… like in President Obama’s pockets.
The Washington, DC Examiner is reporting that American International Group made $101,332 in political contributions to Obama while he was still a U.S. Senator. (Obama was second only to Senator Chris Dodd in that regard.)
Yesterday, the President was “choked up with anger” over bonuses paid by AIG to its employees after the government bailout of the financial services firm.
The White House is doing its level best to stoke public outrage. But I wonder if Obama’s campaign committee will return its own AIG “bonuses.” Seems fair to me.
Hat Tip: Deceiver reader Fred
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Well, now we know where the “change” went. Anyone else surprised? “Chocked up with anger” Good one!
I’m not at all shocked by this.
Deceivers?
How about Timmy Geithner & Ben Bernanke?
These ass-hats have been actively undermining the U.S. economy for years, and never get called on it.
Where is the outrage here?!?! Where are the witch hunts…umm, I mean congressional hearings….over Obama enriching his rich, politically affiliated cronies? I am still hearing liberals bitch about Haliburton(which, BTW, Clinton used for many jobs also, but they ignore that fact),and their ties to Cheney, but no one wants to touch this with a $700 government purchased hammer. Priceless…
I just wish that you guys included the newly appointed congress in this years Hypocrite tourney… But they will be around next year, still up to the same old shenanigans, so we get a shot at them next year…
Yeah, Obama had “hope” he’d get a little “change” from all those donations. Same old, same old. Why, you’d think he’s a Republican. Of course, the Democrats never, ever do that, right?
Here’s something interesting…
the financial services div of AIG is in Wilton, Connecticut where they have the “Wage Act.”
This law says that if an employee has to sue for “wages payable pursuant to a contract they recover twice the amount that is contractually owed.” That would have meant $330 million instead of $165 million plus attorney’s fees. I am not defending AIG but they may be between a rock and a hard place because you know some of those execs would have sued.
oh Jenn, I agree with you. Under this law, they had to be paid this. However, for Obama to be chocked up over this is funny. Geitner found out on Tuesday and Obama did not find out until Thursday!!!! TRying to hide something there Timmy? THis whole administration is a laughing stock and it has not even been in power for 2 months.
Besides taking AIG money, Obama, Dodd and others were AWARE these bonuses were going to be paid out. It was Dodd who inserted the provision that would make sure all bonus contracts before Feb 11, 2009 were honored. Is the public really going to let this slide? If so good luck to us.
Something tells me Obama is stoking this hatred of the rich for a reason which is to get people on board with his wealth redistribution plans. Either that or he is just plain stupid pushing for a bill that guarantees bonuses then faking outrage when the bonuses were actually paid out.
Is anyone suprised that the MSM has not covered this story? Change and hope my a@@.
Who’s going to get rich next? Me!!! Pick me!!!
This should probably be a career-ender for Chris Dodd, who was the architect, along with Obama, of removing restrictions on bailout cash that would prevent paying bonuses.
Remember how Obama promised to post the entire text of the bill online for 48 hours before they voted on it? The only change going on here is not the good kind.
$101,332 ? Humph … that’s chump change.
Come one guys, he knows what he’s doing. He was a community organizer after all. [/sarcasm]
$101,332 is exactly $1,332 more than Blagoevich wanted to appoint Obama’s successor.
Amazing how cheap you can buy a Senator these days. If you had a really incapable relative who would never amount to much you’re much better off buying him a senatorship than sending him to college.
The ‘poorest’ US senator last year (alleged to be Joe Biden), cleared $370,000.
I believe that Obama stated in his first speach “…for those of you who did not vote for me or trust me, give me the chance to earn your trust.” I may have paraphrased some, but so far the guy is creating hate and discontent. His actions have NOT earned my trust, and supports the therory that he is a figurehead for people like George Soros, HuffPo, MoveOn and the other far Left lunitics. If I wanted to live in a socialist state, I’d move to one.
Let me be clear, I hope that the guy succedes in getting us out of this financial crisis. I don’t think he will, because many a person smarter than me has stated “Don’t throw good money after bad” and that is what it appears he’s doing.
For those of you who will say “he inherited this crisis, yes he did, but it started with the Clinton years, continued through the Bush the Younger years. And none of these elected nobs did anything about it for 16 years. is it time for a change we can believe in, sure is. I put forward that with the current political policies in place, nothing will change, and it’s us, the people that live, work, pay taxes and die that are paying the price for our elected “leaders” failings.
Sorry for the long post, but I have a lot of rage these days.
In a way, the AIG a-holes deserve it for supporting these guys politically, asking for the money, and taking it. AIG walked right into a trap. Nice going, fellas.
You know guys, as bad as the AIG bonuses look, the government reaction scares me far more.
Obama is looking into ways to retributively confiscate assets from private citizens.
That’s called a Bill of Attainder. They won’t call it that, but that’s exactly what it is.
And we had this very same squabble with George III.
^^ I’m with Minnow on this one. ^^
What’s next, a Democratic congress passes a law to seize all of Rick Santelli, Jim Cramer, and Rush Limbaugh’s assets? They’re obviously scapegoat(s) number one through three of the Obama administration.
Obama and Geithner f’d up. Even if AIG refunds $195 million, they still made off wih $29.82 Billion in the last fifteen days alone, independent of their two other rounds of bailouts.
If the government “does something” about these bonuses, it will set a disastrous precedent.
They could use it to start after anyone if that company has EVER received any government money in ANY FORM.
Believe me, any “emergency legislation” they pass will not be specific to this theft. They’ll give it broader powers.
Uhh, a contribution by a corporation to a political figure is a donation. The bailout money to AIG is too keep the company afloat and prevent a castastrophic collapse of the economy. This bailout money isn’t coming out of Obama’s pockets as a donation.
I think it was a slow news day today for Simon, grasping at straws…
The last couple of posts mirror my thoughts after I read up on this story. I keep seeing a whole lot of reactive legislation instead of actual changes to our financial system. Is anyone aware if they have put back in place the regulations that were allowed to lapse that lead to this mess? I have not heard one story of what steps are being taken to better regulate the financial market in the future.
Obama is in way over his head on this one.
He’s in way over his head anyway D. And why not just split the money up between all living Americans? I’m no economist but that would stimulate MY economy.
You’re forgetting to mention that McCain received money from them too, and Rudy Guiliani, Mitt Romney.
I mean come on, a little one-sided here don’t you think?
And yes, grasping at straws indeed.
Annie and Darek – the point you are overlooking is that Obama and Dodd were instrumental in allowing these bonuses to stay in effect. They had an oppurtinuty to limit or even eliminate them but they did not (read Stan’s post). The question is why didn’t they? Is it because they had received large contributions in the past from AIG? May not be true but doesn’t look good.
Putting money in American hands? Wasn’t that part of the problem in the first place? American need for money and attaining things we are incapable of actually having? Subprime mortgages. Maxed out credit cards.
We should, if anything, use the money to create new jobs, which I believe the stimulus plan has a section about (and education! Yay! Maybe no child will actually not get left behind?). Give a man a fish, feed him for a day, teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime. It’s more than putting money into people’s hands, it’s about having them get off their asses and getting to work. Getting over their sense of entitlement and being willing to start from the bottom up again. We bitch and we complain while other countries don’t even have potable water. Puh-leaze. We can blame politicians all we like (And surely, they definitely carry a lot of the blame) but we are also the root of our own problems.
It’s no wonder other countries hate Americans so much….we stress over having to downgrade to a cheaper house….they’re dying of starvation.
I’m not overlooking it, I’m just saying making it seem like Obama was the only person responsible doesn’t solve anything.
All politicians are shady. Republicans and Democrats alike. And both parties received money. That’s my point. It’s written as if Obama was the only person who got something. He wasn’t. Not by a long shot.
Do we know exactly if the money came from AIG bailout money? I know that it is common practice for people to donate on behalf of a company, but it is generally their own money and in some cases, it’s a lot of little donations by a lot of different people.
Jason M wrote: “Believe me, any “emergency legislation” they pass will not be specific to this theft. They’ll give it broader powers.”
Thankfully, the Supes will stomp this sort of sh*t before it goes into effect. I can’t remember the last unanimous thing they’ve done, but this one’s pretty clearly unconstitutional from every angle.
But really folks, WE put these idiots into office. Teleprompterboy didn’t storm the citadel and take over; Americans voted him there.
Crab all you want, but this is the government we put into place. We are responsible for this madness. “Not my fault, I voted for the other guy” doesn’t cut it anymore. And “Don’t blame me, I couldn’t stand either candidate, so I didn’t vote” is the equivalent of letting that toothless ACORN solicitor with the 89 point IQ and 16 absentee ballots in her back pocket cast your vote for you.
The idiot brigade is in charge right now and we put them there.
Until we stand up and take credit for the complete mess we’ve made of our democracy, until we take politics back from mediocre minds who seek celebrity and power over benign management, until we understand that we can’t vote ourselves bread and circuses, then we have to live with the likes of Geithner & Co flushing our wealth down the toilet.
Whew. Sorry about that. I think I was channeling a Greek sibyl there for a moment.
I’m with Swede, we’re both rather long on rage these days.
Whoa Annie, did you really compare the stimulus bill to Lao Tzu and his fishing man?
So explain to me please, how handing a state like Michigan (which can’t balance their budget without driving businesses screaming out of state) a couple billion dollars is teaching them to fish?
Seems more like it’s handing them a Lobster of the Day Club one year membership.
Because after we blow that money keeping the crimimally run Detroit City schools open for another year of excellent teaching…
After we build another MoTown Music Museum in a city no one visits without wearing full body armor…
After we fill in billions of potholes caused by shoddy contractors and unregulated tractor trailer weight limits…
After we retrain specialized automotive engineers to wave orange flags for construction zones…
After we fund full retirement benefits for any state politician who serves 2 years…
After we replace the tobacco settlement money which was supposed to go to school funding but got spent on propping up budgetary shortfalls…
After we do all that, we still don’t have anyone who knows how to build a damn fishingpole.
“If the government “does something” about these bonuses, it will set a disastrous precedent.”
And “do something” they will. Lol, Obama giveth and Obama taketh away.
Annie,
Not that I am trying to defend Bush, but for most of the time he was in office the unemployment rate was around 5%, while the DOW was over 12,000. It wasn’t until the housing bubble burst that people starting losing jobs. You know, like when the dot com bubble burst and the tech sector of the economy lost $5 trillion when Clinton was leaving office.
One reason people have jobs is because those that were/are attaining things keeps the economy moving along. If we all stop purchasing everything but the bare essentials more people will be out of work.
Minnow, you hit it on the head. So, that one congresswoman/senator (sorry, I only heard her quote, didn’t see her name) who said she wished she could tax them 1,000% for doing this… she does it for them, what’s to keep her from wanting to do that to me?? We all know Obama wants to “spread the wealth around.”
And Annie, you’re really missing the point. If McCain were in office, we could be talking about him getting the money. But he didn’t have any pull with this bill or vote for it. However, Obama and Dodd fought tooth and nail (and in the latter case, actually put the clause in) after having their pockets lined. Is it chump change? Absolutely, but it’s the principle of the matter.
I still maintain that no only are their bonuses less than 1% of the bailout money AIG received (and as a matter of fact, significantly less than what we gave to foreign banks), but our government wastes more than that every day. At least those bonuses are more likely to be spent within our own country, stimulating our own economy Plus, “give the money back to the tax payers.” WTF?!?! Are they going to write me a check if they tax it all back? Yeah, didn’t think so. No, they’ll just use the same kind of bs to come take all my money too.
No, I was saying that we as a country, need to come together and instead of pointing fingers, work towards the goal of revitalizing our economy. As in, it takes a whole lot more than just throwing money at someone to fix a problem.
Did I say that we were teaching Michigan to fish? No.
Are you misinterpreting my sentiment? Clearly.
My point is, we love to blame other people, but we do nothing but bitch and whine on deceiver.
Productive.
And I’m not missing the point, I just think it’s interesting how we’re all so quick to scream “LIAR!” yet part of the problem lies within ourselves.
It’s kind of tough to get your stolen money back without pointing your finger at the guys who took it. Although you raise a good point: It might just hurt their feelings.
Well lets see today I bought cigarette’s, gas, bought stuff the coffee shop I just opened (which generated a whopping $5.25 in taxes so far today), worked my regular 9 to 5 and participated on Deceiver. I have done my part what have the rest of you slackers done?
(that’s a joke people…in case you missed it)
“Are you misinterpreting my sentiment? Clearly.”
Sorry, totally my fault. I should have written your post more clearly.
Annie, I was under the impression that this website was intended to be a venue to snark, lambast, lampoon any person how is a Deceiver. If it seems that we are whinning and bitching about what is happening, guess what? The website is doing what it was intended to do. That is to highlight people/agencies that are deceivers. It’s the posters who dictate the direction the entries goes.
To support your theory “No, I was saying that we as a country, need to come together and instead of pointing fingers, work towards the goal of revitalizing our economy.” that is true, but in the case of this site, it’s for fun and it seems that some people have forgotten that. It seems that in order to fix all the problems, we as a country need to NOT re-elect the current political “leadership”, recall all Senators/Representitives and try to elect representatives that have a clue and a plan on how to fix it.
Every one has an idea on how to fix this clusterf@$k, but nobody in elected office seems to want to do anything about it. I myself would have let AIG fail, seized all of Madoff’s assets and liquidated it to pay off debts, revoked all bailout money and let the companies sink or swim. Those chuckelheads that got the bonuses are not going to stimulate the economy unless you work for BWM, Porche, (pick your Italian sports car) or are a real estate broker that deals in high end properties. If you think that they are going down to the local WalMart and spend the big bucks, I got some prime beach front realestate in Arizona!
AHHHH, I love having a good rage going.
Yes Annie I know all Americans are stupid. And there isn’t anything I could use an extra $6-$700,000 in cash on. Hey I could do coke of the naked back of a $10,000 a night prostitute with the best CEO, or congressman. All I need is the $10,000, and some coke. Oh and the hooker too. I’m looking to you D, or maybe Jrod.
You lookin’ for ladies Pasta? And you didn’t think to come to me?
Shoot, this pimpin career I invested my Bush tax cut into, it really isn’t working out well.
The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy strikes!
Now do you see how right I was when (during the pifflestorm) I wisely advised you to save your outrage for a “better” occasion? *sigh* the true genius usually goes unappreciated…and is so often misunderstood…
I couldn’t agree more.
I can both point out the Obamatrons’ stupidity AND do something about it AT THE SAME TIME!
I must be some kind of super hero.
Breaking News: Dodd Says loophole that protects AIG Bonuses added per request of the Obama administration. The video is about a fifth of the way down.
http://www.butasforme.com/2009/03/17/obamas-stimulus-bill-explicitly-grants-aig-the-legal-right-to-hand-out-bonuses/
Obama should take full and direct responsibility for this mess.
Just two quick questions: 1) Who are you talking to? 2) What are you talking about?
Kristine- “Is it chump change? Absolutely, but it’s the principle of the matter. ”
In case you were referring to my post, I was facetiously referring to Obama when he was talking about taxing the richer folks:
Nov 3, 2008
http://campaignspot.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MGM0Y2QzMTAxN2RiYjBkYjNhMjI0MGE1YmMwODNhOTM=
Sway: Just out of curiosity, for those that are being taxed that are making more than $250,000 a year, how much difference would it be from how they are being taxed today?
Obama: Well, right now, they are getting taxed at 36 percent. Under Bill Clinton in the 1990s, they were being taxed at 39.6 percent. You are talking about a 3.6 percent difference, and for the average person who is making half a million, a million dollars, now people like you Sway, that’s chump change, that’s nothing. …
Mar 19, 2009
Les Paul: I wouldn’t mind some of that chump change. A dollar is still a dollar.
Simon 1)everyone; 2)I’m talking about the time when I suggested that we postpone Obama-bashing until he really f***s smth up…awww, now that I had to explain it, it’s no fun.
I’m also very tempted to point out that the Congress and the Bush’s administration are almost as much at fault here as Obama’s administration…but I’m not going to. Some people here reminisce Bush the way people trapped in unhappy relationships reminisce their exes – all the bad stuff is forgotten (and/or forgiven) and all the good stuff is exaggerated, making an ex seem like the most intelligent and capable person in the world. So, in order not to hurt anyone’s feelings, I’m not going to say anything.
See what I did there? I believe it’s called apophasis.
Nati, I despise Bush.
His bungling helped make Obama possible. Talk about jumping out of the frying pan…
Bush may have started this mess, but Obama is not helping at all by just spending and spending and spending. Especially when he says he wants to cut spending. And especially when he says he will go line by line and take out all the earmarks. I can see how those two things have helped us so far.
Thank the lord that he is dropping the case of charging our vets for healthcare. Talk about upsetting Democrats AND Republicans as Vets come from both sides. How to tick off America? Take away from our heros.
Nati – My argument has always been that while Bush was not great any other politician would have made similar decisions in his place.
I seem to recall that about 8 hours after Bush took office in 2001, blaming Clinton for ANYTHING was passe’. Same now goes for Bush. I don’t think the guy walked on water, but if you’re going to blame him for everything that ever went wrong from 2001-2008, you ALSO have to give him credit for every single thing that went right, and I don’t see anyone doing that. I’m not doing it, either. It is statistically impossible for EVERYTHING to have been his fault, is what I’m saying here.
Obama’s one distinguishing characteristic is hubris. He really thinks that we don’t know about his duplicity, or that of his comrades, and probably that we don’t even know what duplicity is. Without a good teleprompter (assuming it’s HIS speech being shown in the first place), he’s screwed as a statesman, and as talking is all he’s ever done, where does that leave him?
Beige, of course Bush did not walk on water. After all, there is only one messiah. However, I am still waiting for him to replenish my fishes and loaves instead of leaving me the crumbs.
Well, I’m just hoping that after the vigorous rogering we’re all going to get, Obama at least calls the next day or sends flowers or something.
I’m partial to Peruvian lilies.
I won’t be IGNORED, Barry.
Of course he will send you flowers…..along with the bill
Aw, no, Les Paul, I wasn’t picking out your post at all. I was referring to people who will legitimately say that it’s not a problem because Obama “only” got $100,000. But I agree, that’s not chump change in my world by any stretch of the imagination, lol.
igot a tree hunerd aday crack habit what you mean i cant afford a mortgage u racist mofo
moderate this,igot atree hunerd aday crack habit 2x batches 6 brats and you dont wanna giv me amortgage,whas up
You’re gonna have to wait awhile for anything Peruvian from the Mighty O, Beige.
They’re still sorta pissed that he turned down their offer of a free hypoallergenic dog for the girls.
http://paxarcana.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/peruvian_hairless_dog.jpg
Oh, and this one’s a cutie too:
http://www.sfgate.com/c/pictures/2005/11/23/mn_ugly_dog_cabar501.jpg
Guys, I’m not saying it’s ALL Bush’s fault. I’m just saying that Obama wasn’t the first one to start “throwing good money after bad” and that Bush’s administration (notably, Paulson and co) laid the ground for this with their no term bailouts. And the Congress is also responsible for this. But, mostly, of course, it’s Obama’s and his administartion’s fault. I wonder if he even read that stimulus bill…Actually, one could argue that this whole mess dates back to Clinton rather than Bush, but one has to go make some soup for a hungry tot.
D, I agree, things wouldn’t have been any different with a Dem prez in the office (instead of Bush)…considering that during the Bush years it was (the majority of) the Dem Party who kept voting for everything they supposedly “oppose”.
P.S. This whole story reminds me of another big company and its (larger) presidential campaign contributions to Clinton and, later, Bush…mmm…what was its name? I think it was called Enron…