Lies, Subterfuge, and Illusions

With every lie that has been told and exposed, with every deceptive scheme that creates an illusion, people are beginning to realize that this President and this Congress are not being straight with the American people.

There have been countless lies told, schemes developed, and people are wising up to them. Let's start with this one:



The Caterpillar CEO fronted this one out, but now we see the reality of his prediction come to light.

Caterpillar Inc. on Tuesday announced plans to lay off more than 2,400 employees at five plants in Illinois, Indiana and Georgia as the heavy equipment maker continues to cut costs amid the global economic downturn.

Then there was this episode that occurred just six months ago:

John McCain tried once again to assure voters that the "fundamentals" of the American economy are strong, despite the ongoing financial meltdown.

“The economic crisis is not the fault of the American people. Our workers are the most innovative, the hardest working, the best skilled, most productive, most competitive in the world, that’s the American worker,” McCain said at a town hall meeting here.

“My opponents may disagree, but those fundamentals, the American worker and their innovation, their entrepreneurship, the small business, those are the fundamentals of America and I think they’re strong.”

Of course, there was a campaign going on and his opponent had much to say in response:

Obama responded today in Colorado, saying, “It’s not that I think John McCain doesn’t care what’s going on in the lives of most Americans. I just think doesn’t know. He doesn’t get what’s happening between the mountain in Sedona where he lives and the corridors of Washington where he works. Why else would he say that we’ve made great progress economically under George Bush?”

“Why else would he say, today, of all days – just a few hours ago – that the fundamentals of the economy are still strong? Senator – what economy are you talking about?”

Well, advance us up to today and after the trillion plus dollars we have allowed our government to spend, here is what Obama is saying:

President Obama and his team sounded cautiously optimistic notes about the economy Friday as part of an accelerating campaign to project confidence that the nation can pull out of the downturn that has caused millions of jobs and trillions of dollars of wealth to vanish.

Declaring himself “confident about America,” Mr. Obama hailed the “the most productive workers on earth” and “some of the most innovative businesses on earth.” His chief economic adviser cited “modestly encouraging” signs that consumer spending had stabilized. And on the fourth consecutive day in which the stock market posted a gain, the White House press secretary pointed to “glimmers of hope” that the economy could turn around.

There are lies and then, there are bold-faced lies like this one told by one Barney Frank:



Get the idea?

But not all deceptions are lies. Take this situation with AIG and Sen. Dodd, for instance.

Congressional lawmakers are scrambling to think up creative ways to recover at least some of the $165 million in bonuses that bailed-out American International Group is paying executives -- but they could be their own worst enemy.

Though Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., is among those leading the charge on retrieving the bonuses, an amendment he added to the $787 billion stimulus bill last month created a roadblock to getting that money back.

The amendment, meant to restrict executive pay for bailed-out banks, also included an exception for "contractually obligated bonuses agreed on or before Feb. 11, 2009."

So why would Dodd do such a thing, you may ask? The answer is in the next paragraph:

This would seem to exempt the AIG bonuses that lawmakers and President Obama are looking to recover. Incidentally, Dodd is the largest single recipient of 2008 campaign donations from AIG, with $103,100, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Don't trust Fox? You can verify this information at Open Secrets. In fact, AIG gave Dodd a whopping $103,100, more than any other candidate in the 2008 election cycle. Do you know who was #2? Obama came in as runner-up with a close $101,332.

So, Dodd and the Administration got wording into the legislation that would allow all contracts before 2-11-09 to be honored. Then as the kitchen begins to heat up, they are now leading the charge to get the money back. Has anyone lied in this case? Not from what I see here, but the deception is there and it's very deep. In fact, I doubt there would be this much outrage if the media hadn't fronted this out and put them all on the hotseat.

Here's the point of all of this, these people promised change. They promised that this would be the most ethical Congress ever, the most ethical White House ever, and politics as usual was dead. In one respect they told us the truth, it did change. It went from bad to worse.

Instead of keeping our eyes on important issues like the one being discussed today at Social Sense, we are sitting here today watching crooks and liars like Dodd pull these kinds of stunts. As these miscreants are attacking almost every institution imaginable and throwing large sums of money around like it's candy off of a Mardi Gras float, there are other more important issues flying far below the radar. Because the attention is being given to the obvious, the not so obvious is what concerns me.

Looking at smoke and mirrors can create some great illusions and illusions are deceptions, whether intended or not. But we must not forget, illusions were what caught us sleeping on 9-11-01. Everything was fine on 9-10-01, but little did we know what was lurking beneath the facade.

Today, we are watching these fine crooks argue and fight over what is supposedly good for the American economy, listening to how Chris Dodd and the others are going to recover the money for the American people. Meanwhile, the situation described by Mustang is creeping up on us, unaware. A poof here, a smoke screen there, all take their toll on the American people's confidence threshold. Before we know it, we may wish we had figured this out sooner.