President Obama has won his re-election effort, which means he’s free to break all of his promises to the American people on transparency and openness. Of course, he did that all during his first term, but the American voters didn’t seem to care. So now he’s doubling down.
According to sources at Politico, Obama will now accept unlimited corporate cash for his inauguration. So much for the Democrats’ ardent opposition to crony capitalism. During his first inauguration, Obama refused to take any corporate donations. He did the same at the 2012 Democratic National Convention to pretend that he couldn’t be bought and paid for.
But now he can. It’s one thing to go to donors for his campaign; now he can put pressure on corporations, afraid of regulation and investigations, to do his bidding. As Politico reports:
The inaugural fundraising team will be screening each corporate donation. Those determined to pose a conflict of interest will be returned. For example, any company that still owes stimulus money or is vying for a big federal contact may be excluded. The sources said that like last time, the committee will not accept money from lobbyists or PACs. And they said the identity of all contributors and the amounts they give will be disclosed regularly on the committee website.
Notice the words “may be excluded.” Not “will be.” And who’s to say whether a company under threat of federal scrutiny won’t chip in a few bucks to avoid such scrutiny? As for Obama’s beloved talking point about being against lobbyists, he stacked his administration with lobbyists.
Obama’s mask is off. He doesn’t care about the fiscal cliff; he doesn’t care about tyranny in Egypt; he doesn’t care about Israel; he doesn’t care about honesty and transparency. And he doesn’t care who knows it.
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