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In 2011, concerned about the growing debt crisis, Standard & Poor, the venerable credit rating firm, downgraded the U.S. bond rating for the first time from “Triple-A” to “AA-plus,” a move that sent shockwaves through the financial markets raising troubling questions about the government’s growing debt. The move hit a nerve with a White House gearing up for a massive re-election campaign. Then Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner called the Chairman of McGraw Hill, the owners of S&P, declaring that the government would hold S&P “accountable” and their conduct would be “looked at very carefully.” Geithner wasn’t bluffing. The Obama Administration...

What has been distinct about Barack Obama's presidency is his inclination to operate in continuous campaign mode, to deflect attention away from his policy failures and to undermine opposition by politicizing the issues and policy responses he chooses to take up. So now with the president's attorney general Eric Holder having just announced the filing of a $5 billion Department of Justice suit against Standard & Poor's—charging that fraudulent ratings were made on risky mortgage bonds that went into default during the financial crisis of 2008—one has to wonder what the political motivation might be. First, why now? Why has...

For the growing chorus of observers who fear that a breakup of the euro zone might be at hand, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany has a pointed rebuke: It’s never going to happen. But some banks are no longer so sure, especially as the sovereign debt crisis threatened to ensnare Germany itself this week, when investors began to question the nation’s stature as Europe’s main pillar of stability. On Friday, Standard & Poor’s downgraded Belgium’s credit standing to AA from AA+, saying it might not be able to cut its towering debt load any time soon. Ratings agencies this week...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Examiners at the Securities and Exchange Commission are checking to ensure that Standard & Poor's followed all of its policies leading up to its downgrade of long-term U.S. debt, according to people familiar with the matter. Compliance, Inspections and Examinations is part of its new authority under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street overhaul law. Among other things, the law gives the SEC the power to continuously monitor credit-rating agencies and conduct annual inspections at each firm.

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Does anybody now doubt that this is on purpose? I mean, after all, Barack Obama inherits a AAA credit rating from George W. Bush, and look what he does to it. Obama is always running around complaining and whining and moaning about all that he inherited from George W. Bush. Well, he inherited a AAA credit rating, an unemployment rate of 5.7%. Does anybody doubt that this is on purpose? Well, look, my credit rating doesn't suck. There are a lot of individual Americans whose credit ratings aren't in trouble. The United States has never been in...

Today, President Barack Hussein Obama, a few days the United States credit rating went from being a “AAA” to a “AA+” downgrade in a decision by Standard and Poor or S & P decides to give a press conference, and what surprises me to NO END when President Obama still calls the USA a “AAA” nation DESPITE this downgrade. Well I have a set of “new words” in regards to what remains of the era of President Barack Hussein Obama and it came from the Drudge Report website: “Barackalypse Now” IMHO, President Obama, because of the over-spending and over-taxing that...

While many on the right are lambasting the Obama administration for its failure to maintain the country’s pristine AAA credit rating, one conservative commentator said Sunday that the Standard and Poor’s downgrade needn’t be taken seriously. Washington Post columnist George Will was asked on ABC’s “This Week with Christiane Amanpour” how much the downgrade would “affect the basic economy here?” Will said it wouldn’t before trashing Standard & Poor’s track record. (RELATED: Standard & Poor’s ratings head: U.S. could be downgraded even further) “You called this a shocker,” Will said. “Standard & Poor’s would have forfeited its good reputation if...

Standard and Poor's on Wednesday relegated Greek government bonds to the deeper end of junk status, cutting the debt-crippled country's credit rating by two notches to CC and saying a new downgrade is likely. The international ratings agency said a proposed restructuring of Greece's debt load under a second international bailout deal worth Û109 billion ($157 billion) would amount to a selective default -- a rating that, while humiliating, is expected to have limited practical consequences. Both of the other major ratings agencies have said much the same. A Standard and Poor's statement also said the possibility of a future...

S&P Warns Russia Over Using Funds 12 September 2008 NEW YORK -- Standard & Poor's warned Russia on Thursday that its BBB+ sovereign credit rating would be put at risk if Moscow uses money from its national wealth and pension funds to support battered financial markets. S&P's statement was made in response to Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin's comment earlier Thursday that Russia was considering using the cash to buy securities in the domestic market, which has suffered a significant drop in value this year. "Any use of public funds -- including the National Welfare Fund, which was originally established to...