Insanity

Via Hot Air:

 ”Get the bonus, we will get your children,” someone identified only as “Jacob the Killer” hauntingly writes in an e-mail.

His is one of dozens of threats against AIG and its employees that were obtained from Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal’s office under a Freedom of Information Act request by NBC Connecticut.

Surprisingly, some of those making the threats left their e-mail addresses and phone numbers – making the job of law enforcement officers easier.

Here are some of the highlights (or rather, low-lights). We’ve cleaned up some of the nasty language, but you can use your imagination:

– All you motherf***ers should be shot. Thanks for f***ing up our economy then taking our money.

– Dear Sir: Ya’ll should have the balls and come clean and give back the bonuses. I know you would never do this so the gov’t ought to take you out back and shoot everyone of you crooked sonofb****es…I would be very careful when I went out side. This is just a warning. If I were ya’ll I would be real afraid. Thanks, Bill.

– I don’t hope that bad things happen to the recipients of those bonuses. I really hope that bad things happen to the children and grandchildren of them! Whatever hurts them the most!!

– You f***ing suck. Paying bonuses to the d*****s that made bad bets losing your company billions of dollars. I want to f***ing puke. Publish the list of those yankee scumbags so some good old southern boys can take care of them.

– If the bonuses don’t stop, it will be very likely that every CEO @ AIG has a bulls-eye on their backs.

– We will hunt you down. Every last penny. We will hunt your children and we will hunt your conscience. We will do whatever we can to get those people getting the bonuses. Give back the money or kill yourselves.

Congress – Every, single Democrat and three Republicans – passed the bill that required AIG to pay those bonuses. Barack Obama signed that bill into law.

This is the result of the House passing their retroactive “Screw the Constitution, get private citizens” bill as a smokescreen for what they did.

This is the direct result of Obama’s faux outrage over AIG.

Death threats against children.

What a proud moment for Congressional Democrats and Obama.

“I’m The President, And You’re Not”

Frankly, regardless of your political bent, if you can read this and not see a problem, you’re not being honest with yourself.

The accounts demonstrate that despite the public comments on both sides that the meeting was cordial, the tone in the room was in fact one of mutual wariness. The titans of finance – men used to being the most powerful man in almost any room – sized up a new president who made clear in ways big and small that he expected them to change their ways.

There were signs from the outset that this was a business event, not a social gathering. At each place around the table sat a single glass of water. No ice. For those who finished their glass, no refills were offered. There was no group photograph taken of the CEOs with the president, which typically happens at ceremonial White House gatherings but not at serious strategy sessions.

“The only way they could have sent a more Spartan message is if they had served bread along with the water,” says a person who attended the meeting. “The signal from Obama’s body language and demeanor was, ‘I’m the president, and you’re not.’”

According to the accounts of sources inside the room, President Obama told the CEOs exactly what he expects from them, and pushed back forcefully when they attempted to defend Wall Street’s legendarily high-paying ways.

Obama was elected president. He was not anointed as dictator. Nor did he, by virtue of winning an election, become God’s chosen one.

Yet the report suggests that Obama appears to believe that his election somehow raises him above the law, the Constitution and the judgment of others.

Regardless of your politics, this should worry you. A lot.

Via Memeorandum.

Accelerating Into The Wall

Penn Jillette on spending your way out of debt. Or rather, on Obama’s plan to spend America out of recession.

Counterintuitive action makes a fellow feel smart. When I first got my driver’s license, I took my old Ford Falcon into the Greenfield Public High School parking lot when it was freshly covered with fresh powder on top of wet slippery Western Massachusetts snow and ice. I turned fast, gunned it and lost control of the car in a skid.

I turned into the skid and instantly gained control of my car. Telling someone to turn into a skid, that’s crazy talk. It seems so wrong, but my Dad knew it worked. Dad suggested I do it over and over in the parking lot, so I would conquer my intuition to be ready when a real emergency arose on a real road. Counterintuitive actions prove we can trust real knowledge and do the opposite of what we feel makes sense.

…..

But there are some things that are just intuitive. Did you know, that if you’re going 100 mph, directly at a very, very thick, reinforced concrete wall, and you speed up, so you’re accelerating right when you hit the wall that the accident you have is going to be much worse than if you’d jammed on the brakes as soon as you saw the wall at the end of the street? Did you know that? It’s exactly what everything you know and feel would tell you, and it’s exactly true. Most times when you’re driving, or playing with fire, or handling money, the thing that makes sense to you is also true.

I way hope we’re turning into a skid and not accelerating into a concrete wall.

Read the whole thing, it’s worth your time.

We’re accelerating into that wall, I suspect. Or rather, we are being accelerated into that wall by the lunatics at the wheel of the car. 

There’s a difference between what is happening now and what happened in past economic crises. During the Second World War, the country, the average people, sacrificed as a nation in order to finance fighting the war. Those sacrifices won the war and finally killed the Great Depression. This time, the madmen behind the wheel are telling people we can spend like maniacs while only making the rich pay for it all.

The madmen behind the wheel are spending our money, our children’s money, our grand children’s money – heck, I am not sure how many generations out this is now. There has never been anything like what is going on right now.

There’s a joke out there on the internet that says something to the effect: “When I die, I want to go peacefully in my sleep like my grandfather did. Not crying and screaming like the passengers in his car.”

There are an awful lot of folks sleeping right now. The wall is getting closer.