Papamoka Straight Talk

Let me first start out that this is an in the tank slam on the Obama campaign for President from MSNBC. While his tax filings are released, his opponent, the well respected foggy memory Senator from New York are not. I might also point out that out of all the Democrat candidates in the original field of candidates, Barack Obama was among the poorest of the mega millionaires.

Why is this even a story plays into the racial card that the Clinton campaign unleashed with the Reverend Wright matter. If black people are not supposed to make it in the big time roll of millionaires and politics then Oprah and Bill Cosby should just sit down and shut the hell up. I don't think so! Screw you MSNBC!

The beginning of this lead story on MSNBC should have read that the Clinton family has not as yet released their tax returns but the Obama family has. Yellow journalism is alive and well at this story over at MSNBC…

Obama's tax returns show leap in income
The family's best year came in 2005 with a combined income of $1.6 million

By Jim Popkin
Senior Investigative Producer, NBC News
updated 4:05 p.m. ET, Tues., March. 25, 2008

WASHINGTON - The tax returns for Sen. Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, offer new insights into the power couple's rising fortunes. They chronicle the candidate's rise from state legislator to U.S. senator and beyond.

The tax returns are dated between 2000 and 2006, showing a steep increase in family income.

For example, the first return indicates that the Obamas' combined income was $240,505. That included Obama's salary as a young state senator in Illinois, $16,500 in fees as a "foundation director/educational speaker," and his wife's salary as a hospital administrator.

But just six years later in 2006, the Obamas' combined income was $983,826, some $740,000 more. Obama had become a U.S. senator by then, making about $165,000 a year, and his wife's income from the University of Chicago Medical Center had sharply climbed to about $265,000 a year.

Obama's book-writing career had also become profitable, earning him $551,240 in author fees for 2006 alone.

Michelle Obama also made an additional $51,200 that year, as working as the director of TreeHouse Foods. According to the company's website, it's a "food manufacturer servicing primarily the retail grocery and foodservice chains."

The Obamas' best financial year came in 2005, when their total combined income was $1.6 million. That included $1.2 million in author fees for Obama's best-selling books. Michelle Obama's salary that year was $316,962 plus another $45,000 from TreeHouse Foods. - MSNBC

Maybe we need to be realistic and ask how much Bill Clinton as a former President of the United States of America gets for every speech he gives. Last I heard it was upward of $100,000 bucks for thirty to forty minutes worth of breath from Bill Clinton to spew his sense of reality to any organization with the check book big enough to pay him. Good for him to be able to take that kind of coin down!

Maybe we need to look at what Senator Clinton made off of her book deals. Not that having a book in print is a crime but that income is a play on politics just as Obama’s was so is Obama a bad person for making money off of a book deal?

Mud is flying and the press is just as guilty as the political campaigns of both candidates. What this story from MSNBC stunk, stank, and filled the back of my throat with bile was the simple fact that they do not think a Black African American should be making that kind of money? Baffles my mind!

What bothers me is not how the story was placing facts as much as it was the manner of the facts. He made X amount of dollars and his wife made X amount of dollars as if it was all ill gotten income and not deserved. Again, Screw you MSNBC!

Barack Obama and his wife Michelle earned their lot in life the hard way and overcame the many obstacles that our society threw at them. I give them full credit for a job well done and hope my children can be half as good in their life travels.

In this latest phase of the political campaign for President it seems that a black man is not allowed to have a life with financial gains even though his Harvard education and life mission is to be in public service. Hillary Clinton is somehow absolved of this guilt trip.

Hillary’s income is clean but Barack Obama’s is wrong? That is political stereo typing gone wrong and the Main Stream Media is playing it up as if the Obama’s do not deserve to have a life with rewards based on the same life mission.

Papamoka