He had foreign business interests before he became president.
So what? We were talking about exposures to outside influence and blackmail fuel. Those foreign entanglements are a problem regardless of when they started.
And debt is part of investing and normal business. I suspect that your employer owes money as well as hopeful makes money.
Actually, my employer doesn't carry any debt, but that's sort of beside the point. Again, we were talking about exposures to outside influence and blackmail fuel. Trump has been over-leveraged and had debt problems a number of times in his career such that he's been considered a significant credit risk. And that's just Don Sr.; Jared has had his own set of problems.
So yes, Bill Clinton's affairs are the sort of thing that federal agents would look at and frown upon when investigating someone for a clearance, but so are the dealings of Trump and his family members.
And do you really believe that the book deals and speeches would have happened if they weren't president.
For the Clintons, Bill had already been the governor of Arkansas and both he and Hillary were highly-trained lawyers. No, they wouldn't have had nearly the success that they did had Bill not become president, but they would have been affluent.
Obama's first two books were released in 1995 and 2006, and he won a Grammy in 2006 for the audiobook version of the second one - all before he was even nominated. His presidency obviously juiced his fortunes, but he was a successful author prior to that.
Do you expect their quality of writing to become a classic? Did you even read any of these books?
I haven't read those specific books (though I have read other political autobiographies), but a lot of people have. Obama is widely considered to be a very good author.
I personally believe they are rich off their "foundations"....
You're welcome to believe whatever you want to believe, but as far as I'm aware, that's a baseless fantasy that exists only in your mind and in the mind of right-wing conspiracy theorists. You can argue that their foundations (particularly the Clintons') provide a degree of publicity that boosts their cache and marketability, but as far as direct payments go, you're just wrong. The financials of these organizations are freely available.
https://www.obama.org/wp-content/uploads/2017-Form-990-BOF-public-disclosure-copy.pdf
PolitiFact - Democrat pundit: The Clintons 'take no salary,' get 'no personal benefit' from foundation
But you know who did blatantly use their foundation for personal gain?
Donald J. Trump Foundation - Wikipedia
whomp whomp
Do you really believe that Chelsea Clinton got a $900,000/year first job out of college because she was that much better than the other graduates?
No. But that's not relevant to what you asked, so I don't know what your point is.
Would other Presidents and candidates not run up big bills for campaign events?
I'm not talking about running up big balls for the campaign. I'm talking about his campaign running up big bills at properties
that he owns. That's money that goes into his pocket.
Someone is making that money. Why wouldn't he use his own properties for these events. They are designed to his tastes. Would it somehow be more honorable if he ran up those big bills at someone else's properties?
Yes. Yes, it absolutely would be more honorable. Do you know what a conflict of interest is?
Should other presidents avoid staying at their own homes when doing campaign events? (they still need to be staffed, catered, etc...)
Yes, they need to be staffed. They don't need to charge $600/room/night to the secret service.
Was Obama more honorable for taking over other people's golf courses on his vacations to Hawaii where he didn't own any property?
Yes.
How about the couple whose wedding got bumped because of a last minute golf trip by Obama.
That's on the property managers.
Like it or not, it costs a lot of money to provide staff and security for ALL our presidents. Don't blame this on Trump.
I don't blame the cost of security on Trump (well.... he travels a lot more than other presidents, so some of it really is his fault). What I blame him for is directing his travel to locations where he profits from government expenditures.
I doubt that he hadn't considered being president at the point that he wrote that book...
Again, his first book came out in 1995. Who knows what he'd thought about then, but he wasn't even a state senator at that point.
however, how about the rest of everyone's books. They are all multi-millionaires without ever working in the private sector.
Writing books and giving speeches constitutes working in the private sector. Back in the day, Hillary and both of the Obamas worked as lawyers in the private sector. The Obamas also held positions in NGO's and universities.
I haven't bought any of their books. Again, people don't usually get multi-millions off a book unless they are phenomenal writers like JK Rowlings.
Maybe you should look up how many copies their books have sold. Maybe you should get their books yourself. Maybe you should pick up more books overall because you continue to get some really basic facts wrong. I don't know what you read, but it's obviously not good enough.
To tie this to a previous thread - this is exactly the sort of argument I typically have with fans of Limbaugh and similar commentators. Those guys give the illusion of educating their listeners when all they really do is pollute their minds with half-truths and innuendos.
