If Spain Collapses, Europe Collapses. And If Europe Collapses, America Collapses. And Terrified Spaniards Are Bailing Out Of Spain As I Write This.

Be afraid.  Be very, very afraid.  Because to paraphrase Obama’s demonic reverend for 25 years, the chickens of socialism have come home to roost:

Fears Rising, Spaniards Pull Out Their Cash and Get Out of Spain
Published in the New York Times: Monday, 3 Sep 2012 | 9:22 PM ET By: Landon Thomas Jr.

After working six years as a senior executive for a multinational payroll-processing company in Barcelona, Spain, Mr. Vildosola is cutting his professional and financial ties with his troubled homeland. He has moved his family to a village near Cambridge, England, where he will take the reins at a small software company, and he has transferred his savings from Spanish banks to British banks.

“The macro situation in Spain is getting worse and worse,” Mr. Vildosola, 38, said last week just hours before boarding a plane to London with his wife and two small children. “There is just too much risk. Spain is going to be next after Greece, and I just don’t want to end up holding devalued pesetas.”

Mr. Vildosola is among many who worry that Spain’s economic tailspin could eventually force the country’s withdrawal from the euro and a return to its former currency, the peseta. That dire outcome is still considered a long shot, even if Spain might eventually require a Greek-style bailout. But there is no doubt that many of those in a position to do so are taking their money — and in some cases themselves — out of Spain.

In July, Spaniards withdrew a record 75 billion euros, or $94 billion, from their banks — an amount equal to 7 percent of the country’s overall economic output — as doubts grew about the durability of Spain’s financial system.

The withdrawals accelerated a trend that began in the middle of last year, and came despite a European commitment to pump up to 100 billion euros into the Spanish banking system. Analysts will be watching to see whether the August data, when available, shows an even faster rate of capital flight.

More disturbing for Spain is that the flight is starting to include members of its educated and entrepreneurial elite who are fed up with the lack of job opportunities in a country where the unemployment rate touches 25 percent.

According to official statistics, 30,000 Spaniards registered to work in Britain in the last year, and analysts say that this figure would be many multiples higher if workers without documents were counted. That is a 25 percent increase from a year earlier.

“No doubt there is a little bit of panic,” said José García Montalvo, an economist at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona. “The wealthy people have already taken their money out. Now it’s the professionals and midrange people who are moving their money to Germany and London. The mood is very, very bad.”

It is possible that the outlook could improve if the European Central Bank’s governing council, which meets Thursday, signals a plan to help shore up the finances of Spain and other euro zone laggards by intervening in the bond markets.

But right now, if anything, Spain’s picture is growing dimmer.

On Friday, the government’s bank rescue fund said it would need to pump up to 5 billion euros into the failed mortgage-lending giant Bankia, which the state seized in May. And on Monday, Andalusia became the latest of Spain’s semiautonomous regions to ask the central government for rescue money.

The wider prospects for the euro zone are also still bleak. Moody’s [MCO 39.72 0.12 (+0.3%) ] Investors Service said on Monday that it had changed its outlook on the AAA rating of the European Union to negative, and that it might downgrade the rating if it decides to cut the ratings on the union’s four largest budget contributors.

Spain’s gathering gloom comes despite a gradual return of capital to banks in Greece and the relative stability of deposits in those other euro zone trouble spots, Italy, Ireland and Portugal.

The continued exodus of money and people from Spain could be a warning to European policy makers that bailing out the country — a step now widely expected — may not stem the panic as long as the Spanish economy remains in a funk.

It was a lesson learned in Greece, where despite successive European bailouts, about a third of deposits have been withdrawn from its banks since 2009, as the public worried that Athens might have to return to the drachma.

Spain is still a far cry from a nearly bankrupt Greece: it has a much larger and more diverse economy, lower levels of debt and a bond market that is still functioning.

It might be more accurate to say that money is leaving Spanish banks at more of a jog than anything close to a sprint.

Although retail and corporate deposits are down 10 percent compared with those of July 2011, the country remains relatively rich in savings, with 2.3 trillion euros in overall deposits, according to data from Morgan Stanley.

But once under way, the flight of bank deposits can easily overwhelm rational facts and analysis.

Setting off the flight was the failure of Bankia, which came as a shock to Spanish savers who had been assured by government officials that the bank was in good shape.

Instead of calming fears, the state takeover prompted comparisons to Argentina in 2001, when peso bank accounts denominated in dollars were frozen in order to stem the flight of deposits.

The corralito, or corral, as the Argentine action is known, has become part of the public conversation in Spain. The million-plus Argentines who have since immigrated to Spain have provided ample and gory stories of desperate legal battles and wiped-out savings.

Eduardo Pérez, a Spaniard who was working in Argentina during that period, remembers the events all too well. He said he lost four-fifths of the money he had kept in an Argentine savings account, though he declined to say how much money was involved.

“Some of my friends lost everything,” Mr. Pérez said. “So yes, everyone in Spain knows about the corralito.”

Recently, Mr. Pérez, who lives in the northern city of Bilbao, removed about a third of his euros from his Spanish savings account and sent them to Singapore, converting them to Singapore dollars.

Having lost his job at a multinational company a few months ago, Mr. Pérez, 48, is trying to make ends meet by focusing on his travel Web site and blog, which aggregate Spanish-language travel videos.

But as the job outlook worsens, he is contemplating following in the path of his savings and starting a new life in Singapore with his wife.

“Two years ago, we never would have thought of this, but now I have real fears that there will be a breakup with the euro,” he said. “And when you keep hearing people saying, ‘Don’t worry, it’s not going to happen’ — well, that is when you have to start worrying.”

Analysts said that the record-high outflow from Spain in July was probably spurred in part by July’s being a taxpaying month for many corporations, which prompted them to withdraw cash from deposit accounts.

Also playing a role were investment funds that moved cash reserves to foreign banks in light of the credit downgrades at Spanish banks.

Still, as the examples of Mr. Vildosola and Mr. Pérez show, individual deposit flight is becoming more pronounced.

Some people are willing to fly to London for the day just to open an account there, as most banks in the city require such transactions to be made in person.

Spanish bankers working for British financial institutions say they have been hit with a barrage of questions about how to open savings accounts in London.

“It seems as if everyone I know in Spain is getting on an easyJet to come to London and open a bank account,” said one such banker, who spoke on condition of anonymity, citing his company’s policy.

That is what Mr. Vildosola did before he took the more drastic step of moving his family to England.

“It’s sad,” he said. “But I just don’t think there is a future for me in Spain right now.”

This story originally appeared in The New York Times

You want scary?  CNBC reported that the withdrawal rate is equal to 52% of the entire GDP of Spain:

The flight of capital from Spain is now worse than what Indonesia, one of the hardest hit countries during the Asian financial crisis, experienced in the late 1990s, according to analysis by Nomura.

On a three-month rolling basis, portfolio and investment outflows from Spain totaled 52.3 percent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), (that’s) more than double the outflows from Indonesia, which reached 23 percent of GDP at the time of the Asian crisis, Jens Nordvig, global head of G10 FX strategy at Nomura wrote in a note to clients on Tuesday.

Spaniards and foreign investors have been pulling money out of Spanish banks as the economy has worsened in recent months, and Nordvig said without the single currency and the flows from the ECB, Spain would already be going through a major currency crisis. (Read More: Depression, Suicides Rise as Euro Debt Crisis Intensifies)

We would stress that the broad-based nature of the capital flight, which involves both banking claims and securities and flows from both residents and non-residents, makes for a rather extreme overall outflow, and one that raises serious concerns about the implications for banking sector stability and economic growth,” Nordvig wrote.

For the record, the French are fleeing France and they are making it very clear that they are fleeing France because of the socialism that France just chose for itself:

Indigestion for ‘les Riches’ in a Plan for Higher Taxes
By LIZ ALDERMAN
Published: August 7, 2012 763 Comments

PARIS — The call to Vincent Grandil’s Paris law firm began like many others that have rolled in recently. On the line was the well-paid chief executive of one of France’s most profitable companies, and he was feeling nervous.

President François Hollande is vowing to impose a 75 percent tax on the portion of anyone’s income above a million euros ($1.24 million) a year. “Should I be preparing to leave the country?” the executive asked Mr. Grandil.

The lawyer’s counsel: Wait and see. For now, at least.

“We’re getting a lot of calls from high earners who are asking whether they should get out of France,” said Mr. Grandil, a partner at Altexis, which specializes in tax matters for corporations and the wealthy. “Even young, dynamic people pulling in 200,000 euros are wondering whether to remain in a country where making money is not considered a good thing.”

A chill is wafting over France’s business class as Mr. Hollande, the country’s first Socialist president since François Mitterrand in the 1980s, presses a manifesto of patriotism to “pay extra tax to get the country back on its feet again.” The 75 percent tax proposal, which Parliament plans to take up in September, is ostensibly aimed at bolstering French finances as Europe’s long-running debt crisis intensifies.

Europe is imploding.  Spain is one of the PIIGS (the ‘S’ in PIIGS, in fact) who are leading that collapse.  And Obama is pushing for an economic and environmentalist model that most copies collapsing Spain.

And liberals are DETERMINED to do the same thing here.  Go to Illinois, the king of the deadbeat states.  You watch a 60 Minute Story and you will be PISSED at what slimebag Democrat cockroaches have done.  Go to California, where Democrats have created a $500 BILLION unfunded pension black hole of doom.  Look at America under Obama and take note that America just passed the $16 trillion mark that was $10 trillion when Bush left office.  Barack Obama DEMONIZED George Bush for increasing the debt by $4 trillion over eight years – look what that Marxist weasel has done in HALF the time by piling on $6 trillion in debt in only FOUR years!!!  Oh, and America’s REAL debt isn’t a paltry $16 trillion; it’s actually a supermassive $222 trillion.  And all that debt was created by Democrat boondoggle-takeovers of what should have been privatized.

Democrats have murdered America.  And we are merely waiting for our turn to completely implode before the Antichrist comes and the Book of Revelation prophecy becomes the news story account of the end of human history.  You can hear the hoofbeats of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse riding hard toward us even now.

The last couple of years, as Europe has slowly imploded, the dollar has been given a boost as terrorized Europeans seek some haven from their weakening Euro.  But if Europe goes – and it WILL go – America will fall right afterward because Europe is our largest trading partner and there won’t be anybody to buy our stuff from us.  And because Obama has spent the last four years racing us toward that same direction and that same catastrophic collapse.  And when America goes the dollar will flush down the toilet right down with it.  And you better take a look at the terror on the faces of Spaniards; because YOU will have that same look on YOUR face soon thanks to your vote for Obama and Democrats in 2008.

In 1980, the last year of Jimmy Carter’s failed presidency, 300,000 businesses filed for bankruptcy.  In this last failed year of Obama’s failed presidency, 1.4 million – very nearly FIVE TIMES as many – businesses have filed for bankruptcy.  If we vote for Obama, we vote to die as a nation just as Spain previously voted to die and just as Europe previously voted to die.

Everything about this failed president is Marxist – including his damn Marxist slogans:

New Obama slogan has long ties to Marxism, socialism
By Victor Morton – The Washington Times
April 30, 2012, 06:56PM

The Obama campaign apparently didn’t look backwards into history when selecting its new campaign slogan, “Forward” — a word with a long and rich association with European Marxism.

Many Communist and radical publications and entities throughout the 19th and 20th centuries had the name “Forward!” or its foreign cognates. Wikipedia has an entire section called “Forward (generic name of socialist publications).”

“The name Forward carries a special meaning in socialist political terminology. It has been frequently used as a name for socialist, communist and other left-wing newspapers and publications,” the online encyclopedia explains.

The slogan “Forward!” reflected the conviction of European Marxists and radicals that their movements reflected the march of history, which would move forward past capitalism and into socialism and communism.

The Obama campaign released its new campaign slogan Monday in a 7-minute video. The title card has simply the word “Forward” with the “O” having the familiar Obama logo from 2008. It will be played at rallies this weekend that mark the Obama re-election campaign’s official beginning.

Vote for Obama.  March “forward” right into hell, you fools.  Because that’s what you’ve got to look “forward” to under your demonic false messiah Obama.

You just watch what will happen to the DOW the day Spain goes the way of the Dodo bird.  And you realize that we’re going down hard in our own day of reckoning because we chose the same stupid and immoral course that Spain chose.

What’s Obama’s “strategy” to deal with this crisis???  To try to call on Europe to not collapse until after he’s reelected so he won’t have to face the voters’ wrath over what hell has befallen America under his failed leadership.

The collapse is coming.  Democrats gave us that when they voted for Obama and let him kill America with his socialism.  The Antichrist is coming.  He’ll be riding in on his white horse to save the day from the disaster and collapse caused by the previous false messiah Obama.  And Democrats will welcome the beast even more enthusiastically than they welcomed Obama and they will worship him and they will take his mark.

Get ready for hell on earth.  And then get ready for hell itself.  Because the beast is coming.

Obama’s ‘Hope And Change’ At Work: Most Americans (Correctly) Believe Our Best Days Are Now Behind Us

History reminds us of a time – not all that long ago – when a charismatic leader promised a fundamental transformation that brought hope to a nation.

The leaders’s name was Adolf Hitler.  It didn’t end well.  Seriously.

The kind of fascistic irrationally euphoric Utopian rhetoric of Obama –

“I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal… This was the moment — this was the time — when we came together to remake this great nation …”

– hasn’t seemed to work out very well in the real world.  I mean who talks like that but a fascist demagogue promising a false Utopia, anyway?  Not that most liberals have any clue whatsoever about the real world, mind you.

The evidence is crystal clear that Obama is a fascist and a demagogue.  But the mainstream media is every bit as unlikely to tell the truth about Obama as Joseph Goebbels’ Ministry of Propaganda was likely to tell the truth about their Fuhrer.

The New York Times once said – as part of the irrational fascistic hype surrounding Obama – that:

WASHINGTON — At the core of Senator Barack Obama’s presidential campaign is a promise that he can transcend the starkly red-and-blue politics of the last 15 years, end the partisan and ideological wars and build a new governing majority.

Did Obama ever once come close to actually fulfilling that “core presidential promise”???

How about this: within 24 days of Obama assuming the presidency, The Wall Street Journal was rightly able to say this about our “transcending” figure:

President Barack Obama has turned fearmongering into an art form. He has repeatedly raised the specter of another Great Depression. First, he did so to win votes in the November election. He has done so again recently to sway congressional votes for his stimulus package

It wasn’t even a month after assuming the presidency that Obama began to dismiss the Republicans he had promised to reach out to:

“Don’t come to the table with the same tired arguments and worn ideas that helped to create this crisis,” he admonished in a speech.

It was barely only a month after assuming the presidency that Obama began to thumb his nose at the Republicans he had promised to reach out to:

 When [Republican Rep. Eric] Cantor tried to justify his own position, Obama responded: “Elections have consequences, and at the end of the day, I won.”

Were those really the words that would “transcend the starkly red-and-blue politics of the last 15 years”???  In taking that stand, was there actually any chance whatsoever that Obama would “end the partisan and ideological wars”???  Is anyone frankly so morally and intellectually stupid to see these tactics as they way to “build a new governing majority”???

And of course, shortly after the American people rejected Obama in the largest shallacking in modern American history and voted against the Democrat Party in droves, Nancy Pelosi began to further degenerate into fascism (where elections shouldn’t matter unless the fascists win them), saying: “elections shouldn’t matter as much as they do.”

And then we proceeded to see Democrats and liberals behave far more like fascists than people who gave a damn about elections or the consequences of elections in Wisconsin.

I think of the fact that Hitler never won more than 37% of the vote.  But the moment he seized power, “elections didn’t matter as much as they should have.”

Barack Obama is a man who has personally repeatedly demonized George W. Bush, Republicans, entire industries, businesses, and even medical doctors (remember how they amputate people’s feet and yank out their tonsils just to illegitimately profit?).  As a Senator, he personally attacked George Bush for his failure of leadership for having to raise the debt ceiling; now he’s personally attacking anyone who acts as cynically and despicably as he acted.  Obama personally demonized George Bush for trampling on the Constitution for Iraq even though Congress had directly authorized his actions; but this same cynical demagogue would attack Libya without any congressional authorization whatsoever.  Obama lectured Republicans that it hurt the country and the essential political debate to demagogue the other side with health care, only to viciously attack the Republicans the first time he thought it would politically help him to do so.  Rep Ryan – whom he invited to his speech just to single him out for attack – said, “What we got yesterday was the opposite of what [Obama] said is necessary to fix this problem.”  And Obama doesn’t just demonize his opponents; he falsely demonizes his opponents by telling demonstrable lies.

As I said, Obama is a fascist bully and a cynical demagogue.  And yet the mainstream media has the unmitigated chutzpah to continue to insanely depict this cynical, lying, hypocrite demagogue as an inspirational figure.

The American people and the mushroom have something in common: both are kept in the dark and fed manure.

So you can understand why the American people – for all the information available to them – are so terribly ignorant about just what the hell is going on in our political system.

But as misinformed and lied-to as Americans are when it comes to the sea of lies they are presented with as “news,” they are still aware that fewer of them have jobs, fewer of them have homes, their food cost more, their fuel cost more and that the quality of their lives are rapidly slipping away under the policies of a failed president and his failed party.

America’s Best Days
Those Confident That America’s Best Days Lie Ahead Down to 31%
Monday, April 25, 2011

Voter confidence that the nation’s best days are still to come has fallen to its lowest level ever.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of Likely Voters shows that just 31% believe America’s best days are in the future. That’s down three points from last month and is the lowest result found in polling since late 2006.

Fifty-three percent (53%) believe America’s best days are in the past, also the highest measurement in over four years. Sixteen percent (16%) are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Separate polling finds that only 22% of Likely Voters believe the United States is now heading in the right direction. That ties the lowest level found during Barack Obama’s presidency.

While majorities of Republicans (68%) and voters not affiliated with either major political party (52%) believe America’s best days are in the past, a plurality of Democrats (45%) thinks its best days still lie ahead.

Fifty-eight percent (58%) of white voters believe America’s best days have come and gone, but the same number of black voters (58%) feel the opposite is true.

[…]

And of course, it is true: America’s days truly ARE behind us as long as Barack Hussein Obama and as long as Democrats are able to continue to lead.  Either Democrats will go down, or America will go down.

But, liberals say, it was BUSH who made the economy fail.  Two things: 1) how many years should that line of garbage continue to succeed?  And 2) it was never true to begin with (also see here).

Do you know that Democrats had total control of both the House and the Senate from 2006 until 2010???

George Bush tried SEVENTEEN TIMES to warn Congress that unless we got control of the out-of-control Democrat-controlled Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the out-of-control housing and housing mortgage market that it was poisoning with piles of bad debt, our economy would go under.  The problem had festered because Bush had reappointed the first black Fannie Mae CEO because of political correctness.  Franklin Raines was a failure and a corrupt fraud who disguised massive debt.  Further, fearing the same political correctness, Republicans had allowed themselves to be repeatedly stymied in their attempts to reform the Government Sponsored Enterprises Fannie and Freddie as Democrats screamd “racism.”  John McCain was if anything even more clear in 2006 when there was still time to fix the developing crisis.  McCain wrote (in 2006):

Congress chartered Fannie and Freddie to provide access to home financing by maintaining liquidity in the secondary mortgage market. Today, almost half of all mortgages in the U.S. are owned or guaranteed by these GSEs. They are mammoth financial institutions with almost $1.5 Trillion of debt outstanding between them. With the fiscal challenges facing us today (deficits, entitlements, pensions and flood insurance), Congress must ask itself who would actually pay this debt if Fannie or Freddie could not?

McCain asked, “Who would actually pay this massive debt for these incredibly risky liberal policies if Fannie or Freddie could not?’  And we now have the answer to that question, don’t we???

Even the liberal New York Times recognized the threat posed by Fannie and Freddie.  And Peter Wallison all but predicted the collapse as early as 1999:

In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980′s.

”From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us,” said Peter Wallison a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. ”If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry.”

 The same Peter Wallison who had predicted the disaster from 1999 wrote a September 23, 2008 article in the Wall Street Journal entitled “Blame Fannie Mae and Congress For the Credit Mess.”

Wallison was 100% correct, and had the FACT that he had accurately predicted the collapse to give him further credibility.  Democrats were 100% wrong.  Barney Frank was one of the unanimous Nazi-goosetepping Democrats who said stuff like this:

”These two entities — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — are not facing any kind of financial crisis,” said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ”The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.”

Basically a MONTH before Fannie and Freddie went bankrupt and started the entire housing mortgage market collapse in 2008, Barney Frank was still singing the same idiotic tune:

REP. BARNEY FRANK, D-MASS.: “I think this is a case where Fannie and Freddie are fundamentally sound, that they are not in danger of going under. They’re not the best investments these days from the long-term standpoint going back. I think they are in good shape going forward.

They’re in a housing market. I do think their prospects going forward are very solid.”

John McCain correctly predicted a disaster.  Barney Frank was still spouting outrageous lies just one month before the bottom fell out of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and then caused the bottom to fall out of the entire economy.  Republicans were right and Democrats were disasterously wrong.  And the American people responded by electing Democrats and purging Republicans.  Because we were lied to, and because we have become a bad people who believe lies.

Democrats blocked every single move by both the Republicans and by George Bush.  They actually threatened filibusters to prevent Bush from fixing the broken system that failed and it was DEMOCRATS who took our economy down the drain.

And Senator Barack Obama had more campaign money from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in a shorter time than anyone in Congress.  And he also had more campaign money from Lehman Brothers – a dirty Wall Street player that went belly up – in a shorter time than anyone else in Congress.  Obama was bought and owned by the people who blew up our economy.

Only a nation of fools would have voted for this inexperienced Marxist fool to run our nation.  But a nation of fools believed the worst media propaganda campaign since Joseph Goebbels plied his trade.

Even fools feel pain when they keep getting burned, though.  And Obama is burning America alive.

We are slipping.  Even fools can feel it:

26 Apr, 2011, 11.27AM IST,IANS
China’s economy to surpass that of US by 2016: IMF

BEIJING: The Chinese economy will surpass that of the US by 2016, the International Monetary Fund ( IMF )) has predicted.According to the IMF’s forecast, based on “purchasing power parities”, China’s gross domestic product (GDP) will rise from $11.2 trillion in 2011 to $19 trillion in 2016, while the American economy will increase from $15.2 trillion to $18.8 trillion.

China’s share of the global economy will ascend from 14 percent to 18 percent, while the US’ share will descend to 17.7 percent, China Daily reported.

The Economist had predicted in December 2010 that China would overtake the US in terms of nominal GDP in 2019.

 At the same time all of the other growing disasters is taking place, we have a crisis in the price of oil.  And Obama has done nothing but exacerbate that crisis with energy policies that are even more destructive than Jimmy Carter’s.

Do you feel your nation growing smaller and smaller and weaker and weaker?  That is the hope and change you voted for.

In the time that Obama has been president, we’ve gone from predicting China would overtake us by 2030, to 2019, to just five years away.  And mark my words, it will be moved up yet again, before they overtake Obama’s ignorant stupidity even faster than that.

Under Obama, and due to his immoral and criminally reckless policies, we are spending like fools and at the same time insanely inflating our money supply (under the euphamism of “qantitative easing” or QE2.  And here are the results:

APRIL 23, 2011
Dollar’s Decline Speeds Up, With Risks for U.S.
BY TOM LAURICELLA

The U.S. dollar’s downward slide is accelerating as low interest rates, inflation concerns and the massive federal budget deficit undermine the currency.

With no relief in sight for the dollar on any of those fronts, the downward pressure on the dollar is widely expected to continue.
The dollar fell nearly 1% against a broad basket of currencies this week, following a drop of similar size last week. The ICE U.S. Dollar Index closed at its lowest level since August 2008, before the financial crisis intensified.

“The dollar just hasn’t had anything positive going for it,” said Alessio de Longis, who oversees the Oppenheimer Currency Opportunities Fund.

Thanks to your fool-in-chief president, your dollar is worth less and less.  And your gas and your food cost more and more.  Food now costs more than at any time since 1974, thanks to the Democrat messiah.

Or maybe he’s not such a fool.  Because maybe this is what he wanted all along.  Read this article on “the Cloward and Piven Strategy” created by liberals/progressives to implode America written in 2008 (you could also read my own article written in 2009).  And then see what top SEIU official Steven Lerner – who left the “workers of the world unite; it’s not just a slogan anymore” radical union at the same time #1 White House visitor Andy Stern did – had to say about deliberately trying to cause a financial crisis that will implode America.

The United States of America is dangerously close to complete collapse.  One wrong move, one piece of bad news, just one thing, could send us into a collapse that will be impossible to stop.

And we are either being led by a total fool, or even worse, we are being led by a man who is actively plotting to collapse America to impose a radical leftwing ideology, and who doesn’t care one iota more about the American people than Adolf Hitler cared about the German people.

I’m sure you have probably picked up on my angry tone.  I am angry; I’m beyond angry.  Why?  Because I see the beast foretold by the book of Daniel and the book of Revelation coming.  I see the collapse coming, and the Antichrist riding in on his white horse to save the day.  And I see that the same liberals, the same progressives, the same Democrats who caused this collapse will be the ones to welcome this coming world dictator.  And it will be these same Democrats who call for the American people to take his mark on their hands or on their foreheads so that they can join the rest of the world and buy and sell.

Rest assured, Obama’s reckless fiscal policies are not just undermining America; they are undermining the entire world.  The unrest in the Middle East (which again says “Last days as foretold by the Bible” all over it) is directly attributed to Obama’s monetary policies, according to the G-2o and the central banks.

Barack Obama is a false messiah.  The Democrat Partyis the party of hell.  And they are leading us to hell on earth right now.  Today.

And we are voting for hell.

You mark my words.  It won’t be long now.  The beast is coming.  And if you vote Democrat, you have already voted for him by paving the way for his soon-arrival.

Get ready for hell.

Cloward-Piven Alive And Well: Progressives CONTINUE To Push For Destruction Of U.S. System

The next time you see a progressive liberal, realize that there is a good chance that they would love to see you in a soup line – helpless, hungry, desperate, and ready for “change.”

Back in August of last year, I wrote an article entitled, “Politico Article Reveals Obama’s Cloward-Piven Strategy Backfiring.”  I pointed out quite a few facts of history which I believed were important.  For example, I cited an article that defined the radical leftist Cloward-Piven strategy:

In their 1966 article, Cloward and Piven charged that the ruling classes used welfare to weaken the poor; that by providing a social safety net, the rich doused the fires of rebellion. Poor people can advance only when “the rest of society is afraid of them,” Cloward told The New York Times on September 27, 1970. Rather than placating the poor with government hand-outs, wrote Cloward and Piven, activists should work to sabotage and destroy the welfare system; the collapse of the welfare state would ignite a political and financial crisis that would rock the nation; poor people would rise in revolt; only then would “the rest of society” accept their demands.

The key to sparking this rebellion would be to expose the inadequacy of the welfare state. Cloward-Piven’s early promoters cited radical organizer Saul Alinsky as their inspiration. “Make the enemy live up to their (sic) own book of rules,” Alinsky wrote in his 1972 book Rules for Radicals. When pressed to honor every word of every law and statute, every Judaeo-Christian moral tenet, and every implicit promise of the liberal social contract, human agencies inevitably fall short. The system’s failure to “live up” to its rule book can then be used to discredit it altogether, and to replace the capitalist “rule book” with a socialist one.

Does that sound like something you’d like to see happen?  I hope not!  But you can bet that there are a lot of people on the political left right now who would love nothing more than having a crack at reshaping American society in their own image.

I cited the words of top Democrats like Obama’s chief of staff who said:

EMANUEL:  “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.  What I mean by that is it’s an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before.  This is an opportunity….  And this crisis provides the opportunity for us, as I would say, the opportunity to do things that you could not do before.”

And of course, you have Obama saying “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.”

Change it exactly how, Barry Hussein?  And what about those of us who liked the United States of America our founding fathers gave us who don’t want it “fundamentally transformed”?

We haven’t known exactly what Obama meant by that. Because Obama turned himself into a “blank screen” while he was running for president:

“I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views.”

As I pointed out in a recent article:

A politician who has Obama’s ostensible verbal skills is, quite simply, not a “blank screen” unless he wants to be one.

Obama did not want us to know who he was, because we would have rejected him as our leader if we knew.

The more we finally learn about who Obama really is and what he really wants to do, the less we are going to like it.

We’re seeing more and more now.  The man has a record.  And sadly, it is a record of filling his administration with far leftist radicals – even with outright self-described communists (e.g., Van Jones, Mark Lloyd, Anita Dunn, Carol Browner, Ron Bloom, Andy Stern) – and of pursuing government takeovers of one sphere of our economy (e.g., auto manufacturing, banking industry, financial sector, health care system) after another.

For the life of me, I can’t understand why a man who professes himself to be a free market president would appoint a man who would say “We know that the free market is nonsense” as his manufacturing czar.  Ron Bloom is a man who said:

“We know this is largely about power, that it’s an adults only no limit game. We kind of agree with Mao that political power comes largely from the barrel of a gun. And we get it that if you want a friend you should get a dog.”

You’re a “free market guy” who appoints a man who thinks the free market is “nonsense” and agrees with Mao to restore our incredibly important manufacturing sector?

For the life of me, I can’t understand how a man who says he’s a “free market guy” would appoint Andy Stern to his fiscal commission given statements such as the following:

– “Because workers of the world unite, it’s not just a slogan anymore.”

– “We like to say: We use the power of persuasion first. If it doesn’t work, we try the persuasion of power.”

This same Andy Stern – whom Obama has invited to visit the White House more than ANY other person – described Obama’s “free market” program this way:

We now have a new metric. The president says he wants to judge the new economy whether it increases the number of people in the middle class. Whether we have shared prosperity, not just growth. Which is a fundamental different philosophy then what we’ve seen in this country to date. Now how do we distribute wealth in this country … clearly government has a major opportunity to distribute wealth – from the EITC, from tax policies, from minimum wages, from living wages – the government has a role in distributing wealth and social benefits. We are at historic crossroads … in terms of what our new president is trying to do and a different way we are going to try and evaluate the economy. And so all of sudden we are witnessing the first new American economic plan led by the government, not necessarily by the private sector.

(Video available here).

You’re a “free market guy” and you appoint a massive big government Marxist to figure out how to reduce government spending???  You’re a “free market guy” and you’re pushing a “fundamentally different philosophy” than anything this country has ever seen?  You’re a “free market guy” and you want to redistribute the wealth at the expense of growth?  You’re a “free market guy” and you have an economic plan led by the government, and not the private sector?

Really?

And, of course, for the life of me, I can’t understand how Barack Obama would have installed a man (i.e., Van Jones) who routinely said things like this –

• “I met all these young radical people of color — I mean really radical, communists and anarchists. And it was, like, ‘This is what I need to be a part of.’”

• How’s that capitalism working for ya?

• And the white polluters and the white environmentalists are essentially steering poison into the people-of-color communities.

• “This movement is deeper than a solar panel! Deeper than a solar panel! Don’t stop there! Don’t stop there! We’re gonna change the whole system! We’re gonna change the whole thing!

– to be his Green Jobs Czar!

“Free market guy”?  Really?  And I’m not supposed to be either rolling on the floor laughing or barfing in a giant bucket WHY?

Obama told us that he chose his friends carefully, and “carefully” chose to be friends with “Marxist professors” and Marxist terrorist-bombers.  The problem is that he’s STILL choosing to surround himself with Marxists.

Obama says his administration has a “fundamentally business- friendly” agenda and are “fierce advocates” for the free market.

But fully 77% of American investors understand Barry Hussein very, very differently:

Jan. 22 (Bloomberg) — U.S. investors overwhelmingly see President Barack Obama as anti-business and question his ability to manage a financial crisis, according to a Bloomberg survey.

The global quarterly poll of investors and analysts who are Bloomberg subscribers finds that 77 percent of U.S. respondents believe Obama is too anti-business and four-out-of-five are only somewhat confident or not confident of his ability to handle a financial emergency.

To summarize to this point, “Mr. Blank Screen,” who wants to “fundamentally transform the United States of America” by “never letting a serious crisis go to waste,” calls himself a “free market guy” while repeatedly appointing communists to important “free-market”-positions.  But more than 3/4ths of American investors who earn their bread and butter from the aforementioned free market think he’s full of crap.

With that foundation, let us get back to the strategy of Cloward and Piven.

The following comes from a member of the leftwing in very good standing.  He’s written and worked for LeftTurn, Political Affairs, and Monthly Review according to his Wikipedia entry.  He lives in Chicago (Barry Hussein’s hometown), where he founded Youth Against Apathy.

I instantly hearken to Michelle Obama’s saying of her husband: “He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism.”

At a recent Brecht Forum, event, Jed Brandt said the following:

JED BRANDT, COMMUNIST: “We have to help bring this government down, we have to help destroy this system and that requires increasing the alienation that working class and oppressed people feel. The way change is going to happen in this country is through the destruction of what we call the United States of America.

I’m opposed to white supremacy not because it’s white people involved. I am opposed to the system we traditionally call imperialism and the idea that some people have rights and privileges that are not granted to all human beings. And the solution to that problem is called communism and socialism and we should put it in our mouths. We should say it when we say what is your politics? I am a socialist. I demand that we have health care for people and it’s not a demand that’s negotiable with health insurance companies.

We will take your insurance companies; we will take the farms in this country; we will shut down the military apparatus in this country and I am tired of being told to stuff my anger back in my pants.

[Youtube]:

Compare that to what Cloward and Piven were saying needed to happen way back in the 1960s:

Rather than placating the poor with government hand-outs, wrote Cloward and Piven, activists should work to sabotage and destroy the welfare system; the collapse of the welfare state would ignite a political and financial crisis that would rock the nation; poor people would rise in revolt; only then would “the rest of society” accept their demands

Am I the only one who finds it interesting that the man who says “The way change is going to happen in this country is through the destruction of what we call the United States of America” is demanding that ObamaCare be passed in his very next breath?

I mean, if the Democrat talking points had any validity, wouldn’t this guy be who wants to see America destroyed be saying, “I want health care that features tort reform, competition across state lines, and all the other elements of the Republican plan???

This is where articles such as  Cloward-Piven Crisis Care should start making sense.  I myself offered my own article, “ObamaCare Is Cloward-Piven Strategy In Microcosm” to establish this connection well before hearing Jed Brandt make the connection.  I cited the world famous Mayo Clinic as pointing out that ObamaCare represents the idea of:

accelerating the financial ruin of hospitals and doctors across the country

I cited the Wall Street Journal which pointed out that:

Once health care is nationalized, or mostly nationalized, medical rationing is inevitable

I pointed out that the Dean of the Harvard Medical School said that:

while the legislation would enhance access to insurance, the trade-off would be an accelerated crisis of health-care costs and perpetuation of the current dysfunctional system—now with many more participants.

I pointed out the fears of the California Medical Association that ObamaCare:

would increase local healthcare costs and restrict access to care for elderly and low-income patients.

As we speak, we are talking about the destruction of America by means of a political technique that the Democrats themselves called “the arrogance of power,” “majoritarian absolute power,” “the precipice of a constitutional crisis,” “the abandonment of the concept of check on power,” and “a naked power grab.”

My favorite description and prediction comes from Max Baucus, who is now pushing for the very thing that he said would be “the way Democracy ends. Not with a bomb but with a gavel.”

I think that last is correct.  ObamaCare, forced down the throats of Americans by the unAmerican nuclear option, will indeed be the way Democracy ends.

ObamaCare – by whatever name it is called – will be the ultimate actualization of the Cloward-Piven strategy.  It will in short order overwhelm and collapse our social support network just as leftists have been dreaming about for decades.

As one Democrat said, “Never mind the camel’s nose; we’ve got his head and his neck in the tent.”

There’s your REAL “hope” and “change.”  Too bad it doesn’t represent your hope, and too bad it is change that you most certainly don’t want.

AmeriCorps Pledge Challenge: Read It Out Loud Without Sounding Like A Little Marxist

The AmeriCorps Pledge.  Try to read it out loud, WITHOUT sounding like you just joined the Young Pioneers or the Hitler Youth.

“As an AmeriCorps member, you are expected to adhere to the AmeriCorps pledge. ( If you don’t have a pledge certificate, ask your project director for one.) The pledge represents the commitment you have taken to serve not just this year, but in the years ahead.”

The AmeriCorps Pledge

I will get things done for America –
to make our people safer,
smarter, and healthier.

I will bring Americans together
to strengthen our communities.

Faced with apathy,
I will take action.

Faced with conflict,
I will seek common ground.

Faced with adversity,
I will persevere.

I will carry this commitment
with me this year and beyond.

I am an AmeriCorps member,
and I will get things done.

Ah, yes, the Solemn Promise:

I, Barry Hussein Obama,

joining the ranks of the V. I. Lenin All-Union Pioneer Organization,

in the presence of my comrades solemnly promise:

to love and cherish my Motherland passionately,

to live as the great Lenin bade us,

as the Communist Party teaches us,

as require the laws of the Young Pioneers of the Soviet Union.

And let’s not forget the rules.  Rules are important, you know:

• Young Pioneer is a young communism builder, labours for the welfare of the Motherland, prepares to become its defender.
• Young Pioneer is an active fighter for peace, a friend to Young Pioneers and workers’ children of all countries.
• Young Pioneer follows communists’ example, prepares to become a Komsomol member, leads Little Octobrists.
• Young Pioneer upholds the honour of the organization, strengthens its authority by deeds and actions.
• Young Pioneer is a reliable comrade, respects elder, looks after younger people, always acts according to conscience.
• Young Pioneer has a right to elect and be elected to Young Pioneer self-government institutions, to discuss the functioning of the Young Pioneer organization on Young Pioneer gatherings, meetings, gatherings of Soviets of Young Pioneer detachments and Young Pioneer groups, in the press; to criticize shortcomings; to submit a proposal to any Soviet of the Young Pioneer organization, including the Central Soviet of the V. I. Lenin All-Union Pioneer Organization; to ask for a recommendation of the Soviet of Young Pioneer group to join VLKSM.

Yes.  We need more of THAT kind of thing.  That’s why we so desperately need the Obama Youth now.  I had this brilliant idea of militarizing the Obama Youth into little fascist Brownshirts.  But – as the the following video demonstrates – someone beat me to it.  Those nice boys sure do adore their fuhrer, don’t they?

Oh, liberals love to say that Republicans are fascists.  That’s in spite of the fact that fascism is clearly a disorder of the political LEFT, and it’s in spite of the rather obvious fact Republicans never had their children bask adoringly in the beatific glory of a new Reich under George Bush or Dick Cheney.  And I somehow don’t remember “the cult of McCain” marching around, either chanting creepy slogans, either.

But no matter how many frightening parallels there might be, you know what Democrats will always say:

I still remember this glassy-eyed little girl singing, “We’re gonna spread happiness! We’re gonna spread freeeeedom! Obama’s gonna change it, Obama’s gonna lead ‘em…”  That one made me realize that we’re really not that far from finding ourselves in some weird sci-fi flick involving weird children taking over one city after another.  Is it those vacant doll eyes, or the words she’s singing, that are scarier?

Children used to sing songs to another leader:

Adolf Hitler is our Saviour, our hero
He is the noblest being in the whole wide world.
For Hitler we live, for Hitler we die.
Our Hitler is our Lord who rules a brave new world.

I have never heard children singing the praises of Reagan, or either Bush.  But there were freakish children crawling out of the woodwork to sing about their messiah Obama.  This bizarre devotion to a politician is as mystifying as it is terrifying to a student of history.

I remember this political re-education camp for kindergartners:

I still remember Louis Farrakhan saying:

“You are the instruments that God is gonna use to bring about universal change, and that is why Barack has captured the youth. And he has involved young people in a political process that they didn’t care anything about. That’s a sign. When the Messiah speaks, the youth will hear, and the Messiah is absolutely speaking.”

And I still remember Spike Lee saying:

It means that this is a whole new world. I think…I’ve been saying this before. You can divide history. BB Before Barack. AB After Barack.

I don’t know about you, but that’s how I date things now.  It’s the year One AB.  It helps me better understand why the Mayans predicted the cataclysmic apocalypse on December 21, 2012 (according to that old “pre-BB/AB” calender).  Unfortunately, Spike Lee’s Before Barack-After Barack calender only has four years in it before liberals completely ruin the world.  It’ll be just like the Ghostbusters said: “Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling! Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes!  The dead rising from the grave! Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together… mass hysteria!”

Okay, maybe it will just be no jobs, no economy, government control over all health care and all use of energy, and a bunch of weird fanatic kids running around taking over the world for Dear Leader Obama.

The Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education Act (GIVE) will massively increase the Americorps program to the tune of $6 billion.  The money quote:

But the bill’s opponents — and there are only a few in Congress — say it could cram ideology down the throats of young “volunteers,” many of whom could be forced into service since the bill creates a “Congressional Commission on Civic Service.”

NO! Cram ideology down the throats of young “volunteers”?  PREPOSTEROUS! Never gonna happen.  Okay, maybe it will happen just a little bit…

Quite a shame that only a few opposed this in Congress, given the fact that the model this new “Obama Youth” program is based upon – Americorps – qualifies as “number one” in Heritage.org’s list of political slush funds.

A political slush fund to indoctrinate younp people into leftist ideology?  What could possibly be wrong with that?

House Passes Volunteerism Bill Critics Call Pricey, Forced Service: The legislation will expand the1993 AmeriCorps program to match the renewed interest in national service since President Obama’s election, which backers say is crucial in tough economic times.

Denial of Service: The battle over AmeriCorps

Obama Axes AmeriCorps’ Inspector General (see my article for more on why this was so blatantly political and wrong).

AmeriCorps volunteers used for political purposes

Obama’s AmeriCrooks and Cronies Scandal

Americorps has a recruitment ad (which your dollars paid for) that is pure propaganda, associating themselves with people and events that have nothing whatsoever to do with them as they attempt to leech more and more government funding.

Now, all that sounds well and good.  But just consider that the communist Young Pioneers depicted themselves as loving and cherishing the Motherland passionately; being a builder and labouring for the welfare of the Motherland; being an active fighter for peace; being a friend to workers’ children of all countries; upholding the honor of the organization, and strengthening its authority by deeds and actions; being a reliable comrade; respecting elders, looking after younger people, and always acting according to conscience.  It all just sounds so good; can I sign up and be a communist Young Pioneer or join Americorps too?

Now, Glenn Beck came out with a theory which would sound preposterous unless you watched some of the videos above and realize a few key facts:

1) The minimum wage increase forced through by a Democrat-controlled Congress will result in over 10% of the minimum wage workforce losing their jobs.  Young people ages 18-24 will be far and away the hardest hit.  Young minimum wage workers WILL be hurt by this program.

2) Americorps is competing for the same people in the same age group.  “Volunteers” are actually paid to perform activities which are in fact political.

3) MICHELLE OBAMA on 2/18/2008 is on the record preaching, “Barack Obama will require you to work. Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed.”

Glenn Beck says,

They are steering our youth into community service. Ted Kennedy and his ilk are even pushing the idea of forced service. They’re incentivizing working for the government with promises of paying off college loans. The catch, of course, is you have to federalize your loan before they’ll pay it. He wants you to be a bureaucrat slave to government.

It’s hard to believe that a President of the United States would deliberately torpedo minimum wage jobs to force young people out of the private workplace and into one of his government “volunteer” service organizations.  But it was awfully hard for me to believe a lot of things I’ve seen this president do.

Obama has talked about “fundamentally changing the country.”  He has said, “We’ll transform America.”

Obama has incredibly radical theoretical constructs:

“But the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth and sort of more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society. And to that extent as radical as people tried to characterize the Warren court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, at least as it’s been interpreted, and the Warren court interpreted it in the same way that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. It says what the states can’t do to you, it says what the federal government can’t do to you, but it doesn’t say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf.

Even the Warren Court wasn’t radical enough for what Obama wanted to do.  He wanted to radically take the country further away from the founding fathers.

But to implement such “transformation” requires an army of leftist foot soldiers (preferably foot soldiers who are paid by federal funding, such as ACORN and AmeriCorps).  You need to have mobs to protest every “lack of government social resources”, to challenge the status quo at every turn, to push for the liberal social agenda.  You need those foot soldiers implanted in neighborhoods and cities across the country who are at the call of Team Obama – whether it’s answering the call to shake down banks, or form a housing entitlement mob, or foster voter fraud, or create statistical shenanigans with the census.  You need community organizers and the bitter mobs they organize.

Enter Obama and the organization he’s building:

“We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.”

Michelle Malkin has just written Culture of Corruption to explore “ObamaCorps” and how this army is being created.

There is another, even more sinister cospiracy.  Because all of this reminds me of the Cloward-Piven strategy:

In their 1966 article, Cloward and Piven charged that the ruling classes used welfare to weaken the poor; that by providing a social safety net, the rich doused the fires of rebellion. Poor people can advance only when “the rest of society is afraid of them,” Cloward told The New York Times on September 27, 1970. Rather than placating the poor with government hand-outs, wrote Cloward and Piven, activists should work to sabotage and destroy the welfare system; the collapse of the welfare state would ignite a political and financial crisis that would rock the nation; poor people would rise in revolt; only then would “the rest of society” accept their demands.

The key to sparking this rebellion would be to expose the inadequacy of the welfare state. Cloward-Piven’s early promoters cited radical organizer Saul Alinsky as their inspiration. “Make the enemy live up to their (sic) own book of rules,” Alinsky wrote in his 1972 book Rules for Radicals. When pressed to honor every word of every law and statute, every Judaeo-Christian moral tenet, and every implicit promise of the liberal social contract, human agencies inevitably fall short. The system’s failure to “live up” to its rule book can then be used to discredit it altogether, and to replace the capitalist “rule book” with a socialist one.

I genuinely believe that Barack Obama – a follower of Saul Alinsky as well as the most liberal member of the U.S. Senate when he belonged to it to go along with a long and deep relationship with leftist radicals – is pursuing a “heads we win, tails you lose” strategy. If the economy somehow picks up under all of this massive spending and even more massive debt, then Democrats win big and Republicans lose. If – much more likely – the economy crashes under its own massive weight due to hyperinflation as interest payments on the debt soar, then a starving, terrified people will scream for help from their government. And Democrats will win the pure-socialist totalitarian state they have always envisioned. Either way, Obama liberals believe they will win big.

When Bill Clinton was president, I disagreed with many of his policies.  But I have no memory of being literally creeped out by any bizarre cult-like followings.  And I certainly didn’t constantly have to suffer legitimate fears that he was trying to fundamentally transform the very essence of America.

Finally, SOMEONE In Media Takes A Democrat To Task For Finance Meltdown

I couldn’t agree more with the words of Noel Sheppard:

Finally, someone in the media accurately accused and challenged a member of Congress over his involvement and complicity in the current financial crisis.

As press member after press member has allowed Democrats to shamefully and erroneously blame the current crisis on George W. Bush, virtually nobody other than folks at Fox News has been willing to examine the role elected officials on the left side of the aisle have been playing for more than a decade in blocking tighter regulation on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

There is an unprecedented and frankly astonishing degree of spin and outright deception going on in the mainstream media today.  And in this climate we are about to hold the most important election most of us have faced in our lifetimes.

A blatantly biased media routinely allow their air time to be taken up by Democrat after Democrat blaming the disaster on “the failed policies of this [Bush] administration,” and “8 years of deregulation by Republicans”, without presenting any analysis questioning whether those claims are true.  The reality is that Democrats’ fingerprints are all over the financial meltdown.  And I have written a bunch of articles trying to put the truth to light:

How ‘Failed Policies’ Of Democrats Were Responsible For Financial Crisis

Why Barney Frank Can Stick His ‘Republicans With Hurt Feelings’ Remark

Supreme Court LIBERALS Blocked States From Regulating Financial System

Democrats Refused To Regulate GSEs, Created Financial Tsunami

Democrats’ Idea Of Bipartisanship Is HARD CORE Partisanship

Dems Blame Bush For Deregulation: Just Another Day Of Astounding Liberal Hypocrisy

Financial Crisis: Obama Democrats Have Red Ink All Over Them

Obama V.P. Pick Joe Biden Shares Direct Blame For Foreclosure Disaster

Obama’s National Finance Chair Pritzker At Epicenter of Sub Prime Crisis

Democrats, The Countrywide Scandal, and Self-Righteous Hypocrisy

Even when Bill Clinton blames Democrats for their refusal to regulate the finance industry against Republican attempts to do so, the media refuses to look at the role of Democrats:

Bill Clinton on Thursday told ABC’s Chris Cuomo that Democrats for years have been “resisting any efforts by Republicans in the Congress or by me when I was President to put some standards and tighten up a little on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.”

So when a Bill O’Reilly has a Barney Frank on his program, and even raises the questions about the Democrats’ role in the crisis, it deserves attention.

BILL O’REILLY, HOST: “Personal story” segment tonight, the financial chaos in this country is largely the fault of the citizens who cannot pay their obligations, banks who lent money to unqualified people, and the federal government which failed to provide oversight. Both political parties are to blame as I’ve stated.

Now “The Factor” has called on SEC Chairman Christopher Cox to resign, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd to quit, and House Finance Chief Barney Frank to step down from his position. That’s because for the past two years, Frank and his committee oversaw Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — two government sponsored lending agencies which pretty much are bankrupt.

Congressman Frank was asked about Freddie and Fannie on July 14, 2008:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. BARNEY FRANK, D-MASS.: I think this is a case where Fannie and Freddie are fundamentally sound, that they are not in danger of going under. They’re not the best investments these days from the long-term standpoint going back. I think they are in good shape going forward.

They’re in a housing market. I do think their prospects going forward are very solid. And in fact, we’re going to do some things that are going to improve them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)

O’REILLY: Well, obviously, that statement turned out not to be true.

O’Reilly pointed out that – during the last two years of Barney Franks chairmanship over the House Financial Services Committee and Democratic control, “Look, bottom line is you’re there two years. Bottom line is stock drops 90 percent.”

Now, if you’ve heard a single Democrat blame bush and the Republicans for the finance meltdown, but you don’t know that Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s stock crashed 90% during the Democrats’ tenure, and that even three months ago the Democratic leadership was assuring us that everything was fine, you’ve been cheated by the media.  You have literally been lied to.

People were saying, ‘How far down can the stock go?  Are Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac solvent?’  And Barney Frank said, “Fannie and Freddie are fundamentally sound, that they are not in danger of going under. They’re not the best investments these days from the long-term standpoint going back. I think they are in good shape going forward.”  And so people kept buying stock, and kept business as usual, and the whole thing came crashing down.

People at Enron went to prison for doing precisely the same thing that Barney Frank did.

Barney Frank, in his feeble defense that initiated a shouting match, said:

FRANK: No. You’ve misrepresented this consistently. I became chairman of the committee on January 31st, 2007. Less than two months later, I did what the Republicans hadn’t been able to do in 12 years — get through the committee a very tough regulatory bill. And it passed the House in May.

I’ve always felt two things about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, that they had an important role to play, but that the regulations should be improved.

Now from 1995 to 2006, when the Republicans controlled Congress and we were in the minority, we couldn’t get that done. Although in 2005, Mike Oxley, of Sarbanes-Oxley fame, a pretty tough guy on regulation, did try to put a bill through to regulate Fannie Mae. I worked with him on it. As he told The Financial Times, he thought ideological rigidity in the Bush administration stopped that.

But the basic point is that the first time I had any real authority over this was January of 2007. And within two months, we had passed the bill that regulated.

Well, the facts are that Democrats DID succeed in passing a regulatory bill where the Republicans had failed.  But why did the Republicans fail?  They had failed in 2003, and then again in 2005, because Democrats were in lock step against it in the committees, and because the Democrats in the Senate threatened a filibuster that the Republicans wouldn’t be able to overcome.

It’s like children who refused to play with the other children until they got to make all the rules taking credit for the game, and conveniently forgetting that they hadn’t been willing to play before.

Barney Frank has been claiming that there was nothing wrong with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac going back at least five years, as a September 11, 2003 New York Times article proves:

”These two entities — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — are not facing any kind of financial crisis,” said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ”The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.”

So whey do the Democrats who utterly failed to see the disaster coming and who prevented the Republicans from regulating at least twice when such regulation would have prevented this crisis get to blame the Republicans for failing to realize that the disaster was coming and for refusing to regulate?  Because, by and large, the media won’t tell you the truth and consistenly lets Democrats get away with murder.

Democrats’ Idea Of Bipartisanship Is HARD CORE Partisanship

We are in the worse financial crisis since the Great Depression, and Democratic leadership is playing the same hard core ideological political games that got us into this mess to begin with.  You’ve heard the phrase, “fighting like rats on a sinking ship”?  Well, the Democrats are the rats in this story (which really isn’t much of a metaphor).

First you have the fact that House Republicans were largely excluded from the negotiating process.  And then, surprise: they weren’t happy about it.

Then we have Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid calling upon John McCain to become directly involved in the negotiation process – only to viciously attack him when he actually tried to become directly involved.  A whole bunch of Democrats then dove onto the pile, falsely claiming that a bipartisan deal had been struck when none actually had, and that McCain had thrown a monkey wrench into it – even though he had said very little at the explosive and divisive meeting which Democrats had Obama chair.  Democrats – in an obvious act of presidential politics – were out claiming that John McCain was playing “presidential politics.”

Then we get to look at the actual bill that the Democrats have been working on – and expect Republicans to agree to – only to find that it is a clear pork-laden giveaway to traditional Democratic allies such as ACORN, Big Labor, and the trial lawyer lobby.  ACORN has been involved in more cases of documented voter fraud than any organization in history; yet STILL receives federal money thanks to Democrats’ efforts.

And, of course, when Democrats came back this morning for more “bipartisan” negotiations, the two Republicans were shocked to find not two Democrats joining them, but NINE:

Pelosi made her remarks as the negotiators streamed into her office, and that group is much bigger than expected; instead of just the four principals, a number of other prominent Democrats, including Ways and Means Chairman Charles B. Rangel (N.Y.), Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (Mont.), Senate Budget Chairman Kent Conrad (N.D.) and New York Sen. Chuck Schumer also entered the meeting.

This leaves House Minority Whip Roy Blunt of Missouri and New Hampshire Sen. Judd Gregg severely outnumbered as the only Republicans in the room. Oh yeah, and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. But he’s been at loggerheads with the House GOP for the last week, so he they might not be singing from the same songbook on this one.

The ship is sinking, and Democrats are determined to cynically use every ideological play in their playbook, apparently counting upon a biased media and an ignorant population to set up their next play.

And what is their next play?  When the Republicans refuse to accept the crap the Democrats are trying to feed them, Democrats will flood the airwaves to proclaim that Republicans are refusing to play ball and stave off a meltdown.

Debate Back On: Democrats Ambush McCain With ‘Presidential Politics’

John McCain suspended his campaign to return to Washington to help achieve a deal to resolve the financial crisis.  Harry Reid immediately objected to McCain’s involvement:

“It would not be helpful at this time to have them come back during these negotiations and risk injecting presidential politics into this process or distract important talks about the future of our nation’s economy. If that changes, we will call upon them. We need leadership; not a campaign photo op.”

But it is amazing how Reid unashamedly contradicts himself merely to place plame and score cheap political points.  As noted by the Politico, Harry Reid had earlier said:

“I should mention how glad my fellow Democrats and I were to have our nominee for president here to vote on these important bills. Senator Obama has come to work and taken tough stands. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for Senator McCain,” Reid said. “Perhaps taking tough stands on important issues is not part of Senator McCain’s campaign strategy. Perhaps he’s just too busy on the campaign trail to do his day job.”

And only the day before McCain announced he was suspending his campaign to help attain a deal, Harry Reid had this:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is watching Republicans in both chambers, one after another, criticize the Wall Street bailout, but he says he’s not going to let them off the hook by passing the bill and letting the GOP cast soft “no” votes against the plan.

“This is a Republican proposal, and we need some Republican votes,” to help it pass. “At this stage we [Democrats] are working with ourselves.”

Reid went on to say in the same statement:

“We now need Republicans to stand up,” Reid said. “We need the Republican nominee for president to say what he’s for.”

Now, given Reid’s documented pandering, lying, hypocrisy, and political gamesmanship, it should be little wonder that Harry Reid would come out and say this:

“John McCain did nothing to help. He only hurt the process.”

And:

“Senate Democrats, House Democrats, and Senate Republicans agree those principles laid out by Senator Obama are the ones that must be implanted with regards to the issue, what’s called the ‘principles of fairness.’ … The insertion of presidential politics has not been helpful. It’s been harmful … A few days ago I called on Senator McCain to take a stand, let us know where he stands on this issue … But all he has done is stand in front of the cameras. We still don’t know where he stands on the issue.”

Charles Schumer was among the many Democrats jumping on the hard-core partisan Democratic bandwagon:

Schumer also requested that Bush get the his House Republicans in line. “We need President Bush to take leadership. We need President Bush, first and foremost, to get the Republican House members to support his plan or modify it in some way to bring them on board,” he said.

He added, “When you inject presidential politics into some of the most difficult negotiations under normal circumstances, it is fraught with difficulty. Before McCain made his announcement, we were making great progress. Now after his announcement, we are behind the 8 ball. We have to put things back together again.”

But first of all, can you not see that these tactics themselves are nothing more than naked presidential politics?  Reid and Schumer and all the other Democrats stuffing this “presidential politics” talking point are engaging in presidential politics themselves.   They are cynically and despicably putting presidential politics ahead of the nation’s vital business.

Harry Reid and Charles Schumer deceitfully and disengenuously claimed that a deal was on the table before John McCain arrived, and McCain had ruined it.  As Reid claimed:

“We had [Republican] Senator [Bob] Bennett, a high ranking official, who said these are the principles,” Reid said of the early potential compromise on the $700 billion package. “And then, guess who came to town? And it all fell apart.”

But that isn’t even close to being true; House Republicans had not been allowed to take part in the discussion (which you can even see by way of Reid’s omission of House Republicans above).

House Republicans are balking at horrible elements of this deal, such as giving billions of dollars to the control of voter-fraud organization ACORN.  That was came out in the Senate Republican meeting.

Sen Lindsey Graham: ‘There was never any agreement on a bailout bill – Dems lied’ (Dems want money to go to ACORN – Updated):

Lindsay Graham on Fox Now. Says there was never any agreement on bailout bill between dems and Repubs. Best nugget: Dems have inserted provision into their bill to give several billion (with a “b”) dollars to ACORN. ACORN is probably the most corrupt organized crime organization involved in voting fraud and intimidation.

There is no bill. Rep. Barney Frank was on MSNBC wailing about Repub treachery and bad-mouting all the Repubs who met today with Bush. Chris Dodd said, “I’m going home” and walked out.

My sense is that the Dems tried to bully McCain into supporting the Dem bill. When he refused, they had a tantrum.

House Republicans want to slow this down so that a bailout that is currently opposed by nearly 2/3 of Americans won’t be packed with wasteful and fraudulent spending that lines the pockets of people who don’t deserve the money, while failing to fix the crisis.

There is certainly no reason for John McCain NOT to go ahead with the debates.  When Democrats like Harry Reid repeatedly blast McCain for being THE problem – and for just just wanting to get in front of cameras (which is frankly weird, considering the fact that it’s been Harry Reid and NOT John McCain in front of all the cameras) –  there is little John McCain can do.  When Harry Reid’s are out literally hysterically attacking Republicans in the most politically partisan and demagogic way imaginable, McCain is wise to remove himself.

So go debate, John.  I’m hoping you can clean Obama’s clock tonight, and then return to Washington to help deal with this impending financial meltdown.

Bush’s Address To Nation Over Finance Crisis (Transcript)

Transcript: President Bush Address to Nation on U.S. Financial Crisis, September 24, 2008

(Source: White House Press Office)

THE PRESIDENT: Good evening. This is an extraordinary period for America’s economy. Over the past few weeks, many Americans have felt anxiety about their finances and their future. I understand their worry and their frustration. We’ve seen triple-digit swings in the stock market. Major financial institutions have teetered on the edge of collapse, and some have failed. As uncertainty has grown, many banks have restricted lending. Credit markets have frozen. And families and businesses have found it harder to borrow money.
We’re in the midst of a serious financial crisis, and the federal government is responding with decisive action. We’ve boosted confidence in money market mutual funds, and acted to prevent major investors from intentionally driving down stocks for their own personal gain.

Most importantly, my administration is working with Congress to address the root cause behind much of the instability in our markets. Financial assets related to home mortgages have lost value during the housing decline. And the banks holding these assets have restricted credit. As a result, our entire economy is in danger. So I’ve proposed that the federal government reduce the risk posed by these troubled assets, and supply urgently-needed money so banks and other financial institutions can avoid collapse and resume lending.

This rescue effort is not aimed at preserving any individual company or industry — it is aimed at preserving America’s overall economy. It will help American consumers and businesses get credit to meet their daily needs and create jobs. And it will help send a signal to markets around the world that America’s financial system is back on track.

I know many Americans have questions tonight: How did we reach this point in our economy? How will the solution I’ve proposed work? And what does this mean for your financial future? These are good questions, and they deserve clear answers.

First, how did our economy reach this point?

Well, most economists agree that the problems we are witnessing today developed over a long period of time. For more than a decade, a massive amount of money flowed into the United States from investors abroad, because our country is an attractive and secure place to do business. This large influx of money to U.S. banks and financial institutions — along with low interest rates — made it easier for Americans to get credit. These developments allowed more families to borrow money for cars and homes and college tuition — some for the first time. They allowed more entrepreneurs to get loans to start new businesses and create jobs.

Unfortunately, there were also some serious negative consequences, particularly in the housing market. Easy credit — combined with the faulty assumption that home values would continue to rise — led to excesses and bad decisions. Many mortgage lenders approved loans for borrowers without carefully examining their ability to pay. Many borrowers took out loans larger than they could afford, assuming that they could sell or refinance their homes at a higher price later on.

Optimism about housing values also led to a boom in home construction. Eventually the number of new houses exceeded the number of people willing to buy them. And with supply exceeding demand, housing prices fell. And this created a problem: Borrowers with adjustable rate mortgages who had been planning to sell or refinance their homes at a higher price were stuck with homes worth less than expected — along with mortgage payments they could not afford. As a result, many mortgage holders began to default.

These widespread defaults had effects far beyond the housing market. See, in today’s mortgage industry, home loans are often packaged together, and converted into financial products called “mortgage-backed securities.” These securities were sold to investors around the world. Many investors assumed these securities were trustworthy, and asked few questions about their actual value. Two of the leading purchasers of mortgage-backed securities were Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Because these companies were chartered by Congress, many believed they were guaranteed by the federal government. This allowed them to borrow enormous sums of money, fuel the market for questionable investments, and put our financial system at risk.

The decline in the housing market set off a domino effect across our economy. When home values declined, borrowers defaulted on their mortgages, and investors holding mortgage-backed securities began to incur serious losses. Before long, these securities became so unreliable that they were not being bought or sold. Investment banks such as Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers found themselves saddled with large amounts of assets they could not sell. They ran out of the money needed to meet their immediate obligations. And they faced imminent collapse. Other banks found themselves in severe financial trouble. These banks began holding on to their money, and lending dried up, and the gears of the American financial system began grinding to a halt.

With the situation becoming more precarious by the day, I faced a choice: To step in with dramatic government action, or to stand back and allow the irresponsible actions of some to undermine the financial security of all.

I’m a strong believer in free enterprise. So my natural instinct is to oppose government intervention. I believe companies that make bad decisions should be allowed to go out of business. Under normal circumstances, I would have followed this course. But these are not normal circumstances. The market is not functioning properly. There’s been a widespread loss of confidence. And major sectors of America’s financial system are at risk of shutting down.

The government’s top economic experts warn that without immediate action by Congress, America could slip into a financial panic, and a distressing scenario would unfold:

More banks could fail, including some in your community. The stock market would drop even more, which would reduce the value of your retirement account. The value of your home could plummet. Foreclosures would rise dramatically. And if you own a business or a farm, you would find it harder and more expensive to get credit. More businesses would close their doors, and millions of Americans could lose their jobs. Even if you have good credit history, it would be more difficult for you to get the loans you need to buy a car or send your children to college. And ultimately, our country could experience a long and painful recession.

Fellow citizens: We must not let this happen. I appreciate the work of leaders from both parties in both houses of Congress to address this problem — and to make improvements to the proposal my administration sent to them. There is a spirit of cooperation between Democrats and Republicans, and between Congress and this administration. In that spirit, I’ve invited Senators McCain and Obama to join congressional leaders of both parties at the White House tomorrow to help speed our discussions toward a bipartisan bill.

I know that an economic rescue package will present a tough vote for many members of Congress. It is difficult to pass a bill that commits so much of the taxpayers’ hard-earned money. I also understand the frustration of responsible Americans who pay their mortgages on time, file their tax returns every April 15th, and are reluctant to pay the cost of excesses on Wall Street. But given the situation we are facing, not passing a bill now would cost these Americans much more later.

Many Americans are asking: How would a rescue plan work?

After much discussion, there is now widespread agreement on the principles such a plan would include. It would remove the risk posed by the troubled assets — including mortgage-backed securities — now clogging the financial system. This would free banks to resume the flow of credit to American families and businesses. Any rescue plan should also be designed to ensure that taxpayers are protected. It should welcome the participation of financial institutions large and small. It should make certain that failed executives do not receive a windfall from your tax dollars. It should establish a bipartisan board to oversee the plan’s implementation. And it should be enacted as soon as possible.

In close consultation with Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, and SEC Chairman Chris Cox, I announced a plan on Friday. First, the plan is big enough to solve a serious problem. Under our proposal, the federal government would put up to $700 billion taxpayer dollars on the line to purchase troubled assets that are clogging the financial system. In the short term, this will free up banks to resume the flow of credit to American families and businesses. And this will help our economy grow.

Second, as markets have lost confidence in mortgage-backed securities, their prices have dropped sharply. Yet the value of many of these assets will likely be higher than their current price, because the vast majority of Americans will ultimately pay off their mortgages. The government is the one institution with the patience and resources to buy these assets at their current low prices and hold them until markets return to normal. And when that happens, money will flow back to the Treasury as these assets are sold. And we expect that much, if not all, of the tax dollars we invest will be paid back.

A final question is: What does this mean for your economic future?

The primary steps — purpose of the steps I have outlined tonight is to safeguard the financial security of American workers and families and small businesses. The federal government also continues to enforce laws and regulations protecting your money. The Treasury Department recently offered government insurance for money market mutual funds. And through the FDIC, every savings account, checking account, and certificate of deposit is insured by the federal government for up to $100,000. The FDIC has been in existence for 75 years, and no one has ever lost a penny on an insured deposit — and this will not change.

Once this crisis is resolved, there will be time to update our financial regulatory structures. Our 21st century global economy remains regulated largely by outdated 20th century laws. Recently, we’ve seen how one company can grow so large that its failure jeopardizes the entire financial system.

Earlier this year, Secretary Paulson proposed a blueprint that would modernize our financial regulations. For example, the Federal Reserve would be authorized to take a closer look at the operations of companies across the financial spectrum and ensure that their practices do not threaten overall financial stability. There are other good ideas, and members of Congress should consider them. As they do, they must ensure that efforts to regulate Wall Street do not end up hampering our economy’s ability to grow.

In the long run, Americans have good reason to be confident in our economic strength. Despite corrections in the marketplace and instances of abuse, democratic capitalism is the best system ever devised. It has unleashed the talents and the productivity, and entrepreneurial spirit of our citizens. It has made this country the best place in the world to invest and do business. And it gives our economy the flexibility and resilience to absorb shocks, adjust, and bounce back.

Our economy is facing a moment of great challenge. But we’ve overcome tough challenges before — and we will overcome this one. I know that Americans sometimes get discouraged by the tone in Washington, and the seemingly endless partisan struggles. Yet history has shown that in times of real trial, elected officials rise to the occasion. And together, we will show the world once again what kind of country America is — a nation that tackles problems head on, where leaders come together to meet great tests, and where people of every background can work hard, develop their talents, and realize their dreams.

Thank you for listening. May God bless you.

McCain Suspends Campaign To Lead In Economic Crisis; Democrats Pandering

John McCain announced that he would suspend his campaign – including all advertising and the upcoming debate – in order to focus on providing leadership in addressing the financial crisis.  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid issued the following statement:

This is a critical time for our country. While I appreciate that both candidates have signaled their willingness to help, Congress and the Administration have a process in place to reach a solution to this unprecedented financial crisis.

I understand that the candidates are putting together a joint statement at Senator Obama’s suggestion. But it would not be helpful at this time to have them come back during these negotiations and risk injecting presidential politics into this process or distract important talks about the future of our nation’s economy. If that changes, we will call upon them. We need leadership; not a campaign photo op.

If there were ever a time for both candidates to hold a debate before the American people about this serious challenge, it is now.

The only problem with this is that it completely flies in the face of what he said only yesterday:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is watching Republicans in both chambers, one after another, criticize the Wall Street bailout, but he says he’s not going to let them off the hook by passing the bill and letting the GOP cast soft “no” votes against the plan.

“This is a Republican proposal, and we need some Republican votes,” to help it pass. “At this stage we [Democrats] are working with ourselves.”

Reid went on to say in the same statement:

“We now need Republicans to stand up,” Reid said. “We need the Republican nominee for president to say what he’s for.”

So, anyone who thinks that Democrats aren’t completely full of crap, and determined to use whatever side of any issue to posture and pander and demagogue – no matter how dangerous it is to the nation’s well being – explain Harry Reid’s complete hypocritical turnabout to me.

Yesterday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid claims that he isn’t seeing enough Republican action on the Paulson financial bailout plan.  Yesterday Reid claims that we need the Republican nominee – and that’s John McCain by the way – to step up and say what he’s for.  Reid demands that of McCain even though Barack Obama hasn’t bothered to say what he’s for.

So John McCain suspends his campaign to return to Washington and put his leadership in the Republican Party – and his very political future – on the line to become personally involved in the economic situation in order to break the impasse and reach a compromise deal that is best for the American people.

And immediately following his announcement to do so, Reid suddenly says McCain’s involvement is unnecessary.

If any thinking person had any doubt that the Democratic leadership – and that includes Barack Obama, who is planning to keep launching divisive attacks when we need to come together fast, keep fundraising in the midst of economic crisis, keep playing the same old politics – is not above cynically manipulating a crisis, it ought to be clear now.

Democrats are trying to present John McCain’s suspending his campaign in order to return to Washington to lead the Republican effort to produce a bipartisan plan as nothing more than a desperate political act.  But please don’t forget that this isn’t the first time John McCain was willing to suspend his political campaign in the face of a national crisis: he did so during the Republican Convention as Hurrican Gustav was bearing down on the Gulf Coast.

Why We Need A Rottweiler For President

In these difficult times, with financial crises on the one hand, and international instability and terrorism on the other, do we want a toy poodle running our country?

Absolutely not.  We need a Rottweiler to lead us through the difficult times.

Do you seriously want this to be your commander-in-chief and chief executive?

Or would you rather trust this?

Give me the Rottweiler.  Give me his courage, his tenacity, his loyalty, his fierce protection of heart and home.  Will the financiers, the Wall Street big boys, and the money-grubbing CEOs play their games when they have to deal with him?  Not if they want to keep their body parts, they won’t.  Will the terrorists want to attack when he’s on duty?  I don’t think so!

Vote for the Rottweiler.  Let’s get them toy poodles out of our politics!

Updated September 26, 2009:

The situation may well be even be worse than I feared.

While our obvious ideal is clearly this:

I fear we may have this:

Cute?  Of course.  Presidential?  You decide.

Updated again, September 11, 2010:

Recently Barack Obama trotted out to a union-dominated audience in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and whined, “They talk about me like a dog.”

All I can say, Mr. President, is that maybe you should stop yapping like one:

For my part, I don’t talk about you like a dog, Mr. President.  Because I like dogs.  I treat my dog like royalty.  And you’d have to evolve about 7 million percent for me to talk about you like a dog.