Give Back Your Bonuses, Mr. President

I'm sitting here on my couch watching President Obama ranting about bonuses and high pay that individuals in our financial institutions are receiving. In our time of financial crisis, he finds it outrageous that individuals can be paid so much, and that there needs to be additional fees and regulations on these financial institutions, in order to get them to pay back their bailout money or as a simple penalty for their "financial irresponsibility" and "recklessness with taxpayer money." Ok, Mr. President, so why don't we start with YOU and all the money you received in what could be called a "bonus" in the form of a campaign contribution from these financial institutions?

The following are ONLY the top 20 contributors to Obama's campaign...I denoted the financial institutions with red arrows (courtesy of OpenSecrets.org):



According to my math, in ONLY his top 20 contributors, Obama received $3,449,317 from the financial institutions he now criticizes for paying (in his opinion) exuberant amounts to individual CEO's.

Why don't you pay your campaign contributions back to these institutions, Mr. President? I guarantee you the new CEO's of these companies are doing more to help their businesses survive than you are.

*Note: These were donations by the organizations' political action committees (PACs) rather than the institutions themselves. This is a loophole in campaign finance laws that allows corporations to donate to political campaigns, as they themselves cannot. It's essentially a political funnel. PACs can donate, corporations cannot. But ultimately it IS their money.

Terrorist Rights

How do you feel about giving all the rights entitled to American citizens to terrorists as well? I truly believe in treating people as human beings, but giving murderous terrorists caught on the battlefield the same rights as American citizens arrested within our borders for robbing a candy store just seems wrong to me.

Soldiers shouldn't have to be more concerned about collecting evidence for a courtroom, reading Miranda rights, etc. rather than focusing on their job: capturing terrorists without getting themselves killed.

The actions of the Obama Justice Department not only give terrorists these rights, the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks) and others will cost New York an estimated $400 million. As if 9/11 wasn't enough pain for that city.

And don't forget, he is innocent until proven guilty (an ALLEGED mastermind of 9/11, not mastermind), so there is always the off-chance he will be let out of prison scott free on a judicial technicality, like not being told he has the right to remain silent.

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) probably makes a better case than me in this video: