Free Republic

As is often the case with noble purposes, the results do not meet expectations. What China might do two decades later was not part of the calculus in the US and its allies taking down the Iraqi army and freeing the Iraqi people. The US invasion and liberation of Iraq in March 2003 lasted 21 days, ending on April 9, when Saddam Hussein’s brutal regime collapsed and major combat engagements for US and partner forces stopped. Twenty years later, pundits and perfect-hindsight-seers heap criticism on America for either bungling Operation Iraqi Freedom or for starting it in the first place....

Just like the 2016 Brexit campaign, Obama's intervention may well have backfired. In April 2016, just months before he was due to leave the White House, then-U.S. President Barack Obama travelled to London, England to engage in a far shadier attempt at “foreign intervention” in another country’s election process than Donald Trump was ever party to. Arriving in London, he told an audience that Britain would find herself “at the back of the queue” for a trade deal with the United States if the public insisted on voting to leave the European Union. At that point in the campaign, the...

BlackBerry Ltd. is planning major staff reductions before the year is out, according to a published report citing unnamed sources. The Waterloo, Ont.-based smartphone maker has an employee base of about 12,700 while the cuts would come from across the company’s entire operations, a report in the Wall Street Journal published Wednesday said. “Organizational moves will continue to occur to ensure we have the right people in the right roles to drive new opportunities in mobile computing,” a BlackBerry spokesman told the newspaper. The cuts—if true—would be the deepest and most extensive in the company’s history, eclipsing the 5,000 jobs...

Despite Economy, Ohio, U.S. Gun Sales Defy Gravity The economy of Ohio is centered to a high degree on the manufacturing of a myriad of consumer products, perhaps to a higher degree than dozens of other states. As a result, one would think the current downturn in the national economy would be intensified in The Buckeye State. Ohioans may not be dining out as much or buying new refrigerators and pickup tracks, but recently released figures from the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) indicate they are continuing to purchase firearms at a record pace. During the first seven...

In the war between Fox News and the Whitehouse, I'm supporting: The White House on this one; Fox News isn't "fair and balanced." Fox News on this one; it asks questions others don't and the White House should be able to handle them. Neither side. They're both trying to play this "feud" to their advantage.

ABC News' Pentagon correspondent Luis Martinez reports that Barack Obama brought twenty-four reporters, photographers and videographers from fourteen media outlets to Dover Air Force Base to cover his 'surprise' visit there early Thursday morning.The New York Times reported earlier that there was a "small contingent" of media at Dover. However, two dozen is a crowd, especially when vulnerable grieving families are involved.Liz Cheney is being attacked (and here) for pointing out that Obama imposed the question of media coverage on the families by his presence at Dover. Seventeen out of the eighteen families of the fifteen soldiers and three DEA...

The Dow Jones Industrial Average set a new bear-market closing low, as the financial sector continued to decline and investors found little impetus to buy in a flurry of economic data. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 89.68 points, or 1.2%, to close at 7465.95. The blue-chip benchmark had flirted all week with its five-and-half-year closing low of 7552.29, set on Nov. 20. Thursday, the Dow briefly dipped under its five-and-a-half-year intraday low of 7449.38 of Nov. 21.

MarketWatch Bulletin

http://www.stoptheaclu.com/archives/2008/10/28/could-obama-be-planning-a-chavez/

Dow -192.43 down-2.24% 8,386.76

Democrats assume Republicans are raising Obama's many questionable relationships in a desperation effort to salvage the election. You might think this is splitting hairs, but I believe the reason is that these relationships scare the daylights out of us. Conservatives were very much opposed to Bill Clinton for myriad reasons, but with decades in elective office in Arkansas, at least he wasn't a stealth candidate. Though rumors and mysteries abounded, Clinton was hardly a blank slate who emerged out of nowhere. Obama is different. He burst onto the political scene and has risen with such alacrity that even many of...

The markets are extremely oversold, but it can't muster a rally. Why not? The Fed is doing everything it can; ... While many are expecting a rally, and some are in fact buying modestly right now, there are other problems. ... 2) But there's a bigger problem: there is no "E" in the P/E. In English, there is no Earnings in the Price/Earnings Ratio. Look at the estimates now: S&P 500 price is 975; many estimates of earnings for the S&P 500 for 2009 are around $75 for the index. Do the math: 975/$75 = 13 x earnings. Now, this...

The Dow celebrated the one-year anniversary of its all-time high by plummeting below 9000 for the first time since August 2003 and ending in the red for the seventh straight day. The worst financial crisis since the Great Depression continues to engulf Wall Street, carving out 5,000 points from the index, including 2,000 points over the past seven days alone.

Obama purchases half hour of primetime on CBS, also in talks with FOX, NBC... DEVELOPING...

If a recent poll found that almost 75 percent of America's top business leaders felt that a McCain presidency would be disastrous for the nation, with some even stating that his proposals if enacted would bankrupt the country in three years, do you think media would have reported it? Probably every hour on the hour until every American had heard about it, right? Well, on Wednesday, with the nation in the middle of what is being regularly portrayed as the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, Chief Executive magazine released its survey of 751 CEOs finding that 74 percent...

The Dow Jones industrials fell under 9,000 this afternoon for the first time since the summer of 2003 as investor confidence that markets would stabilize appeared to collapse. At 3:40 p.m. ET, the blue chips were down 641 points, or 6.9%, to 8,617. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index was off 74 points, or 7.5% to 911. The Nasdaq Composite Index was down 94 points, or 5.4%, to 1,646. The S&P fell under a closely monitored support level of 960. A support level is important because it is supposed to trigger new buying. At those levels, the crash of 2008...

8995. Wow, I'm impressed how well socialism has helped the markets.