• BlameTheAntifa@lemmy.world
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    9 hours ago

    No official who holds any sort of authority should have any side hustles. Complete divestment should be a non-negotiable requirement of holding any public office or public position of authority.

    • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
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      12 hours ago

      All the presidents back to the 1920s, combined, up to this term for trump, made $400 million while in office.

      All of them. Added up to $400 million.

      Trump had made over a billion dollars in his first year.

      Best grift ever.

  • Asafum@lemmy.world
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    22 hours ago

    The presidency shouldn’t be your side hustle. He’s just here to boost his main gigs. :/

    • Psiczar@aussie.zone
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      10 hours ago

      Agreed, they should just call it CEO.

      It’s more a company now than a country, except management refuse to complete their anti-bribery and sexual harassment training.

    • Bo7a@piefed.ca
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      44 minutes ago

      You are stupid. Don’t get me wrong, being stupid is fine. The world needs all types.

      But maybe before posting dumb shit you could ask yourself ‘Am I posting this because I’m a fucking moron?’ and if the answer is yes, just go back to eating school glue instead of posting.

    • BigDiction@lemmy.world
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      8 hours ago

      Ha. If you don’t like the rate don’t hire Obama for your corporate event. That is the I’ll do it if you pay me rate.

  • IndustryStandard@lemmy.world
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    14 hours ago

    At least Trump got paid for playing ball with his billionaire friends. Obama bailed out banks and screwed over the common man for the love of the game.

  • teyrnon@sh.itjust.works
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    19 hours ago

    Says the guy that set us up to be taken by the republicans. Seriously, fuck these democrats, Obama is not of the good guys, he was a sold out piece of shit following an old strategy that no longer applied. I knew it was different, but he didn’t? Or he is just self interested. Fuck him, stop lionizing him, this is all his fault.

  • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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    22 hours ago

    Didn’t Obama enjoy an enormous windfall both during and after his presidency, thanks to a series of book deals, speaking tours, and Netflix specials? My man’s got $70M to his name right now. He started 2005 as one of the brokest Senators in the country.

    I just don’t think this is the guy to critique Trump for getting rich off the back of public office.

    • Thebeardedsinglemalt@lemmy.world
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      17 hours ago

      You do realize that former presidents do tend to get a little richer after the presidency right? Book deals, specials. Hell, Clinton was doing a lot of speaking engagements after office, raking in up to a million per gig.

      But let’s not discount Bush and cheney during that presidency…with all their oil interests and cheney giving his companies zero-bid contracts left and right

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        16 hours ago

        But let’s not discount Bush and cheney during that presidency…

        Of course not. They were corrupt af.

        I would say the big difference between Bush/Cheney and Obama/Biden is that the Bush family was already in the high eight-figures when he ran for Texas Governor. Cheney was already a CEO and married into the Coors dynasty. Meanwhile, the Obamas had a million-and-change in retirement savings when he took office, only to balloon it 70x.

        Obama was promoted to the aristocracy. Cheney clawed his way up through Wyoming state politics. Bush was born there.

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        22 hours ago

        He didn’t do that stuff while president.

        He absolutely did.

        Clinton, the Democratic president who was in office for two terms between 1993 and 2001, started his presidency with a net worth of $1.3 million, and after leaving office, had accumulated a wealth of $120 million, according to celebritynetworth.com.

        Per the outlet, it is also thought that Clinton and his wife Hillary have earned more than $250 million to date from speaking engagements, book advances and royalties, and through investment and consulting fees.

        Barack Obama was the president who saw the second highest increase to his wealth coming out of office, at around 5,300 percent.

        After the Democrat was in office for two terms between 2009 to 2017, he accumulated a net worth of $70 million, up from $1.3 million.

        • someguy3@lemmy.world
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          17 hours ago

          Bill Clinton Increased His Wealth by the Most After Presidency, Barack Obama Was Second

          The header you omitted which clearly outlines the context was AFTER PRESIDENCY.

        • WesternInfidels@feddit.online
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          21 hours ago

          This seems to gleefully conflate wealth and income, in order to claim that the infamously-always-grifting trump lost a fortune during his first term. Using percent to decide who had the “biggest increase” to their wealth is a sneaky way of excusing the grifting of the richest among us. It points out “Democrat” or “Democratic” repeatedly but doesn’t use the word “Republican” even one time. Its supporting “according to Bloomberg” link doesn’t even go anywhere.

          • jaycifer@lemmy.world
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            17 hours ago

            Additionally, Donald Trump does not appear on the chart of before and after wealth, presumbaly because the “according to Bloomberg” numbers are 20 time higher than the highest number that is on the chart.

            • WesternInfidels@feddit.online
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              16 hours ago

              Yes, good catch!

              The article also does nothing to acknowledge or account for the way trump’s family cashed in, scoring deals that added up to potentially billions, i.e, far more than all the money on their little chart put together.

              I am skeptical that any outsider can really say, in good faith, that trump’s wealth rose or fell during his first term anyway. That family’s finances are infamously obfuscated and shot through with fraud. Once a system passes a certain level of complexity, it becomes pretty trivial to paint it in whatever light you’d choose, and offer evidence to back that point of view up, too.

      • teyrnon@sh.itjust.works
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        19 hours ago

        He also handed the country off to the devil. He knew or should have known he was failing. Piss all the way off lionizing him, he’s a piece of shit.

        • AdolfSchmitler@lemmy.world
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          19 hours ago

          What was he supposed to do? Like, Obama personally. Sign an executive order or something? Two of his Supreme Court picks were blocked cuz of bull shit I guess, maybe he should’ve fought harder?

          It’s the whole system tho. Stop thinking one side will save us they’re all on the same team and it’s not ours.

          • Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works
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            18 hours ago

            Just playing Devil’s Advocate, but he could have blown everything up by releasing the Epstein files, and all of the other cases where the government is covering up crimes of the Epstein class.

            • AdolfSchmitler@lemmy.world
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              17 hours ago

              I mean, bullshit aside (I think they were “sealed” until a few years ago or whatever) what good would that have done? Snowden leaked the government spying on us, people don’t even know who he is anymore. Nobody cares.

              Kinda blackpilled perspective but even if Obama released the full, unredacted files, the most that would happen is a couple vigilantes trying to get justice. Our own government said they weren’t going to go after ANYONE in the files idgaf what reason they gave it’s not good enough.

              That shit blows my mind they actually just came out and said it instead of pretending to take a long time and hope people forgot. THAT’S how brazenly corrupt they are now.

          • teyrnon@sh.itjust.works
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            19 hours ago

            He was supposed to be popular, and hand off to someone popular. He made a deal to give it to Hillary in 2008 and somehow no one in the party challenged it, just as no one challenged Harris last time.

            The Party is broken. The leadership is the Enemy. Realize it and help us fix it!

    • ParlimentOfDoom@piefed.zip
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      22 hours ago

      I’m not sure why you think releasing a book after you leave office is remotely comparable to using the office to funnel taxpayer money into your own businesses, your friends and family’s business, solicit blatant bribes from both corporations and foreign countries, manipulating the stock market to enable insider trading, and on top of all that making bets on your own actions…

      • teyrnon@sh.itjust.works
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        19 hours ago

        The corruption of previous presidents has begat the corruption of this one. Not comparable obviously, but here we are defending the presidency of Kodos while Kang robs us blind. Stop whatabouting the democrats being the controlled opposition in the control of the oligarchy.

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        21 hours ago

        releasing a book after you leave office

        He released his books during his campaign for President and profited enormously of the residuals and subsequent compound return on investments.

        funnel taxpayer money into your own businesses, your friends and family’s business, solicit blatant bribes from both corporations and foreign countries, manipulating the stock market to enable insider trading, and on top of all that making bets on your own actions…

        The Untouchables: How the Obama administration protected Wall Street from prosecutions

        I’ll spot you that Obama didn’t pocket nearly as much as he could have. But it is crazy to suggest a man who has become a fixture of the Wall Street speaking circuit didn’t profit from the bank bailouts he oversaw.

        • ParlimentOfDoom@piefed.zip
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          16 hours ago

          He released his books during his campaign for President

          He released his presidential memoir in November of 2020. 4 years after he left office. His previous book was 4 years before he ran for president.

          Try again.

            • someguy3@lemmy.world
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              10 hours ago

              Books

              Obama, Barack (1995). Dreams from My Father. New York: Times Books. ISBN 978-0-8129-2343-8.

              (2006). The Audacity of Hope. New York: Crown Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-307-23769-9.

              (2010). Of Thee I Sing. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 978-0-375-83527-8.

              (2020). A Promised Land. New York: Crown Publishing Group. ISBN 978-1-5247-6316-9.[538]

              So 2010 was a children’s book. Yup. Whopping 40 pages. Illustrated. And “Obama finished writing the book in 2008, after he was elected but before taking office.[5]”

              And his memoir was 2020.

              Your own link.

    • SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca
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      20 hours ago

      Trump has grifted over $3B in personal money. While still in office. And that’s just what we know.

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        19 hours ago

        There is so much more grift, I know without knowing they are getting payoffs for everything. Literally everything is for sale. Idk what he thinks he is going to do with it, he’s on his last legs. Just wants to go out as a winner I suspect, he doesn’t give a shit about his kids other than as a reflection on him.

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            18 hours ago

            I can assure you, I don’t lionize the controlled opposition that is the democratic establishment. They are the enemy. It’s just too bad yall sheep don’t realize it, because fighting under these democrats is doomed to fail, even though we are stronger than these republicans and would win with strong leadership.

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        18 hours ago

        Does that include the 10 Billion he is suing the IRS for? Or the Billions he has received for his Bored or Peace?

    • Steve@communick.news
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      21 hours ago

      Yah. What’s the difference between $70M and $4B+?
      It’s only $3,930,000,000 more. There’s no real difference there.

      • AA5B@lemmy.world
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        17 hours ago

        In office, vs after

        Quid pro quo, vs opinion and connections

        Abusing the office for personal enrichment, vs speaking as a citizen with unique experiences for personal enrichment

        • Maeve@kbin.earth
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          16 hours ago

          Oh like Hilary on the campaign trail, promising constituents one thing, and at a private dinner with no recording devices or phones allowed with bankers telling them what she’s really going to do? We found out about from a whistle blower who thankfully recorded.

          • AA5B@lemmy.world
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            12 hours ago

            Yep, she’s the only politician who’s ever told crowds what they wanted to hear.

            …… and that’s exactly the same as bribery

            • Maeve@kbin.earth
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              12 hours ago

              Way to confuse a singular example for a flood of the same. And yes, it was bribery. Quid pro quo, more precisely.

      • Maeve@kbin.earth
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        21 hours ago

        How tf are we going to root out corruption in the other side when we can’t root it from ourselves? Come on, we know each side has plenty of room for rightful accusations. If we root it out of our own, the other side has nothing within us to excuse it.

        • Steve@communick.news
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          21 hours ago

          Go after the big fish first.
          Why tackle 2% of the problem before going after 98%

        • Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works
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          17 hours ago

          Rooting out the measly amount of corruption on our side makes absolutely no difference to the other side. They have proven time and time again they don’t need any excuses, they are proud of their grift! It’s smart business! If you made the Left 100% squeaky clean they’d say it showed how weak and useless we are.

          • Maeve@kbin.earth
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            16 hours ago

            If you’re okay with corruption when it benefits your side, you’re have no right to be upset with corruption when it’s their side. Set. The. Bar.

            • Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works
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              16 hours ago

              I’m not condoning corruption. I’m just saying that the Right has NO bar. So don’t pretend that anything you do to punish corrupt behavior will affect them at all.

              They not only gave us Trump twice, they’re trying to eliminate our voting rights entirely and hand over the country to him and his cronies in perpetuity, pun not planned but noted.

              So given that we have finite energy, that’s where we need to be focusing it right now.

              For instance, I have a primary vote to cast for Governor of California. Obviously I want the most progressive candidate, the most trustworthy candidate, the candidate with sufficient voter support to knock one of the Republicans off the November ballot. Which one is all 3 of those things?

              • Maeve@kbin.earth
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                16 hours ago

                No one on “our” side complained about Pelosi and Insider trading, until they did. I’m done with “not quite as corrupt”/“not the other guy.” If all you think you deserve is “not as bad,” perhaps reflect on why you don’t think you – and your fellow citizens – deserve “not intentionally doing wrong at the expense of my voters.”

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        22 hours ago

        What’s the difference between $70M and $4B+?

        It is crazy that the defense of a corrupt liberal oligarch boils down to “he didn’t sell out hard enough”

        Reminds me of Joe Biden, shilling for Israel for pennies on the dollar compared to his Republican peers.

        • Steve@communick.news
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          20 hours ago

          Did I defend him?
          Or did I point out the orders of magnitude difference. Not even mentioning that one sold books and a Netflix series after leaving office, while the other has literally solicited bribes and scammed his supporters with meme-coins, as well as selling shitty sneakers, and phones that won’t ever be released, and more while still in office.

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            21 hours ago

            Hey now… Obama sold a phone… err excuse me… gave away phones to people that really needed them and didn’t profit off it at all and it literally helped 20+ million Americans have access to cellphone who otherwise couldn’t afford it, even to this day.

            Thanks Obama.

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      21 hours ago

      I think he’s the one to critique him. Being an ex president creates interest and opportunities, that’s nothing new.

      What is new is the most blatantly and openly corrupt presidency in history. The man is grift incarnate. There is a difference between profiting from the windfalls and openly soliciting for bribes in every way possible.

    • Soulphite@reddthat.com
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      21 hours ago

      There’s a big difference between being the first black president of the US and the first pedophile president of the US… Obama earned his clout.