Free Republic

A Cruz has again canceled on New Jersey. Heidi Cruz, the wife of Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz, had planned to hold a fundraiser in Morris County on Wednesday and attend several campaign events across the state. But a local Cruz campaign activist announced that she will be postponing her New Jersey appearances. Scott DeCristofaro, a New Jersey contact for the Cruz campaign, issued a press release Monday announcing the cancelation of a Heidi Cruz rally in Haddon Heights. DeCristofaro said she is also canceling her other New Jersey events and plans to come back to New Jersey after Wisconsin's...

(CNSNews.com) - The U.S. unemployment rate increased in August, according to the Gallup polling company, which surveys approximately 30,000 people each month about their employment status. By Gallup’s calculation, unemployment was 8.8 percent at the end of July and rose to 9.1 percent by the end of August. At the end of June, it was 8.7 percent. Gallup’s unemployment rate differs slightly from the federal government's. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (the federal agency that calculates the government’s official unemployment rate), the unemployment rate was 9.1 percent in July. The BLS is scheduled to report its calculation of...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The Senate will soon issue findings of a probe of the US mortgage meltdown that fueled the global financial crisis, with Goldman Sachs likely to face fresh embarrassment over its role, the Wall Street Journal reported Sunday. The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, whose high-profile inquiry commission subpoenaed Goldman's and other executives last year, is due to release its report on the subprime implosion of 2007 and 2008. The paper, citing people familiar with the matter, said the report was expected to release emails from securities firms that developed or sold subprime mortgages and financial vehicles including...

RANCHO MIRAGE, California (Reuters) – About 1,000 chanting protesters rallied on Sunday outside a California resort where conservative lawmakers and business executives met for a political strategy session hosted by billionaires Charles and David Koch. About two dozen police officers in riot gear lined up in front of the Rancho Las Palmas Resort & Spa in the upscale desert town of Rancho Mirage to keep the protesters away from the gated entrance. ... Another group, some dressed in hazardous material suits, tried to encircle the resort with yellow caution tape in a symbolic effort to "quarantine" the meeting, but they...

"St. Petersburg, Russia - China and Russia have decided to renounce the US dollar and resort to using their own currencies for bilateral trade, Premier Wen Jiabao and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin announced late on Tuesday. Chinese experts said the move reflected closer relations between Beijing and Moscow and is not aimed at challenging the dollar, but to protect their domestic economies."

The Associated Press and the Wall Street Journal report that Wall Street giants Citigroup and Goldman Sachs have been issued the swine flu vaccine for their "at risk" employees despite the fact that there are massive shortages of the vaccine nationwide. The rarity of the vaccine has made it a hot commodity, one in which movers, shakers, traders, and bailout recipients now have jumped to the front of the line when it comes to what President Obama declared to be a National Emergency in late October. Reaction to the news has been swift, fierce, and angry. Senator Chris Dodd of...

Apparently there's a loophole in the law that allows barred foreign citizens to enter the United States. They just need to have a meeting with Goldman Sachs (GS). At least that's our interpretation of this story. WSJ: Aluminum magnate Oleg Deripaska met with FBI agents in August and earlier this month as part of a continuing criminal probe, according to two administration officials. The focus of that probe couldn't be learned. Mr. Deripaska used the opportunity of his recent U.S. visits to meet with top executives of U.S. investment banks Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. The aluminum giant...

A Goldman Sachs hedge fund that launched in January with over $6 billion (3.8 billion pounds) under management lost close to $1 billion by September, according to the Financial Times. The fund, known as Goldman Sachs Investment Partners, has told investors it lost $989 million by September, the newspaper said on Monday. Most of the fund's losses stemmed from investments in commodities, basic materials, metals, mining, energy and agriculture, the FT said. Losses from investments in convertible bonds -- debt instruments that can convert into equity -- also contributed to poor returns, the newspaper said. Goldman Sachs spokesmen could not...