Remember that Saturday Night Live video kerfuffle from back in October? NBC yanked, and then edited, its online video of an SNL sketch about the U.S. government’s bailout of financial institutions.
Why? A predatory sub-prime lender named Herbert Sandler got his undies in a twist, because he and his wife were lampooned over a C-SPAN video subtitle reading “People who should be shot.”
Why the fuss? I mean, the sketch had already aired. Plus, it was funny. And just a few weeks earlier, SNL’s yuk-yuks included a character accusing Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s husband of having an incestuous relationship with their daughter. You didn’t see Todd Palin crying to his lawyers.
Sandler has been accused of pocketing $2.3 billion while Wachovia Bank collapsed, and for popularizing a Machiavellian mortgage-lending scheme called “Pick-a-Pay.” Sandler sold his World Savings Bank and its Pick-a-Pay loans to Wachovia. Homeowners started defaulting in droves. And the tens of billions in losses spelled the beginning of the end for Wachovia.
Here’s how the New York Times describes it:
Known as an option ARM — and named “Pick-A-Pay” by World Savings — it is now seen by an array of housing analysts and regulators as the Typhoid Mary of the mortgage industry.
Pick-A-Pay allowed homeowners to make monthly mortgage payments that were so small they did not cover their interest charges. That meant the total principal owed would actually grow over time, not shrink as is normally the case …
[T]he Sandlers embraced practices like the use of independent brokers who used questionable methods to reel in borrowers. These and other practices, critics contend, undermined the conservative lending practices that the Sandlers built their reputations upon.
“This product is the most destructive financial weapon ever deployed against the American middle class,” said William J. Purdy III, a housing lawyer in California who is representing elderly World Savings customers struggling to repay their loans. “People who have this loan are now trapped, and they can’t get another loan.”
Here’s the Deceiver-worthy part: While Herbert Sandler is ripping off the poor, he’s giving gajillions of dollars to nonprofit groups that crusade against just this sort of thing. One of them is the Center for Responsible Lending, which he and his wife helped found.
Responsible Lending?
Sandler gave the group $5.2 million in 2005, and another $7 million in 2007. Sounds like a weak-ass effort at conscience scrubbing to me.
Responsible Lending. Responsible Lending. Responsible Lending. If you say it enough times, it loses all meaning. Maybe that’s how Sandler did it too…
Maybe the point is that if he funds them, he controls them. So they can criticize everybody but him.
Want more from this schmuck? Sandler’s foundation is a “lead funder” of ProPublica, a nonprofit whose mission is to preserve the viability of investigative journalism. You know — the kind of reporting that “shines a light on exploitation of the weak by the strong and on the failures of those with power to vindicate the trust placed in them.”
Except when someone nails him for exploiting ordinary people. Then he’s just “being unfairly tarred.” I guess if you’re ProPublica’s Chairman, words like “weak” and “strong” only apply to $160/lb civet-cat coffee.
Here’s the original SNL video, which (thankfully) just won’t die.
Click here for NBC’s “official” re-cut, free of anything that might be offensive to multi-billionaire hypocrites. Of course, they left in the parody of George Soros, so it’s not all bad.
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He pocketed $2.3 BILLION, collapsed an entire bank, and ripped off a bunch of dumb-a**ses that took out mortgages they couldn’t afford to pay back, and won’t be punished?
And I’ve been wearing this itchy fake mustache, and using phony accents all these years when all I had to do was become the head of a financial institution? Man. I’ve wasted the best years of my life.
I saw the entire clip on Hulu the week after it aired on SNL, and didn’t realize that the Sandler portion had been edited out. And you’re right, Oversneer – it *was* darn funny. So why the fuss?
My assessment is that Mr. Sandler is trying to use some of his shadily acquired gains to buy a positive image. And that NBC is kind of chickensh*t.
Yet another John Edwards connection.
Fred Baron bankrolled John Edwards’ Babymama.
Fred Baron is married to Lisa Blue Baron.
Lisa Blue Baron, along with Herb and Marion Sandler, are the sole donors to Citizens for a Strong Senate, a 527 Political Action Committee run by Jonathan Prince, Edwards’ former Deputy Campaign Manager.
You couldn’t make this stuff up.
http://www.rollcall.com/issues/50_43/news/7148-1.html?type=printer_friendly
some folks should have their asses kicked first…then shot…i think this falls in that category…
I would hit it, but only because I’d make him watch. It’s called taking one for the team.
And nothing will ever happen to them. They will buy off the MSM and nothing will ever be said about them from all their political buddies.
In fact I will make a prediction, in 5 years these same people will have a position of power in the new government in one form or another.
Greedy corrupt bastards never have to pay.
Maybe I shouldn’t have said that
Sorry…I am on my laptop at the neighbors house…
My Dog won’t wake up and I have no power or running water. I am starting to get suspicious…and Diet Coke smells like bitter almon..
Center for “Responsible” Lending. Unbelievable that we let these guys get away with creating organizations like this. They attack others while not even mentioning that their own FOUNDERS were the biggest proprietors of subprime loans.
And I thought liberals were all about free speech and being open to criticism.
Rocco’s right–liberals say they’re all for free speech, but what they mean is, there should be no contraints against criticizing and/or mocking those opposed to them.
Are these people Adam Sandler’s parents?
Liberals ARE open to opposing viewpoints. They just don’t think anyone has them.
Conservatives are right about who controls the media. Apparently, George Soros thinks that poking fun at his big donors is “not within standards,” but jokes about incest are.