Democrats to AIG: Give back the bonus money or we will release your personal information.

We first reported on the AIG bonus story HERE.

While AIG is getting death threats by the dozens and they read some of those threats at a congressional hearing today including one to wrap piano wire around their throats and killing their children. On the Neil Cavuto show on Fox News a member of the Democratic leadership (Gary Ackerman) when asked if releasing their names and public information is a responsible thing in light of these threats the copngressman said , “Well all they have to do to avoid this is get back the money.”

Folks that is very next to a physical threat of violence. We have said several times that with these new laws undermining ethics procedures that they have sneaked into the Stimulus Bill and other actions, that recent Democrat actions are the things that banana republics are made of.

Republicans are starting to call for Tim Geithner to resign. This is a political play, they should be calling for Chris Dodd to resign and besides, Geithner is a bumbling boob and for the Republicans is the gift that keeps on giving.

Ultimately this is a distraction. Republicans are getting bold enough to hit the Democrats and Democrats who have an unbalanced share in this whole crisis and who are getting enriched by it with campaign kickbacks need some outrage that takes the heat off of themselves. As has been shown in other posts the Democrats knew these bonuses were coming because they stripped out language in the Stimulus Bill to stop them and adden an amendment behind closed doors while locking Republicans out to specifically allow them for companies who took the stimulus funds.

UPDATE – 3/19 Thanks to Hotair for posting the video link.

OUTRAGE: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to give 611k bonuses each to execs.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac ignored the warnings of their own regulator since 2001. The slicked the palms of partisans and politicians to the tune of $200 million with Chris Dodd and Obama getting the most in order to keep those Democrats blocking any reform. They hired almost every lobby firm in DC to keep other lobby firms from lobbying against them. The people who ran Fannie Mae, Raines, Johnson, Gorelic, are all former Clinton appointees who paid themselves tens of millions of dollars. For decades this was the perfect corruption ring.

For details see our Mortgage Crisis category for our complete coverage on this story since the beginning.

Yahoo/AP News:

WASHINGTON (AP) — Fannie Mae plans to pay retention bonuses of as much as $611,000 each to key executives this year as part of a plan to keep hundreds of employees from leaving the government-controlled company.

Rival mortgage finance company Freddie Mac is planning similar awards, but has not yet reported on which executives will benefit.

The two companies, which together own or back more than half of the home mortgages in the country, have been hobbled by skyrocketing loan defaults. Fannie recently requested $15 billion in federal aid, while Freddie has sought a total of almost $45 billion.

Fannie Mae disclosed its “broad-based” retention program in a recent regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company was only required to disclose the amounts for the top-paid executives, who will pocket at least $470,000 on top of their base salaries. The bonuses are more than double last year’s, which ranged from $200,000 to $260,000.

A company spokesman declined further comment.

Wall Street Journal is all over it. 

Ed Morrissey at hotair.com comments HERE (and folks, we link to Ed Morrissey probably more than any other blogger, we do that because among political bloggers Ed is among the very best and brightest).

Loophole Allows Rich to Get Food Stamps

CNN reporting:

Don’t you love it when government runs things?

UPDATE – News Busters has an awesome piece reporting about how this happened and the media coverage of it. It is a must see. – LINK.