Stop the Obama Lie Machine -- Michelle Lies Even about What Can Be Easily Checked

9-7-2012 Additions at bottom

When fascism comes to America it will be
called anti-fascism (attributed to Huey Long)

Michelle Obama's speech last night was deemed very effective, a "home run," by the French semi-official daily, Le Monde. She "electrified the convention," Le Monde said in another report. Yes, it was full of sentimentality designed to appeal to a particular audience, a constituency of "the middle class, minorities, and especially women," wrote Le Monde. Their reporter, Sylvain Cypel, noted "her ability to play on emotions. . . every word had been weighed by experts in political marketing."

I am not against feelings and sentiments. But when they're false and based on lies, that's demagoguery. And Michelle last night was a great demagogue, a great liar [every word had been weighed by experts in political marketing]. In fact, if you know the reality of the backgrounds of both Barack Obama [aka Barry Soetoro] and the FLOTUS [First Lady of. . .], Michelle Obama, then you have to cringe at some of the outrageous lies that she told that were meant to "poormouth," that is, to pretend to be poor or have been poor, in order to evoke sympathy, and in this case, in order to elicit votes for the reelection of one of the most dangerous presidents in memory.

Michelle claimed:

You see Barack and I were both raised by families that did not have much in the way of money or material possessions . . . [National Journal]

She went on that President Obama was raised:

by a single mother who struggled to pay the bills . . . [I hope that my already damp handkerchief can last to the end of the speech]

Many millions of Americans can identify with that kind of upbringing, both children of single mothers and women who have been single mothers raising children. Yet, according to wikipedia, Obama's mother "attained a bachelor's in anthropology or mathematics^[4] and master's and Ph.D. in anthropology.^[5]" Her education certainly went beyond that of most Americans. Further, in her working career, she served as "a consultant for the United States Agency for International Development [USAID]. Dunham was also employed by the Ford Foundation in Jakarta and she consulted with the Asian Development Bank in Pakistan. Towards the latter part of her life, she worked with Bank Rakyat Indonesia." [see additional source references in the wiki article].

By the way, Tim Geithner, Obama's secretary of the Treasury, was begotten by a father, Peter, who also worked for the Ford Foundation in Asia where he was in charge of the foundation's grant-making in that region. I have never heard Geithner described as coming from a poor background. Now it is likely by the way that Geithner's father and Obama's mother met while both worked in the economics field in Asia for the Ford Foundation. More relevant, is that both the Ford and the USAID pay American salaries to Americans working for them abroad, although in many countries where mother Obama and father Geithner worked, living costs were far below those in America for most things. Thus the American employes of these agencies working abroad could save money on their generous incomes.

Next, Michelle went on to talk about Obama's maternal grandmother as a victim, both as a poor woman and as a woman kept down by a male-dominated society which did not allow her to realize her talents. This was a strong appeal to feminists. But was it any truer than the description of Obama's mother as a struggling single mom?:

Barack was raised . . . by grandparents who stepped in when she [Obama's mother] needed help. Barack's grandmother started out as a secretary at a community bank. She moved quickly up the ranks, but like so many women, she hit a glass ceiling. And for years, men no more qualified than she was, men she actually trained, were promoted up the ladder ahead of her, earning more and more money while Barack's family continue to scrape by . . . [National Journal]

In fact Obama's grandmother rose through the ranks at the bank to become a vice president, a vice president at two banks in fact. In the 1950s she was vice president of a local bank in Seattle, Washington, while living on Mercer Island, a prosperous suburb. By 1960, the family had moved to Hawaii where she started working for the Bank of Hawaii, and became the first woman vice president of that bank, Obama later wrote.

Her colleagues recall her as a "tough boss" who would make you "sink or swim", but who had a "soft spot for those willing to work hard."^[5] She retired from the Bank of Hawaii in 1986. [wiki]

So Obama's Grandmother Dunham became a bank vice president. Did a glass ceiling keep her from becoming the president? In a big bank there are many vice presidents. No doubt she was not the only one. And no doubt many coveted the post of president of the bank. Does this mean that she was held down by a glass ceiling? Yet most of her male colleagues did not make it to president either. Were they all held down by that glass ceiling? Was she a better banker than the rest and more fit for the role of bank president? I have no way of knowing. But the claim is questionable. Yet placing her in the role of the perfect female victim makes the Grandmother Dunham conjured up by Michelle fit the feminist stereotype of the career woman --held back by evil conspiring men. The stereotype was a perfect foil for the feminists and for Obama's speechwriters and for the Obama campaign's claim that the Republicans are conducting a war on women. Anyhow here is another account of Grandmother Dunham and the bank:

Barack’s grandmother was a very wealthy, and well paid, vice-president of an international bank (no glass ceiling there) who was able to leave Barack and Michelle over $500,000 in bank stock when she died, along with numerous other financial interests in her estate. [here]

More lies from Michelle about Obama's family background. Then there is the claim that she and Obama were burdened by their student loans [for university study] that they had to pay back as young marrieds. Let's start with school in Hawaii. There Obama attended the Punahou private school, which was paid for in part by his grandmother's sizable salary at the bank and partly by a scholarship.

The school has an 80 acre campus in down town Honolulu! They don’t have a swimming pool, they have a swimming complex with an Olympic size pool, diving pool and others. When I visited, they were raising money for a multimillion dollar Art center, for the Elementary school. I refuse to believe that Obama facing racial discrimination at the Punahou school. The school is as racially diverse as Hawaii. [a comment here]

How about Obama's college education? Michelle poormouths about both of them having to pay back student loans.

when we were first married, our combined monthly student loan bills were actually higher than our mortgage. [National Journal]

Others report that his college education was financed differently.

The truth is Barack Obama rec’d a full scholarship, books and tuition, to Occidental College after his prep school years.“Full Ride”. [here]

The funding sources for the rest of his higher education are not clear. However, Percy Sutton, a Black New York politician, exposed who the likely sources were:

. . . a radical Muslim [and wealthy] activist . . . reportedly was raising money for Obama’s Harvard studies during the years 1988 to 1991. The allegations first surfaced in late March 2008, when former Manhattan Borough president Percy Sutton told a New York cable channel that a former business partner who was “raising money” for Obama had approached him in 1988 to help Obama get into Harvard Law School. [here]

This activist was Khalid al-Mansour, a Black American convert to Islam, who sat on the boards of several corporations with Sutton. Sutton described al-Mansour

as advisor to “one of the world’s richest men,” Saudi prince Alwaleed bin Talal [here, includes the video with Sutton's account]

As to Michelle's own education at Princeton, she got a scholarship, but I can't rule out that it may have been a partial scholarship [here]

To conclude a long story before it gets overly tedious, what we heard in Michelle's speech were very touching sentiments, fit for a three-hankie movie starring Joan Crawford, but based on lies.
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9-6-2012 Breitbart reports that NPR & other MSM media gave Michelle's speech a fake fact check, pretending that there was nothing wrong with it [here]
9-7-2012 Tony Lee of Breitbart reports that a Missouri Democratic candidate who was at the convention claims that no Jews were killed in the 9-11 attack on the World Trade Center [here]. He's also a 9-11 truther.