RUSH: The new McCarthyism in Washington, DC, this morning during a House financial services panel hearing. This is the chairman, Barney Frank.
RUSH: Contractually obligated bonuses, Barney Frank and the new McCarthyism. He will go the route of a subpoena to get the names of the recipients if the government-installed CEO, Ed Liddy, does not provide the names. The next question that will be asked once these names have been produced — and they will be — these people will then be called up to testify before Chairman Frank’s committee, and they will face other questions, like, ‘Have you attended pro-capitalist meetings during the course of your tenure at AIG? How many of your friends are free market capitalists, and what are their names? And where can we find them? And if you fail to answer, you will be cited as being in contempt of Congress.’ And then Barney Frank once again asserted his ownership rights over AIG.
FRANK: I do believe that it is time for us to assert our ownership rights under this arrangement. We’re the effective owners of this company. What we ought to be doing is exercising our rights as the owners to bring lawsuits to say, these people performed so badly, the magnitude of the losses were so great that we are justified in rescinding the bonuses.
RUSH: Yeah, but we’re going to leave the bailout money alone. We’re going to leave the $163 billion that we bailed out through AIG to all these other banks, we’re going to leave that alone, but we are going to do everything we can to punish private citizens, because we own the company. Let me tell you something. If these guys are going to assert ownership of AIG, it’s about time we can say we can fire them, because they’re making a total muckety-muck mess of it, as was predicted. Here is, during a House Financial Services hearing, a portion of Representative Paul Hodes. He’s a Democrat from New Hampshire.
HODES: AIG now stands for Arrogance, Incompetence, and Greed. It is unacceptable the TARP funds are being pocketed by AIG executives, and it must not be allowed to stand.
RUSH: It’s unacceptable? It’s in the stimulus package, you dolt! It’s in the stimulus package that they get the bonuses. That’s what they’re now going to go in and try to change. AIG stands for Arrogance, Incompetence, and Greed. Yeah, and you people bailed ’em out. Let’s remember one thing, folks, while we go forward. Not one Republican voted for this bailout. Remember way back in the fall, not one Republican voted for the TARP bailout, and this was why. Let’s never forget what we were told back then: If we didn’t do this, the country was finished. If we didn’t pass this law and bail out these banks, it was over. We didn’t have a day to make this decision. We didn’t have a half day. We didn’t have 24 hours. Not one Republican voted for it the first time around. This is why.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
Now, I would venture to say that these financial products unit employees at AIG who have offered to give it all back, I’m sure they already are fearing for their safety. Here you have the McCarthyite Barney Frank, the Banking Queen, demanding the names of people who were contractually, legally obligated and were awarded these bonuses, and he wants the names, the politburo wants the names of these people. We already have a list of names of people we know that ought to be made to pay a price for this. Unfortunately, they are the people who are asking the questions. Barney Frank, Christopher Dodd, it’s the same old group of players. We will have appropriate audio sound bites of this inquisition as they occur.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Let’s go to the audio sound bites. By the way, Representative Scott Garrett, who is a Republican from New Jersey, ended up asking Ed Liddy of AIG more about the timeline on all these bonuses. Now, get this. Ed Liddy said that talking last week to the Treasury secretary, Tim Geithner, that Geithner indicated he learned about the bonus issue the prior week. Now, that appears to conflict with the timeline put forth by the Obama administration, saying that Geithner only learned last Tuesday. Ed Liddy said Geithner knew the week before last Tuesday. Also, you should know, ladies and gentlemen, TOTUS, the Teleprompter of the United States, has announced a nationally televised press conference and appearance from the White House next Tuesday night at 8 p.m. They’re going to have to move American Idol again, because the Teleprompter of the United States has scheduled a nationwide press conference and address. That’s next Tuesday night at eight o’clock. Audio sound bites here, I want you to hear a little bit of Ed Liddy, portion of his opening remarks before the Banking Queen committee, the House of Representatives.
LIDDY: This morning I’ve asked the employees of AIG Financial Products to step up and do the right thing. Specifically, I’ve asked those who received retention payments in excess of $100,000 or more to return at least half of those payments. Some have already stepped forward and offered to give up a hundred percent of their payments.
RUSH: Here’s another sound bite from Mr. Liddy.
LIDDY: Yes, everything we do we do in partnership with the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve is at our board meetings, at our compensation committee meetings, at our various meetings on strategy. There was no intent to deceive or hide anything. These payments were due to be paid on March 15th. We’ve been discussing this issue at large with many of the people’s staff that are represented here today.
RUSH: Meaning members of Congress staff. (laughing) Everybody knew these payments were coming. This is such a manufactured crisis. Paul Kanjorski, Democrat, Pennsylvania, said, ‘You say that you’ve been talking about this with the board, with representatives at the Fed for three months, not with the Treasury secretary?’
LIDDY: No. The way our relationship generally works is we review things with the Federal Reserve, and the Federal Reserve, as they think is appropriate, discusses it with the secretary of Treasury or with representatives of Treasury. I’ve asked if the Federal Reserve would like us to have a separate line of communication with Treasury or not, and I’ve asked Treasury.
RUSH: And the Treasury secretary, he did say later on that they learned about all this, he talked about it last week, earlier than what the administration is admitting. Grab 26 through 29, more arriving sound bites here, even as we speak. As I mentioned to you earlier, Ed Liddy does not want to mention the names of the people getting the bonuses, he fears for their lives! He fears for their safety. He had this exchange with the Banking Queen about all this, Barney Frank.
LIDDY: Sir, I will if I can be absolutely assured that they will remain confidential.
FRANK: I won’t give you that assurance. It would be my intention to ask this committee to subpoena them. This is a situation where there’s a lot of public activity. I ask you to submit the names of the people who have received the bonuses. I won’t accept them under a confidentiality. You submitted some confidential information, and I, frankly, threw it away after reading it because I was afraid that I would inadvertently breach the confidentiality. But I do ask that you submit those names without restriction, and if you feel unable to do that, then I will ask the committee to subpoena them.
RUSH: (doing Liddy impression) ‘Sir, I will, if I can be absolutely assured that the names will remain confidential –‘ (doing Frank impression) ‘I won’t give that you assurance. Confidentiality, I threw it away because I don’t want to — we’ll subpoena you, you SOB.’ The new McCarthyism on parade. Ed Liddy then said this.
LIDDY: I very much want to comply with your request. I would hope it doesn’t take a subpoena. If it does then we will obviously comply with the law. I’m just really concerned about the safety of our people, so let me just read two things to you. All the executives and their families should be executed with piano wire around their necks, my greatest hope. If the government cannot do this properly, we, the people will take it in our own hands and see that justice is done. I’m looking for all the CEO’s names, kids, where they live, et cetera. You have a legitimate request —
FRANK: Well, all right —
LIDDY: — I want to protect the well-being of our employees.
RUSH: Okay, so did you hear the threats that he is receiving? I’m sure these are deranged leftists from the Democrat blogs and so forth. They’re the ones that hate capitalists. All the executives and their families should be executed with piano wire around their necks. If the government cannot do this properly, we, the people will take it in our own hands and see that justice is done. I’m looking for all the CEOs’ names, kids, where they live, et cetera. Mr. Frank, you have a legitimate request but I want to protect the well-being of our employees, and then the Banking Queen replied.
LIDDY: I will be willing to be guided to some extent by what the security officials may say, but this is an important public subject, and my guess is that there are probably threats aimed without too much specificity about people who work there. So I am going to keep that request on the table. I will consult with the law enforcement people, including the federal law enforcement people, and if they tell us they think there is a serious threat, we will have to take that into consideration.
RUSH: This is unbelievable! For crying out loud, look at all the stuff these people claim, (doing Frank impression) ‘I’ll consult with federal law enforcement people, I’ll keep the requests on the table, I’ll make sure that these threats don’t sound too specific to me. I don’t take these threats too seriously, federal employees, the federal law enforcement, I’ll keep it on the table, but screw you! I want the names! Screw you! And you will produce names!’ Here’s the final bite. This is Ed Liddy talking to Scott Garrett. I just told you about this, Republican, New Jersey. The question, ‘It’s just puzzling to me the White House now seems to be second-guessing the decision that the Treasury secretary made if he allowed this to go forward.’
LIDDY: Yeah, I don’t have a comment on that. I talked to the Treasury secretary last week and he indicated to me that the first he had heard of this whole situation was about a week before that, so I don’t know where all the rubber meets the road, so to speak.
RUSH: There goes Obama’s timeline. The teleprompter told Obama that Geithner only knew last week, but it was the week before that that Geithner knew, this according to Ed Liddy. So Barney Frank, folks, if these AIG people happen to get executed by mad Americans, (doing Frank impression) ‘It’s too bad, it’s a public issue and we gotta get to the bottom of this. I want those names! I want those names and I’m going to get those names! (raspberry)’ I tell you, this is a great illustration here of people who have gotten power and you see what happens to them. They have no humility about it.