Posted on 03/17/2009 5:20:17 PM PDT by Michael Eden
I'll begin by quoting from another blog that has it's act together on these disgraces we call the Obama Administration and Congress. The article is entitled, "Obama's Own Stimulus Bill Protects the AIG Bonuses He Now Condemns":
HIGH IMPACT - Thanks to our stimulus spending bill search engine, we discovered that Obama granted AIG a free legal pass to give high bonuses because of the following stipulation in Obama’s stimulus bill he personally orchestrated and signed into law:Truth is the quintessential enemy of liberalism. And we need to expose these frauds for what they truly are, because the media (which is the quintessential friend of liberalism) will not.From page H1412 of the Final Stimulus Bill, “SEC. 111. EXECUTIVE COMPENSATION AND CORPORATE GOVERNANCE:
“(iii) The prohibition required under clause (i) shall not be construed to prohibit any bonus payment required to be paid pursuant to a writte employment contract executed on or before February 11, 2009, as such valid employment contracts are determined by the Secretary or the designee of the Secretary.”
This amendment provides an exception for contractually obligated bonuses agreed on before Feb. 11, 2009, which exempts the very AIG bonuses Obama is condemning every single chance he gets. The amendment is in the final version and is law.Sen. Dodd was AIG’s largest single recipient of campaign donations during the 2008 election cycle with $103,100, according to opensecrets.org — According to the Wall Street Journal, Sen. Dodd placed this section into the final stimulus bill, making him responsible, along with Obama, for AIG receiving these bonuses.
As it is, Obama is continuing his "I inherited all this" mantra. The fact that it's HIS bill, entirely written by HIS Democrats with NO Republican participation, is completely beside the point.
Democrat Senator Chris Dodd - the very slimebag who has been in the pocket of AIG and other corrupt financial institutions, the very slimebag who helped AIG get those bonuses - is now the one proposing a 100% tax on the recipients:
Senator Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) on Monday night floated the idea of taxing American International Group (AIG) bonus recipients so the government could recoup some or all of the $450 million the company is paying to employees in its financial products unit. Within hours, the idea spread to both houses of Congress, with lawmakers proposing an AIG bonus tax.The 100% tax the Democrats are proposing is targeted to specific individuals for purposes of punishing them without a trial, which is the definition of a Bill of Attainder ("a legislative act that singles out an individual or group for punishment without a trial"). And Bills of Attainder are specifically forbidden by the Constitution:While the Senate was constructing the $787 billion stimulus last month, Dodd added an executive-compensation restriction to the bill. The provision, now called “the Dodd Amendment” by the Obama Administration, provides an “exception for contractually obligated bonuses agreed on before Feb. 11, 2009” -- which exempts the very AIG bonuses Dodd and others are now seeking to tax.
“No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law will be passed.” Constitution of the United States, Article I, Section 9, paragraph 3Not that the Democrats give a flat damn about the Constitution. The same people who can peer into the Constitution and find "penumbras and emanations" giving them the right to murder tiny innocent babies can pretty much twist the Constitution into any pretzel-shaped ideological object that they want.“The $165 million in bonuses set to go to American International Group executives would be taxed at 100 percent under a new bill introduced Tuesday in the House. The sponsor of the new bill, Rep. Steve Israel (D-Huntington), said Tuesday that “if we can’t kill the bonuses, we’ll tax the bonuses.” — Newsday, March 17, 2009
Democrats didn't inherit this mess. They created it. Hold them repsonsible for it. Remember the continual Democrat shrillness against Bush and Republicans, and then up the octaves against Obama and the Democrats.
You are entirely right.
Glenn Beck today talked about the hundreds of billions that the government doled out, and asked why it’s any different if AIG doles out its own doleout money.
But people ARE outraged over the AIG thing; so, red herring or no, let’s talk about it, by all means, and make this albatross a nice necklace to hang around the necks of Democrats.
By along it to continue to be a big deal, you play right into the RATS hands. It dominates the news distracting from things like the fact the “the One(messiah and saviour)” want to drop treatment of veterans war injuries, placing it in private insurance companies hands; like the fact that “the One(messiah and saviour)” and the likes of Dodd took huge sums of campaign money from AIG. Besides, (sarc)businessmen are all evil Republicans(/sarc) and it just feeds the fire.
Well, we've got that difference of opinion. I intend to expose Obama and liberals and Democrats as corrupt incompetent fools whenever an issue presents itself.
The fact that Obama, Dodd, Schumer, Frank, and other Democrats are now coming unglued over a mess that they demonstrably created in the first place is a good place to shoot at, as far as I'm concerned.
And I'll shoot at anything that presents itself as a target.
And for what it's worth, I actually had written and posted an article that DOES go after Obama over his betrayal of veterans' and their injuries. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2208725/posts
And I’m hearing that Turbo Tax Tim Geithner was also intimately behind this AIG bonus fiasco, having been a big part of the deal. And Obama and Chris Dodd were the two biggest recipients of AIG money.
Now the Democrats are acting so outraged that Sen. Chuck Grassely of Iowa is suggesting AIG execs kill themselves!!!
And we’re not supposed to point out what unmitigated and blatant hypocrites these people are?
The problem is that there are so many despicable and vile outrages coming out of Obama that we can’t keep up with them all. There’s so much horrifying stuff that we can’t focus on anything!!! It’s like a fire hose of everything truly despicable.
All I can do is try to write about as much of it as I can. I want to leave behind a record of what happened to our country and who is responsible for it. While I still have the freedom to do so.
I think Obama and Dodds would like the bususes to AIG to disappear from the news. People will remember when they try to push though the next bailout.
Another issue that does not benefit Obama is his promise of "transparency." Dodd says that they changed his amendment allowing bonuses in the porkulus conference-behind-closed-doors, but now nobody wants to take credit for that amendment. It just mysteriously "appeared." And Obama said he didn't know that amendment was there when he signed the bill.
As you emphasized, competence is another good issue. Dems want to pass an unconstitutional tax on the AIG bonus recipients. Even if that tax were constitutional, the guilty AIG employees seem be British. If they try to tax them, maybe they would have their own Tea Party!
The nice thing about being conservative is that we can have a different opinions. If you feel you must shoot, shoot-—I’ll watch your back (and maybe carry some ammo).
The nice thing about being conservative is that we can have a different opinions. If you feel you must shoot, shoot-—I’ll watch your back (and maybe carry some ammo).
- - - - - -
Glad to hear that. Basically, I am shooting whenever a liberal target presents itself and I’ve got some kind of ammo (I’d throw rocks if that was all I had).
I understand your point: we should be going after the big things, and not getting lost in all the trees (rather than seeing the forest). There’s merit in your view.
My attitude is to bring these people down by a death of a thousand cuts, as need be. And when we find a truly strategic target - go for the throat and don’t quit biting until the jugular has been torn out.
Appreciate the note that we can have differences and still respect one another’s basic values. And I agree with you that that is what separates us from the animals (and of course the liberals).
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.