Rush Limbaugh is a sicko wacko and the people who listen and belive him are incapable of thinking for themselves and cant see what limbaugh is really like

Perhaps the main reason why the bonuses should be given is very simply they were contractually owed. We are a nation of laws and contract law is part of that. If you continue to say they should not receive these bonuses then I am sure that you will not mind when lets say you have to file an insurance claim for a car accident or maybe there is damage to your home or GOD forgive the death of a loved one that the insurance company says they are just going to negate your claim as they do not wish to honor your policy contract

TYT don't really offer anything productive to society as far as I'm concerned; they're no different than the other memes which troll YouTube...

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Any ways since we all apparently have our knickers in a bunch over this bonus outrage, aren't there bigger fish that we need to fry???

Granted I don't like awarding bonuses to people who drove their company into the ground, however 200MM is a drop in a bucket compared to the 170B that we (the taxpayers) threw into this black hole. And in regards to all the money that was funneled through AIG to foreign banks through the treasury, why is there no outrage about that?

Our Congress represents an aura of pomposity. The bonuses were written into HR1, yet Congress didn't read the bill. We had to pass it as soon as we can!!! To paraphrase Nancy Pelosi, every month that HR1 wasn't passed, 500MM Americans would have lost their jobs...

The bonuses were awarded and congress idled like a car in a McDonalds' drive-thru. Suddenly the taxpayers caught wind of this and were pissed. Then Obama and Congress put on their populist hats and were like "we're outraged I tell you!"

I would give ANYTHING to see 535 thugs in Washington stand in the unemployment lines.

Oh florian, I wish i could be as naieve as you, but i have a $40 bill for 'free' under my contract medical visit. Oh so many caveats that I had no choice but to accept.

And just one anecdotal piece of evidence that companies do back away from what they are contractually liable to provide all the time.

Anyways, there are plenty of circumstances where contracts become null and void under extreme circumstances. I'm sure a qualified lawyer could defend government takeover as one of those circumstances requiring a revisitation of compensation contracts.

HEY SHAREHOLDERS IF YOU BOUGHT AND KEPT 100 SHARES OF AIG A YEAR AGO AT 30 BUCKS THAN BUY 200 MORE , YOU CAN PAIR YOUR LOSES AND WILL RECOVER QUICKER. I BOUGHT AT .38 CENTS AND IT WAS UP TO 1.94 TUESDAY THATS A 510% INCREASE.

i am sure the tyt have never listened to rush like most of the media..but that aside the reasons he defended them are,
1) the bonuses were in their contracts
2) the bonuses were agreed to in the stimulus pack nobama and the rest knew now they deny
3) most of these people came to work after the mess those other people are long gone they worked for a dollar with a big bonus at the end now they are screwed...

Good 'ol Rush. True entertainer that he is, providing laughs again. I just want to know where all that mortgage money went. There just seems to be a black hole that the money disappeared into and nobody seems to care about finding out where it is or who's got it.

I don't want to live in a country where angry politicians can use the tax laws to attack those that they disagree with. When the Republicans regain power they could use the same strategy to levy outrageous taxes on George Soros, Planned Parenthood, Acorn, etc. This would be just as wrong as what Congress attempted last week. Not long ago a wacko state Senator from Vermont tried the same thing. He was outraged that the Vermont nuclear power plant was making large profits so he tried to introduce a tax on just that one entity.
The same nut case got mad last month and tried to pass a price cap on milk in grocery stores. If these idiots want to live in Cuba or Venezuela then why don't they just move there rather than trying to change the US. Limbaugh is right, the bonuses were obscene and unwise, but for Acorn to pay for buses and protesters to threaten and harrass the bonus recipients, while a bunch of sick bastards in Washington try to retroactively tax the money away, is very unamerican and has no place in our society.

All the politicians of Congress , the Senate and the President who voted for all of the stimulus spending should give the taxpayers back all of their pay . How will we ever pay for this . And they want to spend more . I say most of America knows most of our problems come from our self serving politicians .

Blame Wall Street all you want but where did all of those mortgages originate? Main Street!!! Blame the real estate agents, real estate appraisers, and the all people buying homes in your town they could not afford. Wall Street was just part of the problem. Blame started on Main Street and goes all the way to Wall Street. Keep trashing Wall Street and no one will have a job because corporations cannot operate without investors.

Rush need money to support his addication
so why not support the crooks who support
him, he would have been a great friend of
Hitler as his line of BS is right at the top and
Hitler would have promoted him to his propaganda
minister just like the repubilcan party has.

You said here's the rebuttal to his argument: Without these bailouts, those bonuses would be toast. They wouldn't have gotten paid their bonuses and they would have lost their jobs.

And yet, your entire rebuttal is based on that big "IF" - - "without these bailouts" only applies if the bailout didn't happen. But it DID happen, and so the opportunity to fix all this in bankruptcy court disappeared. The employees are owed this money by contract. If you want to assign blame, put it on Congress.

Handling as big a mess as AIG is a job worth more than any amount of money! What good is money if your mind, time energy and soul are consumed by it? Let'm have the money... It'll teach them a lesson!

Did YOU give back the FREE Stimulus check that George Bush sent YOU????
Our government has well over $11 trillion in debts, but you had no problem cashing the stimulus checks you were sent which placed our nation into a deeper hole.

I am an AIG employee within the Personal Auto Group line, in November 2008 we were advised by management that all lower level employees (Supervisor and below) would lose part or all of our shift differential beginning January 1, 2009 which for some amounts to a loss of 5-20% in income, depending upon what schedule we work. The attitude of management at the time of the announcement was "be thankful we still have our jobs", AIG executives are the biggest bunch of hypocrites ever.

Our company newsletter is called "Seize the Future" for a reason, to give select individuals bonuses for playing golf on a work day and brown nosing is appalling. The average employee who actually performs the lion's share of work within our ranks is lucky to receive a 3-4% merit increase in any given year. Remember the good ol' days when we got $1.83 after taxes for $5 referral and an ice cream sandwich on Friday?

I challenge every non-exempt AIG employee to exercise your rights by submitting a complaint to your states Attorney General’s Office or Department of Labor, do not sit by and allow Ed "Dollar Bill" Liddy and his Band of Brothers to deceive you any further. Remember this, while you are slaving away on the phones, lying to the customers that "we used to be AIG, but now we're not" your income is less and executives still get bonuses. While you are lying to the customers about why their premiums have been raised yet again, executives are out on retreats. And yet they come to you and ask "your tone sounded really somber and flat on the phone today, anything wrong?" Well it's kind of hard to be energetic when 52 former executives receive retention bonuses of more than $1,000,000 and we are left to answer calls from angry customers as to why AIG is stealing taxpayer dollars.

When they spent $200,000 for rooms, $150,000 for meals and $23,000 for spa treatments, you and I were herded into a room for a Subway sandwich, AIG logo chap sticks and an empty green bag. When they were ready to give Martin Sullivan $19,000,000 and $600,000,000 to other executives, they came to you and me to take our money, for myself a loss of $2,400 or 3 mortgage payments.

Our old company values of People, Customer Focus, Performance, Integrity, Respect, and Entrepreneurship have been replaced by GREED. So since we are continually told "you are the voice of the customer" SPEAK UP! What is the worst case scenario? CEO forces the sale of the company under the guise of "Expansion, Restructuring and Re-branding" only to walk out the door with $40,000,000 a la Bruce Marlow or bankruptcy? For Mr. Liddy that would be about $165,000,000 plus his $1 annual salary, for us the lumpen........... nothing.

I would say call your congressman, but unfortunately many of them have already taken campaign money from, guess who? That’s right AIG, see everybody gets paid for doing nothing, except for you and me.

Sincerely,

At The Bottom

I found Limbaugh to be mostly tiresome, so I no longer bother to listen to him. But he does accurately reflect the ideas of a large portion of the country, even though I suspect the actual number of "dittoheads" is smaller than one would expect.

It is interesting that people who have never listened to him, and who blindly follow Dear Leader BHO on his path to destruction of our nation, will vehemently condemn Rush's audience for "not thinking for themselves". Talk about projection!

The AIG bonuses were a matter of contract. Bad contract, maybe, but the time to re-negotiate those contracts was before the bonuses were paid (and yes, the government knew about them when they took over AIG). Now that it has been established that the government can unilaterally break existing contracts (and BHO certainly thinks that's ok), what happens when that is taken to its logical extreme, and financial institutions are no longer willing to lend *anyone* money because they can't depend on being able to enforce contracts?

Actually, I know the answer to that one -- the Nanny State that BHO want to build will step in and force lending to "deserving" (e.g., indigent, but Democratic-voting) individuals. After all, who needs a contract when you can use the force of government?
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www.chl-tx.com

The Turks and most of the readers here are missing the easiest point of all. The congress didn't read the dang bill! They just allowed a few dems to write it.. and all signed off on it, while lambasting the Repubs for not doing the same. The bill actually guaranteed the payments be made! How outrageous is it for the dems to now act suprised. GEE IS IT POSSIBLE SOMETHING WAS IN THAT BILL THAT I NEVER READ?

Why are we constantly hearing about Rush Limbaugh. He makes no laws, enforces no laws and merely entertains. Is Michael Moore the spokesperson or "propagand minister" of the dems. Seriously, quit with the Limbuagh stuff it makes liberals seem stupid.

I was talking to my 96 year old republican aunt from Georgia today on the phone and she was very sad because she sees how people are blaming each other for all the problems and how much hate there is in this country dividing us. Like she said, we all need to look in our own backyards and clean them up. Do you think that after we continue to blog how the republicans are at fault or the democrats are at fault or Obama or Bush is at fault or Rush or Fox News or Comedy Central is stupid or lying, will we finally just get tired of it all and do something constructive to be a part of the solution? Time to get off the internet if we are just bitching and complaining. Can we clean it up and just have real questions and information with verifiable information to exchange. Aren't we all sick of hearing the hate messages from both sides and the middle?

To Mike_Ohio: It is possible that congress did not read the bill, few in congress ever do read those long bills that come through like a tornado. Remember how few of them actually read the entire patriot act? I think it is time that we look at the system of congress, instead of continuing to blame the fact that bills get passed and members don't even have time to read them. In this individualistic society, we blame everything on the individual person and don't hold the system accountable. Why do we have to blame someone for EVERYthing? Can't we just change the system so it doesn't happen again? Have congress divide up pages to be responsible for, when long bills that have to be approved in a hurry come up. Something just needs to be changed in the system to make it work more effectively. We are so afraid to change anything in our governing system and would rather blame each other (like disfunctional family dynamics) and keep the cycle of ineffective government. People aren't so much to blame here as our system, our antiquated ways of thinking and doing things. We have to unite now and stop blaming each other — stop blaming people! We just need to make constructive changes and start with the ones in our own lives.