The State of The Union Address: True or False?”

Dick Baynton
Dick Baynton

Sitting next to the First Lady at the State of the Union address on Tuesday, January 20, 2015, Rebekah Erler’s face broke into an obsequious smile when the President announced her name and mentioned her family’s rise from financial disaster to economic stability.

A randomly selected family that had enjoyed financial recovery thanks to the policies of himself, the President? Well, not really. Mrs. Erler was a ‘plant’, a ‘pretense’. Several print news media dug down and found that Mrs. Erler was a ‘field organizer’ for Patty Murray (D-Washington). Oh yes and she had been used as a campaign prop at another event where Obama spoke in June 2014.

While Supreme Court Justices often sit in one of the front rows during the SOTU presentation, the number of members attending has diminished to less than 1/3 of the Justices. Justice Scalia describes the speech as a ‘childish spectacle’, Justice Thomas says the speech has become ‘a political pep rally’ and Justice Alito complains that the Justices are expected to sit there ‘like the proverbial potted plant’; Justice Breyer is the only one that attends every year. The discord between members of the nation’s highest court and the President were laser-focused when Mr. Obama openly criticized a Supreme Court decision during the 2010 speech.

The SOTU address was notable for both what was said and what was not said; the President spoke about using a combination of stronger diplomacy, military power and coalition-building in foreign relations. Yemen was listed as a coalition partner but fell to extremists the next day (Wednesday) when President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi lost power, throwing the country into turmoil. No mention was made of a strategy for defeating or even neutralizing the ISIS organization that was termed a ‘JV’ group by Mr. Obama just last year. Afghan security was turned over to their armed forces on January 1 backed by 10,000 US troops and a 3,000 NATO force that The New York Times suggests may require increases in combat roles in the year(s) ahead.

Not mentioned was the ‘Russian Reset’ that hasn’t prevented President Putin from taking over the Crimean Peninsula and actively attacking two of Ukraine’s 24 Oblasts of Donetsk and Luhansk since last April. Recent rumblings have been heard about Putin’s possible conquest of Estonia. Will Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton be bragging about her achievements as Secretary of State? There was no comment about Iranian long-range missile launchers seen recently.

During the speech, the middle class was mentioned many times including references to raising the minimum wage, preschool childcare and free community college for two years. Mr. Obama has commented frequently about ‘free’ community college educations but has NOT mentioned that nothing is free; someone has to pay. That would be middle class taxpayers; the very people he purports to ‘help’. Mr. Obama has also repeatedly mentioned that participants will need to ‘work’ to stay in the program of ‘free’ education. What he means is that the student must stay in school and receive passing grades. There is no mention of ‘free’ education’s requirement to wash dishes in the cafeteria, shovel snow, paint walls or dust books in the library.

Regarding educations for the middle class, he did not mention that the government college loan program is a $250 billion financial disaster about to explode, meaning more backfill tax payments by middle class taxpayers. No mention was made of the studies showing that preschool programs throughout the nation are working just fine and don’t need federal intervention. It continues to be a mystery of why the minimum wage keeps coming up as though there are career minimum wage workers. There are millions of workers that start at minimum wage and persevere to receive raises, promotions and new opportunities. Overlooked are the more than 100 million unemployed who are at the true minimum wage; zero.

The 2015 State of the Union address was articulated by a jubilant Chief Executive who lives in an alternate universe of fantasy. A good way to acquire supporters is to tell people what they want to hear; the best way to sustain proponents is to tell people the truth.

– Dick Baynton

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