I was ignoring this pushback re Obama getting 400k in speaking fees from a Wall Street company but it isn’t dying down so I’m weighing in:
(1) F*ck that noise.
(2) Is he supposed to be some kind of financial martyr? To what end? To prove a point to whom? You don’t have to shortchange your earnings in order to serve your country. IN FACT, being financially comfortable or let’s be real, wealthy, gives you the freedom to serve in a much more expansive manner.
(3) He shouldn’t be properly compensated for his time and expertise? Why not?
(4) Wall Street can d*mn well afford to pay that amount and real talk – it should be more.
(5) Past presidents and other elected officials (i.e, mostly white men) get to collect BIG paper upon leaving office but the Black president is supposed to say “nah, I’m good?” HA!
(6) Y’all do know he spoke at the University of Chicago for free right? #Balance
(7) Has he even announced what he is going to do with the money? To be honest he doesn’t have to tell me what he’s doing with it. He and Michelle have more than earned the right to throw bills on their California King bed and roll around in ’em happy to no longer have to govern on behalf of a bunch of ungrateful racist citizens.
Are people concerned he’s going to trick it off on a yacht or a weekend bacchanal in Miami? He could be saving up to buy a condo in Trump Tower for some next level post-presidential trolling or maybe he might get a membership to Mar-A-Lago so he can roll through the next time a foreign president shows up.
(8) Speaking of, there is a family of legit grifters half-a*ssedly running the government while bilking it for billions but y’all mad at Obama’s 400k speaking fee, yeah okay. Some of y’all are focused on the absolute wrong sh*t. Do better.
(9) Reparations.
(10) F*ck. That. Noise.
See also: “Stop Freaking Out Over Obama’s $400,000 Speaking Fee” and “The Far Left Is Still Out Of Touch With Black Voters”
Image Credit: Scott Olson—Getty Images
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'Black Man Commits Serious Progressive Faux Pas By Getting Paid' have 37 comments
April 28, 2017 @ 6:26 am Daniel White
I fully support his bank roll! And am happy for him! Great points you mentioned. Folks still boiling mad he was POTUSA!
April 28, 2017 @ 8:18 pm CM
Ex-actly!
April 29, 2017 @ 12:12 pm J. Gainer
Yes..I support his right to make money. I love President Obama.
April 29, 2017 @ 1:20 pm CM
Definitely miss him running the country :-/
April 29, 2017 @ 10:23 pm Jean Smith
Ya’-DARN-Skippy-I’m SATISFIED, My SOUL Is SATISFIED!! I’m SUPER Proud of OUR President Barack Obama! I’m nearing 69 years YOUNG-and YES He HAVE earned EVERY “DIME” of WHAT GOD IS BLESSING HIM and Michelle To Enjoy…to God Be The Glory!!
May 1, 2017 @ 2:06 pm Candice Hawley
A $400,000 payday doesn’t make one wealthy these days! And what if it does? Barack Obama owes no one anything!!
May 1, 2017 @ 12:15 am Pat Kenney
I support Obama because he is honest, hardworking, caring, humble, gracious, loves children, loves his wife and is not afraid to show it, eloquent speaker, intelligent, knowledgeable about the law and constitution and so much more. I guess you can tell I admire him and voted him into office both times. Like many others, including other countries, such as Canada, they had and still have a high regard for him. He is a role model for many. I have learned a lot watching how the Obama family handled the disgusting racist comments, lies about them, name calling etc., with class and dignity.
May 1, 2017 @ 12:45 am Kathleen
Yep
May 1, 2017 @ 6:36 am Josie
President Obama is an intelligent, soft spoken, educated individual who served us well given the cards he was dealt. He will go down as one of our greatest presidents and deserves not only the $400,000 but whatever is offered to him. I Miss Him.
May 1, 2017 @ 5:19 pm Kristen Esbensen
This article was so informative and so helpful to me. Thank you! Thank you!! Thank you!!! As a white person who has heard and read the backlash Obama has been receiving, I honestly, and to my embarrassment and shame, didn’t have a coherent and articulate response. This article put it all together for me.
April 29, 2017 @ 8:46 am Brian Longworth
I first heard Obama when he gave a speech at the Democratic convention when Clinton was running for President. He was one of the best speakers I had ever heard. So intelligent. So articulate. I was convinced that he would be the next President. He deserves the $400,000 fee.
April 29, 2017 @ 1:21 pm CM
He is brilliant!!
April 29, 2017 @ 1:20 pm Chris
Absolutely!!! He’s entitled to the payment … more than entitled!! Who’s saying that he is charging $400,000? How about he was offered $400,000 to give the speech. Oh, was he was suppose to say, “I is a Black Man. I’m cool with 50 bucks!!” Puuuuullllllllllleazzzzzzzze!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
April 29, 2017 @ 2:34 pm Dan Sadowsky
Obama hardly needs the money. He left office at least $10M further in the black (no pun) than he went in, plus there’s our taxpayer stipend. There’s simply no way to spin your way out of payback, or for as-yet-undetermined quid pro quo—and certainly not the appearance of both. Skin color doesn’t have a thing to do with it. To insist there’s a racial overtone to anyone’s dismay about $400 large for a speech is such an obvious polemic cheap shot that the argument’s instantly lost. Barak & Co. could easily raise enough for a presidential library with Go Fund Me. What it looks like, smells like, is that he went back to the people who funded his campaign.
April 30, 2017 @ 1:07 pm CM
*Barack
“Mr. Obama is hardly the first former president to collect big checks after his time in the White House. Former President Bill Clinton became rich after leaving office, earning an average of more than $200,000 per speech over more than a decade. And former President George W. Bush was blunt when asked, shortly after he left office, what he intended to do.
“I’ll give some speeches, just to replenish the ol’ coffers,” he told The New York Times in 2007. Eventually, Mr. Bush reportedly received $100,000 to $175,000 for each appearance.
In 1989, Ronald Reagan earned $2 million for a week of speechmaking in Japan after leaving office. The Japan visit, for which he was subsequently the subject of derision, was sponsored by Fujisankei Communications Group, the country’s largest media conglomerate.”
(NYT: http://nyti.ms/2oMPh1b)
“So when the far left comes out and says that the first Black President should be held to a different standard than Presidents before him — that he doesn’t deserve to get paid for his post-Presidential work or shouldn’t be compensated — the Black community feels that one of its largest symbols of success is under attack from an overwhelmingly white political movement.
Why does the far left believe the first Black president should be held to a standard of making less money? Why does the far left believe that the first Black president doesn’t deserve to be compensated for his work? These are the issues that resonate with the black community.
“Well, nobody in the far left was coming for Sanders when he invested his money on Wall Street. Nobody on the far left was coming for The Young Turks when they took $4 million from Republicans. There are a plethora of organizations and publications on the far left that take big money from corporate donors, Republicans, and Wall Street investment bankers. But they are not viciously attacked for making money or taking in millions in donations. Why do they hold the first Black President to a standard they don’t hold themselves to?” (Source: http://bit.ly/2oYnlDL)
May 1, 2017 @ 12:04 pm leslie adele
thank you! brilliantly worded retort!
May 2, 2017 @ 3:38 am Tom Ritchford
“Everyone does it” is not any sort of justification for corruption.
April 29, 2017 @ 4:51 pm Lynnette McFadzen
BOOM!!!
April 30, 2017 @ 12:13 am Jean
I fail to understand the fuss about “speaking fees” in general. Everybody providing a service has a fee, right? So much for mowing my lawn, painting my house, playing bagpipes at my funeral. Fees are either set by the provider, or offered by the person seeking the service. And, as businessmen keep telling us, “If you want top talent, you have to pay top dollar”. Roger that–The man IS top talent– if they’re offering, take it.
It’s just good business.
April 30, 2017 @ 1:42 am Sherrie
The man has college tuitions to pay for. Let the man get paid for the love of mike.
April 30, 2017 @ 6:59 am Cellersteeñ Johnson
People are so stupid, of all the white EX-Presidents that has gotten plenty of money for speaking why are you concentrating on one black man that deserves all that he can get. Calm down people. You should be focused on the one in office now.
April 30, 2017 @ 7:49 am Bill Davis
Damn right!
LOVE #7, especially the part about buying a condo in Trump Tower or a membership at Mar-A-Lago. Oh please, oh please!! In fact, please do both, Mr. President!!! The apoplexy all the Reich-wingers in the USA would experience might kill them all off!
April 30, 2017 @ 9:39 am Molly
As a freelancer, you charge what the market can support, not what you think you deserve. How much do you f*cking expect to pay THE PREVIOUS PRESIDENT and the FIRST BLACK PRESIDENT EVER for a speaking gig at f*cing WALL STREET? His time and expertise is worth way more than $400k. Those assholes got a deal.
April 30, 2017 @ 12:01 pm Maggie Clough
Glad someone’s put into words my frustrations w/ these attackes on Obama. He was a good president without continually putting the previous occupant of the wh, like Trump seems to do too offton. He has eveey right to accept money for his speeches, especially from Wall St, which is filled w/more money than any of us can imagine! And do you know, I never even thought of him in terms of his being black + his being president. Seems others are paranoid about it. Poor people, they have lost their peace of mind. Or maybe they have just lost pieces of their minds? No offense meant.
April 30, 2017 @ 1:33 pm Sonny Chiba
Personally I feel if President Obama had mentioned he was going to donate these fees to XYZ Charities people would’ve complained…why that charity? This charity is better? You should keep the money…as we always so “You can’t win for losing” and regardless of what he does in the years to come his actions and movement will be under scrutiny. Mr. Trump and family are fleecing this country but people continue to turn a blind eye. The amount of money being spent for his sons & daughter to travel, the back and forth trips to Mar-A-Lago (And remember he said he would work non-stop, not taking a vacation…more lip service), and the added expense to protect his wife and son in NY. The mess that’s going on before out eyes should be enough to cause and outrage, not a former President getting paid 400K for a speaking fee.
April 30, 2017 @ 2:13 pm Kandi
Drops mic….
That’s our man!
April 30, 2017 @ 4:31 pm Janet
President Obama, hello. I do hope you are having a good laugh at these hypocritical two-faced yahoos, Sir. I could say a lot of what I am thinking, but I have far too much respect for you, on the off chance that you read these Comments. You deserve a lot more than 400K for any speech you deem to deliver. I heard that top hypocrite Sanders saying how “disgraceful it is for President Obama to be accepting that much money. What did Sanders do with all the “small donations” he got when he was campaigning? Oh that’s right, he used it to run his campaign. Give me a break.
President Obama, be well and please deliver as many speeches as you want, several per month would be great. All you Lily white hypocrites F— Off!
April 30, 2017 @ 8:23 pm Mo
Malcolm Nance, the cyber security expert, has said that Russia is still using fake social media posts to divide us. Is it true that the left is having a hissy fit or are we being trolled? Just asking.
April 30, 2017 @ 9:09 pm CM
Unfortunately it is true, google “Obama speaking fee” and more than a few articles will pop up. Prominent dissenters are Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren who is “troubled” by the amt.
May 2, 2017 @ 3:58 am Tom Ritchford
Rather than calling people’s concerns a “hissy fit”, why not actually look at the content of what they’re saying?
Mr. Obama protected Wall Street from the consequences of their own crimes. And I mean literal crimes – HSBC alone pled guilty to thousands of counts of money laundering, any one of which should have netted someone 7-14 years in the big house, but no one spent even a day in jail.
(He was doing this at the same time he was allowing and encouraging the US car companies to unilaterally slash the pensions that they were contractually obliged to be giving to their workers.)
And now he’s getting hundreds of thousands of dollars from the very organizations that be protected from the punishments they so richly deserved for the global financial crisis, which caused such terrible consequences to literally millions of people.
Those of us who still believe in the rule of the law, who still believe that the rich and powerful should be forced to obey the same laws that the rest of us do, considering this a deeply corrupt act.
May 1, 2017 @ 8:37 am Tim Herzog
It’s not how much he gets paid or whether he deserves it (he does). It’s who he’s getting paid by. This is not a racial issue or a fairness issue.
In the nineties, Mr. and Mrs. Clinton came from Midwest, USA and were largely perceived as being in touch with the values and issues facing ordinary Americans. Starting in 2001, they decamped to elite New York, started a global foundation that built connections with extremely wealthy individuals, and received millions in speaking fees from Wall St. Today, according to polls and focus groups, voters think the Democratic party (and I think particularly the Clintons) favors the rich and is out of touch with the concerns of ordinary Americans.
I count Obama among my heroes, and I wish him all the success in the world. As a former President, he is by definition an elite (in the good sense) and is entitled to the income that comes with it. But if the checks keep coming from Wall St and corporate America, then the cost will be his moral authority to advocate for the issues he cares about.
May 1, 2017 @ 5:02 pm Lincoln P. Debs
Dead on. Plenty of people complaining now about Obama raised the very same complaints about the Clintons, and could see that the earlier coziness of the Clintons to Wall Street had a lot to do with the later economic meltdown, but didn’t stop them from staying cozy. Obama doesn’t need the money, and if he did he could get it from almost literally anywhere. I know in the world where diversity is all and class little, no matter how much you have you are still the victim, so long as you have the right identity, but at some point people really do get suspicious of the would-be moral superiority of the ‘deservingly diverse’. Obama left the Democratic party a hollow shell that only the energy of the people criticizing him for what he’s doing will put back together. Hey, but maybe he’ll donate 10k to the DSCC. What a guy!
May 2, 2017 @ 3:38 am Tom Ritchford
Hear, hear!
May 2, 2017 @ 3:46 am Ken Rose
From where I see it. Bill Clinton took money from Wall Street for speeches. Hell, every politician took money for speeches from Wall Street. Until, Hillary.
Why are you persecuting the First Black President? Why are you accepting the persecution of the First White Lady Presidential Candidate from a major Party? If you reject SCUTINY against Obama, do you accept scrutiny against HILLARY?
There’s an EASY way for Obama to get out of this “persecution.” PUBLISH THE TRANSCRIPTS.
May 2, 2017 @ 4:00 am Ken Rose
Don’t just speak to Wall Street. Speak to the Young Folks of this Nation, like you did in the 2008 Campaign. Inspire them to do BETTER. “YES, WE CAN!”
May 2, 2017 @ 6:11 pm kristen
Isn’t the issue that we’re applying a double standard here to Obama? It’s a separate question, it seems to me, as to whether ex-Presidents, or ex-Anything and Anyone, should be accepting exorbitant amounts of money for giving speeches. To single out Obama seems like applying a double standard.
May 2, 2017 @ 4:42 am Acacia
Thank you! Thank you! You have called out this crap for what it. But seeeriously, America…what’s this about, seriously? Dig deep, dig deep….why the hate? It is just a fee (and a small one at that) for the privilege of a great man’s presence.