Charles Gasparino tells Bill O’Reilly that he has confirmation that the “go easy on Obama” order was actually issued by General Electric (GE), which owns NBC, MSNBC, and CNBC.
Jeff Immelt is the sleazy chairman of General Electric (GE), which owns NBC, MSNBC, and CNBC.
Rumors swirled around the media world very early in the Obama administration that Immelt had held a dinner for the top executives and air talent of his networks and told them to go easy on the new administration. Of course, everyone involved denied that the dinner had ever taken place.
Now Charles Gasparino tells Bill O’Reilly that he has confirmation from people who attended the dinner that it not only took place, but that the “go easy on Obama” order was actually issued.
The only remaining question is, why did he bother inviting anyone from MSNBC? How much easier could they go?
Jeffrey Immelt, General Electric’s (GE) CEO attacked other business leaders in a speech at West Point. Immelt neglected to mention, however, that he took home $14,100,000 in compensation last year.
Jeff Immelt hates greedy, overpaid executives. Unless their name is Jeff Immelt.
Jeffrey Immelt, General Electric’s (GE) CEO attacked other business leaders in a speech at West Point, saying that his generation “had succumbed to ‘meanness and greed’ that had harmed the US economy and increased the gap between the rich and the poor.”
Immelt neglected to mention, however, that he took home $14,100,000 in compensation last year. Guess he was talking about all those other greedy execs.
“We are at the end of a difficult generation of business leadership … tough-mindedness, a good trait, was replaced by meanness and greed, both terrible traits,” Immelt said, “Rewards became perverted. The richest people made the most mistakes with the least accountability.”
Immelt’s didn’t stop there. According to the Financial Times, he also linked bad leadership to growing inequality.
“The bottom 25 per cent of the American population is poorer than they were 25 years ago. That is just wrong,” he said. “Ethically, leaders do share a common responsibility to narrow the gap between the weak and the strong.”
Two problems with Immelt’s attack. First, he’s one of the highest paid U.S. executives. And second, although GE took $80 billion in TARP funds, Immelt somehow used his connections to the Obama administration to get GE exempted from executive pay cuts that hit similar firms.
Here’s how Business Week spells out Immelt’s 2008 income:
TOTAL COMPENSATION in 2008
Total Annual Cash Compensation $3,300,000
Total Short Term Compensation $3,300,000
Other Long Term Compensation $7,233,137
Total Calculated Compensation $14,096,603
Contributing to Immelt’s pot calling the kettle black syndrome, the non-greedy CEO somehow got GE and himself exempted from pay restricitions imposed on other companies by Obama’s pay czar.
GE shareholders gather outside MSNBC's headquarters. Keith Olbermann cowers in fear inside.
Anger erupted at GE’s annual shareholders meeting on Wednesday. “The crowd was angry with MSNBC because of its leftward tilt,” one person observed. “Some former employees said they were embarrassed by it.”
The complaints came hot and heavy. During the question-and-answer period, shareholders repeatedly asked executives about political views expressed on MSNBC and CNBC.
They were pissed about the report that GE honcho Jeff Immelt and NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker reportedly held a dinner meeting at which they told top CNBC executives and and on-air talent to take it easy on President Obama.
They were steamed that MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann didn’t challenge of lunatic Janeane Garofalo’s lunatic ramblings in an interview last week.
It went on and on. The angry questioners refused to be silenced. GE finally resorted to shutting off their microphones, which angered them even more.
“My biggest surprise was the open hostility to MSNBC,” noted one shareholder. “It was noticeable and loud. I don’t remember any of this going on last year.”
A few weeks ago, President Obama told a group of executives, “My administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks.”
Looks like President Obama was right about the pitchforks. But this isn’t quite the way he had envisioned them being used.
Source: HollywoodReporter.com
UPDATE: AUDIO TRACK OF CROWD BOOS WHEN GE CEO’S DEFENDS MSNBC
“O’Reilly Factor” producer Jesse Watters attended Wednesday’s annual GE shareholder meeting as both a GE shareholder and producer of “The O’ReillyFactor.”
He asked asked GE Chairman and CEO Jeffrey Immelt if Janeane Garofalo’s comments on MSNBC qualified as hate speech.
