Obamas, McCain, Lewinsky, Blagojevich, Schwarzenegger in Another Ukrainian-Made Cartoon

CFC Consulting and Future Media present... Obama's Mother-in-Law Saves White House from Disaster. HT: Anonymous.



According to the description on YouTube, this cartoon is dedicated to America's First Grandmother, who celebrated her birthday on July 11.

Video embedded from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCfVuZXRgQ4

“Yanukovych Gov’t Helped by God” as Grain Stockpiles Rot in Odesa Port

Уряду Віктора Януковича навіть Бог допомагає. Бог, коли бачить, що ми правильно робимо, і розуміє, що нам палки в колеса вставляють, - так за 100 років найтепліша зима. Допомагає уряду Януковича навіть Бог. Зверху все видно.

Трейдери нехай несуть собі (збитки). Трейдери найменше нас хвилюють.

Even God is helping the Yanukovych Government. When God sees us doing what’s right and understands that spokes are being put in our wheels, we get the warmest winter in 100 years. The Yanukovych Government is being helped by God. He sees from above.

Let the traders bear their losses. The traders are the least of our concerns.

These touching soundbites belong to MP Mykhailo Chechetov, PRU, former head of the State Property Fund, a government agency responsible for overseeing state-owned enterprises and approving privatization deals. In 2004, with Chechetov’s blessing, Kryvorizhstal was auctioned off for $800mn.

A year later, in an open bid, the steel mill fetched $4.8 bn. (Sometimes, God chooses to help the highest bidder, which kind of dashes cold water on Chechetov’s metaphysical observations. He may not have realized it, but the hyperbolic manner in which he chose to heap praise on Proffessor bordered on satire of Borat’s caliber.)

The second quote indirectly relates to the 2003 grain crisis, a major embarrassment for PM Yanukovych during his first coming. With a record harvest in 2002, Ukraine experienced a blowout frenzy of exports that put truckloads of money in traders’ pockets and left farmers scrambling to repay their loans.

On top of that, it depleted the country’s grain stock to a point when imports had to be contracted for, at a higher price, of course. Poor Proffessor! He should have written an autobiographical narrative titled: “Sell Low, Buy High: How Government Spending Helps the Global Grain Market.”

It doesn’t take a scientist to interpret the current Draconian regulations as a mixture of never-again paranoia and bread-and-circus populism. Hey Cargill, give us a break. Can’t you see it? This time Proffessor got the Breadbasket of Europe sealed tight. Not a bushel goes to Bush until Proffessor approves it. Even if it means tons of grain rotting all the while. A few days ago, U.S. Ambassador Taylor took a trip to Odesa to see for himself.

Since Ukrainian grain had been consumed in Ancient Greece, it needs an adequate hero to deliver it from decay. How about sending the Governator on a mission similar to the one he played in “Hercules in New York?” After all, Arnie has repeatedly identified Ukrainian powerlifter Leonid Zhabotynsky as his life-changing role model.

What’s in It for Ukraine?

The U.S. midterm elections have returned results that President Yushchenko can relate to. In this spiritual exercise, he should ask himself a couple of questions.

Question 1: Does Yushchenko still believe that being opposed by Parliament, by its own nature, contradicts the founding the principles of government?

As a Reagan White House intern, First Lady Kateryna Yushchenko probably never kept her husband in the dark about this not being true. That dealing with hostile legislatures is normal practice for Western leaders demands no further explanation. Needless to say, the piece of evidence America has just provided us with casts the local “lyubi druzi” school of thought in a less intellectually appealing light. It was those oppositionphobic gentlemen who posed as maids of honor to Yushchenko, their lucky star, whose marriage by arrangement to Yanukovych would have multiplied their fortunes.

Question 2: Does Yushchenko expect Bush to nurse his own Universal of National Unity?

When Yushchenko — obsessed with justifying his tango with “bandits” and “vote riggers,” as he once had gently termed them — came up with that political prenup of his, the only person he fooled was himself. And that summer coalition fling cost him dearly, by putting him in cahoots with individuals his voters had revolted against in the thing called the Orange Revolution. As the NSNU Convention reopens this Saturday, the patient is a bureaucratic mammoth debilitated with the special interest contagion, severely disconnected from its grassroots support group, stuck in single-digit territory. NSNU is a four-letter word, period.

No sooner had the Democrats uncorked their champagne than Moscow pocketed its pride and rushed to sign a bilateral protocol with the U.S., on concern that, with Dems taking both the House and the Senate, it may be grounded in the WTO limbo for a long time.

That explains why Moroz has been working against the clock on WTO-related legislation while steering clear of the NATO issue. The accounting formula behind the $130 price tag seems to be written on the walls: “NATO, for this you’ve paid us; WTO, for that you haven’t.”

The D-Day hardly spells a Moscow-centric U-turn on the Hill with regard to Ukraine. In fact, friends of Ukraine can even be found among the surviving Republicans like Richard Lugar, John McCain, and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
What it does spell is bad times for the bad guys.

By the way, there’s a ruling party in Ukraine that, behaviorally, has established itself as a much uglier version of everything that’s wrong with the GOP. For reasons outlined above, that party should watch itself very carefully. Otherwise, its day of reckoning, too, will come.