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CHICAGO The best thing about President Barack Obamas historic presidency is that its over. We can now look back on it and him in far fonder terms than it was experienced live.

After the news about Obamas upcoming $400,000 speech at a health care conference sponsored by the Wall Street financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders called the gig distasteful. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren said she was troubled.

The terms fat cats and hypocrite were bandied about, and newspaper op-ed pages chimed in with delightfully colorful headlines like $400,000 for an Obama speech: Tacky but not corrupt, from the Los Angeles Times.

It was fun to watch the opposite-day dueling op-eds at the major papers. The Wall Street Journals editorial board declared: Let the man make a buck, as long as he pays the top marginal rate, while The New York Times editorial board grimly mourned that it was disheartening that a man whose historic candidacy was premised on a moral examination of politics now joins almost every modern president in cashing in.

But in total, even his less ardent fans have to be thinking: Awwwwwwww, leave Obama alone, already!

This is why fewer and fewer good, smart people of modest means will grow up dreaming of becoming president: Not only does every aspect of your life get skewered and put through a funhouse mirror, but after youve served your country even your former supporters will have the long knives out for you should you want to cash in on your incredibly unique experience.

But more so than that, peoples disgust at Obamas new opportunities to make a living speaks of a pervasive bias against those with high ambitions and who happen to be minorities.

Most high-achieving minorities grew up with hard-core parents who drummed into them the idea that in order to succeed in America they had to be not twice, but three or four times as good academically, in their work ethic and in their behavior as their white peers.

There was no wiggle room you were either undeniably better or you had to prepare to take a back seat to people whose names typically were easier to pronounce or spell.

So, yes, what Im saying is that even if liberals dont understand it, criticizing President Obama for failing their purity test of not turning down a big payday for doing what he does best speechifying is, if not exactly racist, then at least a harmful double-standard.

By all accounts, most modern former presidents parlay their time in office into lucrative speaking engagements, book deals and other options. Why should Obama be held to a different set of rules?

People who otherwise wouldnt blink an eye at a rapper, an actor or an athlete making millions seem to think that Obama should be above financial incentives and, in fact, should give away his experience and expertise.

Speak, Obama, speak. Just not for money, wrote Jill Abramson, the former executive editor of The New York Times, in The Guardian.

Stunning.

Just imagine if all experts and all who excelled at their disciplines were expected to provide their knowledge for free. For one, no one would ever pay for a newspaper or a book again.

Trevor Noah, the host of Comedy Centrals The Daily Show, put it best: So, the first black president must also be the first one to not take money afterwards? No, no, no, no, no, my friend. He cant be the first of everything.

Noah threw it into perspective why should Obama be the one to break the mold of making money after the presidency? After all, he didnt forge it. Why isnt the expectation that there should be a first white president to not take the money?

Go on and break the mold of having to be so much better, saintlier and humbler than your predecessors and peers, President Obama. Feel free to dispense with the silly double- and higher standards that minority firsts are held to.

You will be making a very big statement one that has the capacity to set a precedent that even after theyve proved themselves, firsts dont have to forever be at least twice as good as everyone else.

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Cepeda: Must Obama be more saintly than his predecessors? - The Mercury News

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Posted: May 07, 2017 12:01 AM

President Obama didnt just leave his military assets sitting in the garagehe set them to playing useless global warming games. Recently I reviewed the U.S. Navys planning documents from 20082015. Its no fault of the Navys, but they were directed to accept the IPCCs overheated claims of parboiled disaster as ultimate truth.

Thus, the Navy planned that many of their naval bases would be put out of action by rapid sea level rise and far stronger storms, just as the calamity criers predicted. They were told to expect an ice-free Arctic swarming with Russias subs and undersea miners. New trade though the suddenly ice-free Northwest Passage would require more Coast Guard cutters and more icebreakers. Fuel prices would soar, making biofuels crucial to our military. Meanwhile, the ships would have to rescue hundreds of thousands of people from sinking islands and failed coastal states like Somalia.

Now that Barack Obama has resigned his commission as Commander in Chief, however, his militarys global warming plans have been overtakenby new technologies, by unforeseen weather, and by radical political changes.

The Navys weather guys must have known back in 2008 about the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, which is the cause of the pause (though the alarmists wont admit the cause is natural--and predictable. The PDO was recognized in 1996 by two fisheries experts exploring the decline of the salmon in the Columbia River. The researchers found that when the salmon declined in the Columbia River, they were abundant in the Gulf of Alaska, and vice versa. The PDO thus massively shifts the currents and sea surface temperatures in the Navys biggest bathtub the Pacific every 30 years.

After the Pacific shifts warm again in another dozen years, well get a solar sunspot minimum that will drop earths thermometers well below even todays non-warming levels. Coupled with the pause that would give us a full century of non-warming. Who knew? But most of us doubted.

Obamas Green Navy declared a culture of energy efficiency, including LED light bulbs in the ships, and sailing on one engine while the other propellers blades were set to minimize drag. The Navy said this draglining was meant to increase time at the action site between refuelings, but Obamas demand for a Greener Military was the real decision factor. We might even thank Obama for pushing one actually useful gimmickinstalling stern flaps on the vessels to improve water flow efficiency (like those rear spoilers on sports cars).

The Navys cleverest Green PR gimmick the Great Green Fleet it sent to sea in 2016. It was a carrier strike force keyed by a nuclear aircraft carrier and surrounded by nuclear submarines and hybrid-electric ships with beef tallow mixed into their marine diesel. Its aircraft flew (briefly) on 100-per-cent-renewable fuel from plant material and algae. Some of the aircraft fuel may have been camelina oil, a very expensive relative of mustard seed now grown in Montanamainly for cosmetic cream. Some of this camelina oil cost the Navy almost $30 per barrel, against less than $4 for marine diesel. Amazingly, the Naval Petroleum Reserve has no camelina oil. How would we scale up camelina production in the event of a sudden enemy attack?

Today, of course, the U.S. Navy is drawing up an entirely new set of plansbased on cheap and abundant fossil fuels, costly biofuels and the normal storms at sea expected during a global warming like this one. (Storms are vastly worse during the little ice ages.) And of course there is still a tiny annual rise in sea levels due to the moderate ice-melt of the Modern Warming. (The massive glaciers of the Ice Age are long gone and the sea has already risen nearly 400 feet since.) The rate of sea level rise has not increased during the last century.

The Coast Guard has not yet orders extra icebreakers to shepherd merchant ships through a sun-warmed Northwest Passage. However, a 70,000-ton cruise liner, the Crystal Serenity, recently sailed successfully from Seward, Alaska, through the Arctic Sea to New York. (It paid for its own privately-owned icebreaker.)

Neither Obama, the UN nor the U.S. Navy ever imagined a whole 21st century with no rise in temperatures, but that now seems the most likely scenario.

As baseball great Yogi Berra famously said, Its hard to predict, especially about the future.

Michigan Targets Parents in Genital Mutilation Investigation

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Obama Steered America's Navy Off Course - Townhall

As Barack Obama took on the role of salesman-in-chief for his Jackson Park presidential library last week, he engaged the audience with some blunt assessments of his adopted hometown.

Minority construction job numbers get rigged. Parks on the South Side aren't always as nice as those on the North Side. Neither are the playgrounds. And the first thing people mention about Chicago is its violence.

Not exactly traditional talking points from the fifth floor of City Hall. That's where Mayor Rahm Emanuel, already eyeing a 2019 run for a third term, is fine-tuning his political messaging: amenities and spending are being spread across the city, schools are improving, the police department is being reformed and the post-recession economy is booming with construction cranes and the jobs they bring.

Obama's comments undercut some of that, drawing surprised reactions and applause inside the South Shore Cultural Center at a time when Emanuel could stand to regain support among African-Americans who have soured on him since the 2015 city election amid revelations about the Laquan McDonald police shooting and a federal probe into the department.

"(Obama's) positions were frank. They are the types of things that we more often have said privately among ourselves, because they are difficult to put out there," said South Side Ald. Roderick Sawyer, 6th, who chairs the City Council's Black Caucus. "Now that he's out of office, he can make those type of statements with ease, and it was refreshing for someone to address them in terms that everyone understands."

Going forward, it's a political dynamic to watch. With the presidential library still in the planning stages, how often will Obama be back in Chicago? When he surfaces, will the former president continue to draw attention to the city's problems or embrace the mayor's work to fix them? Emanuel, after all, was Obama's first White House chief of staff, and in turn, the president greatly helped him become Chicago mayor in 2011 with an East Room send-off that ended up in a campaign TV ad.

North Side vs. South Side

The former president volunteering that Chicago's predominant national image is tied to its surging gun violence doesn't do Emanuel any favors.

"As somebody who has not been right here in Chicago over the last several years, whenever I visit, I tell people, 'Chicago has never looked more beautiful. It has never sparkled more,'" Obama said Wednesday. "And yet, if you ask a lot of people outside of Chicago about Chicago, what's the first thing they talk about? They talk about the violence."

The mayor already finds his city a frequent target of Republican President Donald Trump for its inability to tamp down the killing, most of it on the South and West sides. Last year, Chicago had 762 homicides, the most in two decades. So far this year, the city has seen a similar rate of killings.

Obama suggested he and Michelle Obama weren't willing to wait until the library's completion in 2021 to get started on their work. The couple announced they would start apprentice training programs for young adults and would donate $2 million to summer jobs programs "so that right away young people can get to work, and we can start providing opportunities to all of them."

The focus on summer jobs programs does endorse one of Emanuel's approaches to curtailing violence. The mayor, who declined an interview for this story, has increased funding for the city's program over the past several years.

The Rev. Torrey Barrett, a South Side pastor who attended the library event, said Obama's willingness to openly discuss the city's violence and other challenges also tackles a criticism the former president has faced head-on.

"When he was in office, a lot of people criticized him for not doing enough for Chicago, particularly the black community of Chicago," said Barrett, who is the CEO of KLEO, a community nonprofit in Washington Park. "Now that he's out of office, it looks like he's going to use all the weight that he has as an ex-president to address some of these issues that people have criticized him for."

In his remarks, Obama also made it a point to emphasize how the home for his presidential center, Jackson Park, doesn't measure up with parks in other areas of the city.

"Jackson Park is beautiful, but let's face it. ... When you drive through the park, it feels different than Lincoln Park does. It feels different than Millennium Park does. It is not used in the same way. It is not accessible in the same way. It does not have features of the same sort. It's not as good as it could be," Obama said. "So part of what we said is ... how do we transform the park, so it starts looking like Millennium Park and Lincoln Park and thereby stitches the entire city together, so that it's not things are that way on the North Side and a different way on the South Side?"

Obama made a similar point on inequity when discussing his vision for a children's playground area at his presidential center. He said he'd like to see features like climbing walls and other activities and programs.

"One of the things I wanted the community to do is look at what they're doing in places like Brooklyn in their parks, or Seattle in some of their parks, or what they're doing, frankly, in some of the parks up on the North Side in terms of how to engage young people," Obama said. "What we want to make sure of is the park is not just a dead zone."

Sawyer, the 6th Ward alderman, said such statements could pressure the city and Emanuel into doing a better job on the issue.

"The president can acknowledge a disparity does exist between the South and North sides and the West and North sides, and the mayor is starting to have to make accommodations and also acknowledge the disparity exists," Sawyer said. "I think the mayor is being pushed to make these changes. ... The president's comments help that."

A narrative that the South and West sides lack top-quality parks and amenities cuts against some of Emanuel's efforts on those issues.

The mayor frequently points to his Chicago Plays! program that he says built or renovated hundreds of playgrounds in neighborhoods across the city. Emanuel has been quick to point out he was the first mayor to place public art along the lakefront on the South Side. He's also highlighted the soaring suspension bridge along 35th Street, connecting Bronzeville to Burnham Park along the lakefront, which he has suggested is so beautiful it makes Lincoln Park envious.

Barrett, who has supported Emanuel, applauded second-term efforts such as hiring businesswoman and former U.S. Senate candidate Andrea Zopp as deputy mayor and an effort to siphon off money from downtown developments for neighborhood projects. But Barrett also thinks the spotlight on Obama's library will push Emanuel to do more.

"If you're going to be attracting people from all over the world to the South Side, you're forced to invest in it so people who come here are safe, have options and are able to take full advantage of the area," he said. "The president is making a charge, and I think the mayor will step up to make sure he meets that demand."

'Cook the numbers'

Obama also waded into the longtime Chicago controversy of minority contracting, with city ordinances requiring a certain percentage of public contracts to be dedicated to women- and minority-owned firms.

"We will exceed whatever historic or legal goals have been mandated in terms of minority- and women-owned business participation," Obama said. "I also want to point out, though, that and again, this is from somebody who lives here you know you can cook the numbers to make it look like people are participating. I mean, that's just true. I'm sorry."

The former president's comment about minority jobs cuts to an ongoing problem for Emanuel.

Black aldermen routinely complain the city is failing to bring enough African-American-owned businesses and black employees in on lucrative city contracts. The mayor mustered the bare minimum of 26 City Council votes last fall to let him borrow up to $3.5 billion to bankroll aviation projects, with several black aldermen saying they voted against the measure to send a message that the Aviation Department must do more to make sure the firms that get the bond work have minorities well-represented on their staffs.

At the same time, Obama said his foundation would not hire firms just because they are run by African-Americans, Latinos or women.

"If we have to choose between somebody who is not a woman- or minority-owned vendor and who does really great work and is going to make this whole thing terrific, and somebody who's raggedy, we will choose the folks who do the work," Obama said to a loud roar of laughs.

Sawyer said that remark drew a joke from Emanuel.

"I was sitting next to the mayor, and when the president made his statement about raggedy businesses, the mayor said, 'Alderman, do you really think I could say that at the City Council?' I said, 'No, you shouldn't, and you better not either,'" Sawyer said with a laugh.

Obama-Emanuel relationship

While Obama's airing of Chicago problems may make things uncomfortable at times for Emanuel, tying himself to Obama's legacy helps the mayor politically. Emanuel introduced Obama at the library event and spoke wistfully about his former boss' time in the White House and of his influence in Chicago something the mayor said he sees frequently when visiting schools to teach civics classes.

"Invariably, there is always a photo of the president or a quote of his, just like if you go to Boston, there is always a picture or a quote from John F. Kennedy, their favorite son," Emanuel said. "It's a sign of a strong connection we all have to our friend, our president. President Obama's contributions to the city of Chicago are already immeasurable, and his legacy is just beginning."

In his first bid for mayor in 2011, Emanuel aired ads with highlights of Obama praising him at his White House departure ceremony as outgoing chief of staff. In the mayor's 2015 re-election bid, Obama cut a radio ad for the mayor and visited Chicago days before the election to embrace Emanuel's re-election bid and announce the Pullman district would become a national monument.

Barrett said he believes Emanuel will continue to benefit from his association with the president, even if Obama draws attention to the city's challenges under the mayor.

"It shows that while there are some things that have happened, the president still supports him as the mayor of the city he's called home and the city of his library," Barrett said. "Will that sway everyone? Probably not, but as he continues to do what's needed and makes investments, I think he'll be successful again, and I think his relationship with the president will continue to help in the black community."

Chicago Tribune's John Byrne contributed.

bruthhart@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @BillRuthhart

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Obama's talk of Chicago problems undercuts Emanuel's message - Chicago Tribune

More often than not and now more than ever, once a sitting president leaves office, he does the following: treats his former status as the most powerful person on Earth for the winning Lotto ticket it is. This is done by way of lucrative book fees, high-paid speaking engagements and sitting on a board or 27 for a pretty-pretty nice amount of money.

For former president Barack Obama, who can boast not only of being one of the few two-term Democratic presidents, but the first black one, such bonafides make him even more capable of making lots and lots of bread (please read bread in the voice of Stevie J.)

However, like many things associated with his time in office, what was once considered a norm for others is now suddenly an issue when Obama partakes in the practice.

For more than a week now, a fair amount of folks have been complaining about Obama netting $400,000 for a speaking engagement on top of the reported $60 million he and his wife, former First Lady Michelle Obama, earned for their collective book deal. Newsweek writer Chris Riotta asks the following: How could it be that Obama, the smooth-talking Democratic candidate in 2008 who slammed Wall Street greed and resonated with the working class in a way his party has since been unable to authentically recreate, is living his post-presidential life like an elitist one percent?

The annoyances in this leading question are two-fold. One, to quote many a lovable Negro today, I just think its funny how suddenly the first black president has to be held to certain standards with respect to making money. After all, capitalism is a religion in America so its peculiar that anyone is perplexed that a former head of state of this capitalistic country wouldnt follow traditions such as seeing his post-presidency through the lens of Cash rules everything around me. Yet the likes of Riotta and others have been asking, Isnt $60 million enough?

Go ask a Clinton, a Bush, a Reagan or a Kennedy that. Speaking of, Obama and Bill Clinton biographer David Maraniss said Obama does not need the money and should not accept it. A Clinton biographer said this. The Clintons treated the White House like an AirBnB for big donors and made several fortunes after the Clinton presidency. But please, Barry, dont get too rich on em. Mind you, the types making these calls are well-paid white folks in media who currently earn far more than me and others like me for similar, if not less, work.

As for the 2008 Obama who slammed Wall Street, there is a bit of revisionist history at hand. Like a kid at the end of an old ABC family sitcom who suddenly saved the day with his naivet, Riotta quotes Obama in 2009 saying, I did not run for office to be helping out a bunch of fat cat bankers on Wall Street and ends his piece with this quip, Maybe that Obama should have a talk with 2017 Obama.

Obama notoriously raised more money than political opponents like Hillary Clinton, John McCain and Mitt Romney from Wall Street. He even raised more money than former president George W. Bush. The Obama administration has long had criticism over this, which is why when asked about the fee and criticisms over it, Obama spokesman Eric Schultz said: With regard to this or any speech involving Wall Street sponsors, Id just point out that in 2008, Barack Obama raised more money from Wall Street than any candidate in historyand still went on to successfully pass and implement the toughest reforms on Wall Street since [President Franklin D. Roosevelt].

Thats long been an Obama retort to criticism over taking so much money from the Street. One could easily refute that by noting that many of the folks on Wall Street who played a pivotal role in the financial disaster of years past ought to be in jail. Nevertheless, when it comes to Obama and who hell take money from, hes long told you what he was about. The game is the game, and while you can criticize it as you see fit, dont rewrite history to make your arbitrary, hypocritical point.

Joining the well-paid media people admonishing Obama for taking $400,000 to speak about healthcare (imagine the man behind Obamacare doing such a thing,) are Democratic politicians with curious ambitions for 2020. Enter Sen. Bernie Sanders, who said Obama is a friend of mine yet he finds his decision to be distasteful.

I just think it does not look good, Sanders explained on CNN. I just think it is distastefulnot a good idea that he did that.

Oh, Bernie. You still think 45s base cares all that much about their own economic well-being as opposed to the preservation of the white establishment and their frail lil egos. 45 has been categorized as an economic populist, but hes a billionaire and longtime scammer whos stacked his cabinet with just about all of Goldman Sachs and various other billionaires who know absolutely nothing. And yet, those deplorables still heavily support 45, as evidenced by poll after poll.

Whats actually distasteful is Sanders still not understanding that issues like reproductive rights, racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia are just as much economic issues as his talking points about the ills of Wall Street. Go do your homework and get out of Obamas pockets. This is the part where one of his racist supporters will send me a comment calling me a neoliberal and cheerleader for capitalism. I have too much private student loan debt hovering over me to be any of those things.

Then theres Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who said she was troubled by Obama accepting that speaking fee. However, she took it further than Sanders did. In an interview with the Guardian, Warren said, President Obama, like many others in both parties, talk about a set of big national statistics that look shiny and great but increasingly have giant blind spots.

Warren went on to say: The lived experiences of most Americans is that they are being left behind in this economy. Worse than being left behind, theyre getting kicked in the teeth.

So Obama doesnt know the lived experiences of most Americans, but Warren apparently does. Yet this is the same person who allowed Ben Carsons nomination as housing secretary (despite his only qualification being he can recite the story of Noahs Ark) to proceed before ultimately voting against him after being roasted like wings by liberals. Of course, Warren is promoting her new book, which is often a prerequisite for a looming presidential bid.

And remember: Warren also campaigned heavily for Hillary Dont Be Surprised If She Ask Where The Cash At? Clinton.

I agree with Slates Daniel Gross, who wrote that critics assign far too much symbolic value to activities that, at their core, have not been anathema to progressivism in the past and shouldnt be now.

This feels like a nonissue made into something larger so certain people who want to maintain their profiles further gain traction. It also comes across as misplaced anger. Even if Obama only accepted $25 and a Popeyes combo with an extra side of red beans and rice as payment for speaking engagements, it would not set a new tone and change the industry. I mean, the first black president was succeeded by a reality TV huckster who speaks as if reading more than three sentences will give him a huge migraine. A reality TV huckster who is using his position as president to enrich himself and his family. A reality TV huckster who wont even tell you how much he really makes and from whom.

Obama isnt the anomaly. Sunkist Stalin is. Go after that crooked president instead of worrying about the old one doing the same thing as all before him.

Read more:
Why Are People Worried About Obama's Speaking Fees When Sunkist Stalin Is the Real Scammer? - The Root

ThenSecretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius appears before the Senate Finance Committee in April 2014.

Kathleen Sebelius, the former Kansas governor and insurance commissioner who headed the Department of Health and Human Services under President Obama at the time the Affordable Care Act was passed, conceded after a fashion that some people might be better off under the Republican health-care bill that passed the House this week:

Having health insurance, Sebelius allowed in a Saturday-afternoon interview with MSNBC, does not ensure ones access to health care, but not having coverage, she said, is a virtual guarantee of not receiving sufficient care.

Rep. Tom Reed, facing constituent heat over his vote this week for the Republican health-care bill at a set of Saturday town halls in New York state, downplayed the specific criticism he and fellow Republicans have faced over bringing the legislation to the House floor before it had been scored by the Congressional Budget Office.

In a cable-news interview, he characterized the economists and budget analysts at the nonpartisan CBO as bean counters.

He went on to tell MSNBC, which credited him repeatedly with apparently being the sole Republican to schedule town halls this weekend, that he wanted to be able to look voters in the face and say he was part of the effort to move U.S. health care in the right direction. Arguing that the House-passed bill was, in his view, an improvement on the Affordable Care Act, he said hed let the politics take care of themselves.

The pure politics of the issue were more front and center as Speaker Paul Ryans press secretary, AshLee Strong, called out the tolerant left for swearing at [her] and making it more difficult for the media to reach her with inquiries. Also on Twitter, she argued that two past scorings by the CBO of Republican plans for repealing and replacing Obamacare ought to suffice.

See: A look at the path the health-care bill might take in the Senate

At the Berkshire Hathaway BRK.A, +0.18% BRK.B, +0.13% annual meeting in Omaha, Neb., meanwhile, Warren Buffett colorfully, if menacingly, depicted ever-rising medical costs as the tapeworm of American economic competitiveness.

Echoing Sebeliuss point about those prospectively advantaged under the House Republicans health-care bill, Buffett said that, if that bill were to become law, his own costs, as one of the planets wealthiest people, would be 17% lower.

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Obama's HHS chief admits some people will be better off under Republican health bill - MarketWatch