In the past few weeks, it has been widely reported that GE paid no taxes last year despite profits exceeding $14 billion.

Here’s the faux corporation communications that somehow threw them for a loop:

GE Responds to Public Outcry – Will Donate Entire $3.2 Billion Tax Refund to Help Offset Cuts and Save American Jobs

Fairfield, CT, 13th April, 2011 – GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt has informed the Obama administration that the company will be gifting its entire 2010 tax refund, worth $3.2 Billion, to the US Treasury on April 18, Tax Day, and will furthermore adopt a host of new policies that secure its position as a leader in corporate social responsibility.

“We want the public to know that we’ve heard them, and that we know many Americans are going through tough times,” said GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt. “GE will therefore give our 2010 tax refund back to the public and allow the public to decide how to spend it.”

Immelt acknowledged no wrongdoing. “All seven of our foreign tax havens are entirely legal,” Immelt noted. “But Americans have made it clear that they deplore laws that enable tax avoidance. While we owe it to our shareholders to use every legal loophole to maximize returns – we also owe something to the American people. We didn’t write the laws that let us legally avoid paying taxes. Congress did. But we benefit from those laws, and now we’d like to share those benefits. We are proud to be giving something back to America, and we are proud to set an example for all industry to follow.”

Over the coming weeks, GE will conduct a nationwide survey to determine how the company’s $3.2 billion returned refund is to be allocated. The survey will be conducted both online and offline, and will permit the public to weigh in on which of the recently-enacted budget cuts they would like to see reversed.

In tandem with the gift, the company is also announcing a host of new policies to restore public faith in the GE brand, including a commitment to keep American jobs in America, and to create one U.S. job for each new job created abroad. The ambitious plan will overhaul accounting systems to allow public transparency and phase out the use of tax havens in five years. “Given my recent appointment as President Obama’s Chairman of the Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, it is no longer appropriate for GE to engage in practices that, whether by fact or perception, are at odds with the greater good of the nation,” Immelt said.

Immelt outlined several concrete steps he would take to push for modernized tax policies that reflect the realities of the global economy. “I will personally ask President Obama to work with Congress to require country-by-country reporting by multi-national corporations of the sales made, profits earned and taxes paid in every jurisdiction where an entity operates. Instead of moving money via ‘transfer pricing,’ corporations ought to pay taxes in the jurisdictions where profits are actually made. If Congress is able to establish standard industry-wide solutions, GE will close our tax haven operations abroad, including our subsidiaries in Bermuda, Singapore and Luxembourg.”

Further details on GE’s new policy will be released in the coming weeks.

PRESS CONTACT

Samuel Winnacker
GE Corporate, Assistant Director
Communications & Public Affairs
+1 615 375 6658
samuel.winnacker@ge.com

That depends on whether his NASA-related grudge with Obama is as strong as Alveda King’s fear of gays.

See the Tea Baggers express their First Amendment rights to prove that they’re “not insensitive” and “not crack pots” in this interview vid. Apparently, “Al Sharpton and his Black Panthers” are coming for them. To be fair, I think some of them are actually ‘tarded.

Desperate to be victims, the only thing they’re victims of is Glenn Beck the Koch brothers, FOX sponsors and probably diabetes.

Admitting to covering up the source of his presidential HOPE portrait, Shepard Fairey said his lying and evidence destruction was merely an attempt to conceal his “mistake” of actually believing he had used a different image. The Associated Press has fired back, calling the graphic design-stealing artist’s story completely implausible and saying his alleged mistake was only an effort “to spin those bad acts in the best light possible to the Court and the public.” In a press release accompanying amendments to their countersuit, the AP also questions the integrity of Fairey’s dreams about George Clooney.

“It is simply not credible that Fairey somehow forgot in January 2009 which source image he used to create the Infringing Works, which were completed only a year earlier in January 2008,” today’s filing says.

“It also strains credulity that an experienced graphic designer such as Shepard Fairey misremembered cropping George Clooney out of a source image and making other changes … when no such cropping or other changes were ever made.”

“Hope” portrait on left by Shepard Fairy, Photograph on right by Mannie Garcia

In a searing blow to counter culture and the integrity of his career, graphic design stealing artist Shepard Fairey admitted he lied about the source of his presidential HOPE portrait in his ongoing legal dispute with the Associated Press. In a statement released Friday on his website, he discussed the blatant thievery and apologized, kinda:

STATEMENT ON ASSOCIATED PRESS FAIR USE CASE

In an effort to keep everyone up to date on my legal battle to uphold the principle of fair use in copyright laws, I wanted to notify you of a recent development in my case against The Associated Press (AP).

On October 9, 2009, my lawyers sent a letter to the AP and to the photographer Mannie Garcia, through their lawyers, notifying them that I intend to amend my court pleadings. Throughout the case, there has been a question as to which Mannie Garcia photo I used as a reference to design the HOPE image. The AP claimed it was one photo, and I claimed it was another.

The new filings state for the record that the AP is correct about which photo I used as a reference and that I was mistaken. While I initially believed that the photo I referenced was a different one, I discovered early on in the case that I was wrong.

In an attempt to conceal my mistake I submitted false images and deleted other images. I sincerely apologize for my lapse in judgment and I take full responsibility for my actions which were mine alone. I am taking every step to correct the information and I regret I did not come forward sooner.

I am very sorry to have hurt and disappointed colleagues, friends, and family who have supported me in this difficult case and trying time in my life.

I am also sorry because my actions may distract from what should be the real focus of my case – the right to fair use so that all artists can create freely. Regardless of which of the two images was used, the fair use issue should be the same.

-Shepard

This also means that’s Shepard lied to me in this email he wrote on February 20th of this year:

On the plus side, as least he won’t be the one winning Evan Roth’s ‘Asshole Competition.’

AP’s senior vice president Jane Seagrave denied the news agency’s recently launched content tracking system would target bloggers, saying, “We want to stop wholesale misappropriation of our content which does occur right now … Are we going to worry about individuals using our stories here and there? That isn’t our intent. That’s being fueled by people who want to make us look silly. But we’re not silly.”

The AP claims ownership of the image, saying Garcia was their employee when he shot it in 2006, however Garcia maintains he was an independent freelancer, also working for other clients and not beholden to the bossy photo agency. And despite being “proud of the photograph and that Fairey did what he did artistically with it, and the effect it’s had,” Garcia may also challenge Shepard’s fair use defense. |Bloomberg|

In one corner: Shepard Fairey, an artist who has built his empire on appropriated art but files cease and desist letters to artists who co-opt his work even for parody purposes. In the other corner: The Associated Press, the world’s biggest news service sometimes less accurate than MTV that claims “fair use” only applies to them, not others. These two challengers will vie to win a new competition organized by Evan Roth, the Graffiti Research Lab co-founder and Hova textualizer, who writes:

Who is the bigger intellectual property asshole? … I have created hand painted canvases of Shepard Fairy’s Obama Hope poster, and Mannie Garcia’s Associated Press photograph and put them for sale on my website here and here.

The first person to send me a cease and desist notice wins!

Place your bets, folks. The two artworks are included below.

This past Sunday, the Associated Press reported that illegal gun purchasing rapper T.I. would only have to serve 2 months in prison instead of the 1 year and 1 day he was sentenced to, claiming that 305 days of house arrest would go towards his term, but they got the story wrong. And shockingly, it was MTV News that corrected them. In reality, T.I. will have to do a minimum of 10 months and might be able to “shave almost 55 days off his sentence” for good behavior. Apparently they didn’t read the report correctly: “Once T.I. completes the prison term, he will still have to serve out the remainder of his home confinement” which amounts to about 2 months. |Miss Info|

On Tuesday, lawyers for artist Shepard Fairey filed their countersuit against the Associated Press, alleging that his use of one of their photos of Barack Obama in creating the iconic “Hope” portrait is protected within the bounds of fair use. Using the “doctrine of unclean hands,” Fairey’s lawyers also contend the AP is engaged in similar behavior to that they’ve accused Fairey of. One section of the document details more than a dozen instances of the AP copyrighting and profiting from photos that are nearly or exclusively composed of copyrighted artworks they don’t have permission to, including works by Fairey, Banksy, Jeff Koons and other artists.

d. On January 7, 2009 The AP distributed a story entitled “Iconic Obama portrait headed to Smithsonian museum” by Brett Zongker. The AP’s article included a photograph attributed to The AP, which depicted Fairey’s Obama Hope Stencil Collage that now hangs in the National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution. (A copy of the full article is attached as Exhibit A and available at [Link]) The AP did not obtain a license to use Fairey’s work in this photograph. As shown below, the photograph attributed to The AP consists of nothing more than a literal reproduction of Fairey’s work.

e. The AP’s image database contains the following photograph of Jeff Koons’ sculpture entitled Ushering In Banality. On information and belief, The AP did not obtain a license to use Koons’ work in this photograph.

f. The AP’s image database contains the following photograph of Banksy’s Sketch for Essex Road. On information and belief, The AP did not obtain a license to use Banksy’s work in this photograph.

The Associated Press was still reviewing Fairey’s countersuit yesterday, but said, “it is very revealing that rather than present any evidence to justify his own obvious misappropriation of the AP’s copyrighted work, he instead focuses on making collateral attacks on the AP, one of the oldest and largest news organizations in the world, regarding standard newsgathering activities.”

Fairey’s attorney, Anthony Falzone, responded, saying the AP statement “misses the point” and pointing out that while the photos may have once been used for reporting the news, “they are presently for sale on The AP’s image licensing database as a commercial product for “professional photo buyers.” Falzone clarifies:

“The point is very simple: The AP applies an obvious double-standard. It is happy to sell, through its image licensing database, photographs that are really just bare copies of artists’ work, yet it condemns Fairey for using an AP photograph in a far more creative, transformative, expressive and defensible way.”

Interestingly, Fairey and lawyers continue to deny that a close-up shot of President Obama was used as the basis of Fairey’s work, instead claiming the so-called “Clooney Photo” was used as a visual reference.

What really bothered me, however, and continues to bother me is that once the correct picture was identified (Mannie’s full frame shot of Obama’s head and shoulders) you continue to insist that the picture you used was the one of Clooney and Obama. Unless it is part of your legal strategy – making your case based on using a detail of a larger picture rather than the entire picture – it makes no sense as it has been indisputably proven that the full frame head shot is the source. I guarantee this 100%.

If this is not mistake on Fairey’s part, but an effort to make it seem that the “Hope” portrait transformed the original photo more than it did, it’s coming way too late.

“Hope” portrait on left by Shepard Fairy, Photograph on right by Mannie Garcia