Flimflam.
Defined
as:
1. Nonsense; humbug.
2. A deception; a swindle.
3. To swindle; cheat.
Well, now. What do we have here?
Back there on June 15, 2012, there was a considerable commotion
involving President Obama as he made an announcement in the Rose
Garden of the White House.
Remember?
On a nice, sunny day the President suddenly appeared in front of
the carefully assembled White House press corps to
announce that he was granting amnesty to undocumented
immigrants. After running through his highly controversial
reasoning — critics hotly charged that he was wrongly using an
executive order to end-run Congress for the sake of election year
politics — the President said (bold emphasis mine):
Over the next few months, eligible individuals who do not
present a risk to national security or public safety will be able
to request temporary relief from deportation proceedings and
apply for work authorization.
Which is to say, as the Pew Research Center
noted here, using data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
and the Census Bureau, somewhere around 1.7 million new workers
were abruptly dumped into the U.S. job market.
Remember the kerfuffle over Neil Munro?
The Daily Caller reporter who angered the President by
trying to ask a question about all of this? The President claimed
he was being interrupted, then kept reading — and finally
finished, stalked back to the Oval Office with Mr. Munro’s lone
voice echoing as the President’s back receded?
To refresh, take a look
here at this clip from Hannity in which the clip is
replayed and Munro is interviewed.
What was the very last question that Mr. Munro shouted at the
departing President’s back?
That’s right. As reflected in the official White House
transcript, it was this question:
Q. What about American workers who are unemployed while you
import foreigners?
Now flash forward to last Friday’s highly controversial
announcement from the Obama Department of Labor that the
unemployment rate has dropped under 8% (to 7.8%) for the first time
in 44 months. Amazingly, the dip below 8% came with just a little
over a month to go before Mr. Obama’s fate is decided by voters.
The announcement was immediately derided in this fashion by
legendary ex-General Electric chairman Jack Welch, who Tweeted:
Unbelievable jobs numbers..these Chicago guys will do
anything..can’t debate so change numbers.
First, a hat tip to reader Ken Rohrbaugh, a former college
classmate turned eagle-eyed CPA out there in the beautiful swing
state of Colorado.
Mr. Rohrbaugh makes the obvious point that a CPA would instantly
spot.
If the Obama administration announces in June that 1.7 million
new workers are being added to the American workforce. Then
announces in September that only 114,000 jobs have been created in
September — how can the unemployment rate possibly drop?
What happed to all those newly work permitted Americans? Did all
1.7 million suddenly get jobs in a suddenly hot economy? Which
would require a job increase of some 15 times that 114,000?
Obviously not.
While Mr. Munro’s videotaped tangle with the president may be
what many remember, fewer may recall that Munro (who called the
high unemployment rate “extraordinary” in his Hannity
appearance) wrote about the issue of adding so many new workers
into the workforce and what it would do to the unemployment
rate.
Wrote Munro later that same day of June 15 after his attempt to
question the President:
The announcement of the decision comes at a time of record
unemployment among low-skilled workers, Hispanics and
African-Americans.
For example, less than 50 percent of younger African-Americans
have full-time jobs, according to data provided by the Bureau of
Labor Statistics.
Unemployment among Hispanics, youth and African-Americans rose
in May, according to the BLS.
All correct.
Take a look at this report from
ABC News on August 15, the first day applicants could actually show
up to apply and legally jump into the American employment pool —
where they will be officially counted. There is Diane Sawyer
introducing this story by saying (bold emphasis mine):
“All day long images like these have been pouring into our
newsroom. Tens of thousands of undocumented young immigrants coming
out of the shadows. This is the day the President’s new initiative
begins to take hold giving them a chance at the legal right
to work and live openly in this country…. the
lines stretched into the distance.”
Reporter David Wright talks as cameras pan those “tens of
thousands” filmed in various cities across America, “the lines
stretched into the distance.”
Take a look at this report from
Chicago’s WMAQ, and proudly uploaded by Chicago’s Democratic (and
Hispanic) Congressman Luis Gutierrez, which has an aerial shot of
what it says is some 12,000 undocumented immigrants signing up for
the right to jump in the U.S. pool of unemployed Americans.
Gutierrez is in the clip calling the location for the event the new
Ellis Island. And that was just in Chicago.
So.
How can the addition of these 1.7 million new workers plunging
into the already high pool of the unemployed in June —
miraculously lower the unemployment rate by September?
Obviously, they can’t.
Not to get too graphic, but what happened when that tsunami hit
the coastline of Japan a while back? Right. This
happens.
Too much water suddenly surging inside the natural coastline
caused — shocker — the water level to rise. Abruptly, water was
abruptly flooding everywhere, tossing cars, buildings, and
everything else every place else. A siren alarm goes off, a frantic
voice is heard on a loud speaker as the water level rises — and
rises and rises and rises.
Now take another look at those photos shown on ABC News and
WMAQ. Those ABC photos and the WMAQ aerial shots are literally the
equivalent of an unemployment tsunami suddenly hitting the United
States.
Yet Americans are being asked to believe — seriously - that the
Obama administration, having generated this human unemployment
tsunami, has miraculously caused unemployment to drop?
Yes, they are being asked to believe just that. By no less than
President Obama himself.
Right.
Just like the day that tsunami hit Japan and the water level
dropped.
Pay no attention to those floating buildings and cars! Move
along!
Stop. Stop, stop, STOP!
What did Jeremiah Wright say about Obama and truth telling?
We discussed the Reverend Jeremiah Wright in this space last
week, focusing on his relationship with Obama. The Reverend Wright
— on tape — told the following story to author Edward Klein of
Barack Obama’s belief on telling the truth (in Klein’s bestselling
book
The Amateur: Barack Obama in the White House). The story
revolved around Wright’s controversial taped sermons finally
bursting into the media in 2008 — and a personal visit by Obama to
convince Wright to stop speaking until the election was over.
Wright refused (in spite of an offer of $150,000 through an
intermediary). Wright recounted his story this way:
Barack said, “I’m sorry you don’t see it the way I do. Do you
know what your problem is?’” And I said, “No, what’s my problem?”
And he said, “You have to tell the truth.”
Wright’s point: that Obama believed that he, Obama, was excused
from telling the truth. In other words, Wright is saying that
Barack Obama has no hesitation in lying straight out when needed.
Telling the truth is not Obama’s problem — now or, according to
Wright, ever.
Not telling the truth.
Where else have we seen this kind of behavior before in the
Obama administration?
How about:
• Benghazi. Where the Obama
administration spent days — weeks — insisting the attack on the
American consulate that killed Ambassador was a spontaneous event
and not a planned terrorist attack. Spokesperson after spokesperson
— from the President on down through his press secretary,
Secretary of State and Ambassador to the United Nations — one
person after another boldly told a laughable untruth - pinning the
blame not on terrorism but on an Internet video. Now the scramble
is on to cover
up, with at least one congressional investigation already
underway.
• Fast and Furious. Once again, the Justice
Department is under fire for a
cover-up. Fox’s William La Jeunesse reports three White House
national security officials now admit they were briefed on Fast and
Furious, contradicting the President. The number of violent crimes
committed by these Fast and Furious weapons has shot up from 11, as
first claimed, to possibly 28. Third, newly revealed documents
indicate a cover-up by the U.S. Attorney’s office to try and
conceal the fact that weapons recovered from the murder scene where
Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was murdered.
• General Motors. The mantra Joe Biden
loves to shout is that “Osama is dead and General Motors is alive.”
Well aside from the fact that the attack in Benghazi shows clearly
that al Qaeda is alive and well and crowds all over the world are
shouting (“Obama, Obama, we are all Osama”) — General Motors wants
the government out of its company. Specifically, it wants the
government to sell the 27 shares Obama took in the company because
company officials have become convinced Obama’s stake is bad for
GM’s business. But the government refuses to sell, the Wall
Street Journal
reports, because the American taxpayer would have to take a
financial bath to the tune of some $15 billion. So Biden blithely
goes about the business of covering-up yet another embarrassing
administration misadventure.
• Lockheed Martin. As
reported by ABC News,
Defense contractor Lockheed Martin heeded a request from the
White House today — one with political overtones — and announced it
will not issue layoff notices to thousands of employees just days
before the November presidential election.
Lockheed, one of the biggest employers in the key battleground
state of Virginia, previously warned it would have to issue notices
to employees, required by law, due to looming defense cuts set to
begin to take effect after Jan. 2 because of the failure of the
Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction — the so-called
Super-committee, which was created to find a way to cut $1.5
trillion from the federal deficit over the next decade.
Such massive layoffs could have threatened Obama’s standing in
the state he won in 2008 and is hoping to carry again this
November.
In other words, the White House is quite deliberately demanding
of Lockheed that it violate the Worker Adjustment and Retraining
Notification Act. WARN requires companies to notify workers 60 days
ahead of time of coming layoffs — but the administration can’t
have that because the notices would have been sent out mere days
before the election. So — the decision was made to just violate
the law. And cover up by pretending there’s nothing amiss.
When you add it all up — what is now obvious to more and more
Americans is that just as Reverend Wright has said — this
President has a problem telling the truth.
Is there any wonder that on one day in June the President says
he’s pouring 1.7 million new people into the job pool — and
apparently believes they are one big no-never-mind when tallying
the unemployment rate for September?
Is there any wonder there are all manner of cover-up accusations
now gaining on the Obama administration — over Libya, Fast and
Furious, General Motors, and Lockheed Martin.
What all these things have in common is that they reflect
Reverend Wright’s hard-earned lesson — that Barack Obama has a
problem telling the truth.
Either that, or there are now 1.7 million formerly undocumented
immigrants who have jobs.
So what’s happening here?
Can you say “flimflam”?
