Pathetic: Obama Uses War on Goldman Sachs to Raise Money on Web

This is cheesy on so many levels, but not unexpected with this sleazy crew. Here you have a guy who raised the most money of any politician from the company he's now declared war on and now he turns around and uses them to piggyback off and direct people searching on the web for information about Goldman Sachs to his own personal website.

What a disgrace this man is.

President Obama is bringing his war on Wall Street to the enemy's turf.

He'll make his pitch for financial reform in the heart of lower Manhattan Thursday - even as his team make hay of the Goldman Sachs fiasco with a tech savvy appeal to Democratic donors.

Internet surfers who entered "Goldman Sachs SEC" into Google were directed to the president's campaign Web site via a sponsored link titled "Help Change Wall Street."

The White House's political arm paid for the keywords -- but would not say how much.

The tactic provided the latest evidence of how Obama and the Democratic National Committee are using the Securities and Exchange Commission's bombshell fraud suit against the financial giant to push financial-reform legislation through Congress.

But showing it, too, was gearing up for a political fight, Goldman Sachs hired Obama's former White House counsel, Gregory Craig, Politico reported last night.

Meanwhile, Democratic former Gov. Eliot Spitzer, speculated yesterday that there was "no coincidence" to the timing of the SEC suit.

And Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) wrote in a letter sent to the SEC, "It must be nice for Democrats that the SEC's filing against Goldman Sachs so conveniently fits into their political agenda."

The White House denied any link between the legislative push and the regulator's charges.

"The SEC doesn't notify the White House of its enforcement actions, and certainly didn't do so in this case," presidential press secretary Robert Gibbs said.

"Quite honestly, there was plenty of evidence . . . before the SEC got involved of the need to create new rules of the road."

The White House's Internet ad campaign drew Goldman into a click-for-click clash of the search terms yesterday, with the financial house buying its own ads to compete with those purchased by the president's team.

Goldman's ad featured the company's statement in response to charges filed Friday by the SEC.

The president's political operation says the Internet push bought up numerous other relevant search terms and phrases and started days before the SEC action against Goldman. They say they bought the term "Goldman SEC" after the lawsuit was filed.

The links -- some titled "Fight Wall Street Greed" -- led to the Web site of the White House's political arm, Organizing for America.

The chutzpah is just off the charts. They claim to be "fighting greed" and are raising money for Obama. It's beyond sleazy, but again, all too predictable for these guttersnipes.

Hot Air links. Thanks!

Update: To say this whole thing stinks is an understatement. Darrell Issa has a few questions. Interesting to note:

Nevertheless, the events of the past five days have fueled legitimate suspicion on the part of the American people that the Commission has attempted to assist the White House, the Democratic Party, and Congressional Democrats by timing the suit to coincide with the Senate’s consideration of financial regulatory legislation, or by providing Democrats with advance notice. In fact, the aggressive campaign by Democrats in support of the legislation neatly coincided with the Commission’s announcement of the suit. For example:

--The Commission approved the Goldman suit in a vote that spit along party lines – a rare occurrence for approvals of enforcement litigation.

--Before the Commission had released its announcement, the New York Times published on its website a story describing the suit.

--Less than half an hour after the Times story’s publication, Organizing for America, the successor organization to Obama for America and now a project of the Democratic National Committee (“DNC”), sent millions of supporters an e-mail message from President Obama urging support for “Wall Street Reform.”

--Within hours, the Democratic National Committee had purchased AdWords advertising from Google, Inc. The DNC’s Google campaign fundraising advertisement, headed “Fight Wall Street Greed,” appeared whenever a user ran a Google search for the phrase “Goldman Sachs SEC.” It read, “Help Pres. Obama Reform Wall Street and Create Jobs. Families First!” and included a link to www.BarackObama.com, the website of Organizing for America.

--Democrats in Congress and the Administration have heralded the Commission’s suit against Goldman as a welcome boost to their case for the legislation.

More from Doug Ross and Allahpundit.

Oh, and if Obama and his gang of crooks didn't do anything wrong, why is their link suddenly gone?

GOP Senate Hopeful Returns Goldman Sachs Money, Captain Wonderful Unavailable for Comment

We noted the other day how Barack Obama was the largest recipient of Goldman Sachs money during the 2008 cycle, because the media won't do it, of course. Well, now Illinois Republican Mark Kirk is returning contributions from GS employees.

A Republican US lawmaker vying for President Barack Obama's old Senate seat said Monday he would return campaign donations from Goldman Sachs amid fraud charges against the Wall Street titan.

Representative Mark Kirk of Illinois's campaign spokeswoman, Kirsten Kukowksi, said he would voluntarily return campaign contributions made by Goldman employees not accused of wrongdoing.

"We will voluntarily return this cycle?s campaign contributions from Goldman Sachs employees until we get to the bottom of what happened," she said in a statement.

Kukowski said Kirk "did not receive contributions from Goldman Sachs' Political Action Committee or the executives accused of wrongdoing," and "made a personal decision to go above and beyond the reasonable ethics standard and err on the side of caution."

The story doesn't even mention how Democrats and Obama in particular were swimming in GS money, and it sure doesn't look like Obama is in any hurry to return his. Why would he? His lapdog media sure isn't going to call him on it.

But Matt Drudge is.

Obama isn't the only one who needs to be held accountable.

Paulson and Goldman are alleged to have created the investment vehicles to fail -- they went short and Goldman got to sell them to investors who were long. Gee, I'm no expert, but that seems a tad conflicted.

Paulson, the hedge fund manager, is a good friend of none other than the menacing sleazebag known as 'Chucky Schumer', senior Senator from New York.

Obama and the Democrats are shamelessly trying to exploit the issue.

Obama, meanwhile, takes a break from golfing tonight to fly to California on the taxpayer dime to raise money for an endangered Democrat. Let's hope his kiss of death rubs off on the unctuous Barbara Boxer.

Big Obama Donor Charged With Fraud

Of course Barack Obama won't remind anyone how much money he happily accepted from Goldman Sachs. But that's OK. We will.

President Obama has portrayed himself as the scourge of Wall Street, but that's not how Goldman Sachs's employees and executives saw in in 2008. In his successful White House bid, Obama had no better source of funds: He raised $996,595 from people identifying Goldman as their employer.

In fact during the 2008 election cycle Goldman Sachs employees contributed more than three times the amount to Democrats that they did to Republicans.

More Bank Regulation Means Fewer Jobs

The banking regulation and reform being pushed in Washington will likely cost even more jobs and income in the already struggling industry.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Barclays Plc and Deutsche Bank AG’s investment banking profit may drop by a third as governments step up regulation of the industry, analysts at JPMorgan Chase & Co. said.

Deutsche Bank’s return on equity will probably tumble the most among the world’s largest investment banks, falling to 6.7 percent in 2011 from 10 percent today, JPMorgan analysts led by London-based Kian Abouhossein wrote in a note to clients. New York-based Goldman Sachs’s return on equity will decline by 4.4 percentage points and Barclays’ by 4.3 points, the analysts said.

Governments around the world are stepping up oversight of banks in the wake of the worst financial crisis in seven decades. Forcing banks to hold more capital, and moving more derivatives trading onto exchanges are among the eight regulatory proposals the JPMorgan analysts examined.

“All banks are expected to lose earnings, but relative winners will be banks taking a proactive stance to regulatory proposals,” the analysts said in the report. Investment banks will “mainly have to shift employee compensation to shareholders to generate in our view a 15 percent over-the-cycle acceptable return on equity,” JPMorgan said.

Banks are likely to cut costs in their investment banking units by eliminating jobs, the analysts wrote. Pay is likely to fall in proportion to the decline in revenue, they added.

What they mean by "shift employee compensation to shareholders" is to cut jobs and slash the payroll. Now, who do you think is going to be making those decisions, the much demonized upper management or the lowly teller? Of course, upper management will make those decisions and it will be the lower level employees who will get it in the neck.

So here we go with even more anti-growth, anti-business attitude coming from Washington.

Get used to double digit unemployment, folks.

Stock Futures Slip

Well, the market jumped a bit following the Fed action the other day, and now some profit taking is occuring.

U.S. stock futures slip as FedEx trims outlook

LONDON (MarketWatch) -- U.S. stock futures pointed to opening losses Thursday after a strong week of Fed-inspired gains, with the investment banks back in the spotlight with results due out from Goldman Sachs and Bear Stearns.

S&P 500 futures slipped 5 points at 1,536.40 and Nasdaq 100 futures dipped 6.75 points at 2,057.25. Dow industrial futures fell 26 points.

U.S. stocks on Wednesday closed higher in the afterglow of the Federal Reserve's decision to slash interest rates by a half point. The Dow industrials rose 76 points, the S&P 500 added 9 points and the Nasdaq Composite rose 14 points.

For what it's worth, here's my take on where we are at:

1. First, I was surprised by the 50 basis point drop (I had predicted a 25 point drop). That signifies that the Fed admits they overdid the previous raises (rare for the Fed to admit a mistake) and that the Fed is spooked about what they see in the economy.

2. The Fed sees both the threat of recession and increasing inflation in the near term. They can only deal with one problem at a time, so they decided to deal with the recession threat for now and will worry about inflation later.

3. This move should delay recession for about a year, just in time for the next election. Prepare to start hearing from the Clinton camp about the "worst economy in 50 years" again. That line worked for Bill in 1992, maybe it will work again.

4. I look for crude oil to approach $100 a barrel by next year. Consumption is still increasing, which means we are still at the inelastic part of the oil demand curve (thus price will keep being bid up) and conservation efforts are still not serious. Bottom line is, the price is not high enough yet for consumers to seriously cut consumption.