What happened with all that 1 percent stuff? “The Rich don’t pay their fair share” nonsense. Obviously it's to create jealousy, envy, anger, and divide the nation in two.
The president is plenty wealthy, and I’m glad the American way of life worked out for him. After all, only in America can a man with absolutely no accomplishments write not one, but two memoirs of his life and become a multi millionaire from it, before he was 50 years old.
So, if we are constantly reminded how the rich don’t pay their fair share, how the middle class is dying and more people are on food stamps now than ever before, why was Ann Romney eviscerated for wearing a $900 blouse on a morning TV show, but absolutely no one is remarking on Mrs. Obama’s $3,000 Derek Lam suede dress (now on sale for $1,200) worn as she exited Air Force One in China last week?
U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama, front left, her daughters Sasha, front right, Malia, right in the back, and Michelle Obama's mother Marian Robinson, left in the back, arrive at Capital International Airport in Beijing, China, Thursday, March 20, 2014. Michelle Obama has arrived in Beijing with her mother and daughters to kick off a seven-day, three-city tour where she will focus on education and cultural exchange. (AP Photo/Alexander F. Yuan, Pool)
What about the expensive Phillip Lim attire she wore to meet the “Vice Chairman” of China? What about when Debbie Wasserman Schultz does a Vogue shoot wearing thousand dollar dresses?
Not a word from the mainstream media!
Needless to say, none of the aforementioned was manufactured in America, nor are the garments by Gap, Inc. which the president applauded for raising the minimum wage to $10 an hour.
If my father had the chance, he’d give the president a math and budget lesson, politely explaining to his highness that it’s very easy to pay someone a higher minimum wage when your product is manufactured for pennies. A recent labor research report tells it all:
As 2013 drew to a close, Cambodian garment factory workers began striking in Phnom Penh for a livable wage. Recently, the Ministry of Labor had approved a $95-a-month wage, and while this was more than the $80 a month workers had been living on, they held out for $160, which was the bottom end of a "living wage" for Cambodia.
So its very easy for Gap, Inc. to pay their workers $10 an hour when they are getting their garments manufactured for wages which the president would declare inhumane and evil.
With nonsense like that, it amazes me how little the media focus on the Obama’s trips and seemingly exuberant vacations. Believe me, every president is entitled, and should have vacations that allow them to temporarily clear their mind in a different environment, outside the White House bubble.
President Barack Obama, right, waves while escorting the first lady Michelle Obama, left, to meet various well wishers after disembarking Air Force One at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Friday, Dec. 20, 2013, in Honolulu. The first family will be spending their annual winter vacation in Hawaii and return to Washington on Jan. 5, 2014. (AP Photo/Eugene Tanner)
However, some lines recently have been crossed into the realm of hypocrisy. Separate travel for the president and the first lady? Extended stays in Hawaii for Mrs. Obama while the president returns to Washington, D.C., forcing Air Force One to make a second unnecessary roundtrip flight to and from Hawaii to pick the first lady up? According to the Washington Examiner, “Under Obama, Air Force One cost per hour jumps 27 percent to $228,288."
Mrs. Obama said she rarely gets to travel outside the country. With all due respect to the first lady, but please don’t lie anymore. We already have a commander in chief who couldn’t tell the truth if his presidency depended on it.
Mrs. Obama traveled outside the country 14 times, visiting 25 different countries, in the past five years. According to the National Tax Payers Union, she spent 72 days outside of America on these foreign trips. I think that's hardly "rare."
All this expensive travel, and she doesn’t recollect making the trips?
First lady Michelle Obama holds a bouquet of flowers, and daughters Malia, center, and Sasha, are draped in blankets given to them upon landing in Pretoria en route to Johannesburg, South Africa, Monday, June 20, 2011, as they begin their week long trip to Africa. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, Pool)
Aren’t we a nation so in debt that our military has to be cut by hundreds of billions of dollars because we can’t afford to keep the status quo? Aren’t we a nation that just told our veterans, who were in active combat, that their benefits were being cut because we can’t afford to hold up our end of the bargain? Aren’t we a nation that threatens our senior citizens by putting their social security checks on hold every time there is a fiscal battle because we can’t afford to honor our obligatory commitments?
Did the president just go on television and tell the American people that we should examine our monthly expenses like cell phone bills and cable televison before declaring Obamacare too expensive and prioritize ourselves?
And if we ultimately conclude that, "yes, Obamacare is too expensive to include in our budget," we are fined…err Taxed? However we are still waking up to headlines like the amount of money spent on a vacation the Obama’s took in Spain.
U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama visited Spain in August 2010 for a private trip with longtime family friends. Credit: AP
Perception is everything. It scares me to hear from the executive branch that Americans need to be instructed by a bloated federal government, to watch our expenses or pay a fine and go uninsured, while our first lady makes 14 foreign trips, costing hundreds of millions of dollars, but manages to forget they ever happened.
No doubt we are dropping a small fortune in the country to house her, protect her (as we should) but why are we glorifying China with an official visit by the first family, and mother in law in chief. I have absolutely no idea.
We have a very odd situation on our hands. A president who flies separately from his wife, costing the tax payers double the amount it should. A president who tells American people to forgo a cell phone or cable provider so his socialized medicine plan can be implemented.
Our president insists on reminding struggling Americans that they are having a difficult time because others are not. Our president congratulates a company for raising their employees’ wages while breaking the backs of workers overseas, while verbally annihilating other companies, who…manufacture overseas.
All the while, the president's wife flaunts her families wealth with expensive clothing and burdens the American taxpayer with forgotten trips.
The hypocrisy is so stunning that the only thing more baffling is that not everyone in America sees it.
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