Obama cashes in
This is possibly the least surprising development of 2017.
Former President Barack Obama has gone from the White House to Wall Street in less than one year, speaking last week to a Carlyle Group CG, conference and planning to keynote next week’s Cantor Fitzgerald health-care conference, Bloomberg reports.Obama’s relationship with Wall Street hasn’t always been good, as Bloomberg says, and bankers still wince over his 2009 line about fat cats. But his Justice Department prosecuted no major bankers for their roles in the financial crisis, and he resisted calls to break up the biggest banks. The story also notes other Obama appearances, including a speech in August to clients of Northern Trust Corp. NTRS, for which he was paid about $400,000.
For those of you keeping score, that's $1.2 million for three speeches.
1) become president
2) do not enforce laws against securities or mortgage fraud https://t.co/HKjYrTQzqk— ryan cooper (@ryanlcooper) September 18, 2017
This quote from Revolving Door Project's @jeffhauser points to why these speeches will be an ongoing issue for Dems. pic.twitter.com/TMqAGmYeoz
— Andrew Kreighbaum (@kreighbaum) September 18, 2017
Comments
as you said "No Surprise"
The banksters pulled the Obama puppet strings. Now he's reaping his rewards. He hoped for more money and power, not improving the lot of working people. And they wonder why the democraps keep losing.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
the Democrats are just morally bankrupt and disgusting
it's time to break away from them. The working class of the poor needs another party/movement to represent them.
It's just such a shame.
https://www.euronews.com/live
Obama’s relationship with Wall Street hasn’t always been good?
Because he dared to say something one time that was a little less than flattering, even though it wasn't any kind of radical idea and they got their fee fees hurt? Mr. "I'm the only thing between you and the pitchforks"??? He's probably the best friend WS has had during my lifetime, considering he had a mandate and the votes to really stick it to them and he chose not to.
Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.
yeah, a little talk about fat cats and stupid wars
was enough to bamboozle desperate Americans after the Bush years to believe in him.
What a tragedy.
https://www.euronews.com/live
of course I was bamboozled too
just not that long as most. Six month into his presidency and it was clear that he was weak and a conning charmeur. He damaged all those, who believed he would close Guantanamo, would end the wars and would fight as a constitutional lawyer the way he was supposed to. Justice for all, right?
Denkste Puppe.
https://www.euronews.com/live
Me, too, Mimi.
I was hoping for change when hope was changed to despair.
There is no such thing as TMI. It can always be held in reserve for extortion.
Hey! I got Change!
I got about 38 cents when he made the Bush Tax Cuts permanent...
I want my two dollars!
I know. I wonder, will the zealots that
support the Dims finally figure out they've been had?
Upon reflection, that sure was a stupid question, even for a rhetorical one.
I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks
Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa
Once upon a time...
it might have even been at TOP, I remember reading something asking when the Republicans were gonna wake up and realize that Dubya sold them a bill of goods, that he wasn't what they thought at all, blah, blah, blah. The premise was that they couldn't, because they were so entrenched in the team sports of politics that admitting they were wrong about him would be admitting they'd been sold, believed in and defended a lie. The writing met with lots of haughty head shaking, as I recall. Kinda funny, looking at it now.
Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.
I still read comments to that effect regularly over at GOS
And each time I shake my head thinking, "Oh man, you are so deep into the liberal bubble that you have no contact with reality whatsoever and you're talking about other people's willful ignorance?"
A lot of wanderers in the U.S. political desert recognize that all the duopoly has to offer is a choice of mirages. Come, let us trudge towards empty expanse of sand #1, littered with the bleached bones of Deaniacs and Hope and Changers.
-- lotlizard
I know. I'm one of those horrible people who will, in a fit of
extreme boredom go a poke the hive of a bunch of Clintonistas. (Yes, I'm a geriatric troll.) Not often and not everywhere. Just the worst of the worst. The other day it was the 'left's' own versionif Drudge Report, which is Raw Story. This was the thread:
I didn't get a lot of responses, but the ones I did get were thoroughly outraged. They did have the good sense not to reply when I called them hypocrites for their outrage at what I posted, which of course was;
This is what I posted:
I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks
Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa
Yep. "The Great Protecter of Women and Children"
this is the BS we were constantly told about her whenever anyone dared to criticize her.
I don't remember who it was that said that "any good she got for creating children's health insurance was destroyed when welfare reform was passed" because it threw millions of them into deeper poverty.
They would come back with "that was her husband's policies, not hers" which was more bs because she helped get it passed.
Was Humpty Dumpty pushed?
Political Mother Goose Tales
Written by "journalists" to opiate the feeble minded. Trouble is, we've got an epidemic of opiated feeble minds.
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
opium
Well, opium and its derivatives are constipants; so this would certainly account for why our politics seem to be so full of shit these days!
And I'm old enough to remember when "religion was the opium of the masses"; today, opium is the religion of the masses!
"Ye have no more religion than my horse! Gold is your God!" -- Oliver Cromwell
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
I thought Marx said
television is the opiate of the masses. Groucho.
(ducks)
There is no such thing as TMI. It can always be held in reserve for extortion.
Good one :-)
Made me think of a tidy bowl commercial and how our entire political system is just one big ass toilet.
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
The Tidy Bowl lady in the commercials, moved to France.
Maybe fifteen or twenty years ago. Lives happily in the Midi Pyrenees.
You may choose to look the other way, but you can never say again you did not know. ~ William Wiberforce
If you can donate, please! POP Money is available for bank-to-bank transfers. Email JtC to make a monthly donation.
Glad to hear
She got out of that toilet
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
25 years later...
And a Cartoon Parrot is still topical.
It was always about him. It's still always about HIM. If you speak against him you are clearly not supporting HIS legacy.
Seriously, fuck HIM.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxlhyX-4qKI]
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
I'm not sure the Legacy is the prevailing excuse
Yes, it is one of them, but I'd say the prevailing counter to any Obama criticism, no matter how true, how vile his actions, is that YOU'RE A RACIST! Because, FIRST BLACK PRESIDENT!
That strategy was then adopted as the official playbook for any future criticism, of any future candidate. For current example, I give you Hillary and the Hillbots: "You're a sexist! Misogyny!"
They always forget that he is half White
so if a White person critizes him they are racists, right? And if a Black person criticizes him, then they too are racists, right?
Man, he hit the jackpot. No one can get away with criticizing him without being accused of racism.
Was Humpty Dumpty pushed?
Of all the votes I've cast over the years,
including the one for Reagan the first time he ran, I regret my two votes for Obama most of all. I never liked him. I never trusted him. I knew better, and I did it anyway.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
BO fooled me once, but the second time he ran
I voted for Dr. Jill Stein.
A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.
Jill Stein
I voted Obama, both times. First shot I beLIEved; second time LOTE against Willard the Rat. (Apologies to natural biological members of the genus Rattus -- you don't deserve to be likened to a parasite like Romney!)
I started voting for Jill Stein in 2016 largely because of my exposure to her here on c99!
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
@divineorder Me too.
Me too.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
The first time
I Believed (with a capital B) in Obama. I was into Hope and Change which lasted until he appointed Rahm Emanual as his COS. It was reinforced when he gave everything away to big pharma during the health care negotiations. The second time, I got hooked by the lesser of two evils BS, but wish I had not voted for him.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
I've never really understood LOTE thinking
Let's consider this. There are two trains... both going away from the place you want to end up. One of those trains is going a bit faster than the other and the slower train is decorated more to my liking. Faced with that situation, what sane person wouldn't opt for some other solution entirely? I certainly wouldn't board either train. Both take me farther from my goal... substantially farther.
I think the idea is that I'm supposed to believe that the Democratic train is mostly going in the direction I want. That is the basis of their ridiculous purity rants. But it isn't which is exactly what makes their whining about "unity" so ridiculous. If they're so big on "unity" they really ought to unite with the Republicans with whom they share so much more in common. I'm a liberal. How, exactly, can I unite with the Democratic party? What would be the common ground?
A lot of wanderers in the U.S. political desert recognize that all the duopoly has to offer is a choice of mirages. Come, let us trudge towards empty expanse of sand #1, littered with the bleached bones of Deaniacs and Hope and Changers.
-- lotlizard
LOTE
I no longer believe that there is any such thing as the lesser of two evils. Evil is evil, no matter how you frame it. But I allowed myself to be hoodwinked into believing it in 2012.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
I sort of agree with you
If the other evil was substantially lesser AND if I had some plan for using the abatement of greater evil to actually accomplish some good then yeah... I could go with "lesser evil". None of that, in my impression, pertains in the current situation. I suspect that's he difference between myself and a GOS'er. They think (from my perspective) that Hillary was both substantially less evil and provided a path to genuine goodness. That's where they misunderstand me and all the others who didn't get behind her.
A lot of wanderers in the U.S. political desert recognize that all the duopoly has to offer is a choice of mirages. Come, let us trudge towards empty expanse of sand #1, littered with the bleached bones of Deaniacs and Hope and Changers.
-- lotlizard
Hillary became a cult
among some people, and for others she was the much LOTE and for others she was their goldmine to jobs. That's who's still with her. Roughly 30%. Maybe.
"You can't just leave those who created the problem in charge of the solution."---Tyree Scott
I can sympathize with the matrix people
Those who see her as the significantly lesser evil and maybe even a force for good are understandable to me for the most part. After all, only about 6 years ago I was there too.
What always baffled me were the Bernie supporters who then supported her. Apparently, they didn't listen to anything Bernie actually said.
A lot of wanderers in the U.S. political desert recognize that all the duopoly has to offer is a choice of mirages. Come, let us trudge towards empty expanse of sand #1, littered with the bleached bones of Deaniacs and Hope and Changers.
-- lotlizard
@SnappleBC
As on TOP, it was the great incentive provided by the continual admonishment from Her small but vocal group of supporters for everyone to 'hold their noses and vote for Her' - I mean, really, who could possibly resist?
Her was just that popular among informed and sane voters.
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
Bernie himself is top of the list.
I agree
When he was out stumping for her and trying to convince me to change my mind the internal question always was, "So then.... the business model of Wall Street is no longer fraud? When did that get fixed?" Of course Bernie never quite said the other and more important statement, "The business model of DC is fraud." For all of the whining and moaning coming out of Democratic circles, Bernie never actually did what they accuse him of. He could've just said, "With very few exceptions, every single person inside the beltway is corrupt." Bernie left that to Gilens & Page.
A lot of wanderers in the U.S. political desert recognize that all the duopoly has to offer is a choice of mirages. Come, let us trudge towards empty expanse of sand #1, littered with the bleached bones of Deaniacs and Hope and Changers.
-- lotlizard
It would be worse if Obama did this before he was elected
Rather than after he's left office. That's why Hillary's Wall Street speeches seem a lot more egregious to me.
Beware the bullshit factories.
Vice versa...
Obama hid the snake in the grass that he is until after he walked off with the WH. That makes him sneaker than Hillary and a lower low life in my book.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
And Obama promised
to end the revolving door. Then he becomes the revolving door on the grandest of all scales.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
@gulfgal98
I wonder if he ever becomes dizzy from the spin, too?
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
ABSOLUTELY!
I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks
Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa
Bribery on the Lay-A-Way Plan!
Compensated Spokes Model for Big Poor.
Jimmy Carter
From the Bloomberg article:
No ex-president has been like Jimmy Carter, especially the Democratic ones. It looks like the Clintons taught Obama well.
(I want to make it clear that I am referring to ex-presidents after Jimmy Carter.)
Grief ha..
He is incapable of grief. Another slimy psycho.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
Jimmy Carter
You'd be hard put to find an humanitarian of Carter's equal calibre among the ex-presidents who came before him, either.
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
@karl pearson Of course he isn't
Of course he isn't bothered. He's got his.
I'd think he would be bothered that the planet is going to be a steaming wasteland for Sasha and Malia, but...
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Penny Pritzker arranged his purchase by the banks when he was
a lowly Chicago pol. He was still paying off (TPP) until the day he left office. I'm still embarrassed by my 2 votes for the SOB. Maybe worse POTUS than Bush? He certainly screwed the Dems.
chuck utzman
TULSI 2020
Podesta emails show link to bankers
Froman was the citi contact man who brought obama to Rubin in 2003(?)
there was a meeting.
I don't know much about Pritzer connection. don't know it matters much now who brought him in.
Obama sold out every which way he could.
2008 cabinet was picked from citi list.
Obama was in pocket all along.
partially explains his "I know something you don't know" smirk.
not a nice man.
He also . . .
sabotaged the best, maybe the only, chance for true reform of a significant magnitude we are going to see for the rest of my life. It's what he was groomed for. If anybody still believes it took threats or he was boxed in by Republicans, it's time to get over it.
I wonder if these generous honorariums
are simply a way of saying "Thank you sir, for saving our bacon"? I'll bet there might also be some future services that Mr.Hope And Change could arrange, for the benefit of America's estimable Banking Community. He certainly seems to be acutely aware of which side of the bread gets the butter.
native
One thing that really gets my goat,
is how so many Hollywood movie stars & celebrities fall all over themselves in praising Clinton and Obama. It's as if the entire US Entertainment Industry is one big fan club for those two. I don't get it. A lot of these show business personalities are otherwise pretty bright, and very good at what they do, but when it comes to politics they act like a pack of brainwashed zombies.
native
They're professional actors.
Most of them aren't that bright. They're just very good at pretending like they are.
They're also professionals, so they have no qualms about saying whatever is put in front of them in order to keep their jobs.
The current working assumption appears to be that our Shroedinger's Cat system is still alive. But what if we all suspect it's not, and the real problem is we just can't bring ourselves to open the box?
The Dem party has always protected the IP
intellectual property laws to favor Hollywood and Silicon Valley. That's why the money people in Hollywood like them. The celebs are bought off with lip service to their particular causes (the ones who have any).
"You can't just leave those who created the problem in charge of the solution."---Tyree Scott
Not surprised
I'm not surprised that Obama is cashing in his markers, I knew that he would do this after he let the bankers off and did nothing to stop the millions of people who their homes because he wouldn't stop the banks from committing fraud.
This just cements the fact that he was an Empty Suit as president.
Was Humpty Dumpty pushed?
The real story is SEXISM ON WALL STREET!
Hillary Clinton never got $400K.
@psychodrew Yet! n/t
Yet! n/t
'Hope to change my bank account'
should have been his honest campaign slogan.
Eight wasted years.
Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.
I think this is how our country is working
these days. I'm not even going to get excercised about it. In fact I think we are headed into such trouble that this is hardly worth thinking about. No offense to the diarist who I think highly of.
I mean think about it. If you could give a half hour speech that Obama could write in his sleep...if he even writes it and get paid 400 grand why not. It's not corruption it's common sense at this point. Our whole way of living has veered off course. Our Civilization has been so compromised by truly wicked and greedy and violent people. I say let Obama have his fine champagne and vacations with Branson on the now destroyed Nekker Island. He's small potatoes. With or without him we are drowning.
I agree
Except I hope Obomber, Her and a few others are sipping champagne on an island that is in the path of the next cat 5 hurricane.
Too much warning with the cat 5
These uber-dispicable rats have helicopters and Gulfstream jets at their beck and call.
I was hoping more for a totally unexpected earthquake and the resulting tsunami...
@Song of the lark Why not? Because it's
Why not? Because it's not about the speech. It's about the reason they're willing to pay him that much for a speech.
If you're asking, would I sell out the country to Wall St if it would make me for life? No.
But then, I'm not in poverty. If it were a question of getting out of poverty, that would be harder. Sort of like this:
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
It is corruption.
Corruption has been normalized in our society, but it is still corruption.
dfarrah
True that it is not about the speech.
What could Obama or Hillary , or Steve Bannon or whomever say in a half hour that would affect the bottom line of these hedge fund people. Our own diarist here would no doubt be as effective with real information than any modern politician. I'm of a mind that this is really not about much of anything. It is like when you take your 7 year old out for pizza. There is no expectation that they will pay, or be a better person, or do their chores. It's just done because, well because it can be done. I'm more of the opinion we are in a top/bottom fight, than a right/left. Or even a right/ wrong fight. It is a sad place I've come too. I realize that.
Heh!
I looked at one last thing before going to bed and I found Glenn Greenwald said it better over at the Intercept.
"SEAN SPICER’S playful, glamorous appearance at last night’s Emmy Awards and being honored as a visiting fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School (the honorific which the CIA vetoed for Chelsea Manning) has prompted a mix of shock and indignation. Former Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau wrote: “Harvard fellowships, Emmy appearances, huge speaking fees: there’s just gonna be no penalty for working in Trump’s White House, huh?” Slate’s Jamelle Bouie added: “The degree to which Sean Spicer has faced no consequences is a glimpse into the post-Trump future.”"
I could not disagree more.
The point isn't the amount Obama gets. The point is the conspicuous demonstration that the financial sector will come through after you leave the halls of power for the things you do for them while you're there.
Do you know that some military general officers have already picked the defense contractor for whom they will work upon military retirement before they are out of the service? There was a time when any flag officer who went to work for the defense industry would have lost every military friend he ever had.
There seems to be
some confusion between corruption and daily living.
I don't see any analogy between feeding your kid and industrial payoffs to a political water-carrier.
dfarrah
@Song of the lark
Had there been appropriate penalties rather than massive rewards for such corruption all along, there would not be endemic corruption at all within any branch of government, its agencies and the Justice system... and the nonsense about the powerful being 'above the law' enabling ever-worsening excesses could not have been imposed or accepted as a 'norm'.
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.