The lack of self awareness and sense of entitlement of these folks is just breathtaking:
AIG’s CEO Robert Benmosche — who came in to rescue the company after the 2008 financial crisis — told the Wall Street Journal that the outrage over the bonuses promised to AIG’s members was just as bad as when white supremacists in the American South used to lynch African Americans:
The uproar over bonuses “was intended to stir public anger, to get everybody out there with their pitchforks and their hangman nooses, and all that — sort of like what we did in the Deep South [decades ago]. And I think it was just as bad and just as wrong.”
Yes, enduring some public criticism for receiving multimillion-dollar bonuses after helping crash the global economy is a lot like being hanged from a tree by your neck until you die.
I just really loathe these people.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
It’s shameful. And certainly an argument for tumbrels.
Hunter Gathers
The beatings will continue until the capital gains tax rate reaches negative six billion percent.
Jewish Steel
Our 21st C Robespierre just cannot arrive too quickly.
amk
One was the reality while the other was … just a fantasy. You know how one can easily mix them up both.
jl
… which reminds me of Ted Cruz. I read a news piece about his stunt today, and not sure I understand. Cruz can’t hold a real filibuster under the rules, but he can take the floor and eat up all the GOP debate time? Is that it?
I guess he started his Cruzabuster a few minutes ago. Or maybe it should be called Cruzinforabruzin, buster.
Trinity
Wow. This is what hate feels like huh?
These people = suck.
clone12
And the same people who sagely nod at this analogy in approval are angered that black people play the race victim card by suggesting that racial profiling exists and is wrong.
pharniel
I’m pretty sure that’s as close to ‘let them eat cake’ as we’re likely to get.
Jebediah
If it’s just as bad and just as wrong, we might as well actually do it. One or two banksters swinging from lampposts on Wall Street would probably serve to focus the minds of the rest of them right quick.
The Red Pen
I’m pretty sure that lynching was when a mob of white people would deprive a black victim of his or her private jet. Some of the victims were forced to fly business class because first was full. It was a terrible, terrible crime.
amk
@Jebediah: why, do they have only two lamp posts in ws?
BC
Problem with the analogy is – these fuckers were using OUR money to pay those large bonuses. They tanked the global economy and instead of being in jail somewhere, they were giving themselves more of OUR money. Actually, if there were a case for lynching, I think it was more justifiable in 2008.
burnspbesq
Before you flog this guy, keep in mind that the U.S. Treasury and the New York Fed made a shit-load of money (over $22 billion, to be exact) on their investment in the bailout of AIG, and this guy was at the controls when that happened.
piratedan
I’m not sure…. maybe he has a point, maybe we should lynch them just to see if what he’s saying is true…..
jl
@burnspbesq: Thanks, that is true. Now it’s flog time.
Punchy
Am I misreading this, or do we have to go through all this Obamacare defunding bullshit all over again in only TWO months ?
Villago Delenda Est
I suggest we follow up on this asshole’s suggestion and string his worthless Ferengi ass up on a lamp post.
burnspbesq
@jl:
Whatever.
Thoroughly Pizzled
We could do that, Mr. Benmosche, if you insist.
Villago Delenda Est
@burnspbesq:
Fuck you, Ferengi enabling minion.
Tommy
I want to be careful how I say this. My father was a pretty much normal civil servant for the federal government. DoD. When his father passed away he became a very, very rich man. Needed to hire an accountant, lawyer, and financial analyst. Always a moderate Republican that thought taxes were too high.
Then after a few years he started to see how things for him were different then things for me. I was making more money then he’d ever made, but my 401K was taking daily hits, whereas he was making money. He kept getting richer and richer why I lost my job (dot.com thing) and was frankly getting poorer and poorer.
He’d be watching the news as the “too big to fail” banks failed and he came out the other end richer.
He came to understand, and honestly to a large extent myself as well, if you are really really rich, you never really lost money.
Mr. Longform
Another thing just as bad as lynching = that one time when AIG’s CEO Robert Benmosche had to send back his steak because it wasn’t cooked right. The suffering never ends. I hope they don’t make a documentary about it because I will just never be able to stop crying.
amk
@burnspbesq: So?
Elizabelle
The banksters and Wall Streeters live in a bubble.
Time to pop it.
OT: Ted Cruz is speaking in Senate now. Chyron:
He’s taken us from the Civil War to Nazis to LBJ to Ronald Reagan in the minute I’ve listened. I think it’s a “look who said it can’t be done” speech. He just got to Obamacare.
He’s talking about “those same voices in Washington.”
From the floor of the Senate. Uh huh.
He has sad hound dog eyes. But not as appealing as an actual canine.
Howard Beale IV
The worst part is that this felcher was handed the reins AFTER the whole house of cards collapsed.
He’s such a douche.
JGabriel
WaPo:
Yeah, right. I’ll believe that when I see right-wing CEOs and other assorted corporate malfeasants rotting and swinging in nooses tied to the boughs of trees in Central Park. (Oh, if only wishing could make it so!)
What a bunch of asshole drama queens.
.
scav
The princess is just reminding our menial selves how uncomfortable that pea is, even under 1000 count long-staple egyptian. It wasn’t even an organic pea! We menials just don’t have the nerve endings to appreciate the physical toil it takes to be forced to recline on such a thing.
Elizabelle
Cruz just noted that he’s speaking to an almost empty Senate floor.
Uh, Ted …. that’s supposed to be a secret. I wish C-Span would pan the chamber.
scav
@Villago Delenda Est: I second the empirical approach. He’s got a hypothesis and no doubt is ready and willing to prove it.
Elizabelle
Ted Cruz:
Yeah. And the fool who’s got the floor.
cleek
maybe he’s taking the side of the mob, not of the victims ?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
You say you wanna Revolution, well-
Twenty years ago, this man had a a number of federal judges operating as his rubber stamps, and if there wasn’t some connection between him and Ken Starr’s outfit, I’ll eat my hat
Starfish
Give Back? Yes, It’s Time For The 99% To Give Back To The 1% <- Can we get rid of this guy too?
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Elizabelle: Don’t you have better things to do than listen to him?
JGabriel
@Elizabelle:
I assume those are the same voices Cruz hears in his head.
Scotius
@burnspbesq:
So that means we don’t get to criticize AIG’s actions before the bailout for fear of being compared to a lynch mob? A lot of people lost their livelihoods and got dick all instead of bonuses and bailouts.
Tommy
@Elizabelle: My best friend lives in DC. Best man in his wedding. He graduated at the top of his law class at Michigan State University. Could have taken a job anywhere. Guess what he did, he went to the EPA as an enforcement lawyer. What he as done for 25 years. His sole job, make sure we have clean water to drink.
Since he took that job, and he is paid well, he has been offered tons more to move to a think tank or a company like Exxon. Won’t do it. So when I hear folks like Cruz slam the government, and my father worked for the government for 35 years, I want to puke and/or punch him in the face.
Rosalita
@burnspbesq:
It’s still a dick comparison to make
The Dangerman
@Punchy:
Two months? Optimist; more like 2 weeks. I think we get a CR by 10/1 (no shutdown), but there will be the shitstorm of all shitstorms over the debt limit in about 2 weeks.
chopper
“people just hate us because we’re
blackrich”yeah, that works just the same. i’d like to see a monument to all the rich guys who have been martyred in the name of almighty Mammon.
The Moar You Know
@burnspbesq: I’ll be sure to thank him for that as the crowd fights to have the honor of having their hands on the rope they hang his overpaid, crybaby ass with.
MomSense
Damn. Isn’t there a “jump motherfuckers” tag? Seems appropriate for this.
Elizabelle
@Comrade Scrutinizer:
You gots a point.
I wanted to see this Senator who strikes terror into Democratic hearts, and I am not seeing it.
I’m seeing obfuscation and hearing the word “Obamacare” over and over.
Don’t think of an elephant!!
Now crocodile tears for people who can’t get jobs because employers are afraid to have more than 50 employees.
It’s all Obamacare. (And it’s all the big lie.)
This from a Harvard-trained Senator married to a former Goldman Sachs investment banker.
Checked out Cruz’s bio — he’s spent maybe 7 years in the private sector. Everything else is government employment.
khead
@burnspbesq:
Gilligan could’ve been at the controls when that happened.
Trollhattan
@Tommy:
Buddy works in HR at a large mutual fund and how they structure compensation and separation packages is mind-boggling. Basically, the more you make the LARGER the multiplier when calculating bonuses and so, there’s essentially an income accelerator in play. e.g., someone in customer support might get a 30% of salary bonus while a trader might get an 80% of salary bonus. Separation packages are even more eye-popping (“Hey, I don’t even need to look for another job.”)
Not, of course, remotely considering the owners and officers, some of whom are billionaires.
shortstop
@Villago Delenda Est: I think it’s kinda creepy how people are always ending up dead or tortured in your comments. But in this case, carry on.
@Jebediah: Or this.
Elizabelle
@Tommy:
Best part is: check out Cruz’s bio. He’s mostly been a government employee himself!
Good on your friend.
Now Cruz has just called people who work in Washington people in bad suits with bad haircuts. Maybe he just meant Senators.
Why isn’t this guy more popular?
rikyrah
it’s the entitlement that gets me.
these muthafuckas damn near destroyed the GLOBAL economy…
and get offended when folks were like, well, ya know, maybe we ought to have RULES IN PLACE so that you assholes CAN’T DO IT AGAIN.
Emma
@burnspbesq: You know what? I’m usually on your side of almost any argument, but in this case… I don’t care if we made billions. I.DON’T/CARE. They are like murderers that were found innocent and instead of shutting the hell up and keeping under the radar, decided to walk out of the courthouse and boasted of their crime because the double-jeopardy rule applies.
To hell with all of them.
Comrade Dread
The charitable side of me would like to see these gentlemen sentenced to jail for the rest of their lives to be let out for 8 hours a day to perform community service in homeless shelters, soup kitchens, habitat for humanity, the Salvation Army, etc. and forced to interact with some of the people they hurt on a daily basis with no possibility for parole until they grow a sense of empathy and a conscience.
The less charitable side of me wishes that this jackhole really did have to fear roving mobs of angry peasants ready to hang him and his ilk from the nearest lightpost.
Trollhattan
@Elizabelle:
I don’t foresee Teddy boy ever being accepted on the national stage, what with the reedy, annoying voice and eminently punchable face, never mind what’s coming out of his yap..
shelly
But does anybody have to stay and listen to him? Beyond the stenographer.
shortstop
@rikyrah: Because they truly think they’re the hands on the steering wheel of the universe and just where would all of us ungrateful fucks be without them? They believe this. They do.
Elizabelle
@Trollhattan:
Yeah. This has been reassuring.
Back to my day. He really doesn’t have much to say. It’s just background noise …. blah blah Obamacare …. blah blah blah everyone hates Congress … blah blah blah.
chopper
@Elizabelle:
funny thing is that’s still way better than a lot of the teabagging assholes on capitol hill. shit, look at bachmann’s resume.
shortstop
@Trollhattan: His pursed lips alone will sink the deal.
pseudonymous in nc
From the TBogg archives.
Elizabelle
@shelly:
They really need to show the chamber.
We know it’s Ted Cruz, and his buddy Mike Lee of Utah asking him a question now …
and whoever’s sitting there presiding, and who else?
Lex
@piratedan: Hypothesis testing is always good. I’d be happy to write up the results for an academic journal.
scav
So, the default position for a stated few is that so long as somebody somewhere made money off the collapse (and there may have been a trickle-through all money is fungible doenchaknow!) then there’s no reason for anybody to object irregardless of the basis of the objection. Such is the power of the almighty specie. specious.
Jockey Full of Malbec
@burnspbesq:
Damn, we should let them crash the economy more often, then.
At $22 billion per crash, we’d have the national debt paid off after only ~760 crashes or so!
John O
@Trollhattan:
By all accounts Cruz is a very, very intelligent…asshole. Me thinks he’s going to win a LOT of primaries in 2016. The 27% are going to LOVE this guy.
chopper
@shelly:
of course he’s just going to stand and talk even while reid has the actual vote go on.
i guess you could call it a ‘canadian filibuster’.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
If I worked for Politico I’d tweet that this was a shot across teh bow of Rand Paul.
Elizabelle
Mike Lee is talking about how Obamacare passed without any Republican votes. He’s mentioned it several times.
I’d clip that for a Democratic campaign ad.
With friends like this! …
chopper
@John O:
which is great. if cruz wants to make himself the candidate of the wacko right-wing assholes, go on ahead. worked great for the d-bags on the podium in 2012, dinnit?
Ash Can
@Elizabelle:
Typical Republican: constant projection.
Tommy
@Elizabelle: Well I tuned in to Cruz cause you mentioned he was on C-SPAN.
A few minutes ago he ranted about the single mother losing hours cause of Obamacare, who didn’t have insurance.
I screamed at the TV what about that women. Maybe she’d like daycare for her child. Maybe she might want to get some birth control. Or a mammogram. The list could go on and on.
Don’t try to pull on my heart strings that a soulless company would rather cut her hours then offer her basic health care.
IowaOldLady
I was just over at the Maddow blog where Steve Benen has listed the demands the House Republicans plan to make to raise the debt ceiling. No pony but pretty much everything else. I hope Obama holds firm on his vow not to negotiate but I can see all hell breaking loose over this.
John O
@chopper:
The man is such a dick with power he frightens me. Never underestimate the intelligence of the American people. Most of the Republicans I know would vote for Satan himself as long as there was an (R) after his name.
Elizabelle
@Tommy:
It is an alternate planet.
gbear
@burnspbesq: And all those people who lost their jobs and their homes when all the money disappeared – they’ve gotten everything they lost back too, so it’s all cool.
cathyx
Being chastised because your gave yourself a bonus with money you got for free from the government after crashing the economy and hurting millions of people is the same as being chastised for being a black person and doing nothing wrong to anyone.
burnspbesq
@Villago Delenda Est:
Fuck you right back, Mr. I’m-So-Blinded-By-Irrational-Rage-That-I-Can’t-Deal-With-Facts-That-Don’t-Fit-My-Narrative.
Ash Can
@Emma: Burnspbesq is to us like Ted Cruz is to his fellow Republicans. He makes a lot of good points, but sooner or later he alienates everybody.
chopper
@Elizabelle:
“and they look like mccarthy! and are idiots!”
burnspbesq
@Scotius:
Where did I say that? “Before you flog this guy” is not the same as “don’t flog this guy,” and if I had meant “don’t flog this guy,” I would have said that.
Criticize away, but isn’t it better to criticize the people who are actually responsible? Or would accuracy detract from the good feeling you get from ranting?
Tommy
@Elizabelle: Years ago my brother married into a “tea party” family. It was 2007. Obama was clearly running for POTUS. We live in IL. I recall my brother’s wife’s father saying Obama was a Muslim. He wasn’t an American. He was a communist.
Now my parents and my brother are moderate Republicans. I can let a lot of stuff pass with family.
My father could see me about to hop down this guys throat, put his hand on my arm and said, “I got this.”
In a polite manner he dressed that man down. Told him he was shit all stupid.
As you said:
I say this all cause I don’t know how to debate or have a construction conversation with these folks.
? Martin
@burnspbesq:
That’s fine and all, but was he not well compensated for that?
Dude made $14M, and with a different tone he could paint himself the hero to a nation here, but instead he prefers to be the victim of an unjust system because he didn’t make $20M. Fuck him.
Linnaeus
@burnspbesq:
His analogy is still bullshit. The outrage directed at executive bonuses in the wake of the economic crisis – whether deserved or undeserved – comes nowhere close to the violence done to African-Americans in the Jim Crow South (and elsewhere).
Another Holocene Human
OT, speaking of assholes, has anybody been following this?
http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/08/27/underbelly-us-adoption-industry-trafficking-native-children-151006
I went to fark.com to blow off some steam. They said baby Veronica was sent to the SC couple and there is no enforcement of visitation for the father. What followed was a bunch of racist drivel in the comments like “Veronica’s only 3% NA” (tribal identity doesn’t go by blood quantum, but keep digging dipshits) so I went to Indian Country to get their take on it and found the article above.
This shit is so sick and disgusting. Interestingly, Indian Country called out John Roberts. Now that I think about it, he got his kids in an international adoption.
These kinds of interethnic adoptions are very problematic. Rosie O’Donnell was right. What about children’s rights? Don’t they have the right to their own heritage? Their own medical records? Their extended family? Why should children be trafficked across state lines and lied to? Why are children adopted and then “re-placed”? Why is that legal?
I feel ill.
cckids
@pseudonymous in nc: Never, for the rest of my lifetime, will that picture not make me smile while remembering the rage.
bemused
Why would these people care what the 99% think of them when they still get pretty much everything they want? The only thing I can think of that is missing from those lives they think they so richly deserve is not just respect but worship from the minions. They are truly pathetic.
Elizabelle
@Tommy:
Do you try to debate people in Italian? Same problem. No common language, and not even commonly accepted reality (with the Teabaggers; Italians have health care and know how to live, although they have even loopier presidents, eg. Berlusconi.)
So you say: Nice weather we’ve been having. Did you get new drapes yet?
Here’s Frances Mayes on Italian healthcare: apparently, it puts ours to shame.
http://www.francesmayesbooks.com/2013/01/14/a-personal-experience-of-italian-health-care/
scav
@burnspbesq: Your facts may have nothing whatsoever to do with fucking narrative, especially as you don’t get to choose the one and only fucking narrative. We get it. His basic position has your seal of approval, and so long as the govt received any fiscal renumeration, everyone everywhere has to STFU with the pieces of silver stuffed down our throats.
Scotius
@burnspbesq:
Fuck you. That piece of shit compared himself to blacks who were being lynched. How’s that for accuracy?
? Martin
Something for Tom to FP:
piratedan
Burnsie makes his point and it’s a good point, this guy did a great job of making AIG profitable when the GOP had certain folks saying, let it all burn down and we’ll play amongst the ashes….. But the ONLY way that he got to make AIG profitable is with our TAX DOLLARS and I’d like to believe that he was still handsomely compensated for it.
The issue here isn’t that this gentleman doesn’t know how to make a company profitable… the issue here is the acute lack of tone deafness and appreciation for the reality at hand. I’m sure that these “gentleman” have been reading how the 1% has recovered but the middle class, not so much and even in this era of retrenchment it’s extremely poor fucking form to be squealing about the lack of appreciation for a job well done.
It goes like this…:
Do you have a job that pays you well above 100K a year?
If yes, then shut the fuck up, tyvm, the rest of the country isn’t interested/concerned hearing about how hard it is for you.
Tommy
@Elizabelle: Exactly.
I throw in “how about those Cardinals” cause we live just outside St. Louis.
Can’t have a productive conversation with them, and I love my brother, and I know when I push, well he hears about it. Not something I want.
Now I know it won’t surprise anybody here, but that person I mentioned gets Social Security, Medicare, and worked at a freaking government contractor.
MikeInSewickley
The quote I always use when people start to ask about these heartless bastards was from the late 1800’s by Jay Gould. I think there was some union organizing or protests that were impacting some of the railroads he owned. He said “I can always hire half the poor to kill the other half”.
These sonsabitches keep poking the huge bear called the 99% and they’re gonna need a space station like in the movie “Elysium” to keep from being hung from lamp posts and burned alive.
This is not capitalism by any stretch of the imagination…
scav
@piratedan: I’d say he can say it, but there’s no damn way he can expect to be anything but mocked to smithereens of atomised protoplasm on the strength of it. He’s not a above-all-criticism hero for doing the job he was hired to do and well-compensated for.
henrythefifth
@Tommy:
Yeah, my friend married into a wealthy family and his father in law told him that all your really need to stay wealthy is $10 million. After that, you’re set for life on living off interest and your investments will earn you even more. Just $10 million is all it takes!
? Martin
Yay! Cruz is comparing his fellow Republicans to Nazi sympathizers on the Senate floor:
Moar please.
piratedan
@scav: no argument from me scav, these guys (Wall Street CEO’s) should really learn to stfu, they’re incredibly out of touch with real people and real issues.
Gravenstone
@John O:
Corrected that for ya.
John O
@Gravenstone:
Ah, thanks. I’m actually watching Cruz talk, and it’s clearly making me more stupid. Sheesh.
GregB
Complaining about Benmosche’s tone deaf whining is worse than the Holocaust.
Leave AIG alone!
Scotius
A commenter over at Salon points out that this same fine fellow thinks the retirement aga should be raised to 80.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-03/aig-chief-sees-retirement-age-as-high-as-80-after-crisis.html
Chris
@bemused:
It’s that moment from Django Unchained when the bad guy brings everything to a boil because it’s not enough that he just won, it’s not enough that he just got himself a great deal for a slave… nope, he’s gotta have a handshake too. And it’s not like he even respects the guy he wants a handshake from, or cares about him, or will ever give him a second thought for the rest of his life… but he still wants his handshake. It’s the principle of the thing. Respect my authoritah.
El Cid
They fear the fate they think they should be facing, but convince themselves that others are the ones threatening them with their own nightmares.
pseudonymous in nc
And also via TBogg, the champagne balcony gang trolling OWS.
And did I mishear, or is Joe McCruz going to speak until nobody can stand him?
Chris
@? Martin:
That’s probably the most unintentionally accurate comparison Cruz will ever make in his life.
The Dangerman
@? Martin:
Wow. Where’d the fuck he go to school?
Actually, I know he’s an Ivy Leaguer and knows better, but I guess historical facts don’t fit his narrative.
MikeInSewickley
@? Martin: Now I know why tigers eat their young – :-)
Tommy
@henrythefifth: That is like the EXACT amount my parents got in 1998. Now they live a very frugal lifestyle, but interest alone is enough. And their stock and other investments, almost doubled since then.
It just opened my father’s eyes that there were “two Americans.”
Now dad helps me out. I use his accountant, and since I work for myself he gets me legal tax breaks I never would have known about. I can use his lawyer for this or that. And his UBS/Paine Webber guy helps with my two 401Ks.
All for free, cause well my dad spends a ton of money with each.
Just that little help is a HUGE help. And what so many folks don’t have.
This all just makes me sick to my stomach!
Gravenstone
@? Martin: So, just axe the comments wholesale? No attempt at moderating the comment section to convert it to the digital equivalent of the “letters to the editer”? With the latter, you still get the cranks through, but those now come with the imprimatur of the management, typically under the guise of “promoting a robust debate”.
? Martin
@The Dangerman:
I get the impression he felt he was smarter than his Princeton and Harvard professors. That’s not unheard of.
Chris
@The Dangerman:
Also, the “let’s appease them” phase only came after about a decade of the “let’s support them; they may be genocidal maniacs, but they’re beating the shit out of the communists, and the unions, and the socialist parties, and those irritating intellectuals always asking questions, and even that entire unwieldy system “democracy” that requires us to constantly seek the peons’ approval, and he’s making religion and capital immune from these things – what more could you want in a hired thug?” phase.
Gin & Tonic
@? Martin: Um, like, say, the America First Committee? Didn’t they teach US history at Harvard when Rafael went there?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@henrythefifth: Reminds me of what Andrew Carnegie is alleged to have said when JP Morgan left behind a fortune of $76 million, about a billion in today’s dollars, “And to think he wasn’t even a wealthy man!” Some say that, if Carnegie said it, it was robber baron snark.
Rafer Janders
@burnspbesq:
He’s actually responsible for what he said, you self-righteous moron. He’s being criticized not for being in charge of AIG, but for comparing (i) saying mean things about millionaires’ bonuses to (ii) the torture-murder of blacks in the South by Klan terrorists. Benmosche is being castigated FOR WHAT CAME OUT OF HIS MOUTH, not for his job performance.
? Martin
@Gravenstone: They used to have LTE in the magazine, so I’m assuming they still do.
negative 1
@burnspbesq: The reason your comment still doesn’t excuse Benmosche’s argument is because he already got a better deal from the government than anyone else gets. How many people get the government to swoop in and save their jobs when they’re going under? Not very many (not none, though, I concede). There’s nothing to say that any number of firms couldn’t have paid back a loan from the government in a timely manner, it’s just that they never get the chance, and AIG did. What’s more, he paid back the bonuses before paying back the loan. Even private equity firms would be incensed by that.
Elizabelle
@? Martin:
I hope they don’t have a drinking game going on in Harry Reid’s office, because ambulances will be needed soon.
Gin & Tonic
@Gin & Tonic: Sorry, Princeton.
Tommy
@henrythefifth: I want to note something else here I am not sure most people understand.
You often hear the rich rant about the estate tax. If you hear a rich, or very rich person say the estate tax isn’t fair you should laugh at them. Mock them.
I have what my family calls a “last to die” insurance policy. As the oldest of two sons I get the quarterly paperwork.
This is something you can actually buy. A real thing, not some tax loophole. A policy that ensures, when my parents pass away, it will pay/cover the taxes on the money, property, investments, you name it that is given to me and my brother.
I can only assume folks far more rich then my parents, $100M or a $1B have the same thing.
Those folks are not paying a penny in estate taxes directly.
Rafer Janders
@? Martin:
I went to school with Ted, and he did, indeed, feel that.
He was wrong.
cmorenc
@BC:
It’s not merely that, but a huge portion of the AIG bonuses in particular were rewards specifically relating to each employee’s respective success in closing the exact sort of speculative, highly leveraged transactions that resulted in AIG becoming insolvent. It’s not like they were promises to reward the company’s janitors for keeping the company’s trading floor so clean and neat, or their secretaries for efficiently typing up documents. The bonuses were for the people who made the transactions that sunk the company insolvent.
The Dangerman
@? Martin:
I will give him this – his shenanigans have probably made him the Republican frontrunner for 2016. He’ll get his clock cleaned by whomever the Dem’s nominate, of course.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@? Martin: You saw this floating around about his view of the “lesser Ivies”? He would only allow alumni of Princeton, Harvard and Yale in his study group. Dartmouth? Cornell? Might as well be community colleges!
IowaOldLady
@The Dangerman: Cruz is just a shiny object. By the time primaries and very entertaining R debates roll around, he’ll be passe. My money is still on Chris Christie.
max
@burnspbesq: Before you flog this guy, keep in mind that the U.S. Treasury and the New York Fed made a shit-load of money (over $22 billion, to be exact) on their investment in the bailout of AIG, and this guy was at the controls when that happened.
And if the Treasury had liquidated the shareholders and taken the company over they would have made even more money selling AIG off, and this guy wouldn’t have gotten anything. Or they could have cleaved out the FP units in exchange for shares would have had the same effect.
The policy at the time was organized such that the first in line to be protected were not shareholders or taxpayers or the American people, but management of financial companies, which is why we have this right now and why we will have another panic.
max
[‘Responsibility and shared sacrifice are for little people.’]
Tommy
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Early in my professional life I often felt I was the smartest person in the room. I was not. It is my experience when you find out you are in fact not the smartest person in the room it is best to realize and admit it. Not a fun thing to do, but better then not realizing it. If you don’t realize it, well bad things happen. But that is just my experience.
Elizabelle
Jonah Goldberg has a column up that the Los Angeles Times has headlined: Ted Cruz: The GOP’s Obama
And therein lies their problem.
Didn’t click on the link.
(So I will never know if Jonah was demanding to see a birth certificate …)
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
So let me see if I have this straight.
1) Robert Benmosche said that the rhetoric coming at him feels comparable to what happened to African-Americans because it betrays a desire to lynch him.
2) John Cole says that this is a ridiculous comparison that misrepresents what is going on to the point that it is offensive.
3) A bunch of Cole’s commenters say that, no, Benmosche has it right. We DO want to lynch him.
Whatever. Can I just say that I take position #2 and that a lot of you are being stupid?
Davis X. Machina
@IowaOldLady: Or Scott Walker. Or some other governor,
Not Southern.
Not an overt theocrat.
Not associated with the present Congressional party — it’ll be toxic by late 2014/early 2015 when the invisible primary starts.
It’s too bad that Romney was such a douchenozzle, because he fit the profile of what the GOP need to win in a general election.
Too many of the present field are running for the presidency of the Confederacy.
The Dangerman
@IowaOldLady:
I thought so, too, but the base hates him because of Sandy; the base also hated McCain and Romney and won’t accept a third consecutive “squish”.
Davis X. Machina
@The Dangerman: Anyone the base likes will lose by Alf-Landonesque proportions. That’s the dilemma they face. There aren’t enough insane people.
IowaOldLady
@The Dangerman: Romney showed himself to be just a horrible person. Plus, whatever the opposite of “charismatic” is, he was.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I don’t know. It almost worked with Bobby Jindal, Allen West, Herman Cain, Marco Rubio and Ben Carson! Next up: Mia Love.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@negative 1:
I’m not sure what this has to do with Robert Benmosche. He had never worked for AIG prior to 2009 when he was hired to turn it around. He had been the CEO of Metropolitan Life before retiring in 2006.
? Martin
@The Dangerman:
Depends on the nominee. He can get away with the asshole thing against someone like Kerry. Nobody really feels protective of Kerry personally or collectively. That’d be different with Obama or Hillary where the asshole behavior will backfire – in part because of our biases, and in part because he’ll go too far. Hell, he just godwinned his colleagues.
John O
If Cruz were somehow able to secure the nomination, the GOP would have effectively gone two in a row in nominating a fundamental essence of their party: The first a plutocrats dream, the second a pure unadulterated asshole.
Cacti
@IowaOldLady:
Cruz has a squeaky voice. His type of mean is also smarmy nerd-mean. That won’t sell in the macho party.
Christie has the blustering, schoolyard bully presence that they dream of. For the wingers, it’s almost not worth winning if you can’t be an obnoxious asshole too.
The Dangerman
@? Martin:
Also depends on 2014; if the Republicans keep the House or take the Senate, by 2016 the Republican Brand will be as welcomed as Ted Bundy in a Sorority.
hoodie
@? Martin: What that tells you is that Cruz is simply using this event as a bid to be the next Messiah of the Teabag. Only the 27% would buy that analogy and Cruz damn well knows it’s complete bullshit. Cruz knows he’s going down in flames on this defund Obamacare thing, but he sees this as an opportunity to outmaneuver Rand Paul and other contenders with the loony base, and he figures he can build out from that by intimidation of the chickenshits in the GOP leadership that let him have this stage. He knows they’re afraid of that base by the very fact that they let this stupid bill get through the House even though they knew it was DOA in the Senate.
You have to hope this kills the GOP in the long term, but guys like Cruz are always a bit scary in a country with so many ignorant and resentful people.
scav
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): The actual physical absense of concrete strange fruit swinging on the trees of Central Park might illustrate some of the problems with your spin of nuance in point one. Or, they really are such princesses that rhetorical peas are as troublesome to their rest as physical peas used to be in more robust and rowdy once-upon-a-times. Granted, he may very well not be getting the universal admiration he feels his due and chooses to complain about it. His choice of compasison is nonsensical and illuminating.
negative 1
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): It has to do with Burns’ commentary that we should take into account the subsequent performance of AIG before saying that we do in fact think that he’s an asshat. I am saying that the subsequent performance is irrelevant, AIG got a special deal and the first thing they did was use it to pay obscene bonuses, and that people are ticked off at that fact because they feel AIG got a special deal. That AIG was able to pay back his loan, with interest, is irrelevant because the compensation would have gone from taxpayers into people’s pockets regardless of subsequent events. That is to say, even if they had gone out of business in a year, defaulting on the government loan, they would not have given back the bonuses.
FWIW I understand that the original post was more about his choice of hyperbole than the statement underlying it. I am also attacking the statement underlying it.
? Martin
@Cacti: I really want to see a Christie/Cruz/Gingrich matchup in the 2016 primary.
Elizabelle
While these seem like parallel conversations (the AIG lynch mob victim, and esteemed Senator Ted Cruz bloviating), they’re the same problem.
The banksters and big business are getting away with financial market murder (and calling themselves the “victims”) because Congress is bought and paid for and we get Republican senators addressing empty chambers, promising to save poor constituents and struggling business owners from affordable healthcare.
People don’t have enough jobs — or good enough ones — and Republicans want to blame it on the spectre of Obamacare.
The plutocrats have gamed the system, and they’re mad they don’t get affection and respect and appreciation for their hard work as well.
The Django Unchained analogy is apt.
Patrick
@burnspbesq:
So???
Why doesn’t every company and individual in the US then get the same benefit as AIG, ie a loan when we badly need it? People/companies lost their fricking homes/went bankrupt and didn’t get the same huge break as AIG did.
It is shameful to hear AIG now complain…
Trollhattan
@The Dangerman:
I fthe Republicans take over congress in ’14 there won’t be a country left to govern by ’16.
Just sayin’.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@? Martin: I think between them Christie and Cruz take all the sneering arrogant dumb-peron’s-idea-of-a-smart-person vote from Newtie, but throw Rand Paul and Rick Santorum in the mix? And Peter King? Maybe Marsha Blackburn? I’ve been waiting for a real crab pot for years
Tommy
@The Dangerman: Agreed. But they will be more mad and out-of-control (kind of hard to consider) in 2016. On the liberal side I don’t dislike Hillary, but alas I am not a raving fan. But she won’t take any bullshit and can stand up to the attacks that will be sent her way. Honestly, I would not fuck with that women.
I do what Republicans don’t. I often vote for the person I think can win, not that I like and/or agree with most. You can fault me for this, but I don’t want to be that far left hippie/liberal that votes for folks that can never win an election.
Baby steps …..
Elizabelle
@Trollhattan:
Yeah.
And what a tragedy to have literally a transformative President, even more shackled.
This is opportunity lost. Time lost.
Bobby Thomson
Yeah but Al Gore has a big house and the president flies in a big plane so both sides do it.
Cheryl from Maryland
@Punchy: Ugh. That’s what happened in 1995 – funding through November 15, three day shutdown, funding through December 15, 21 day shutdown. The House is generally on vacation in November and December– the resolution should be through January 15, 2014 at least.
GregB
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Ted Cruz, the GOP’s Obama!
Does Doughy mean an un-American Manchurian candidate fostered and weaned by foreign powers bent on destroying America.
celticdragonchick
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
You know…some part of me wants to dispense with the metaphorical pitchforks and get right down to brass tacks
Seeing a couple dozen of these bastards lined up against a bullet pocked wall.
Patrick
@Bobby Thomson:
Plus Benghazzzi!!!
IowaOldLady
@Tommy: I know this sounds parochial, but I want to see a woman president before I die. I want to see someone who looks like me in the WH.
Not enough to vote for someone like Palin, of course. But someone like Hillary? Yes indeed.
? Martin
@Cheryl from Maryland: The debt limit needs to be dealt with between before Nov 15. If we can get through that, we can probably get through the budget okay.
MikeJ
@Elizabelle:
And if you have a good suit and good haircut, political opponents will try to make it an issue.
The Other Chuck
@pseudonymous in nc: I thought it had been pretty well established that the champagne balcony folks were a wedding reception. Of entitled bluebloods no doubt, but they’re entitled to merriment for the occasion still.
Patrick
@IowaOldLady:
I want her in as well. I just hope she runs. I donated a small sum to a PAC supporting her. If they raise enough money, maybe that will convince her to run.
https://www.readyforhillary.com/contribute
KRK
@Tommy:
Your friend sounds great. But as a proud Spartan I have to observe that MSU didn’t have a law school 25 years ago.
Tommy
@IowaOldLady: There is a III at the end of my name. Single male children for three generations. My brother and I, the fourth. But we seem to like to marry strong and smart women. So with that said, I’d love a female POTUS. At least in my family we males tend to listen to what the women say. I mean I am 44 and I ask my mom for advice before my dad :). Kind of like to see how that works out in the White House.
MikeJ
@Patrick:
Many (large) companies did, and they did because AIG got bailed out. AIG was an insurance company. When they couldn’t pay off their bets, the people they owed money too were the ones who were hurt. Allowing AIG to pay off their bets wasn’t done to help AIG, it was done to help the people they owed.
This guy is still a dick though.
Violet
@Patrick: One of my neighbors, a gay white man, has a “Ready for Hillary” bumper sticker on his vehicle.
Mnemosyne
I think the best response to this was on “Sports Night”:
Isaac: Danny?
Dan Rydell: Yeah?
Isaac: You know I love you, don’t you?
Dan Rydell: Yeah.
Isaac: And because I love you I can say this: no rich young white guy has ever gotten anywhere with me comparing himself to Rosa Parks. Got it?
Dan Rydell: Yes sir.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@scav: Okay. But you have forfeited any right to complain about violent rhetorical excess on the other side. If it’s okay for you to scream about wanting lynchings without being serious, don’t blame anyone on the other side when they talk about killing someone without actually meaning it.
Tommy
@KRK: Doing math in my head. He is 45. So maybe 22 years ago?
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@celticdragonchick: And there are some people who do a really good job of presenting their arguments as if they are serious and really do want to lynch people.
celticdragonchick
@Another Holocene Human:
the adoption had been legally made after both biological parents had surrendered custody.
The father, who had never had contact with the Cherokee nation from what I understand, challenged the adoption after the fact (and after he had surrendered his custodial rights) about 4 months later and brought the Cherokee ethnicity issue up.
Sorry, but I dislike this kind of thing after you have already consented to a course of action, and especially after the adoptive parents have bonded with the child. I agree with returning her to the adoptive parents. If he wanted the girl, he should never have let her go to begin with.
Patrick
@MikeJ:
Bear Stearns didn’t. Lehman brothers didn’t. They also had thousands of stakeholders that got hurt when they didn’t get AIG type bailout. I worked for a company in 2008 that had to declare bankruptcy in 2009. This company didn’t get a bailout. And the company I worked for was no different than thousands of other companies that also declared bankruptcy. And they also had stakeholders that got hurt.
Patrick
@Violet:
Awesome. Hopefully we will see more of them.
Cacti
Looks like Raphael Cruz has moved on to making shit up.
He just told an anecdote of a White Castle franchise owner who has been decimated by Obamacare.
Reality: White Castle is a privately held company and has never franchised.
themann1086
@shelly: I’m sure CNN is the only one required to stay *rimshot*
scav
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): Well, I do try to not get overly excited about the simple rhetoric per se, but can generally be counted upon to get chargingly maddened by their duplicity and incoherency when they complain about behaviors they participate in. Oh, and exhortations to violence by official corporate entities in official venues and outlets is slightly different than comments in a blog. But that last may just be poor little imperfect impure me.
Eric U.
IIRC, the AIG guy has been complaining that the government made too much money off of saving AIG
KRK
@Tommy:
There was no MSU law school until 2004. Before that it was the Detroit College of Law. The reason it sticks with me is the story I always heard as an MSU student way back when that University of Michigan alumni worked behind the scenes to prevent MSU from ever getting a law school. Glad they ultimately failed. Go Green.
scav
@scav: I am rather amusing myself now with visions of a ‘Merca where the death penalty is now someone shouting “You Should Be Dead!” at convicted felons because they’re totally equivalent things. Well, that and the underwear ads that are now showing up on the site.
Mandalay
@burnspbesq:
This is factually true, but so is this:
AIG may be over the worst, but the government and the Fed trust Benmosche as far as they can throw him.
Elizabelle
Senator Ted Cruz (R-Insania)
When Obamacare collapses, it is going to take our whole healthcare system down with it.
You have his word on this.
If he tells us when the aliens are to land, I will pass that along too.
Richard Fox
The only prospective candidate for President on the Republican side worth considering is John Boehner. And ONLY because he is the orange.
Diversity isn’t just for Democrats.. Boehner 2016!
The Moar You Know
@Eric U.: He did. I guess a simple “thank you” to the American taxpayer was just too much for him to stomach.
Trollhattan
@Mandalay:
An action we’re all in support of. I’m here at the ready, with a really long measuring tape.
cckids
@Tommy:
This. My spouse does tax & estate planning (mostly for normal people), and he always says that unless you have serious money, you are only paying the estate tax if: a) you want to/feel you owe it to society, or b) you are too stupid or cheap to hire someone like him. There are just SO MANY ways to get around it.
Judge Crater
Cole, you need to post this George Carlin YouTube video again. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acLW1vFO-2Q
The one about the American Dream. Says it all. Our current plutocracy, like every plutocracy before it, will never say “enough”. They will take and take and take. Endlessly.
Mike in NC
Cruz is the new Gingrich; stupid person’s idea of a smart person.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@The Moar You Know: Again, “the AIG guy” had never worked for the company prior to 2009. He was happily retired and was not in any way bailed out by the U.S. government. He was hired to do a job and all of the available evidence suggests that he did it well.
That doesn’t change the fact that the comments he made that prompted the post were ridiculous and offensive. I also have no sympathy for him over any feelings he might have about not being properly compensated. But Robert Benmosche is categorically NOT one of the people who caused the financial crisis. He’d been retired for two years when the crisis hit and the company he ran previously, Met Life, never applied for any bailout funds.
What has been demonstrated over and over in this thread is that the commenters not only have no idea who is and isn’t responsible for causing the crisis but that they have no interest in trying to figure out who is responsible. Basically, anyone that has run a financial company at any point and with any outcome is equally guilty.
And you wonder why they feel paranoid?
cckids
@? Martin:
If you just throw in Trump, the combined weight of gasbaggery & meanness might create a black hole.
The Moar You Know
@? Martin: I don’t say this lightly. Thank God. There are sites like this for people who want to indulge in discussion. For most sites, comment sections are a cheap stunt to boost click counts, but they absolutely destroy the legitimacy of well-researched articles by elevating the (stupid, ill-informed and insane) comments to the same visual level and importance as the article itself. Every news org on the planet should follow suit.
I’ll bookmark PopSci and read it every day, even though they are not one of my favorites. I believe in what they’re doing very strongly.
Shortstop
@Rafer Janders: Hold the phone there, friend. You can just hit and run like that. We demand tasty stories.
greenergood
I just ‘love’ Thanksgiving dinner with my hedge fund managing brother, and his undeniably gorgeous wife and children and their house w/ 7 bedrooms/7 bathrooms/wine cellar/gym, 4-car garage with apartment on top, half-olympic-size pool, 3 range rovers, and a $35,000 oven where they heat up the kids’ chicken mcnuggets, because the grown-ups don’t eat anything but take-out pizza and sushi. It’s like visiting an alien, who believes that Obama is a nazi, fascist, and a communist all at the same time. And when I asked him if he could distinguish between these three labels said, ‘No – he’s all three’. So, like I say, Turkey Day is a pile of fun and Robert Benmosche is probably my brother’s idea of a personal hero. (Sigh. Rant over …)
danielx
Always with the class warfare schtick….the wail of the 1%. Although the article at the link is a little dated; it was written in 2009 and I haven’t noticed that Wall Street has lost any privileges – those folks are still pissing and moaning about how you just can’t live in New York on less tham $250,000 a year. Their fee-fees are hurt and they feel unappreciated.
From a history of the Jacquerie in 1358…
The account of the rising by the contemporary chronicler Jean le Bel includes a description of horrifying violence. According to him, peasants
“killed a knight, put him on a spit, and roasted him with his wife and children looking on. After ten or twelve of them raped the lady, they wished to force feed them the roasted flesh of their father and husband and made them then die by a miserable death.”
Now that was class warfare.
Trollhattan
@greenergood:
Ugh.
Do they count the silver after you’ve gone?
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Mandalay:
Or maybe Dodd-Frank established enough auditing rules for important financial companies that it requires eight full time employees to supervise AIG. It’s not a matter of not trusting any individual or company. It is a matter of having systems in place to do auditing. It doesn’t need to be personalized.
cckids
@celticdragonchick:
I agree completely. My mother died when I was 1; while my dad disengaged from the Air Force & found another job, my 2 older siblings (they were 2 & 3), and I lived with our paternal grandparents. Dad went back to school for some training, was still with us on weekends, 2 years later he remarried & we all started living together 24/7 as a family again. I was 3, and it still (55 years later) stands pretty high in my memory as just awful. Not that Dad & my stepmom were not great, but we had all bonded with my grandparents as well, parents, and changing back was horrible. At 3 years old, I ran away from home more than once, and would regularly lock myself in the bathroom & cry for ages.
Taking a child away from the home they know, just because you changed your mind, is completely selfish. Have another kid. Stop being an ass & try to work out a way you can be in the girl’s life without putting a toddler through hell. And stop telling yourself that the child won’t remember it. Unless she is an infant, yes she will.
Mnemosyne
@Another Holocene Human:
Because of this woman. Seriously, 90 percent of the abuses of American adoptions can be traced to one unethical and very influential woman who got the laws changed to her liking in multiple states.
WereBear
But they do mean it. What was the Zimmerman case all about?
JustRuss
Almost as good as the money quote is what Benmoche said just before:
Won’t someone think of the young millionaires who can’t make it on few hundred K a year? I still don’t get it. Back when I was in the private sector, my very meager bonus was directly tied to the profit we earned. No profits, no bonuses. Why anyone at a company that’s dropping through the floor would expect a bonus is beyond me.
Mandalay
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
Do you know of any other companies that need eight employees from the Federal Reserve full time on site to “supervise” them? And also, too….
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324807704579087360260812026.html#articleTabs%3Darticle
Is that the fault of Dodd-Frank as well?
greenergood
@Trollhattan: No, they regard me as a kind of ‘family peasant’, i.e. not bleh, and thus trustworthy, plus spend all of November at Mom’s when I visit from the socialist paradise of the UK, where we’re still struggling to hang on to decent health-care, ’cause all these multi-national US companies are eager to get their mitts on us.
Tehanu
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
“Benmosche has it right. We DO want to lynch him.”
No, we don’t. We want to try him and all his cohorts in a court of law with defense lawyers and judges and prosecutors and bailiffs and a jury that isn’t composed of idiots, assuming such a thing is possible in this day and age, find him and the rest of them as guilty as we already know they are, and THEN hang them all from lampposts, draw and quarter them, and have the pieces arrested.
cvstoner
@burnspbesq: Not sure it was worth ruining millions of lives…
Patrick
@JustRuss:
Amen. His logic escapes me. My last company didn’t make a profit in their last year. Thus no bonuses eventhough there were several that deserved it. Unfortunately they didn’t have as big of a megaphone as the CEO of AIG does.
Furthermore, nobody is irreplaceable. If these folks decide to leave, there are always somebody else willing to take their place.
different-church-lady
Seems like we’re missing a prime opportunity to prove the guy right.
ruemara
@Tommy: Is your father in the market for very nice spare daughter? Because he should be. I know one available for cheap.
Seriously, good on him for not letting money cloud his eyes and his heart.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Mandalay:
Off the top of my head I have no idea how many employees the Fed has at any particular company. It wouldn’t surprise me if there are a number of them with at least eight. Auditing is very labor intensive and it is very common for auditors to have employees on site at major clients.
I wouldn’t describe it as “fault” because I’m very much in favor of it, but, no. That has nothing to do with federal regulations. Instead, it is because of NY state regulations on how insurance companies manage risk. Again, it’s systemic, not personal.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Tehanu:
Thank you for making my point. Again, Benmosche had nothing to do with AIG being in trouble in the first place.
workworkwork
@IowaOldLady:
Terry Pratchett had a word for that – charisn’tma
Mandalay
Heh…the disgusting pigfucker must have read Cole’s rant….
A typical mealy-mouthed non-apology from the rich and powerful.
different-church-lady
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): I didn’t want to lynch him until after he made statement #1. Capiche?
Gwangung
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): uh, dude, no.
The point is that if these idiots think they’re being lynched, then we should oblige them. Totally.
Ruckus
@burnspbesq:
And not a motherfucking cent of that money got any where close enough to keep me from losing my business and everything I had invested to start it. And I was no where near the only person that happened to.
And none of that 22 billion should mean that our financial betters shouldn’t be hanging from lampposts for fucking up in the first place.
Or, how much better off would we be if we hadn’t had that opportunity to make 22 billion? I’m thinking a fuckton.
So, a hardy fuck you for even just sounding like you are on their side.
Ruckus
@John O:
Don’t you mean overestimate the intelligence of the public at large?
Ruckus
@Rafer Janders:
He was wrong.
Ah, Rafer, the master of understatement.
Beckya57
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): more like an argument for a firing squad if you ask me–preceded by torture of course.
njb
We’ve never tried eating the rich. It might be worth a shot.
njb
We’ve never tried eating the rich. It might be worth a shot.
Ruckus
@njb:
They taste like organic dog shit.
Ruckus
@Beckya57:
Hanging.
That sound when the trap under your feet unlocks and starts to fall away… You hear that and then you feel it. A firing squad is quick. With a firing squad you are likely dead before you hear the shot if they aim for the head. Not long after if the heart.
And the fact that many don’t die right away when hung. It may take several minutes to become less lifelike.
Just saying.
Patricia Kayden
@The Red Pen: Thanks for the laugh. Douchebags got to douche, I guess.
Howlin Wolfe
@burnspbesq: Ergo, the suggestion that maybe they shouldn’t get bonuses on the public dole, and/or face justice for any of their crimes is like lynching in the deep south?
That’s some real logicating there, boy!