Barack Obama hit the campaign trail this week to resurrect some of that hopey-changey stuff and to complain that his critics talk about him "like a dog." Turns out the president wasn't, in fact, referring to his own party.
Voters might be forgiven the confusion. It isn't as if Democrats have been showing Mr. Obama much love. Quite the opposite. Seven weeks from Election Day, the vulnerable wing of the majority has finally found itself a campaign issue: blunt opposition to Mr. Obama and his agenda.
Has it only been 20 months? Candidate Obama swelled into office with an ambitiously liberal plan. He promised his party that his legislative items would be more than policy triumphs; they'd be political triumphs. Stick with me, he said, and we'll get credit for leadership. Voters will come to love this stuff. Polls will improve. I'll campaign in your district.
It was bunk, as many Democrats knew even back then. Witness the threats and bribes necessary to coax a bare majority for every vote. But enough went along. And now that the ambitious Obama experiment in liberal governance is going kaboom, his members—even those who voted with him—are running for cover.
Health care? A total of 279 House and Senate Democrats voted for ObamaCare. Not one is running an ad touting that vote. How can they, given headlines about Medicare cuts and premium hikes? You will, however, find a growing catalogue of ads such as this one from Maryland Rep. Frank Kratovil: "As a career prosecutor, I made decisions on facts, not politics," and that's why "I voted against . . . the health-care bill."
Not to be outdone, Alabama Rep. Bobby Bright's ad explains he voted against "massive government health care." South Dakota's Stephanie Herseth Sandlin boasts she voted against the "trillion-dollar health-care plan." But the prize goes to former Georgia Gov. Roy Barnes, vying to get his old job back: Not only is ObamaCare "financially devastating," it is "the greatest failure, modern failure, of political leadership in my lifetime."
Stimulus? Only a handful of Democrats can be found who will even utter the dreaded "s" word—and those are the ones bragging they voted against it. The rest have developed a curious code involving brief references to "roads" and "bridges." Even the White House is running from the White House. Press Secretary Robert Gibbs crankily lectured the press corps this week that the latest $50 billion Mr. Obama wants to "spur" the economy is absolutely not a "stimulus."
Cap and trade? "I voted against Nancy Pelosi's energy tax on Hoosier families," explains Indiana Rep. Joe Donnelly in an ad, echoed by North Carolina Rep. Mike McIntyre and Pennsylvania Rep. Jason Altmire. And the yes votes are rushing to argue that all they were really voting for was "renewable energy."
Financial regulation? What's that? Most of the country doesn't know, and few Democrats are bothering to explain. They see more mileage in ads putting distance between themselves and the auto bailouts, the president's budget, or the party's cultural reputation. Roy Herron, running in Tennessee, ran an ad describing himself as a "truck-driving, shotgun-shooting, Bible-reading, crime-fighting, family loving country boy." This is not a joke.
As for campaigning, Mr. Obama failed to warn Democrats that—thanks to the agenda he was asking them to pass—by September he'd be upside-down in his approval on most issues, and not much help. Instead of a president to help them, Democrats have found a president to run against. And it isn't George W. Bush.
Showing posts with label Anntichrist Barack Obama. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Anntichrist Barack Obama. Show all posts
Friday, September 10, 2010
Obama comes through for speculators in underwater mortgages
The hedge fund candidate has become the hedge fund President. Obama's mortgage moves will enrich hedge funds (such as those run by Obama supporter, George Soros, sugar daddy of the Democrats) who speculated by buying up underwater mortgages to be now made whole by you.
The Washington Times reports:
On Tuesday, the Federal Housing Administration announced a "short refinance option" for underwater mortgages - that is, mortgages on which the amount that the homeowner owes is more than the house is worth. Under this new program, the government promises to guarantee what's left of the mortgage's face value after the mortgage holder agrees to write off 10 percent of the principal.
For some big Wall Street financial houses, this could represent a major windfall. Some of these firms bought risky mortgages at huge discounts from their face value, often just 40 percent or 50 percent of the amount owed. Say a Wall Street firm paid $250,000 to take over a risky $500,000 mortgage. If the firm agrees to reduce the face value of what is owed by $50,000, the FHA will guarantee the mortgage. Thanks to the protection from default, the loan's value instantly increases from $250,000 to $450,000 - a $200,000 gift to the Wall Street mortgage holder.
While the Washington Times focuses on Wall Street, many of these mortgages have been bought up by hedge fund investors as well. Obama attacks fat cats on Wall Street for partisan and populist reasons to rile his base and bring them out to vote and to worship him. Meanwhile, he pulls fast ones to enrich them at our expense. In other words his rhetorical attacks against wealth are, in his own words, just distractions.
One always has to watch what Obama does behind the scenes. We know most of the media won't.
The Washington Times reports:
On Tuesday, the Federal Housing Administration announced a "short refinance option" for underwater mortgages - that is, mortgages on which the amount that the homeowner owes is more than the house is worth. Under this new program, the government promises to guarantee what's left of the mortgage's face value after the mortgage holder agrees to write off 10 percent of the principal.
For some big Wall Street financial houses, this could represent a major windfall. Some of these firms bought risky mortgages at huge discounts from their face value, often just 40 percent or 50 percent of the amount owed. Say a Wall Street firm paid $250,000 to take over a risky $500,000 mortgage. If the firm agrees to reduce the face value of what is owed by $50,000, the FHA will guarantee the mortgage. Thanks to the protection from default, the loan's value instantly increases from $250,000 to $450,000 - a $200,000 gift to the Wall Street mortgage holder.
While the Washington Times focuses on Wall Street, many of these mortgages have been bought up by hedge fund investors as well. Obama attacks fat cats on Wall Street for partisan and populist reasons to rile his base and bring them out to vote and to worship him. Meanwhile, he pulls fast ones to enrich them at our expense. In other words his rhetorical attacks against wealth are, in his own words, just distractions.
One always has to watch what Obama does behind the scenes. We know most of the media won't.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Pakistani minister urges Obama to declare himself caliph so that "all the problems of the Muslim world would be solved"
The caliph in Sunni Islam is the symbol of the supranational unity of the Muslims, and is the successor of Muhammad as the military, political, and spiritual leader of the Islamic community. There hasn’t been a caliph for nearly 90 years, but now Pakistan’s Minister of State for Industries, Ayatullah Durrani, has a novel idea for just the right man for the job: Barack Obama!
The caliphate was abolished in 1924 by the secular Turkish government; foremost on the agenda of Islamic supremacists worldwide is its restoration. Hamstringing that effort, however, has been the lack of a candidate who would be acceptable to everyone concerned. The elusive one-eyed Islamic cleric who leads the Taliban in Afghanistan, Mullah Omar, was declared caliph—Emir al-Momineen, or Leader of the Believers—by his followers in 1994.
Omar went to the Shrine of the Respectable Cloak of Muhammad in Kandahar, climbed up onto its roof, and wrapped himself in the Muslim prophet’s cloak, to the jubilation of his followers below. But Omar's claim to the caliphate has been complicated by a number of matters since then—notably the toppling of the Taliban from state power by American forces—and his claim to the caliphate has been acknowledged by only one group outside Afghanistan: Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, a group formerly known as the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat—a name that shares none of the U.S. government’s delicacy about identifying Islamic preaching as a not infrequent source of jihad violence.
The restoration of the caliphate is foremost on the agenda of the global mujahedin because, according to Islamic law, the caliph alone can declare offensive jihad against infidel nations—which is why Osama bin Laden and other jihad theorists cast all the present actions of Islamic jihadists as defensive.
Islamic supremacists also see the abolition of the caliphate as the loss of the unity of the umma, the Islamic community worldwide; they see a divided Islamic umma as a weakened one, subject to buffeting and humiliation from colonialist and neo-colonialist powers.
And so Durrani, a member of Pakistan’s governing People’s Party, said: “The time is approaching fast. Barack Hussein Obama must act now. This is a golden opportunity, Muslims badly need it.”
He added that on the Muslim feast of Eid-ul-Fitr, which marks the end of the fasting month of Ramadan and falls this year on September 11, Obama should offer the prescribed Eid prayers and seize the moment to declare himself caliph. “In this way,” said the starry-eyed Durrani, “all the problems of the Muslim world would be solved.”
The caliphate was abolished in 1924 by the secular Turkish government; foremost on the agenda of Islamic supremacists worldwide is its restoration. Hamstringing that effort, however, has been the lack of a candidate who would be acceptable to everyone concerned. The elusive one-eyed Islamic cleric who leads the Taliban in Afghanistan, Mullah Omar, was declared caliph—Emir al-Momineen, or Leader of the Believers—by his followers in 1994.
Omar went to the Shrine of the Respectable Cloak of Muhammad in Kandahar, climbed up onto its roof, and wrapped himself in the Muslim prophet’s cloak, to the jubilation of his followers below. But Omar's claim to the caliphate has been complicated by a number of matters since then—notably the toppling of the Taliban from state power by American forces—and his claim to the caliphate has been acknowledged by only one group outside Afghanistan: Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, a group formerly known as the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat—a name that shares none of the U.S. government’s delicacy about identifying Islamic preaching as a not infrequent source of jihad violence.
The restoration of the caliphate is foremost on the agenda of the global mujahedin because, according to Islamic law, the caliph alone can declare offensive jihad against infidel nations—which is why Osama bin Laden and other jihad theorists cast all the present actions of Islamic jihadists as defensive.
Islamic supremacists also see the abolition of the caliphate as the loss of the unity of the umma, the Islamic community worldwide; they see a divided Islamic umma as a weakened one, subject to buffeting and humiliation from colonialist and neo-colonialist powers.
And so Durrani, a member of Pakistan’s governing People’s Party, said: “The time is approaching fast. Barack Hussein Obama must act now. This is a golden opportunity, Muslims badly need it.”
He added that on the Muslim feast of Eid-ul-Fitr, which marks the end of the fasting month of Ramadan and falls this year on September 11, Obama should offer the prescribed Eid prayers and seize the moment to declare himself caliph. “In this way,” said the starry-eyed Durrani, “all the problems of the Muslim world would be solved.”
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Appalled by the regulatory state and yearning for a growing economy, Wall Street's big players are turning on Obama
Daniel S. Loeb, the hedge fund manager, was one of Barack Obama’s biggest backers in the 2008 presidential campaign.
A registered Democrat, Mr. Loeb has given and raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for Democrats. Less than a year ago, he was considered to be among the Wall Street elite still close enough to the White House to be invited to a speech in Lower Manhattan, where President Obama outlined the need for a financial regulatory overhaul.
So it came as quite a surprise on Friday, when Mr. Loeb sent a letter to his investors that sounded as if he were preparing to join Glenn Beck in Washington over the weekend.
“As every student of American history knows, this country’s core founding principles included nonpunitive taxation, constitutionally guaranteed protections against persecution of the minority and an inexorable right of self-determination,” he wrote. “Washington has taken actions over the past months, like the Goldman suit that seem designed to fracture the populace by pulling capital and power from the hands of some and putting it in the hands of others.”
Over the weekend, the letter, with quotations from Thomas Jefferson, Ronald Reagan and President Obama, was forwarded around the circles of the moneyed elite, from the Hamptons to Silicon Valley. Mr. Loeb’s jeremiad illustrates how some of the president’s former friends on Wall Street and in business now feel about Washington.
Mr. Loeb isn’t the first Wall Streeter to turn on the president. Steven A. Cohen, founder of the hedge fund SAC Capital Advisors and a supporter of the Obama campaign, recently held a meeting with Republican candidates in his home in Greenwich, Conn., to strategize about the midterm elections, according to Absolute Return magazine.
Other onetime supporters, like Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, also feel burned by the Obama administration, people close to him say.
That the honeymoon between Washington and Wall Street has turned to bitter recriminations is not news, given that the administration had long pledged to revamp Wall Street regulation in the wake of a crisis that rattled the global financial system.
Less than two years ago, Democrats received 70 percent of the donations from Wall Street; since June, when the financial regulation bill was nearing passage, Republicans were receiving 68 percent of the donations, according to an analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan research group.
But what is surprising is that some of the president’s biggest supporters have so publicly derided his policies, even at the risk of hurting their ability to influence the party in the future. Issues like the carry-interest tax on private equity or the Volcker Rule have become personal.
Why so personal? The prevailing view is that bankers, hedge fund mangers and traders supported the Obama candidacy because he appealed to their egos.
Mr. Obama was viewed as a member of the elite, an Ivy League graduate (Columbia, class of ’83, the same as Mr. Loeb), president of The Harvard Law Review — he was supposed to be just like them. President Obama was the “intelligent” choice, the same way they felt about themselves. They say that they knew he would seek higher taxes and tighter regulation; that was O.K. What they say they did not realize was that they were going to be painted as villains.
That Wall Street view of itself as a victim has prompted much of the private murmurings and the unfortunate — or worse — outburst from Stephen A. Schwarzman, who likened the administration’s plan for taxes on private equity to “when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939.” Mr. Schwarzman later apologized for the “inappropriate analogy.”
Now Mr. Loeb, who manages about $3.4 billion at his firm, Third Point Partners, has articulated in a more thoughtful way what a lot of others in finance and business are saying.
“We have given a great deal of thought about the impact that public policy has on individual companies, industries and the economy generally,” he said. Third Point has sold its investments in big banks as a result of “regulatory headwinds”; got rid of its stake in Wellpoint, which Mr. Loeb described as “a statistically cheap stock owned by several hedge funds, but which we saw as being overly exposed to unpredictable government regulation”; and taken a short position against for-profit education companies as a result of “the government’s increased willingness to use its regulatory muscle.”
A registered Democrat, Mr. Loeb has given and raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for Democrats. Less than a year ago, he was considered to be among the Wall Street elite still close enough to the White House to be invited to a speech in Lower Manhattan, where President Obama outlined the need for a financial regulatory overhaul.
So it came as quite a surprise on Friday, when Mr. Loeb sent a letter to his investors that sounded as if he were preparing to join Glenn Beck in Washington over the weekend.
“As every student of American history knows, this country’s core founding principles included nonpunitive taxation, constitutionally guaranteed protections against persecution of the minority and an inexorable right of self-determination,” he wrote. “Washington has taken actions over the past months, like the Goldman suit that seem designed to fracture the populace by pulling capital and power from the hands of some and putting it in the hands of others.”
Over the weekend, the letter, with quotations from Thomas Jefferson, Ronald Reagan and President Obama, was forwarded around the circles of the moneyed elite, from the Hamptons to Silicon Valley. Mr. Loeb’s jeremiad illustrates how some of the president’s former friends on Wall Street and in business now feel about Washington.
Mr. Loeb isn’t the first Wall Streeter to turn on the president. Steven A. Cohen, founder of the hedge fund SAC Capital Advisors and a supporter of the Obama campaign, recently held a meeting with Republican candidates in his home in Greenwich, Conn., to strategize about the midterm elections, according to Absolute Return magazine.
Other onetime supporters, like Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, also feel burned by the Obama administration, people close to him say.
That the honeymoon between Washington and Wall Street has turned to bitter recriminations is not news, given that the administration had long pledged to revamp Wall Street regulation in the wake of a crisis that rattled the global financial system.
Less than two years ago, Democrats received 70 percent of the donations from Wall Street; since June, when the financial regulation bill was nearing passage, Republicans were receiving 68 percent of the donations, according to an analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan research group.
But what is surprising is that some of the president’s biggest supporters have so publicly derided his policies, even at the risk of hurting their ability to influence the party in the future. Issues like the carry-interest tax on private equity or the Volcker Rule have become personal.
Why so personal? The prevailing view is that bankers, hedge fund mangers and traders supported the Obama candidacy because he appealed to their egos.
Mr. Obama was viewed as a member of the elite, an Ivy League graduate (Columbia, class of ’83, the same as Mr. Loeb), president of The Harvard Law Review — he was supposed to be just like them. President Obama was the “intelligent” choice, the same way they felt about themselves. They say that they knew he would seek higher taxes and tighter regulation; that was O.K. What they say they did not realize was that they were going to be painted as villains.
That Wall Street view of itself as a victim has prompted much of the private murmurings and the unfortunate — or worse — outburst from Stephen A. Schwarzman, who likened the administration’s plan for taxes on private equity to “when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939.” Mr. Schwarzman later apologized for the “inappropriate analogy.”
Now Mr. Loeb, who manages about $3.4 billion at his firm, Third Point Partners, has articulated in a more thoughtful way what a lot of others in finance and business are saying.
“We have given a great deal of thought about the impact that public policy has on individual companies, industries and the economy generally,” he said. Third Point has sold its investments in big banks as a result of “regulatory headwinds”; got rid of its stake in Wellpoint, which Mr. Loeb described as “a statistically cheap stock owned by several hedge funds, but which we saw as being overly exposed to unpredictable government regulation”; and taken a short position against for-profit education companies as a result of “the government’s increased willingness to use its regulatory muscle.”
Monday, August 30, 2010
To some, it's Barack Obama, the antichrist, vs. Chris Christie
(Bloomberg) --With all the crazy talk of President Barack Obama being the antichrist, it’s sort of amusing that the anti-Obama is a guy named Christie.
To understand the political force sweeping our country, one need only search the words “Chris Christie” on YouTube. The New Jersey governor’s town hall appearances have received hundreds of thousands of hits and glowing comments because the man, like Ronald Reagan before him, has an uncanny ear for what troubles Americans.
The truth is, a mensch like Christie could never have emerged in American politics if super-slick Obama had not enraged so many Americans first. If Jimmy Carter created Ronald Reagan, Barack Obama created Chris Christie.
Americans put their faith in a cocky Obama who wowed “The View” crowd in a bathing suit. But he gave us a government that didn’t know its own boundaries, defied common sense and fueled anxieties in post-financial crash America. Now the people of New Jersey have put their faith in a man who looks like the rest of us in a bathing suit.
Democrats might like to believe that the backlash embodied in the Tea Party movement is nothing more than a carnival of fools, headed for nowhere. But Christie is in touch with the national sense of unease that animates the Tea Party movement, and at town hall-type gatherings he has shown a grittiness that as drama surpasses the best reality TV shows.
On June 15th, Christie appeared at a town hall meeting in Perth Amboy, New Jersey. The crowd assembled was hardly a stereotypical BMW-driving Republican audience, looking like a group that could represent any small town in America
One senses that these Americans rarely gather all in one place, and that when they do, the gravity of the moment is palpable to them. And then Christie says, “our way of life is being challenged by an economy where we have too much debt, too big a government, too much spending and taxes being too high. We all know it in our hearts…we all understand that the day of reckoning is here.” And while he speaks, the people gather -- even Wilda Diaz, the Democratic mayor, seem to nod in agreement.
As Christie concludes that the people in that room have a chance, that “we are going to be the people who fixed New Jersey’s problems,” the audience members have the same look on their faces that the troops have in the old war movies, just as Sarge tells them that they probably will not succeed, but they are going to charge up the hill and attack the machine gun nest anyway.
To understand the political force sweeping our country, one need only search the words “Chris Christie” on YouTube. The New Jersey governor’s town hall appearances have received hundreds of thousands of hits and glowing comments because the man, like Ronald Reagan before him, has an uncanny ear for what troubles Americans.
The truth is, a mensch like Christie could never have emerged in American politics if super-slick Obama had not enraged so many Americans first. If Jimmy Carter created Ronald Reagan, Barack Obama created Chris Christie.
Americans put their faith in a cocky Obama who wowed “The View” crowd in a bathing suit. But he gave us a government that didn’t know its own boundaries, defied common sense and fueled anxieties in post-financial crash America. Now the people of New Jersey have put their faith in a man who looks like the rest of us in a bathing suit.
Democrats might like to believe that the backlash embodied in the Tea Party movement is nothing more than a carnival of fools, headed for nowhere. But Christie is in touch with the national sense of unease that animates the Tea Party movement, and at town hall-type gatherings he has shown a grittiness that as drama surpasses the best reality TV shows.
On June 15th, Christie appeared at a town hall meeting in Perth Amboy, New Jersey. The crowd assembled was hardly a stereotypical BMW-driving Republican audience, looking like a group that could represent any small town in America
One senses that these Americans rarely gather all in one place, and that when they do, the gravity of the moment is palpable to them. And then Christie says, “our way of life is being challenged by an economy where we have too much debt, too big a government, too much spending and taxes being too high. We all know it in our hearts…we all understand that the day of reckoning is here.” And while he speaks, the people gather -- even Wilda Diaz, the Democratic mayor, seem to nod in agreement.
As Christie concludes that the people in that room have a chance, that “we are going to be the people who fixed New Jersey’s problems,” the audience members have the same look on their faces that the troops have in the old war movies, just as Sarge tells them that they probably will not succeed, but they are going to charge up the hill and attack the machine gun nest anyway.
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