According to the U.S. Office of Government Ethics’ own website, government ethics is:
“That system of laws and procedures which tends to ensure that official government decisions are informed by the public interest and not corrupted by private interests.”
After watching Tuesday night’s SOTU, where the dating game spectacle of conservatives holding hands with progressives was so patently absurd, I found myself in agreement with one of the ‘tweets’ going around Twitter that stated: “Wow! I am left feeling…empty and used.”
To sum it up simply, Tuesday’s SOTU spectacle seemed to be nothing more than an empty, disingenuous, vacuous speech hidden behind an Orwellian Oceania of teleprompter turnspeak that pundits will interpret for a week or more only to discover that Andy Kaufman’s singing of “It’s a Friendly World” had more intellectual honesty than the President’s speech. [Simple, right?]
You see, less than 24 hours after President Obama talked about America’s future, reality came back to bite him with the news revealing just how unbelievable the President of the United States has become:
- ObamaCare: Waivers for companies and unions jumped from 222 to an astounding 729
- Deficit: The Congressional Budget Office reveals the federal deficit will nearly $1.5 Trillion this year
- Social Security: The Congressional Budget Office will start running deficits this year, not 2016
- Jobs: The Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement own report reveals that the President’s own enviro-rules will kill over 8% of the nation’s coal-mining jobs.
Then, of course, there’s the President’s gem of a statement about special interests:
In the coming year, we’ll also work to rebuild people’s faith in the institution of government. Because you deserve to know exactly how and where your tax dollars are being spent, you’ll be able to go to a website and get that information for the very first time in history. Because you deserve to know when your elected officials are meeting with lobbyists, I ask Congress to do what the White House has already done — put that information online. And because the American people deserve to know that special interests aren’t larding up legislation with pet projects, both parties in Congress should know this: If a bill comes to my desk with earmarks inside, I will veto it. I will veto it. [Emphasis added.]
Really?
So, when the President promotes high-speed internet, he’s not intending to reward his buddies at the CWA and IBEW with those jobs, right?
Or, when the President spoke about the high-speed rail, he’s not going to impose a discriminatory Project Labor Agreement to appease his union bosses to build those high-speed rails…is he?
Okay, for the moment (at least until the show ends), we’ll just ignore the AFL-CIO, AFSCME, the SEIU, UAW and the UFCW. We’ll overlook Burger, Gerard, Stern and Trumka…at least until the applause dies out.
Yeah, as incredible as it seems, the President must really think Americans still believe in the man on the moon.
At least he could have served milk and cookies.
_________________
“I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as ABC, hold up truth to your eyes.” Thomas Paine, December 23, 1776
