American Thinker: President Obama is off to Colombia, a country he disdained mightily during his time as president, now to collect a $600,000 honorarium for a single speech to a marketing group called EXMA.
It’s weird stuff, given that Obama was so contemptuous of Colombia over the first five years of his presidency. He denied the country a free trade pact while communist hellholes such as Nicaragua, and economic rivals such as Peru, got them easily. Colombia’s trade minister at the time, Luis Plata, told me the arrangement like this was basically the same as sanctions. He did eventually sign on to free trade with Colombia, dropping the miasma of nonsense from U.S. unions that union organizers were being killed. When I went to Colombia myself in 2008, I learned from the Colombian union organizers themselves that workers were being killed, all right…because they favored free trade, and the AFL-CIO was hypocritically touting their deaths as reason not to allow it.
Obama eventually signed the trade measure, but not without a significant delay. U.S. unions groused quietly.
At this early date, it’s unknown if the big payout was quid pro quo for services rendered, but the amount spent — and from a country where the per capita income is only $6,300 — sets off a red flag. Speeches for giant paydays are de rigueur for presidents coming to collect on favors given these days. President George Bush, Sr., who made a lucrative speech in Japan several years ago, pretty well put the game into the forefront. Obama has already collected gargantuan paydays for other speeches, so he’s certainly not shunning the practice.
There are other things that don’t quite ring right: EXMA, actually, is a pretty obscure group for this kind of cash to be coming from, and a look at its website suggests some generic themes of interest to marketers coming up at this conference — nothing very cutting-edge. Maybe that’s fine. But then there’s the detail that the conference has attracted only four sponsors, with battered CNN being the only well known one. Could the money for Obama be coming from somewhere else? One wonders.
Here’s the last thing, and it’s a doozy: these kinds of payouts are pretty common in Colombia. more
Pay off.
A dollar for everytime he says “I”.
I THINK HE COULD MAKE MORE FROM BEING PAID TO NOT SPEAK!!
Oh Boy, the Apology Tour continues, another excuse to go to a foreign land and bad mouth his country.
Although I never condemn anyone from making a buck, it is amusing that the irony is always lost on these lefties, the rapacious capitalism that they rail against conveniently feathers their nest.
Had to listen to that idiot for eight years and as far as I’m concerned he had nothing intelligent to say.
Doesn’t Trump have the authority to revoke his passport?
Make it so, number one!
Reverse Pay to Play.
He couldn’t take the money in office, he sure will now.
How about another book deal payoff.
I was told that they had pretty much eliminated the cartels in Columbia. Guess not!
I don’t get it. Nobody passes around that kinda cash unless they’re expecting something in return. What is Colombia getting for that kind of money?
Hush money for all the back room dealings during his 8 years…Clinton did the same. Anyone see a pattern here?
He didn’t earn that. The last President told me so.
Congress granted Presidents generous pension benefits after Harry Truman was living in near poverty. If congress can’t/won’t stop this obvious graft, the least they can do is pass a law requiring ex-presidents to return to the treasury an amount equal to whatever income they “earn” until their pension is paid back.
Revoke his passport.
No doubt a payoff for some bullshit he pulled in office.
He did supply a lot of firearms to the drug cartels.
That’s more than what the Russians paid Bill.
And to think, according to Bill, there was a time when Obama would have been serving coffee to himself and Teddy Kennedy.
If only the Cartels could make a big splash, you know- flex some muscle, while Obama is down that way.
He may need the money to pay off Colombian authorities for asylum.
I gots me this here miniature bridge I wanta sell
to some of thar Comblumbians.
I’m trying to remember who once said “I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money.”
Do my eyes deceive me, or is her net made from moose size underwear?
I wonder what ValJar’s commission will be?
Hmm, what if the current POTUS will prevent the former Choomer in Chief to coming back?
I know, just a fantasy…
He’s just going for a bit of Columbian Gold.
That’s a whole LOTTA “If if if if if if if if If if if if if if if if If if if if if if if if If if if if if if if if”… 😳
Just taking out the money he stashed there.
I wish they’d keep him.
$600k? That works out to about $0.10 per “I” or “me”
Um, did he get paid in cash or coke?