By John Dennis Shisler
The tobacco smoke enema, an insufflation of tobacco smoke into the rectum by enema, was a medical treatment employed by European physicians for a range of ailments including stomach pain, near drowning, and to ease the symptoms of hernia. The practice declined in the 19th century and became known as a false cure. Thus, a person today who speaks in euphemistic platitudes and always tells everyone what they want to hear, is said to be “blowing smoke up your butt.”
The tobacco enema was fully employed by President Obama when he gave his 2014 State of the Union Address. Last night, President Obama stood at the podium before Congress and did what he was best at: he delivered empty rhetoric, riddled with misrepresentations and outright lies.
OBAMA: “…more than 9 million Americans have signed up for private health insurance or Medicaid coverage.”
THE FACTS: The Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler points out that there’s no way to tell how many of the 3 million people who signed up for the federal health care exchanges have paid a premium for their health insurance, and the Associated Press notes that there’s no way to tell how many of those people previously held private insurance coverage before signing up for new insurance on HealthCare.gov. Moreover, not all of the more than 6 million people who became eligible for the Medicaid expansion were renewing their coverage or would have qualified before Obamacare. He also failed to mention the six million and counting who have lost their coverage because of the law. So what’s the net gain? We now have less people with private insurance, and more on taxpayer funded Medicaid.
OBAMA: “Today, after four years of economic growth, corporate profits and stock prices have rarely been higher, and those at the top have never done better. But average wages have barely budged. Inequality has deepened. Upward mobility has stalled.”
THE FACTS: Even if this was true, this condition has emerged after he’s been in office for 5 years. It happened on his watch, and was triggered by his policies. Unfortunately for him, it’s not true.
There is no evidence to suggest that upward mobility has worsened. Harvard economist Raj Chetty led a team released a study last week that found the United States isn’t any less socially mobile than it was in the 1970s. Looking at children born between 1971 and 1993, the economists found that the odds of a child born in the poorest 20 percent of families making it into the top 20 percent hasn’t changed. The American Dream is alive and well.
OBAMA: “In the coming weeks, I will issue an executive order requiring federal contractors to pay their federally funded employees a fair wage of at least $10.10 an hour, because if you cook our troops’ meals or wash their dishes, you shouldn’t have to live in poverty.”
THE FACTS: This is an empty promise purely for show. Most employees of federal contractors already earn more than $10.10. Only about 10 percent of those workers might be affected by the higher minimum wage. But even for them, there are glitches. The increase would not take effect until 2015 at the earliest and it doesn’t apply to existing federal contracts, only new ones. Renewed contracts also will be exempt from Obama’s order unless other terms of the agreement change, such as the type of work or number of employees needed. Obama implied that his action will compel Congress to raise the federal minimum wage overall, but he tried last year for a lesser increase to $9 per hour, and congress rejected it. Minimum wage laws should be left to the states.
OBAMA: “A manufacturing sector that’s adding jobs for the first time since the 1990s.”
THE FACTS: According to the Washington Post, the low p
oint for manufacturing jobs was reached in January 2010, and there has been a gain of 570,000 jobs since then. But BLS data show that the number of manufacturing jobs is still 500,000 fewer than when Obama took office in the depths of the recession — and 1.7 million fewer than when the recession began in December 2007. The only reason Obama can tout a gain in manufacturing jobs “for the first time since the 1990s” is because, before the recession, manufacturing had been on a slow decline for many years. This is the information age. We will never return to a manufacturing based economy.
This is what the President calls progress? The state of the union is so bad after five years of his administration that he has to revert to misrepresentations and outright lies now the using his predecessor as a scapegoat has worn thin? This man needs to be stopped, and the current establishment congressional Republicans have not made a move to do so. If we want to reverse this course, we need to elect a group of true constitutional conservatives to the House and Senate in the upcoming midterm elections. Anything less will fail to mitigate the damage this administration is doing.
