"You Can't Put Enough Lipstick on This Pig of His to Make It Look Pretty"
Members of the Project 21 black leadership network are commenting on - and available for interviews about - President Barack Obama's final State of the Union Address.
While starting out talking about alleged areas for potential bipartisan accomplishment, the agenda President Obama quickly pivoted to and championed throughout the rest of his speech to Congress encompassed a big-government agenda he has always sought to enact with or without the support of elected lawmakers - such as relaxing immigration rules, increasing the minimum wage and new energy regulation.
"Although I didn't support President Obama's candidacy either time that he ran, I thought he would be good for race relations. Instead of uniting Americans under the mantle of Dr. Martin Luther King, the president has engaged in a sustained attack on the foundational values that once bound Americans together: family, faith and work. Tonight, the President ignored the persecution of Christians in the Arab world while castigating us all for perceived injustices to Muslims. He further demonized millions of Americans who don't believe in man-made anthropological climate change. And he pandered to a tiny partisan crowd by promising more free programs on the backs of taxpayers. It's hardly a speech to be proud of," said Project 21 member Stacy Washington , host of the "Stacy on the Right" talk radio program on FM News Talk 97.1 in St. Louis. "We can only hope that the next 12 months will be less eventful, less taxing and have fewer transformations. Obama's campaign slogan was 'hope and change.' We've been changed for the worse. We can only hope for the remaining term to pass by quickly."
Black conservatives with Project 21 have offered comments on each and every State of the Union Address during the Obama presidency.
"Since this was his last State of the Union Address, I was looking for President Obama to say something monumental. I was looking for him to finally stop playing politics and show some true leadership. It was all too clear, however, that Obama plans to leave office with the same sound and fury with which he arrived - but now he's leaving a terrible mess in his wake," said Project 21 member Council Nedd II, a bishop for the Episcopal Missionary Church of South Africa and an elected constable in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. "Hauntingly, President Obama's legacy is turning back the clock on race relation and seeing repeated attacks on legal gun owners while exhibiting an apparent ignorance to rampant violence that grips places such as his political hometown of Chicago. Obama has helped foster and foment an environment that brands law enforcement as the enemy and exalts criminals as martyrs. He has coddled ISIS and ignored the persecution of faith abroad to the point where several 2,000-year-old Christian communities have literally been eradicated. What are we to actually make of all this?"
Project 21 member Christopher Arps , a small businessman and political consultant in St. Louis who is now helping with a major presidential campaign in Iowa, said: "President Obama's final State of the Union Address was supposed to be an effort to help seal his legacy. Unfortunately for him, you can't put enough lipstick on this pig of his to make it look pretty. His true legacy will be remembered in his $1 trillion dollar failed 'stimulus,' the hobbling of the greatest health care system in the world, Islamic terrorism run amok, a feckless foreign policy with a dangerous nuclear deal with the rogue state of Iran, and - last, but not least - an economy growing at a tepid pace that has a record 90 million people out of work. It's not a legacy he should be very proud of."
"Tonight's speech was one that shot for the Moon, but Americans' hopes remain stuck on the ground due to the partisan bitterness this president has fostered to ram through an often unpopular agenda," said Project 21 member Kevin Martin , a Navy veteran and small businessman in the Washington, D.C. area. "President Obama opened with the statement that Americans should not live in fear of the future, but too many Americans do fear the future because of the threat of terrorism at home and aboard. And that's just one thing. In poll after poll, a majority of Americans feel our nation is on the wrong track under President Obama's leadership. While he stood in the well of the Congress trying to give an optimistic report, the reality is that Americans just aren't feeling it in their wallets or their lives."
Project 21 members have logged tens of thousands of interview and media citations. Media that recently sought out Project 21 insight includes on TVOne, the Philadelphia Inquirer, Fox News Channel, MSNBC, Al Jazeera, the Orlando Sentinel, Westwood One, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, SiriusXM satellite radio and 50,000-watt talk radio stations such as WHO-Des Moines, KOA-Denver, WGN-Chicago, WBZ-Boston and KDKA-Pittsburgh. Topics included civil rights, entitlement programs, the economy, voter ID, race preferences, education, illegal immigration and corporate social responsibility. Project 21 members provided substantial commentary regarding the Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner and Freddie Gray incidents. Project 21 has also defended voter ID laws at the United Nations.
Project 21, a leading voice of black conservatives for over two decades, is sponsored by the National Center for Public Policy Research (http://www.nationalcenter.org). Its volunteer members come from all walks of life and are not salaried political professionals.
Contributions to the National Center are tax-deductible and greatly appreciated
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