Free Republic

Jobless claims continue to surge as more than 6.6 million Americans filed new unemployment benefits last week, according to new data released from the U.S. Department of Labor on Thursday.That brings the three-week total of new unemployment claims to 16.8 million as the economic fallout over the Wuhan coronavirus continues to take its toll on the nation’s economy. About 6.6 million Americans had filed new claims the week before and 3.3 million new claims were filed in the week ending on March 28. The previous record for number of new filings in a single week was in 1982 when 695,000...

The announcements by MetLife and Symantec mean four companies have cut ties with the NRA this week. On Thursday, First National Bank of Omaha and Enterprise Rent-A-Car cut ties with the NRA as well. The First National Bank of Omaha announced that it would no longer offer NRA Visa Cards and Enterprise Rent-A-Car announced it would no longer offer discounts to NRA members.

Mergers may increase even more among brokerage firms due to the Labor Department's proposed fiduciary rule A second major insurance company has decided to exit the brokerage business this year as MetLife Inc. announced Monday it is selling its U.S. adviser unit to Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co. The sale includes the firm's Premier Client Group, consisting of about 4,000 advisers across the U.S. who sell insurance, annuities and other investment products such as mutual funds, plus its broker-dealer MetLife Securities Inc., according to the company's announcement. Metlife is shedding the unit as brokerage firms face higher compliance costs tied...

RIOTING broke out at MetLife Stadium tonight at the Summer Jam Concert. It was a hip hop/rap concert hosted by Hot 97. Tyson TrishVerified account ‏@tysontrish OC gas being deployed outside MetLife Stadium Summer Jam concert @NorthJerseybrk East Rutherford, NJ Protesters threw bottles and glass objects at the police.East Coast 911 reported: EastRutherford Personnel continue to operate at MetLife Stafium, the venue for the Hot 97 Summer Jam music event this evening, where a riot & multiple fights broke out this evening. Law Enforcement personnel have had bottles/glass & other objects thrown at them. At least 1 trooper has been...

It's every parent's nightmare, but true: Major U.S. corporations are funding a campaign of sophisticated, psychologically intrusive "gay" indoctrination programs targeting very young children in elementary schools across America. It’s part of a very well-planned and well-funded effort to reach children as young as possible without their parents’ intervention. The national program, called “Welcoming Schools”, skillfully works on the minds of young children in three ways: (1) Introducing the concept of homosexuality to children. (2) Telling them that homosexuality is normal and natural. (3) Telling them that their parents or friends who portray homosexuality in a less than positive way...

A panel of regulators said on Friday that MetLife required heightened scrutiny by the Federal Reserve because of its size, leverage and interconnectedness with other financial institutions. “Material financial distress at MetLife could have significant adverse effects on a broad range of financial firms and financial markets,” the Financial Stability Oversight Council said in a 31-page statement explaining why it had voted 9 to 1 on Thursday to designate MetLife a “systemically important financial institution,” or SIFI. In such a situation, the market disruption could be severe enough “to inflict significant damage on the economy,” the council found. The council,...

Sylvia Mathews Burwell, President Obama’s nominee to lead the country’s health care overhaul, remains entangled in a lawsuit brought by shareholders of MetLife accusing her of misleading investors as a director of one of the country’s biggest insurance companies. The federal lawsuit, filed in New York, says the company used a Social Security death index to stop making payments when beneficiaries died, but the company wasn’t as diligent about using the database to track deaths of its policyholders, which triggers payouts, the lawsuit said. Last year, a judge refused to toss a federal lawsuit against the company, including claims against...

After creating a huge post regarding all the different ways that the left shuffles funding around towards NPR, I realized it was probably a bit too long and I thought there might be a better way. So here is a visual which should help make it easier:

Health Reform: As major businesses lay out the impact of ObamaCare in dollars and jobs, two things are clear: the costs will be enormous, and the president's vow to focus on "jobs, jobs, jobs" can no longer be believed. Early returns on ObamaCare are coming in, and they belie proponents' claims of job creation and cost reduction. The costs will increase. They are merely being shifted to the states and to America's businesses, large and small. AT&T, the country's largest telephone company, announced Friday it will take a $1 billion first-quarter charge related to the new health care law. The...

NEW YORK (AP) -- American International Group will sell a second overseas life and health insurance unit for $15.5 billion to MetLife Inc. in an ongoing bid to repay billions in government aid. It was the second major deal AIG completed this month to raise cash. On March 1, AIG agreed to sell Asia-based life insurer, AIA Group, to Britain's Prudential PLC for $35.5 billion....snip.... Including the latest sale, AIG will be able to slash its government debt by $50.7 billion, or 39 percent. Before the sales of AIA and Alico, AIG owed the government $94.76 billion in loans and...

LOOSE LIPS CAN BUFFET BLIMPS. That was clear last week when some remarks by a senator raised fears about the health of big insurers -- including MetLife, owner of the famed dirigible. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D.-Nev.), in pressing for passage of the financial bailout bill, claimed that a well-known insurer was on the verge of bankruptcy. Insurance stocks plunged, with MetLife (ticker: MET) falling some 15%. The company said Reid's remarks didn't apply to it, and the senator's spokesman said he misspoke.

Liberal blogger David R. Mark recently wrote, “Those that call themselves ‘compassionate conservatives’ would never think to touch their fat-cat supporters. It’s much easier to spin the ‘economic benefits’ of helping huge corporations fatten their bottom lines.” Liberal academic Thomas Frank, in his book What’s The Matter With Kansas?, claims that the corporate world “wields the Republican Party as its personal political sidearm.” Both Mark and Frank express a common view that corporations are major funders of the political right, and that when corporations make contributions to nonprofit advocacy groups they give to groups on the right because those groups...

Big companies are hoping to marry their brands to gays and lesbians this weekend — about 20,000 of them. In the first days after the presidential election — in which gay marriage proved to be a pivotal issue — the nation's biggest exposition on homosexual life is setting attendance records. Booths for exhibitors are also sold out for the first time at the Javits Center, which since 1999 has hosted Gay Life Expo, one of the center's liveliest trade shows. Companies ranging from Citigroup and American Express to Jet Blue and J.P. Morgan Chase are hawking their offerings to the...

Companies Rated on Their GLBT Policies Tuesday, August 26, 2003 Twenty-one companies received a perfect score from the Human Rights Campaign for their treatment of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender employees and consumers, almost doubling the number of companies with the same distinction last year. "What we see this year is improvement in every category measured, from written nondiscrimination policies to domestic partner health insurance benefits and beyond. Corporate America continues to be a leader in the quest for GLBT civil rights," says HRC Education Director Kim I. Mills, who oversees HRC WorkNet, the organization's workplace project. "The bottom...

Insurer exports jobsMargie Manning   MetLife Inc. is eliminating 93 information technology jobs at GenAmerica Financial offices in St. Louis.The work handled here will be outsourced to Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp. Cognizant, a Teaneck, N.J., software developer and service provider, is expected to shift much of the programming and other functions to workers in India, according to GenAmerica employees who spoke on the condition of anonymity.In a statement issued to the St. Louis Business Journal Jan. 22, MetLife confirmed the job eliminations, which it said were part of an integration to further increase IT's ability to respond to the company's...