Please do, I could use a good laugh. Anyway, I've got news for you, he's not a politician anymore. His duty to the American electorate is over. Unless there is evidence or proof of an investigation of something he did while in office you have nothing. You don't get to tell people what to do in private life because you don't like the optics of it unless laws have been broken.
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Pres Obama now doing $400k speeches for Wall Street
- Thread starter Meus Renaissance
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Please do, I could use a good laugh. Anyway, I've got news for you, he's not a politician anymore. His duty to the American electorate is over. Unless there is evidence or proof of an investigation of something he did while in office you have nothing. You don't get to tell people what to do in private life because you don't like the optics of it unless laws have been broken.
What's funny is you could frame this entire thing another way:
"Obama is doing a speech at a healthcare conference put on by the business that lost sixty-eight percent of its workforce during the 9/11 attack."
For the record, I support reparations for slavery and also don't like Obama giving this speech (yet he would still be my first choice for president).
Obama is still a politician. He might not hold an office, but he plans to continue to be involved in party politics. If he's going to be involved in politics and the future of the Democratic Party then he should be scrutinized as anyone involved in politics.
You have nothing on Trump either. He's removed anyone that's committed a crime involved in the Russian scandal from his administration or during the campaign. Trump himself hasn't broken the law.
That makes him a political activist and not a politician, though.
And for the love of all that is north of the border, stop throwing those "Trump is innocent" non-sequiturs into every post of yours.
Yeah, its a healthcare conference organized by a large bank. It really is jumping the gun to go after him for this when we don't even know the contents of the speech. If he starts to turn his back on his healthcare beliefs (which I highly doubt) then that would be the point where I start looking at this differently. While I get why people are initially skeptical, even I was when I first saw the thread title, I don't see much here.
Wrong, is everyone on the sidelines scrutinized about their finances like an elected official or candidate? I don't think so. Also, I'd like to still have an answer as to how this situation compares to Trump/Russia. One is an active investigation by the FBI and the other is someone making a speech for money.
Milkncooke
Member
You're jumping to some pretty wild conclusions.
No, not everyone, but as mentioned several times in this thread, presidents in the past have been looked over, as well as former congressmen. I see nothing wrong with giving Obama the same treatment, especially since he plans to continue to be a force in the Democratic Party. We're talking about corruption. It just seems like the accusation against Trump being corrupt for Russian interests fails to meet the standards for some people in this thread. I guess in the absence of a guilty verdict he must be innocent.
In this case, no we're not at all. It's just something you created in your own mind.
I guess so. Obama and Trump are both innocent of corruption. There's nothing wrong with conflicts of interest. We should only be concerned if a crime is committed.
Not at all. You made up the conflict of interest in your head as well in regards to Obama.
I thought we were in agreement. Who cares anyways about conflict of interest? They both haven't been found guilty so it's all good.
There is no conflict of interest nor any laws that have been broken. A conflict of interest means to derive personal benefit from actions or decisions from an official capacity . There isn't even a suspicion here that Obama did that except for the one you and others have created by saying it is bad optics. In Trump's case there is definite suspicion by ongoing investigations. This isn't a court of law. You're innocent until proven guilty schtick doesn't prevail, common sense does.
I don't see how that's not a conflict of interest though. Isn't Obama an important democrat and has said he plans to be involved in politics including the Democratic Party? Does that not fall under your definition?
Well where's your proof that Trump has done favors for the Russians? Surely some proof is necessary for a common sense judgement.
Mr_Antimatter
Member
Note how the GOP platform on Ukraine was changed to be more russia friendly. Note that this was literally the only part of the platform Trump seemed to have any input on.
Kyuuketsu_Night
Member
This, right here.
You're out of your mind if you think I'm doing a Google search for you. Also, did Obama do favors for the people he is speaking to at the event? Did he promise them something? Are you this disingenuous in all your arguments?
Vicetrailia
Member
Obama is done with electoral politics.
There too much symbolic value being applied to this. Republicans are in complete control of the government, they (WallStreet) don't need Obama. He can't lobby or influence for them, and all of his doah is taxed at ordinary income. Yay!
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
That's not a good example. And there's also the existence of some anti-favors that would throw a wrench in that narrative.
What? Why would you need to google search for proof of Trump's corruption when you sounded so sure of it?
No, of course Obama isn't doing any favors and I don't have proof of it. That's why we both agreed Trump and Obama are innocent of corruption earlier on. People should leave both of them alone and conflicts of interest doesn't matter unless a crime has been committed.
I thought you wanted me to continue. Do you want me to stop?
You can do whatever you want but you're making any sense. I at least thought you could make humorous arguments for comparing Trump and Obama but you are not. You're just talking in the same circles. It's partially my fault, I thought you might be good at it. Now you'll pretend you weren't serious.
Leona Lewis
Banned
It doesn't animate for me.
Why can't you complain about both?
Does criticism of Obama somehow deflect from criticism of Trump?
Zaraki_Kenpachi
Member
This is pretty ironic considering the amount of times you continually hurl insults at me when I'm literally never talking to you in other threads. You've made multiple posts that have been nothing but insults and being upset that users respond to you on a message board instead of discussing anything to do with the topic. Maybe instead of the constant childish insults you should be looking in the mirror.
It's not surprising but I still wish people would close the loop on how you're a sell out by giving speeches and attempting to raise awareness about the thing that literally defined your presidency.
balladofwindfishes
Member
Yes? It's a distraction.
fataliteter
Member
"If this material works well, I'm going to use it at Goldman Sachs next year, earn me some serious Tubmans."
You clearly don't understand what a conflict of interest is. Let me give you an example.
Donald Trump leased the Old Post Office in downtown Washington D.C. from the GSA a couple of years ago to create a new Trump International Hotel. Part of the stipulations of the contract from the GSA states that the leaser and leasee can never be the same. When Trump became president, that created a clear conflict of interest, because he was now effectively the head of the GSA, and controlled the terms of his own lease.
Barack Obama is a former president. He is being paid to give speeches all over the world. He has no direct influence over legislation or policies, and is being paid to perform a specific function. Talk. There is no conflict of interest.
You're misunderstanding the public speaking circuit quite a bit.
The speeches aren't "covers". In these situations, paying someone like Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, or whoever else to give a speech at an event is like paying Justin Bieber to headline your kid's birthday party. You do it because it raises the prestige of the event, raises demand to go, and makes everyone who shows up feel like they're part of something significant. This applies whether it's an investment bank paying the money, or a university.
Basically, $400k is a market price. It's not an arbitrarily big number that a speech is merely an excuse to pay.
mattiewheels
And then the LORD David Bowie saith to his Son, Jonny Depp: 'Go, and spread my image amongst the cosmos. For every living thing is in anguish and only the LIGHT shall give them reprieve.'
It is funny to think about how poor working class people worship the rich. I guess it's an aspirational thing or something, but you'd think the default reaction to 1%'er flaunting would be more negative.In a country where over half the population never get above the working class label and only 1-2% of the population ever becomes rich to "revenge" with "paper".
Fuck being gracious, Beyonce is a awful life coach.
Well I can tell you why the conclusions are wild.
1. Obama's fee for this speech is high, but high speaker fees are not exclusive to Wall Street. Schools and nonprofits have been asked to pay similar high fees for high profile speakers. It's the nature of the conference business, not peddling influence.
2. We have a direct, legal, and more effective way of controlling legislators through money in the US. Campaign financing. It seems silly to concoct a fantasy over Wall Street firms setting up conferences, complete with the costs of renting space, providing AV, registration, and then paying hundreds of thousands in speaker fees, all to do what? Gain influence over a politician who no longer directly impacts legislation?
Your desires to root out corruption would be better directed elsewhere.
It's a long play to influence Obama so that he can groom the future corporatist Democrats. Wall St has amazing vision for a group of guys that can't see past today in the pursuit of making a buck.
It's not animated. It's just an optical illusion.
Like this.
Think it depends on your browser. On firefox it is most definitely animated.
MisterShine
Member
It's different among black americans I think. We're happy that at least some of us 'made it'. Speaking for myself and from what I've seen, of course.
That's a JPG file, it can't animate. Just your eyes playing tricks =)
Has there ever been a den of greater villainy than the dreaded Wall Street, and their leader, Lord Bull?
Sounds fair to me.
Am I not in on the joke? I can isolate any part of the image blocking off the rest and it still moves. It is not an "optical illusion". It is animated.
Dude, I'm on firefox and it does not move when I cover it up. It's not animated.
Dude. It does for me I'm not sure what else to say. It is animated.
It's a .jpg image, it can not be animated no matter what you say.
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