This article is a reprint of one of mine from March 20, 2009 that I wrote for the original PonderPost blog. It is reprinted here due to the remake of PonderPost.

Everybody makes mistakes. As in life, in politics there is no exception to this axiom. However, while it is understandable that a new administration will make a few extra mistakes, some of the recent ones by Obama and Biden are being noted around the world. For example, British Telegraph.co.uk editor Toby Harnden’s “Top 10 Gaffes by Barack Obama and Joe Biden” post found its way at the top of the Drudge Report today. That means it’s being read worldwide.

In looking Harnden’s list over, most are rather serious gaffes (other than Obama mistaking a White House window for a door). Many are poor attempts at humor such as Obama’s suggestion that Nancy Reagan had seances in the White House and his Special Olympics bowling joke on the Jay Leno show last night. Perhaps it was that statement that prompted this list.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I think one of the most serious gaffes, though, occurred over the gift exchange between British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and President Obama. Gordon Brown presented Obama with a pen holder carved from wood taken from the HMS Gannett which was an anti-slavery vessel (wood from which her sister ship [HMS Resolute] was taken to make the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office). Brown’s gift also included the commissioning certificate of HMS Resolute and a first edition copy of the seven-volume biography of the great English leader Winston Churchill. Sadly, Obama’s gift in return was a 25 DVD set of classic American films.  Ironically, this set, which is readily available over the counter, was not in the correct DVD format for UK audiences. (US and UK formats for DVDs are different and many players cannot play both formats.)

Here’s one take on this serious gifting oversight:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Imagine if President George W. Bush had made this mistake. Would we have ever heard the end of the outrage for tarnishing our image abroad? So, my question now is what will Obama and Biden do next to embarrass this country?

The following guest post was originally published on March 24, 2009 for PonderPost. It was written by Tim Jones and is republished here with his permission to preserve it while PonderPost is renovated.

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The University of Notre Dame has invited President Obama to give the commencement speech at the spring graduation ceremony.  Additionally, the university will bestow an honorary doctor of laws degree upon the President.

This has the Catholic community in quite a stir, as parishioners from both sides of the discussion weigh in.  On one side, many are happy to have the President speak, including a growing Facebook group called, “We Will Be Honored to Have President Obama at Notre Dame.” On the other, you have ardent, pro-life groups that wholeheartedly oppose the President speaking at the premier Catholic university in the country.

While I try to see both sides of the coin, I believe Notre Dame has made an egregious error by inviting President Obama to give the commencement address at, if not the premier Catholic university in the US, the most well-known Catholic university.

The Catholic Church represents one of the most fervent supporters of the pro-life movement, while President Obama represents one of the most pro-abortion politicians, ever.  President Obama has gone so far as to repeatedly vote for so-called pro-choice legislation that really amounts to infanticide, in the case of refusing medical care to live babies born after botched abortions.  His current administration threatens to, at the very least, lessen the ability for Catholic hospitals to operate with the elimination of healthcare conscience rule and to increase abortions by 125,000 per year with his Freedom of Choice Act.

It would seem that Notre Dame would prefer a commencement speech given by someone that more closely represents the Church’s positions, not just with regard to abortion, but across the board.  Doesn’t the Church have enough difficulty promoting it’s staunchly pro-life position without endorsing the exact opposite activity with President Obama as the commencement speaker?

As a Catholic and pro-life advocate, I’m disappointed with the University of Notre Dame’s decision to invite President Obama to speak at commencement.  I believe President Obama fails to represent even the most minute areas of the Church’s fundamental beliefs and tenets.  Additionally, Notre Dame violates the U.S. bishops mandate of 2004 that forbids honoring (such as with an honorary degree) any person that “acts in defiance of the Church’s fundamental moral principles.”

While I have little hope that the University administration will rescind the invitation and they’ve indicated as much, a site has already sprung up with a petition to sign online.  I signed, more as a statement of my position than a true hope of changing the University’s decision.

The Notre Dame Scandal page with the petition does an excellent job of summing up my opinion of the whole situation,

Notre Dame has chosen prestige over principles, popularity over morality. Whatever may be President Obama’s admirable qualities, this honor comes on the heels of some of the most anti-life actions of any American president, including expanding federal funding for abortions and inviting taxpayer-funded research on stem cells from human embryos.

I do hope, in spite of my pessimism about rescinding the invitation, that this opens the door to a wider discussion about Obama’s anti-life and anti-marriage policies and legislation.  Additionally, I would hope that other Catholic universities across the country use this as an opportunity to re-examine their position with regard to their own mission juxtaposed with the figures they ask to visit and speak at the universities.

This article of mine was originally published on PonderPost on April 18, 2009. With the coming relaunch of PonderPost, this post is being republished here so you can see if anything has changed for the better in the past year. I suggest if anything we are much worse off.

During the Presidential campaign season we heard lots of talk about change. Barack Obama told us he would deliver change and, as President, that is exactly what he is doing. Few would doubt that he’s keeping that promise.

In no particular order, let’s look at some of the changes we’ve seen so far in these first 100 days.

• Ordered the closure of Gitmo within one year (learn more).
• Allowed travel and financial transactions to communist Cuba (learn more).
• Ended harsh interrogation methods for terrorist detainees (learn more).
• Releases secret Bush Administration documents about methods for handling terrorist prisoners (learn more).
• Called for nuclear disarmament and an end to nuclear testing (learn more).
• No longer calls the war against radical Islamic terrorists a “war on terror” (learn more).
• Allows federal tax dollars to fund embryonic stem cell research (learn more).
• Reverses the Mexico City policy and lifts the ban on federal funding of foreign abortions (learn more).
• Speaks at the Catholic Georgetown University but asks them to cover up their Christian symbols (learn more).
• Declares that the United states is not a Christian nation (learn more).
• Massively increases spending and doubles the national debt (learn more).
• Bows to the King of Saudi Arabia (learn more – includes photo & video) but not the Queen of England. [As President, he should not bow to any leader.]
• Fires the CEO of a private corporation — GM (learn more).
• Maintains control over banks by refusing the repayment of TARP money (learn more).
• Buddies up to Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez (learn more – see photos below).

I could go on and on with changes we have experienced in the past 3 months. Is this “change we can believe in”? Do you like any of these changes? I wonder if we can survive the other changes Obama has planned for us?

This guest post was originally written for PonderPost on May 20, 2009 by Tim Jones. Since PonderPost is being reworked for a new yet-to-be-announced project, Tim let me publish it on Ponderstorm for our readers:

I found these videos on Jimmy Akin’s Catholic blog.  They are amazingly good at illustrating Obama’s budget cuts and spending, so I thought I would share them with the PonderPost readers.  Enjoy!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Beware, the Obama Administration is trying to bypass Congress and nationalize the United States banking system! This unconstitutional scheme is being done through financial maneuvering efforts that don’t make sense to most of us. In short, the Obama Administration is seeking to convert government loans into equity stakes of common shares of stock (with full voting rights) that are owned by the federal government — particularly the Treasury Department which is under the Executive Branch. This scheme would immediately make the government (i.e. the Obama Administration) the largest shareholder in several of our nation’s largest banks. It appears banks will have not a choice in this loan for stock conversion scheme.

This maneuver was done to Citigroup in January when up to $25 billion in preferred stock (which was basically a loan) was converted to common stock. This gave the government equity ownership including full voting rights. This move is a done deal!

Some think of this as a “backdoor to nationalization” approach. Whether it’s backdoor or frontdoor, the result is banks that are essentially owned and/or controlled by the government. Such a move allows the federal government to control everything from the printing to the supply to the flow of money within our economy. Bank ownership would mean the government would be directly responsible for setting rules and policy regarding creditworthiness, lending terms, qualification for mortgages, interest rates and so much more. That is a very, very scary thought.

Furthermore, the federal government seems to be actively seeking this position of power and is  putting conditions on the repayment of bailout funds that make it impossible for banks to repay these loans unless the government decides that their repayment is in the “national economic interest” whatever that means.  Sounds to me like the federal government is putting a stranglehold on the banks. Remember the federal government “borrowed” the bailout money that they received to inject into the banks. In effect, they are taking the banks over with nothing but paper.

A free people must have control over their own money. Any government that takes this power from their people enslaves them and controls their destiny. As Americans, we must never allow this to happen to our banks. We cannot give this up.

While it is true that our401Ks are worth less now than they were last year, they are not worthless. If the government gets their hands on them they will have even less value — the value will be whatever the government and not the market says it is. Remember, this is the same government that runs the Social Security system which is already worthless for most of today’s workers under the age of 45.

Beware, lest the fear of losing our money lead us to turn it over to the greedy hands of government. Instead, let us fear the loss of our money (and our freedoms) to the government. I urge you to contact your members of Congress and demand they stop this power grab from the Obama Administration controlled Treasury Department (which is headed by a tax cheat — learn more [28 page .pdf document]).

Take Action Now:

• Write your Representative
• Write your Senators

On PonderPost I cataloged some of the major public policy changes we’ve experienced under the Presidency of Barack Obama in an article entitled “Yes, With Obama We Got Change.” These changes are significant departures from those of President George W. Bush.  In each case I provided a source so you don’t have to take me at my word. My sources were varied and included both liberal and conservative venues as well as traditional news media outlets. The amount of change, I might add, has been staggering and makes me fearful for the very safety of my country. I invite your review and comments.

In an effort to support the launch of PonderPost, I wrote an article that I would usually publish on Ponderstorm so I wanted to tell Ponderstorm readers about it. Entitled The Obama & Biden Gaffe Machine, this post discusses a top ten list of gaffes committed by our President and Vice President as compiled by a British journalist at the Telegraph. Special emphasis is placed on Obama’s recent gifting fiasco with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Obama’s Special Olympics joke last night on the Jay Leno show that offended many. There are two embedded videos.

Sometimes cartoons say things better than a thousand words. Using the Star Wars Death Star metaphor, I think this one speaks volumes.

I’m not sure who to give credit to for this cartoon. I came across it through Patriot Humor (there’s 3 other cartoons there as well).

Now that I’m more focused on preparing my own income taxes, some of the latest tax evasion scandals in the Obama Administration are even more frustrating. I think the two political cartoons below put the sins of Tom Daschle and Tim Geithner into a more proper perspective. It does seem that those with political connections are held to a lower standard than “the rest of us” who make the country work. What think you?

(Click images to enlarge)

There is no question that most of the mainstream media is swooning over President-Elect Barack Obama. I find it sad that so many of them can’t even muster a positive word about President Bush — remember, against stunning odds, he has successfully kept terrorists on the run for 7 years now. Meanwhile, the blame-Bush crowd has been filling the news with negative economic data and slanted stories in an attempt to bury him.

With this in mind, I offer the following prediction. Within 24 hours, I predict there will be a noticeable reduction in the amount of negative economic news reported. In fact, I expect we will actually see some positive headlines and success stories. I also predict that virtually all negative economic news that remains over the next few years will be wrongly associated with Bush. Meanwhile, sweeping parallels to FDR will be made of Obama (and, oddly enough, they may be warranted since FDR actually prolonged the Great Depression due to his tax and spending policies).

So, while I am hopeful of a good Presidency for Obama and wish him (not most of his policies) well personally, I am realistic in knowing this nation faces a liberal onslaught that will be unlike anything ever seen. An unrestrained Democratic Party majority is a recipe for disaster, I feel.

I will pray for Obama and support his efforts for what is good and right. Likewise, using my “of the people” rights as an American, I will oppose what is wrong.  I will continue to call for the protection of unborn babies (including helping their parents), the recognition of marriage as a covenant between one man and one woman only, and the right to keep and bear arms. On these there can be no compromise.

I recognize the historic nature of this election and tomorrow’s inauguration and rejoice in a nation that was able to overlook race. I never doubted that we would reach that place as a people. I am saddened, though, that in this historic process, as a people we also overlooked traditional moral values and expressed a willingness to trample on the weak among us.