfield, we have very few options available to us to close that gap, and that has resulted in bringing this crisis to the doorsteps of our schools.” Of those being laid off, 1,077 are...

While many waited for Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke to take the weight of the world markets on his Ivy League shoulders by declaring QE-4EVR-LOL!, the real economists at the Federal Reserve Bank in San Francisco came up with a more detailed explanation for the poor, dragging, sluggish U.S. economy. What they found will astonish you. And yes, this is a true story. “[D]espite all the attention federal spending cuts and sequestration have received,” wrote Brian Lucking and Daniel Wilson in the FRBSF Economic Letter, “our calculations suggest they are not the main contributors to this projected drag [on U.S....

Clothing maker The Warnaco Group, recently acquired by New York City-based PVH Corp., is closing its operations at 470 Wheeler's Farms Road in Milford in early June and is laying off 208 people in the process. The layoffs are part of 1,000 that PVH is making as it closes former Warnaco's offices in Florence, Italy; Duncansville, Pa.; Huntingdon, Pa.; New York City, and Hong Kong, in addition to Milford. PVH, which owns and markets the Tommy Hilfiger brand, announced in October it was acquiring Warnaco, whose brands included Calvin Klein and Speedo swimwear, and completed the $2.8 billion cash and...

Bank of America said today it’s cutting 469 jobs from its mortgage servicing center in Newark as the number of homeowners delinquent on mortgage payments dwindles. Employees at the offices on the corner of Market Street and University Avenue were given the news last week. “We previously announced intentions to reduce the size of our mortgage servicing operations in line with the successful reduction of our portfolio of delinquent mortgage customers,” the bank said in an e-mailed statement last night. “Compared to peak levels in 2011, today we have fewer than half the number of customers who need the specialized...

Bank of America Corp. (BAC) is laying off 1,320 employees in upstate New York as it will exit a mortgage-servicing facility there at the end of May, according to a filing with the New York State Department of Labor. M&T Bank Corp. (MTB) is taking over Bank of America's Getzville, N.Y., mortgage-servicing facility and hiring about 600 Bank of America employees, a spokesman for the Buffalo, N.Y., bank said. He added M&T has about 400 openings in Buffalo and Bank of America employees can apply for those positions. Bank of America, the nation's second-largest bank by assets behind J.P. Morgan...

Michigan: Detroit Closing 50 ParksDetroit will close nearly half of its parks and will reduce maintenance and services at dozens of others after the City Council passed on a deal that would have had the state operate the city’s Belle Isle park, Mayor Dave Bing said on Friday. Closing 50 of 107 parks will allow the city to keep running Belle Isle, a 985-acre park in the Detroit River, after the Council declined to vote on Gov. Rick Snyder’s proposal. Mr. Snyder’s offer called for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources to run Belle Isle as a state park, but...

Hundreds of job cuts stemming largely from the pending loss of two major federal contracts will begin soon at Monona-based WPS Health Insurance. WPS filed notice with the state Monday that 451 employees in Monona, Madison and Wausau would likely lose their jobs starting March 29. That includes 250 people in Madison and Monona, and 201 in Wausau, where about 300 work now. And there could be more job cuts coming. Founded in 1946, WPS is Wisconsin's leading nonprofit health insurer. It currently employs about 3,600 people, including some 2,500 in the Madison area. Read more: http://host.madison.com/business/wps-health-insurance-files-notice-of-layoffs-in-monona-madison/article_f0188544-69ad-11e2-96de-0019bb2963f4.html#ixzz2JPbqF3Hl

The Kapolei Golf Club laid off 14 out of 110 employed at the course recently. The employees were from various departments. "After careful consideration and full review of operations, we had to make the difficult decision of reducing our staff at Kapolei Golf Club," said Micah Kane, chief operating officer of Pacific Links Hawaii, in a statement. "This shift enables Pacific Links Hawai'i to operate at optimal efficiency and better provide the high quality of service that our customers have come to expect and solidify the future of our remaining employees. We do not anticipate any further staff cuts." Other...

Last week was a bleak one at Thomson Reuters, the financial news and wire service giant. According to sources, as many as 3,000 people were let go, out of approximately 50,000 employees around the globe. Most of the layoffs came from the financial sector—the sales, training and analysts’ divisions—but some were on the editorial side. “Yes, I can confirm there have been layoffs across Thomson Reuters today, including editorial,” Barb Burg, vice president and global head of communications at Reuters, told Talking Biz News last week. “Similar to efforts across the company, the Reuters organization is focusing attention on our...