I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I'm not convinced by any means, but did I not predict he'd wind up closer to moderate than most expected?

What the actual fuck are you talking about?

TM

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

They didn't break a rule or law, but it is a very mild form of corruption. You can't take that much money and fail to arouse suspicions that there's a quid pro quo.

Suspicions do not equal corruption ("very mild" or not).

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

If I were a former President and had a $65 million deal for my memoirs, and Cantor Fitzgerald offered me $400K for a speech, I'd do the speech and make sure the money went to a good cause.

How do you know what he's planning on spending his money on? And he's going to get speaking fees from all sorts of organizations left, right, and center. What you're saying is absolutely ridiculous.

TM

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

Suspicions do not equal corruption ("very mild" or not).

I think we mean "corruption" in different ways.

How do you know what he's planning on spending his money on? And he's going to get speaking fees from all sorts of organizations left, right, and center. What you're saying is absolutely ridiculous.

If he wants to give speeches and have the money go straight to a cause, that would be great.

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

I think we mean "corruption" in different ways.

I disagree with the premise. Obama could have been 18 steps further to the left and when he left office he would have as many speaking engagement opportunities as he has right now.

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

If he wants to give speeches and have the money go straight to a cause, that would be great.

You neglected the second point. If he takes money for speaking engagements from all sorts of organizations and associations does that mitigate your concern? Or is it that there is a possibility that his decision-making was possibly corrupted to favor any entity that can afford to pay him huge fees, while giving short shrift to those who couldn't?

TM

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

They didn't break a rule or law, but it is a very mild form of corruption. You can't take that much money and fail to arouse suspicions that there's a quid pro quo. If I were a former President and had a $65 million deal for my memoirs, and Cantor Fitzgerald offered me $400K for a speech, I'd do the speech and make sure the money went to a good cause.

What a crock of shit.

At most you mean "appearance of corruption" and even there you only the quid and do not even have the ability to speculate as to the quo.

He's a former President. What does he have to sell? Sure, he may be a thought leader or the like, but he no longer has any oversight or decision making authority.

You should pick up a book written by an old classmate of mine called "The Disruptor's Feast" (I have pimped it on FB a few times) by Frits van Paasschen. Frtis talks about the process by which he made his mark on growing and restructuring the Starwood chain. In one of the early chapters he talks about having Bill Clinton speak at a big corporate gathering where he was trying to refocus the massive team that ran the operations all over the world on global opportunities and directions, and he gives you a good sense of what he was using Bill for - to inspire and rev up his team, to leave them with a memorable message, to make sure they kept focused on the ways the world was changing in their corporate planning. And it is good for a thought leader like Bill to have that kind of influence. He doesn't get to change the country anymore, but he can still impact pretty big bits and pieces of the world like this. And he gets to hang out with people who can talk to him about what's happening in Uzbeckistan.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

What the actual fuck are you talking about?

TM

We need to gain an ability like "pinned tweets" for these kind of evergreen posts.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

If Boeing or McKesson or Google were offering the money, I'd say the same thing.

eta: also, what Josh Barro says.

Josh has been unbearable the last few days. He's also been ranting about Chelsea Clinton continuing to exist. It seems Clinton Derangement Syndrome is an uncurable, permanent condition. And the syndrome degenerates into moronic misogyny if not treated with constant ridicule.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

I disagree with the premise. Obama could have been 18 steps further to the left and when he left office he would have as many speaking engagement opportunities as he has right now.

I don't get what premise you're disagreeing with. And I don't actually think that it's true that what he did as President is irrelevant to the kinds of speaking engagements he will get as an ex-President. Bush is more likely to get paid to speak to Exxon. Obama is more likely to get paid to speak to Google.

You neglected the second point. If he takes money for speaking engagements from all sorts of organizations and associations does that mitigate your concern? Or is it that there is a possibility that his decision-making was possibly corrupted to favor any entity that can afford to pay him huge fees, while giving short shrift to those who couldn't?

TM

I'm not saying there's a rule he has broken. There's no question that he has a right to give speeches for $$$. But set aside what's best for him for a moment. Is it good for Democrats that he take $400K from Cantor Fitzgerald? Obviously, no.

He is not going to get money from all sorts of organizations. The NRA, for one, is never going to pay him. And assume that his decision-making was not affected during his Presidency by concerns about who might be inviting him to speak later -- even so, people will look at the invitations and the fees and assume the worse. That undermines confidence in the system and his party.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

What a crock of shit.

At most you mean "appearance of corruption" and even there you only the quid and do not even have the ability to speculate as to the quo.

I'm not talking about a quid pro quo, not at all. If we were talking about Citizens United, we all would get the concern with corruption in the broader sense -- the overall effect on trust in the government that comes when large sums of money are exchanged legally to political actors.

eta: And I understand that corporations might pay big money to ex-Presidents for legitimate reasons.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

Josh has been unbearable the last few days. He's also been ranting about Chelsea Clinton continuing to exist. It seems Clinton Derangement Syndrome is an uncurable, permanent condition. And the syndrome degenerates into moronic misogyny if not treated with constant ridicule.

I was agreeing with the post I linked to, not necessarily anything else that Josh Barro has said recently. That said, I haven't seen any such rants -- the closest I can find is this tweet, and it's not close.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

I'm not talking about a quid pro quo, not at all. If we were talking about Citizens United, we all would get the concern with corruption in the broader sense -- the overall effect on trust in the government that comes when large sums of money are exchanged legally to political actors.

From your post 4858:

"You can't take that much money and fail to arouse suspicions that there's a quid pro quo."

I think you were talking about a quid pro quo.

If we were talking about Citizen's United, we would be talking about amounts being spent within a very short window before an election by corporations to smear Hillary Clinton (for things comparable to taking speaking fees when out of office without an active campaign going on). Citizen's United wasn't about payments to a candidate at all, but about independent expenditures to smear a candidate.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

For stuff this thin to have traction, you have to have an electorate and media that is already predisposed against the candidate.

Yes, and can you think of an example?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

From your post 4858:

"You can't take that much money and fail to arouse suspicions that there's a quid pro quo."

I think you were talking about a quid pro quo.

No, I'm talking about the corrosive appearances. I don't think Barack Obama had a quid pro quo with Cantor Fitzpatrick. I do think that his taking that money from them will cause some people to think he did, and some of them will be swing voters.

If we were talking about Citizen's United, we would be talking about amounts being spent within a very short window before an election by corporations to smear Hillary Clinton (for things comparable to taking speaking fees when out of office without an active campaign going on). Citizen's United wasn't about payments to a candidate at all, but about independent expenditures to smear a candidate.

I think you're missing my point. See this by Jeffrey Toobin, for example. Citizens United OK'd a lot of conduct which does not involve a quid pro quo and which, nonetheless, a lot of lefties view as corrupt in a broader sense. It would have been better for Democrats if Obama had not taken the $400K.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

Yes, and can you think of an example?

That's exactly right.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

You neglected the second point. If he takes money for speaking engagements from all sorts of organizations and associations does that mitigate your concern? Or is it that there is a possibility that his decision-making was possibly corrupted to favor any entity that can afford to pay him huge fees, while giving short shrift to those who couldn't?

TM

EVERY Prez (save Carter? Who I think is/was a brain damage case) has done this. Maybe it's Ty's "Obama walks on water" finally being disappointed he's just a man, a great one, but still human?