DANGER DANGER WILL ROBINSON: POLITICAL CARTOONS

Sometimes we just have to laugh. . .

 

 

CONGRESS AND THEIR BONUS BABIES

I am somewhat worried that all the grandstanding and posturing from Washington is taking the public's eye and anger away from where it truely belongs.  Am I outraged that AIG execs and others received up to multi million dollar bonuses? Certainly.  BUT they legally received these bonuses thanks to our congressmen and women.  The ones who wrote the exemption into the bill and the ones who voted for the bailout bill, you know the one that was so important and so needed that no one had time to read it, they have no place to rant and rail about AIG and other companies until they deal with their own complacency in this matter.  It has gotten to the point that AIG execs are being threatened with bodily harm and death.  I have to have some empathy with them and their families, it is not like Madoff who lied and stole people's money, or like congress who receive an automatic yearly pay-raise, unless they vote against receiving it.  Around 4,000 dollars.  It hardly ever comes to a floor vote, it somehow, mysteriously, is lost in committee.  And then, our congress can look us in the eye and say: "I did not vote for a pay raise."  

CONGRESS' BONUS BABIES

by INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY; IBDEditorials.com

THE AIG AFFAIR:

As Barney Frank compiles an enemies list, Chris Dodd confesses he did in fact author the AIG stimulus loophole. So just who is going to go after those million-dollar retention bonuses at Fannie Mae?

There was Rep. Frank, who once whistled past the Fannie Mae graveyard, demanding in full righteous indignation that AIG CEO Edward Liddy tell him where the bonus recipients — and their families — lived and who they were down to the family dog. All that was missing were powdered wigs and a guillotine.

Liddy, brought in for a dollar a year after the market meltdown Frank had a hand in creating, wasn't the one who should have been in the dock. Frank should have been grilling his Senate colleague Chris Dodd, who now admits writing the language in the stimulus that made these bonuses exempt from any government restrictions.

Sitting next to Dodd should have been Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, late of the Federal Reserve in New York and the architect of the original AIG bailout. After saying he didn't know who wrote the stimulus language exempting AIG bonuses, he now says he did it at the request of Treasury and administration officials.

"When the language went to the conference and came back, there was different language," Dodd told Fox News on Tuesday. "I can tell you this much: When my language left the Senate, it did not include it. When it came back, it did."

 

 

 

On Wednesday, he told a different story, acknowledging that he and his staff did in fact change the language in the stimulus bill to include a loophole for AIG executive bonuses. "As many know, the administration was, among others, not happy with the language. They wanted some modifications in it.

 

 

 

"They came to us, our staff, and asked for changes, and the changes at the time did not seem obnoxious or onerous," Dodd added.

Say what? Exempting AIG bonuses to be paid out with taxpayer dollars seemed harmless to the No. 1 recipient of AIG campaign cash? Some have called this a "reversal" of position. We call it a lie admitted to.

Dodd said the argument put forward by Treasury was that a "flood of lawsuits" would come forward if the change was not made. The bonuses were contractual obligations.

But who is "they" and just who at Treasury advocated the exemption? Just how is Geithner, who followed the AIG mess from the Federal Reserve to Treasury, now the Sergeant Schultz of the administration, someone who knows nothing and sees nothing?

Also pointing a finger at the "Obama economic team" is Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., who says they are responsible for stripping a provision from the stimulus bill that he and Republican Olympia Snowe of Maine submitted. It would have taxed such bonuses at a 35% rate. Asked who he spoke to about stripping the item, Wyden said, "Secretary Geithner, Larry Summers, and I'll leave it at that."

"The president goes out and says this is not acceptable, and then some backroom deal gets cut to let these things get paid out anyway," Wyden told the Associated Press. The unanswered questions are who and why?

Now we learn that Fannie Mae, a bailout beneficiary and the ignition source of the mortgage meltdown, plans to pay its own retention bonuses of at least $1 million to four executives as part of a plan to keep hundreds of employees from leaving. Let them work for a buck too.

Just as was the case with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Congress and the administration had a chance to stop this. Instead they protected AIG with a bill written in the middle of the night, sliced and diced by a handful of Democrats in a closed conference room, that those voting on it had not read.

Frank et al. have forgotten how Franklin Raines, who headed Fannie from 1998 to 2004, the years of its worst excesses, pocketed nearly $100 million in pay and bonuses from Fannie. He later became an adviser to Obama, the No. 2 recipient of AIG campaign funds behind Dodd.

This is the administration and Congress that promised to be the most transparent ever. They're transparent all right. We can see right through them.

  

IF BULLSH*T SOUNDS POETIC, IS IT STILL BULLSH*T

Congress members to the left of me, congress members to the right, and all I can hear is the plopping sound of Bovine pasture patties hitting the marbled floors of government.

"Be thankful we are not getting all the government we are paying for." Will Rogers

For those of you who wish your voices to be heard, a link to the Senate, names, mail and email addresses, phone numbers.

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

 "This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer."  Will Rogers

  And one for the House or Representatives:

http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW.shtml

It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.
-Mark Twain (Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar)

 
  

THE BAILOUT -- $5 BILLION FOR THE PORN INDUSTRY?? -- ONLY IN AMERICA

There is a Porn Star in this article that makes far more sense than some of our politicians, and certainly more than these two porn executives, and more than the Big Three auto executives.    

<---A scene from one of my early movies:  "Foot Fetishes and Peacock Feathers"

 

PORN INDUSTRY SEEKS $5 BILLION DOLLAR FEDERAL BAILOUT 

by Kevin Modesti, LA Daily News -Business Section - Thurs. Jan. 8th, 09

LOS ANGELES — In an announcement that launched a thousand unprintable puns, adult-entertainment moguls Larry Flynt and Joe Francis said Wednesday that they are asking Washington for a $5 billion federal bailout, claiming that the porn business is suffering from the soft economy.

Francis insisted in a phone interview that this is no joke or publicity stunt, though his tone suggested otherwise.

“The government’s handing out money to the auto industry,” Francis, producer of the “Girls Gone Wild” video series, said on the phone from his Santa Monica office. “Why shouldn’t it hand some to an industry the nation could not live without?”

 

 

The request, Francis said, was being made in a letter to Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass, and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. The $5 billion figure, he said, reflects the decline in U.S. adult-entertainment- industry revenue from $18 billion three years ago.

If porn producers are feeling the effects of what one wire service called “the sagging economy,” the pain might be felt most acutely in the San Fernando Valley. In 2007, revenue from more than 200 Valley-based adult-content companies was estimated at $1 billion.

One adult-film star from the Los Angeles area said she is feeling the pinch.

The actress who performs as Jenna Presley said her Web site has seen a 20 percent decline in customers, about 1,000 of whom pay $19.99 a month to watch the 22-year-old perform online.

Presley said the downturn has forced her to cut overhead.

“I said, ‘I’ve got to stop paying guys and girls to perform with, and I’ve got to find (other Web site proprietors) to do a content exchange with,’ ” Presley said matter-of-factly.

Instead of paying co-stars, she is posting their videos on her site and they’re posting her content on theirs.

 

 

 

“I haven’t had any complaints,” Presley said.

Other performers, Presley said, have faced pay cuts as video companies take the uncharacteristic step of tightening their belts.

“I know companies are reducing their rates,” Presley said. “Instead of paying a girl $2,000 for a boy-girl (scene), now they’re trying to pay $1,200.”

Presley said she has refused to work for less and so far has not lost business.

“I stand up for myself,” she said. “A lot of girls, the business is so slow, they’re happy just to find work (at any price).”

Despite all that, Presley said she considers the bailout bid by Francis and Hustler chief Flynt “a little crazy” and thinks companies need to cut unnecessary expenses. She said the porn industry, like the auto industry, is to blame for failing to change with the times.

“I’m not taking this bailout request seriously,” Presley said. “I love Larry. He’s a great guy. But he doesn’t need $5 billion.”

Her reaction echoed those of a San Fernando Valley congressman and the head of a Valley business group.

 

<---Cavey, this one is for you!!!

 

“I regret that two porn-industry executives have used the current economic crisis to launch an obvious publicity stunt,” said Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Sherman Oaks. “As Americans face tough economic times, we need a serious discussion of the issues.”

Bruce Ackerman, president and CEO of the Economic Alliance of the San Fernando Valley, said: “I don’t think it’s a reasonable request — and I would say that of any of the industry groups (seeking bailouts).

“I don’t think you can laugh any of these requests off. I sympathize with any industry that needs help,” Ackerman said, noting that the adult-entertainment industry employs thousands of people in the Valley. “But is it something the taxpayer should be burdened with?”

Flynt’s and Francis’ announcement coincides with the start today of the four-day Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas. They hope to find support for the bailout bid from other industry leaders.

“People are too depressed to be sexually active,” Flynt said in a news release. “This is very unhealthy as a nation. Americans can do without cars and such, but they cannot do without sex.”

Adult DVD sales and rentals have decreased by 22 percent in the past year, the news release claimed, as viewers seek free porn online.

Flynt and Francis will have some convincing to do even in Las Vegas, judging by the reaction of Steven Hirsch, founder and co-chairman of L.A.-based Vivid Entertainment Group, the 25-year-old company that bills itself as the world’s leading adult-film producer.

“To think we’re going to go to Washington and get a bailout is a little unrealistic,” said Hirsch, who said he heard about the Flynt-Francis ploy in the media. “This is not the time to make sweeping statements. This is the time to buckle down and take the steps we need to save our industry.

“This industry is not immune from (the bad economy). People are spending less money, period.”

Hirsch said he thinks Flynt and Francis are “just poking fun at all the industries getting bailouts.”

Hirsch said Vivid isn’t suffering as badly as smaller rivals because its prominent brand name gives the company “a leg up.”

He declined to get specific about Vivid’s revenue.

 

 

HARD TIMES, THE BAIL OUT AND THE TAXPAYER

The Politicians are telling us it will be hard, to be prepared for difficulties, to be ready for stress, to have to stretch, no whining or moaning, just grit our teeth and take it.  Easy for them to say!!!

Federal workers prepare the Suppository Model 2A, Taxpayer, Federal, Oversight Commitee, 2008.  

Each Taxpayer is to be issued one Suppository Model 2A; their share of the 750 Billion plus  Bail Out.  Congress approved, also comes with a 5,486 page instruction booklet, written and approved by Congressional Commitee, titled "We're Only Here To Help".  Unindentified but reliable sources say the Suppository Model 2B is already being worked on.  The unidentifed sourse said:  "It is not better, but it is bigger!!"

Just in case the large picture (through photobucket) does not show up for some of you.

IF IT WEREN'T SO MADDENING, IT WOULD BE FUNNY

Not much needs to be said.

 

 

2004 CONGRESSIONAL HEARING ON FANNIE AND FREDDIE --

Whether we are Democrats, Republicans, Greens, Independents, Liberal, Conservative, Middle of the Road, we should be furious at the people who got us into this mess, and the same ones are writing the rules for the Bail Out. 

More of these congressional hearings from the past dealing with Fannie/Freddie are being researched and found.  I only wish the little barbs were left out of the video text, this is too important for our country, we can easily make our own minds up as we see and hear.

Watching this video I cannot but help think of the scene from the movie NETWORK,  we need to go to our windows, write our congressmen and women and tell them in no uncertain terms we do not care what party they belong to, We are Mad as Hell and are Not Going to Take it any longer.

To Contact Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi

http://www.speaker.gov/contact/

To find your Congressman

https://forms.house.gov/wyr/welcome.shtml

To find your senator

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

GSE = Government Sponsored Entities, such as Freddie and Frannie

OCC = Office of the Comptroller of the Currency