Author: kingsjester

64 year old Christian Conservative husband, father, and grandfather who has been writing since April 2010.

Obama and the Media: A Love Story

On By kingsjesterIn Politics5 Comments

Yesterday, President Barack Hussein Obama blamed the Media for Americans’ lack of faith in their country’s institutions.

CNSNews.com has the story:

President Barack Obama pointed a finger at the news media today when he gave the commencement address at all-female Barnard College in New York City, attributing some of the blame for what he described as a lack of faith in American institutions on news reports that focus on “sensationalism” and “scandal” and carry “a message that change isn’t possible.”

In a survey conducted last September, Gallup discovered that 47 percent of Americans believe the media is “too liberal” while only 13 percent believe it is “too conservative.” Thirty-six percent said they believed the media was “just about right.”

“And while opportunities for women have grown exponentially over the last 30 years, as young people, in many ways you have it even tougher than we did,” Obama said.

President Obama, lost in his own hubris, has inadvertently opened a Pandora’s Box of his own making.  Yes, Americans distrust the MSM, but it’s because they are biased and are all too happy to carry the water for President Barack Hussein Obama (mm mmm mmmm) and the Democratic Party.

A Pew Research Center survey of 1,000 adults conducted in January 2012 and released the following month found a record high 67 percent of Americans see “a great deal” or “fair amount” of “political bias” in the news media. Such a widespread perception of bias is bad news for the media, since most Americans (68%) also told Pew’s researchers they prefer to get their political news from sources “that have no particular political point of view.”

KEY FINDINGS: 

Pew found that “the number saying there is a great deal of political bias in the news has risen to a new high, with the most intense criticism coming from Tea Party Republicans.” A record high 67 percent of Americans see “a great deal” (37%) or “fair amount” (30%) of political bias in the news media, up from 63 percent just four months earlier.

Among self-described Tea Party Republicans, 74 percent saw a “great deal” of political bias in the media. Among all Republicans, 49 percent saw a “great deal” of bias in the news, vs. 35 percent of independents and 32 percent of Democrats.

“Men (41%) are somewhat more likely than women (33%) to see bias in the news,” and “higher-earning and better-educated Americans [are] more likely to say there is a great deal of political bias in the news.”

“Among news audiences, those who cite the Fox News Channel or the radio as their main source of campaign news are the most likely to say there is a great deal of bias in news coverage.”

Despite the widespread perception of a biased media, Pew found “most Americans [68%] say they prefer to get their news from sources that have no particular point of view than from sources that share their political view [23%].”

How about some examples of the Main Stream Media’s adoration of their “messiah”?

“Getting Chills” Upon Hearing Obama’s “Historic Words”

Co-host George Stephanopoulos: “What a watershed moment. You know, whatever people think about this issue, and we know it’s controversial, there’s no denying when a President speaks out for the first time like that, it is history.”

Co-host Robin Roberts: “And let me tell you, George, I’m getting chills again. Because when you sit in that room and you hear him say those historic words — it was not lost on anyone that was in the room.”

— ABC’s Good Morning America, May 10.

Too Obvious to Deny: Media “Uniformly” Back Obama on Gay Marriage

“So many people in the media seem to uniformly support same-sex marriage. Do you think that this dialogue we’re having nationally doesn’t adequately recognize that for many people, this is an issue that they struggle with and don’t believe in?”

— Savannah Guthrie on NBC’s Today, May 10.

“I think that the media is as divided on this issue as the Obama family — which is to say not at all. And so he’s never going to get negative coverage for this….When you have almost the entire media establishment on your side on an issue in a presidential campaign, it’s very hard to lose politically.”

— Mark Halperin on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, May 10.

Watch Out for Evil “Wolves… Giggling With Delight”

“It is a pretty profound statement by our President. I don’t want to get past that too quickly. That’s the good news for everybody in the country in terms of freedom and the long march towards liberalism in the country…. But there has always been another army out there that feeds on those who resent it. That army has been out there during Jim Crow. It was out there during abolition, during suffrage. There’s always an army that feeds on change and feeds against it — the wolves, and they’re being released right now and they’re probably giggling with delight at how they’re going to use this.”

— Chris Matthews during MSNBC live coverage during the 3pm hour, May 9, shortly after ABC released clips of Obama’s statement on same-sex marriage.

So, Mr. President, you were half-right.  Yes, the media is corrupt.  However, you and your cronies are the ones benefiting from their corruption.

Look, three love affairs in history, are Abelard and Eloise, Romeo and Juliet and the American media and this President at the moment. But this doesn’t matter over time. Reality will impinge. If his programs work, he’s fine. If it doesn’t work, all of the adulation of journalists in the world won’t matter.
George Will

Andrew Sullivan: Being Gay is like Being Black…or Something

On By kingsjesterIn Politics6 Comments

This week’s edition of Newsweek Magazine will feature a very “special” article in it by self-proclaimed Gay Conservative Andrew Sullivan (and if this guy is a “Conservative”, I’m a blonde 22-year-old Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader named Buffy).  In the article, Sullivan equates Obama’s Black Experience to being Gay:

Last week he did it—in a move whose consequences are simply impossible to judge. White House sources told me that after the interview with ABC News, the president felt as if a weight had been lifted off him. Yes, he was bounced into it by Joe Biden, the lovable Irish-Catholic rogue who couldn’t help but tell the truth about his own views on TV (only to be immediately knocked down by David Axelrod on Twitter). But Obama had been planning to endorse gay marriage before his reelection for a while. White House sources say that if Obama had been a state senator in New York last year when the Albany legislature legalized gay marriage, he’d have voted in favor. But no one asked. The “make news” reveal was scheduled for The View. In the end, scrambling to catch up with his veep, he turned to his fellow ESPN fan, Robin Roberts, a Christian African-American from Mississippi, to quell the sudden kerfuffle. Even this was calculated: to have this moment occur between two African-Americans would help Obama calm opposition within parts of the black community.

The interview, by coincidence, came the day after North Carolina voted emphatically to ban all rights for gay couples in the state constitution. For gay Americans and their families, the emotional darkness of Tuesday night became a canvas on which Obama could paint a widening dawn. But I didn’t expect it. Like many others, I braced myself for disappointment. And yet when I watched the interview, the tears came flooding down. The moment reminded me of my own wedding day. I had figured it out in my head, but not my heart. And I was utterly unprepared for how psychologically transformative the moment would be. To have the president of the United States affirm my humanity—and the humanity of all gay Americans—was, unexpectedly, a watershed. He shifted the mainstream in one interview. And last week, a range of Democratic leaders—from Harry Reid to Steny Hoyer—backed the president, who moved an entire party behind a position that only a few years ago was regarded as simply preposterous. And in response, Mitt Romney could only stutter.

…This is the gay experience: the discovery in adulthood of a community not like your own home and the struggle to belong in both places, without displacement, without alienation. It is easier today than ever. But it is never truly without emotional scar tissue. Obama learned to be black the way gays learn to be gay. And in Obama’s marriage to a professional, determined, charismatic black woman, he created a kind of family he never had before, without ever leaving his real family behind. He did the hard work of integration and managed to create a space in America for people who did not have the space to be themselves before. And then as president, he constitutionally represented us all.

I have always sensed that he intuitively understands gays and our predicament—because it so mirrors his own. And he knows how the love and sacrifice of marriage can heal, integrate, and rebuild a soul. The point of the gay-rights movement, after all, is not about helping people be gay. It is about creating the space for people to be themselves. This has been Obama’s life’s work. And he just enlarged the space in this world for so many others, trapped in different cages of identity, yearning to be released and returned to the families they love and the dignity they deserve.

Back on December 31, 2004, Dr. Thomas Sowell, the respected Black Economist, wrote the following in an article titled, “Gay marriage ‘rights'”, published at townhall.com:

Of all the phony arguments for gay marriage, the phoniest is the argument that it is a matter of equal rights.Marriage is not a right extended to individuals by the government. It is a restriction on the rights they already have.

People who are simply living together can make whatever arrangements they want, whether they are heterosexual or homosexual. They can divide up their worldly belongings 50-50 or 90-10 or whatever other way they want. They can make their union temporary or permanent or subject to cancellation at any time.

…The time is long overdue to stop word games about equal rights from leading to special privileges — for anybody — and gay marriage is as good an issue on which to do so as anything else.

Incidentally, it is not even clear how many homosexuals actually want marriage, even though gay activists are pushing it.

What the activists really want is the stamp of acceptance on homosexuality, as a means of spreading that lifestyle, which has become a death style in the era of AIDS.

…There is no limit to what people will do if you let them get away with it. That our schools, which are painfully failing to educate our children to the standards in other countries, have time for promoting homosexuality is truly staggering.

Every special interest group has an incentive to take something away from society as a whole. Some will be content just to siphon off a share of the taxpayers’ money for themselves. Others, however, want to dismantle a part of the structure of values that make a society viable.

They may not want to bring down the whole structure, just get rid of the part that cramps their style. But when innumerable groups start dismantling pieces of the structure that they don’t like, we can be headed for the kinds of social collapses seen both in history and in other parts of the world in our own times.

I have no desire to destroy somebody’s happiness.  

That being said, I don’t want 5% of America to have the “right” to re-define a word that has meant one thing since time immemorial, simply because they believe that it brings to their lifestyle the label of “normalcy”.

The Harps Eternal

On By kingsjesterIn Christianity1 Comment

Sacred music has played a part in my life as long as I can remember.  My father used to sing hymns to me as he was making my breakfast when I was a child, having sang all of his life.  Both of my sisters took piano lessons, and music always rang through the house in one form or another.

When I was 19, the music director at my church approached me.  She said,

Your father has a beautiful voice.  I’ll bet you can sing, too.

That began a 30 year musical journey which has led me from singing at a Methodist Church in Midtown Memphis, Tennessee to singing on the York, England Grand Hotel staircase, and has included singing sacred music ranging from Bill Gaither’s “Because He Lives” to Faure’s Requiem in Latin. I’ve sung in 40-voice choirs, in Southern Gospel Quartets, on Contemporary Praise Teams, and have had the privilege of leading the singing in church services.

Yesterday, at the young age of 53, I experienced something musically that I’ve never experienced before:

I participated in a 5-hour Sacred Harp singing.

What’s “Sacred Harp”?  I’m glad you asked.

Per the official website, fasola.org:

Sacred Harp is a uniquely American tradition that brings communities together to sing four-part hymns and anthems. It is a proudly inclusive and democratic part of our shared cultural heritage.

Participants are not concerned with re-creating or re-enacting historical events. Our tradition is a living, breathing, ongoing practice passed directly to us by generations of singers, many gone on before and many still living.

All events welcome beginners and newcomers, with no musical experience or religious affiliation required — in fact, the tradition was born from colonial “singing schools” whose purpose was to teach beginners to sing and our methods continue to reflect this goal. Though Sacred Harp is not affiliated with any denomination, it is a deeply spiritual experience for all involved, and functions as a religious observance for many singers.

Sacred Harp “singings” are not performances. There are no rehearsals and no separate seats for an audience. Every singing is a unique and self-sufficient event with a different group of assembled participants. The singers sit in a hollow square formation with one voice part on each side, all facing inwards so we can see and hear each other. However, visitors are always welcome to sit anywhere in the room and participate as listeners.

Why is it called “Sacred Harp”?

Technically, our style of singing is “shape note singing” because the musical notation uses note heads in 4 distinct shapes to aid in sight-reading, but it is often called “Sacred Harp” singing because the books that most singers use today are called “The Sacred Harp,” with the most prominent of these being the 1991 Denson edition. The term “sacred harp” refers to the human voice — that is, the musical instrument you were given at birth.

In 1844, The Sacred Harp was just one of more than 100 oblong hymn books published in the U.S. It has been continuously updated ever since. Along with other hymn books from the era, a handful of which are also still published and used, its repertoire of over 500 4-part a cappella hymns, odes, and anthems is part of the foundation of our vibrant oral tradition. There are dozens of living composers still actively writing new tunes within the traditional styles and shape note format. Other shape note books still in use today include Christian Harmony (using a 7-shape notation), New Harp of Columbia, plus several others, including some entirely new collections such as Northern Harmony.

So, you ask, what are “shape notes”?

The four shape note system used in the Sacred Harp came into being during a whirlwind of American invention. Nothing and no institution was above diddling. This particular shape system was but part of an endless tinkering with music notation that 18th and 19th century Americans indulged in. Little and Smith with the Easy Instructor invented and patented of the four shape note system, but it was but the latest in a long line of experimental music notations.

Spirituals in the Southern Uplands

This notation reform which combined music notation with solmization practice ignited the oblong shaped note tunebook golden era (1801 – Civil War). Books such as Repository of Sacred Music, Kentucky Harmony, Southern Harmony, Sacred Harp, Hesperian Harp, and Social Harp were just some of the dozens produced during this era.

Then came the ominous cloud of the “Better Music Movement.” With this movement came the do re mi fa sol la ti do solmization system which had long replaced the simpler fasola system in Europe among the musically literate. In the urban north the victory of Mason and his ilk was complete with the eradication from the churches and communities of such scourges as the “patent” notes and the “crude music” of composers such as William Billings.

The south was far more resilient in preserving their ways. But even here the long arm of this movement was felt, and thus the seven shaped note system was born. With the exception of the editors of a handful of books Southern shaped note tune compilers largerly accepted the belief that the seven syllable (“one for each note”) solmization was superior to the old fashioned fasola approach. Chief among those leading the charge to this trough was “singing Billy Walker” (compiler of the four shape Southern Harmony) with his Christian Harmony. Although a variety of seven shape notations were invented, the emerging standard was created by Jesse Aiken.

Through his personal presence and intimidation tactics he gradually bludgeoned music publishers into agreements acknowledging his notation standard. Other notable books published in this format were Harp of Columbia (and the New Harp of Columbia), Harmonia Sacra.

During the era of late 19th century and the first few decades of the 20th century legions of seven shaped small books were published in southern book mills. The music published in these books were mostly gospel and revival tunes. The people singing this music had a raging thirst for the new and according to GP Jackson, it was not uncommon for singers at a seven shape singing convention to show up and sing out of a book just published and never before seen by any of the singers. With the coming of modernity to the rural south this vigorous flood of music publishing dwindled, and currently there exists only a few seven shaped tune books still in publication.

For those of you who think that I possibly have lost what little mind I have left, I can only answer your concerns with an explanation that you may or may not understand.

I currently attend a contemporary church.  I am being filled spiritually as I never have been before.

However, I have also been feeling a gentle, but firm tugging at my soul for a while now.  As if a strong, but gentle hand is leading me back to use a sacred gift that was given to me a long time ago.

The experience which I had yesterday, was like the re-opening of a special birthday gift, long forgotten.

And, I want to experience that feeling, again.

Another Saturday Morning With Bubba

On By kingsjesterIn Politics1 Comment

Well, howdy, Mr. President. Good to see you. Please…have a seat.

Waitress, one Rooty-Tooty Fresh ‘n Fruity Breakfast for President Clinton, please, with a large sweet tea to drink.

Wow, Mr. President. Did you see this article in the New York Post yesterday? You didn’t? Here’s, let me read some of it for you:

The title of Klein’s explosive, unauthorized bio of Obama, “The Amateur” (Regnery Publishing), was taken directly from Bill Clinton’s bombshell criticism of the president, the author said.

“Barack Obama,” Bill Clinton said, according to book excerpts, “is an amateur.”

The withering criticism is incredible, given the fact that Bill Clinton is actively campaigning for Obama’s re-election.

But according to the book, Bill Clinton unloaded on Obama and pressed Hillary to run against her boss during a gathering in the ex-president’s home office in Chappaqua last August that included longtime friends, Klein said.

“The economy’s a mess, it’s dead flat. America has lost its Triple-A rating . . . You know better than Obama does,” Bill said.

Bill Clinton insisted he had “no relationship” with Obama and had been consulted more frequently by his presidential successor, George W. Bush.

Obama, Bill Clinton said, “doesn’t know how to be president” and is “incompetent.”

But Hillary resisted the entreaties, according to two of the guests interviewed for the book.

“Why risk everything now?” a skeptical Hillary told her husband, emphasizing that she wanted to leave a legacy as secretary of state.

“Because,” Bill replied, his voice rising, “the country needs you!”

“The country needs us!” added Bill.

He later even joked about the prospect of having two Clinton presidential libraries — about the only time that Hillary cracked a smile.

“I want my term [at the State Department] to be an important one, and running away from it now would leave it as a footnote,” Hillary argued.

She said she had the option of running again in 2016.

But Bill wouldn’t let go.

“I know you’re young enough!” Bill said, his voice booming. “That’s not what I’m worried about. I’m worried that I’m not young enough.”

“I’m the highest-ranking member in Obama’s Cabinet. I eat breakfast with the guy every Thursday morning. What about loyalty, Bill? What about loyalty?” she responded.

“Loyalty is a joke,’’ Bill shot back. “Loyalty doesn’t exist in politics.”

Bill’s verbal battle with Hillary over the presidency, if anything, intensified when daughter Chelsea showed up with her husband, Marc Mezvinsky.

“You deserve to be president,” Chelsea said.

Bill was clearly pleased that Chelsea was on his side and vowed to have allies commission polls on a Hillary-Obama matchup.

“What are you trying to do — force my hand?” Hillary said.

“I want everyone to know how strong you poll,” Bill said.

Hillary said, “Go ahead and knock yourself out.”

Well, Mr. President, the publishing of this book about you certainly isn’t going to help the Missus’ relationship with “The Lightbringer”, is it?

But, in reality, you’ve felt this way for a while, haven’t you?

Remember back on that Friday afternoon in December 2010?  No?  Well, Jon Ward of The Daily Caller described it this way:

In terms of Washington political drama, Friday was an instant classic.

President Obama ushered former President Bill Clinton to the White House briefing room late Friday for an impromptu press session, then abruptly left the wonky and winsome Arkansan at the podium by himself to defend the Obama administration’s tax deal.

“I’ve been keeping the first lady waiting for about half an hour, so I’m going to take off,” Obama said.

Clinton chuckled, joking, “I don’t want to make her mad. Please go,” and then quickly turned back to the microphone and began taking questions from the White House press corps, which had been given no advance notice of the two presidents’ trip to the briefing room.

At the same time on Capitol Hill, Sen. Bernie Sanders, Vermont independent, was in his sixth hour of speaking on the Senate floor in a real life filibuster of the president’s tax deal. He began talking shortly before 10:30 a.m. on Friday and was still speaking at 6 p.m.

“I think that the American people don’t like this agreement,” Sanders said, predicting that if the deal to extend the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts for two years were to pass, all cuts – even those for the top brackets, which he opposes – would be “extended long term.”

Despite Sanders’ filibuster, the real obstacles to the deal’s passage are in the House, where Democrats are incensed at the deal, in some ways on substance but also in large part because it was brokered directly with Republicans and without their input.

Clinton’s main purpose in appearing before the press was to lobby the public, but even more so House Democrats, to accept the deal.

“A lot them are hurting now, and I get it,” Clinton said. “I have an enormous amount of respect for the Democrats in the House … I regret that so many of them lost.”

And, just think, Mr. President, thanks to this “amateur” in the White House, more of your Democratic friends are going to lose their jobs this November.  

And, if we’re lucky, the guy you rightly pegged as an amateur will, too.

It’s Still the Economy, Stupid.

On By kingsjesterIn Politics6 Comments

Barack Obama said the following about the “Recession” we’ve experienced for the last three and a half years, at a campaign rally in Seattle, Washington, yesterday:

It was a house of cards and it collapsed in the most destructive, worst crisis that we’ve seen since the Great Depression. And sometimes people forget the magnitude of it. You know, you saw some of that in the video that was shown. Sometimes I forget.

Mitt Romney’s press secretary, Andrea Saul, responds: “It’s not surprising that a president who forgot to create jobs, forgot to cut the debt, and forgot to change Washington has now admitted that he’s forgotten about the recession. In fact, it seems that the President has forgotten that he’s been in office for the last three-and-a-half years. In November, the American people won’t forget.”

Per Gallup,

64% of Americans are employed full-time, 18.2% are underemployed, and 8.3% are unemployed.

Also, per Gallup:

Registered voters are more likely to say Mitt Romney, if elected president, would do a very good or good job of handling the economy than they are to say President Obama would, if re-elected — 61% vs. 52%. While the two men earn about equal “very good” ratings, 22% of voters think Obama would do a “very poor” job, more than twice as many as say the same about Romney (10%).

Voters were asked to rate Obama and Romney separately on the economy in the May 1-2 USA Today/Gallup poll. However, when forced to choose between the two in a follow-up question, voters were split about evenly, with 47% saying Romney and 45% Obama.

Voters’ greater likelihood to say Obama would do a “very poor” job with the economy comes partly from the large percentage of Republicans who say this — 46%. This compares with a much smaller 20% of Democrats who say the same about Romney. This could partly reflect the fact that Obama has been in office for more than three years in troubled economic times, while Romney has no track record on the economy at the national level. In total, 81% of Republicans say Obama would do a very poor or poor job of handling the economy, while 58% of Democrats give Romney the same ratings.

Independents also give Romney much better ratings than Obama on handling the economy. Twenty-one percent of independents believe Obama would do a very poor job with the economy over the next four years, while 7% say the same about Romney. They are more likely to say Romney than Obama would do a very good or good job — 64% vs. 52%.

Independents’ views on the forced-choice question are similar, with 50% saying Romney would do a better job and 40% saying Obama would. Democrats and Republicans overwhelmingly choose their respective party’s candidate as better able to manage the economy — at almost identically high levels.

And, while the American Economy continues to sink deeper into a socialist swamp, what is the 44th President of the United States doing about it?

Per  Sen. Marco Rubio, in an interview on Laura Ingraham’s Radio Show on Thursday, not a whole heck of a lot.  In fact, he’s trying his darnedest to cover it up:

According to Florida’s Republican junior U.S. senator, the economy should be the focus, but there seems to be a different issue every week brought to the forefront by the president and his party.

“Every single week, whether it’s the student loan issue this week, or this gay marriage issue — next week it’ll be something else; every single week they will trot out another issue to avoid having to talk about the economy because this election is about the economy, which is what it should be about. He can’t win and they know that. They’re smart enough to know that.”

As for the issue itself, Rubio said it was an important one, but one that was preferably done at the state level.

“I’m not saying this isn’t an issue we shouldn’t have an opinion on,” Rubio said. “I’m not saying it isn’t an important issue. But obviously you’re seeing this issue being litigated and voted on across the country at the state level. We did so in Florida. You saw so in North Carolina. But in terms of our president, what we really want to focus on is getting jobs and the economy growing again and keeping America safe. He doesn’t want to talk about the issue — especially the economy.”

But Rubio said whether it be the student loan issue, the contraception mandate or the same-sex marriage issue, Obama has managed to use these issues to divide people for political purposes.

“Every week, it is an effort by this president to divide one group of Americans against another group of Americans for the purposes of getting him reelected,” Rubio said. “It’s very, very sad.”

Obama is simply following Rule #8 of Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals, which states:

“Keep the pressure on. Never let up.” Keep trying new things to keep the opposition off balance. As the opposition masters one approach, hit them from the flank with something new. (Attack, attack, attack from all sides, never giving the reeling organization a chance to rest, regroup, recover and re-strategize.)

While Obama’s Far Left Base is jumping for joy, the overwhelming majority of average Americans out here in the Heartland are not amused.

Obama: Smarter Than Us “Common” Folks

On By kingsjesterIn Politics9 Comments

President Barack Hussein Obama yesterday reaffirmed his personal belief that he is wiser than the average American voter.

GMA.yahoo.com has the story:

President Obama today announced that he now supports same-sex marriage, reversing his longstanding opposition amid growing pressure from the Democratic base and even his own vice president.

In an interview with ABC News’ Robin Roberts, the president described his thought process as an “evolution” that led him to this decision, based on conversations with his staff members, openly gay and lesbian service members, and his wife and daughters.

“I have to tell you that over the course of several years as I have talked to friends and family and neighbors, when I think about members of my own staff who are in incredibly committed monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together; when I think about those soldiers or airmen or marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf and yet feel constrained, even now that ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ is gone, because they are not able to commit themselves in a marriage, at a certain point I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married,” Obama told Roberts in an interview to appear on ABC’s “Good Morning America” Thursday.

Excerpts of the interview will air tonight on ABC’s “World News With Diane Sawyer” and “Nightline.”

The president stressed that this is a personal position, and that he still supports the concept of states’ deciding the issue on their own. But he said he’s confident that more Americans will grow comfortable with gays and lesbians getting married, citing his own daughters’ comfort with the concept.

Of course, this announcement came the day after North Carolina Voters overwhelmingly voted for a resolution declaring marriage to be “one man and one woman”, becoming the 31st state to pass such a law.

If you watched the MSM yesterday, you would have thought that this was the greatest announcement since Moses brought the tablets down from Mount Sinai.

One would have thought that Obama would have learned a lesson from both the North Carolina vote and the defeat of long-time Indiana Senator Richard Lugar.

Washingtontimes.com reports that

Dark clouds had been gathering over Mr. Lugar for months after tea party groups made the elder statesman, a moderate Republican, their chief congressional target this year.

The GOP primary quickly turned into a nationally scrutinized showdown as the Club for Growth and other Mourdock supporters poured some $3 million into ads lambasting Mr. Lugar for voting for the automakers bailout and tax hikes over his six terms, while groups supporting Mr. Lugar spent half that.

Mr. Mourdock pounded his core message that the 80-year-old senator had turned into a Washington insider, slamming him for living away from Indiana for years, highlighting Mr. Lugar’s congenial relationship with Mr. Obama and criticizing the senator for voting to confirm Mr. Obama’s liberal Supreme Court nominees.

Suddenly, Mr. Lugar found himself struggling to defend things he once touted as accomplishments; among them, working with Democrats on foreign policy and earning the title of one of the two longest-serving Republicans in the Senate. Mr. Lugar and Mr. Hatch were both first elected in 1976.

In a blistering letter, written after his defeat, Sen. Lugar came off as a bitter, pompous, old RINO:

Ultimately, the re-election of an incumbent to Congress usually comes down to whether voters agree with the positions the incumbent has taken. I knew that I had cast recent votes that would be unpopular with some Republicans and that would be targeted by outside groups.

These included my votes for the TARP program, for government support of the auto industry, for the START Treaty, and for the confirmations of Justices Sotomayor and Kagan. I also advanced several propositions that were considered heretical by some, including the thought that Congressional earmarks saved no money and turned spending power over to unelected bureaucrats and that the country should explore options for immigration reform.

It was apparent that these positions would be attacked in a Republican primary. But I believe that they were the right votes for the country, and I stand by them without regrets, as I have throughout the campaign.

…Unfortunately, we have an increasing number of legislators in both parties who have adopted an unrelenting partisan viewpoint. This shows up in countless vote studies that find diminishing intersections between Democrat and Republican positions. Partisans at both ends of the political spectrum are dominating the political debate in our country. And partisan groups, including outside groups that spent millions against me in this race, are determined to see that this continues. They have worked to make it as difficult as possible for a legislator of either party to hold independent views or engage in constructive compromise. If that attitude prevails in American politics, our government will remain mired in the dysfunction we have witnessed during the last several years. And I believe that if this attitude expands in the Republican Party, we will be relegated to minority status. Parties don’t succeed for long if they stop appealing to voters who may disagree with them on some issues.

Legislators should have an ideological grounding and strong beliefs identifiable to their constituents. I believe I have offered that throughout my career. But ideology cannot be a substitute for a determination to think for yourself, for a willingness to study an issue objectively, and for the fortitude to sometimes disagree with your party or even your constituents. Like Edmund Burke, I believe leaders owe the people they represent their best judgment.

Too often bipartisanship is equated with centrism or deal cutting. Bipartisanship is not the opposite of principle. One can be very conservative or very liberal and still have a bipartisan mindset. Such a mindset acknowledges that the other party is also patriotic and may have some good ideas. It acknowledges that national unity is important, and that aggressive partisanship deepens cynicism, sharpens political vendettas, and depletes the national reserve of good will that is critical to our survival in hard times. Certainly this was understood by President Reagan, who worked with Democrats frequently and showed flexibility that would be ridiculed today – from assenting to tax increases in the 1983 Social Security fix, to compromising on landmark tax reform legislation in 1986, to advancing arms control agreements in his second term.

Except that, Reagan, in the end, would always stand behind Conservative principles.  Lugar spent his career reaching across the aisle and patting himself on the back at the same time.

Obama should have paid attention to what was happening around him yesterday.

The American people spoke very clearly.

The death of the Tea Party Movement has been greatly exaggerated.

Don’t Ask. Obama Won’t Tell. Update: He Did!

On By kingsjesterIn Politics7 Comments

Last night, the voters of the Tar Heel State joined the citizens of 30 other American states in making their voices heard plainly and clearly on an issue that President Barack Hussein Obama (mm mmm mmmm) is avoiding like the plague.

North Carolina voters have approved a constitutional amendment defining marriage solely as a union between a man and a woman, making it the 30th U.S. state to adopt such a ban.

With 35 percent of precincts reporting Tuesday, unofficial returns showed the amendment passing with about 58 percent of the vote to 42 percent against.

In the days before the vote, members of President Barack Obama’s cabinet expressed support for gay marriage and former President Bill Clinton recorded phone messages urging voters to reject the amendment

Meanwhile, supporters ran their own ad campaigns and church leaders urged Sunday congregations to vote for the amendment. The Rev. Billy Graham was featured in full-page newspaper ads supporting the amendment.

So, what does the “Leader of the Free World” say about the controversial subject?

Don’t ask.  He won’t tell.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan broke ranks with the White House on Monday, stating his unequivocal support for same-sex marriage one day after Vice President Joe Biden suggested that he supported gay marriage as well.

Obama aides worked to manage any political fallout. They said the back-to-back remarks by two top administration officials represented personal viewpoints and were not part of a coordinated effort to lay groundwork for a shift in the president’s position. Obama aides also tried to use the latest flare-up in the gay-marriage debate to shine a light on GOP rival Mitt Romney’s history of equivocating on some gay-rights issues, an attempt to turn a potential political problem into an opportunity.

Obama, who supports most gay rights, has stopped short of backing gay marriage. Without clarification, he’s said for the past year and a half that his personal views on the matter are “evolving.”

The White House held firm on Monday to that position, which polls show puts the president increasingly at odds with his party and the majority of Americans on gay marriage. But with Biden and Duncan’s comments reinvigorating the debate, Obama is likely to face renewed pressure to clarify his views ahead of the November election.

Throughout his first term, he has sought to walk a fine line on same-sex marriage. He’s trying to satisfy rank-and-file Democrats by supporting a range of gay rights issues without alienating crucial independent voters who could be turned off by the emotional social issue.

The president’s aides acknowledge that his position can be confusing. In states where gay marriage already is legal, the president says married gay couples should have the same rights as married straight couples. But he does not publicly support the right of gay couples to enter into a marriage in the first place.

Duncan, a longtime friend of the president as well as a member of his Cabinet, made clear Monday that his position on gay marriage was not in lockstep with the White House. Asked in a television interview whether he believed gay couples should legally be allowed to marry, Duncan said simply, “Yes, I do.”

His comments followed Biden’s assertion Sunday that he was “absolutely comfortable with the fact that men marrying men, women marrying women and heterosexual men and women marrying one another are entitled to the same exact rights, all the civil rights, all the civil liberties.”

Obama aides said Duncan was speaking about his personal views on the issue and was not under orders from the White House or the campaign to take his position.

As for Biden, White House and campaign officials said the vice president’s remarks were no different from what he and Obama have said in the past.

“They were entirely consistent with the president’s position, which is that couples who are married, whether they are gay or heterosexual couples are entitled to the very same rights and very same liberties,” said David Axelrod, a senior adviser to the Obama campaign. “When people are married, we ought to recognize those marriages.”

So, what is the president’s position?  Jay Carney, WH Press Secretary, was asked that during yesterday’s daily press briefing, per politico.com.

Pay attention to this dance recital.  Fred Astaire would be proud.

Q: On the gay marriage issue, Jay, has the intensity of interest in this and the statements from some of the President’s supporters led him to consider clarifying his position? And considering that his views are evolving, does he want to maybe consider his views more thoroughly?

MR. CARNEY: Well, I don’t have a readout of any conversations involving the President on that issue. I can tell you that I’m sure it is the case that he will be asked again at some point when he gives interviews or press conferences about this issue, and I’ll leave it to him to describe his personal views.

I think it’s important to note, as I attempted to do yesterday, that what is abundantly clear is this President’s firm commitment to the protection of and securing of the same rights and obligations for LGBT citizens as other Americans enjoy. He has been a strong proponent of LGBT rights, and I think that’s demonstrated by his record, which is unparalleled, as President in support of those rights.

Q: Jay, you said yesterday on this issue in reference to Vice President Biden’s remarks and the President’s, that the President’s personal views obviously were evolving, and you stressed the personal views. I guess is there maybe a disconnect between his policies and his personal views in terms of maybe his policies are ahead of his personal views on this?

MR. CARNEY: No, I don’t think so. I think the President’s absolute commitment to the rights of LGBT citizens demonstrated by the path he took to ensure the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” the opposition that he and his administration have expressed towards DOMA and the fact that he believes it ought to be repealed. It is also the case that the President and the Attorney General believe that Section 3 of DOMA is unconstitutional, which is why the federal government no longer defends Section 3. And from hate crimes legislation to hospital visitation rights, the list of accomplishments is quite long and I think demonstrates his feelings about, broadly, this issue.

Q: Do you think he’ll talk about it with Cuomo considering he’s received a lot of plaudits from the LGBT community?

MR. CARNEY: Well, I think — I don’t know what their conversations will contain. I know that they’ll focus on the issue that the President has come to discuss in upstate New York. I think the President has taken a position on some of these state issues, and I think he did on New York and he has in North Carolina. And I think the position he takes has — the positions he has taken are consistent with his belief that it is wrong to take actions that would deny rights to LGBT citizens or rescind rights already provided to LGBT Americans. And that’s a position that you can fully expect him to maintain.

Since when has marriage been a right?  

I’ve never seen the word “marriage” listed in the Constitution under “inalienable rights”, nor in the Bill of Rights itself.

With 62% of America’s population (31 states) voting against Gay Marriage, I believe other Americans haven’t either.

KJ Update:  Today, in an interview with ABC’s Robin Roberts, Obama said:

I have to tell you that over the course of several years as I have talked to friends and family and neighbors, when I think about members of my own staff who are in incredibly committed monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together; when I think about those soldiers or airmen or marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf and yet feel constrained, even now that ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ is gone, because they are not able to commit themselves in a marriage, at a certain point I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married.

The interview will air on Thursday’s Good Morning America.

After all, the American public’s opinion doesn’t mean squat to “The Lightbringer”.

The Return of the Puppet Master

On By kingsjesterIn Politics4 Comments

Obama’s re-election bid is not going as smoothly as was predicted by all of the political prognosticators. In response, the Democratic Powers-That-Be are calling in the Big Guns.

After months on the sidelines, major liberal donors including the financier George Soros are preparing to inject up to $100 million into independent groups to aid Democrats’ chances this fall. But instead of going head to head with the conservative “super PACs” and outside groups that have flooded the presidential and Congressional campaigns with negative advertising, the donors are focusing on grass-roots organizing, voter registration and Democratic turnout.

But in interviews, donors and strategists involved in the effort said they also did not believe they could match advertising spending by leading conservative groups like American Crossroads and Americans for Prosperity, and instead wanted to exploit what they see as the Democrats’ advantage in grass-roots organizing.

…In a move likely to draw in other major donors, Mr. Soros will contribute $1 million each to America Votes, a group that coordinates political activity for left-leaning environmental, abortion rights and civil rights groups, and American Bridge 21st Century, a super PAC that focuses on election-oriented research. The donations will be Mr. Soros’s first major contributions of the 2012 election cycle.

“George Soros believes the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United opened the floodgates to special interests’ paying for political ads,” said Michael Vachon, a spokesman for Mr. Soros. “There is no way those concerned with the public interest can compete with them. Soros has always focused his political giving on grass-roots organizing and holding conservatives accountable for the flawed policies they promote. His support of these groups is consistent with those views.”

What a noble, giving guy Mr. Soros is, huh?  Wrong.

Two years ago today, I posted an article titled, “Black Thursday…Almost” about an unexpected dive in the Stock Market.  Within that post, I included a short summary of how George Soros made his money:

George Soros set up the now famous Quantum Fund as one of the world’s first Hedge Funds. It took money from the wealthy and invested in risky but potentially highly profitable international deals.

It did very well out of the collapse of fixed exchange rates in the 1970s and the deregulation of global capital markets. By 1980, George Soros was worth more than £16.5 million and his fund £67 million. The stage was set for his intervention in the Exchange Rate Mechanism, a system established in 1979 for controlling exchange rates within the European Monetary System of the European Union(EU) that was intended to prepare the way for a single currency.

Around spring 1992, Soros had decided that the pound would have to be devalued because it had been pushed into the Exchange Rate Mechanism at too high a rate.

He knew that the Bundesbank was in favor of a devaluation of both sterling and the Italian lira and believed it would have to happen because of the disastrous impact that high British interest rates were having on asset prices.

Soros spent the next few months in preparation to profit from that devaluation. He borrowed sterling heavily, reportedly to the tune of £6.5 billion, and converted that into a mixture of Deutschmarks and French francs.

On Black Wednesday, September 16, 1992, Soros won his bet.  The UK Conservative government was forced to withdraw the Pound from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) due to pressure by currency speculators, most notably Soros himself.

In the following days, he took care of business, paying back what he borrowed and ending with a profit of around £1 billion.  At the same time, Soros bought as much as £350 million of British shares, gambling that equities often rise after a currency devalues.

He later admitted that his actions had benefited no one but himself.

There are several culprits in the American Stock Market Crash of 2008 that helped cost John McCain the Presidency, but one key source of the problem escaped almost everyone’s attention:  an economic index that can be easily manipulated by Hedge Funds and whose erratic movements have shaken the foundation of Wall Street: the ABX index, launched in 2007 by the Markit Group, aLondon-based company that specializes in credit derivative pricing and that administers the index.

The heart of the mortgage mess we are still recovering from was uncertainty regarding the value of subprime securities. The ABX Index is used to determine the value of these securities: it is a benchmark of the market for all the home loans issued to borrowers with weak credit . A collapse of this index led to home loans being marked down in value.

Looking back, it’s pretty clear that the ABX was manipulated by Hedge Funds. As the ABX subprime mortgage index crashed, so did much of our economy.

Some investors made out like bandits. George Soros for one. Soros had become a political powerbroker of unrivaled influence within the Democratic Party (see The Shadow Party: How George Soros, Hillary Clinton and Sixties Radicals Seized Control of the Democratic Party) and, even now, has an empire of politically active 527 groups, of which he is the number one donor, by far, in America.

There is a now infamous lunch whispered about between Soros and John Paulson, a Hedge Fund Manager who made millions during the collapse.  Soros invited Paulson for lunch, “asking for details of how he laid his bets, with instruments that didn’t exist a few years ago”.

Soros’s Hedge Fund, like most Hedge Funds, is based overseas and escapes much scrutiny and regulation.
Especially, during this Administration.

The European Socialist Slide

On By kingsjesterIn Politics5 Comments

Americans have watched as Europe has teetered on the brink of economic chaos, reminiscent of a Buddhist monk preparing to set himself on fire.

It appears that the match has been lit.

French socialist Francois Hollande has won a clear victory in the country’s presidential election.

Mr Hollande – who got an estimated 52% of votes in Sunday’s run-off – said the French had chosen “change”.

Admitting defeat, centre-right incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy wished “good luck” to Mr Hollande.

Analysts say the vote has wide implications for the whole eurozone. Mr Hollande has vowed to rework a deal on government debt in member countries.

Shortly after polls closed at 20:00 (18:00 GMT), French media published projections based on partial results giving Mr Hollande a lead of almost four points. Turnout was about 80%.

Jubilant Hollande supporters gathered on Place de la Bastille in Paris – a traditional rallying point of the Left – to celebrate.

People drank champagne and chanted: “Sarko, it’s over!”

Mr Hollande – the first socialist to win the French presidency since Francois Mitterrand in the 1980s – gave his victory speech in his stronghold of Tulle in central France.

He said was “proud to have been capable of giving people hope again”.

He said he would push ahead with his pledge to refocus EU fiscal efforts from austerity to “growth”.

“Europe is watching us, austerity can no longer be the only option,” he said.

Mr Hollande has called for a renegotiation of a hard-won European treaty on budget discipline championed by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Mr Sarkozy.

Meanwhile, in Greece…

Greece’s former finance minister and Socialist party leader called for a broad coalition government of pro-European parties, ruling out a two-party government with his conservative rivals after his party received a drubbing in Sunday’s parliamentary elections.

Official projected results showed Evangelos Venizelos’ PASOK party plunging to third place with 13.6 percent and 42 seats in the 300-member parliament. The conservative New Democracy was projected in the lead with 19.18 percent and 109 seats, far below the 151 needed to form a government. The margin of error was 0.5 percentage point.

“A coalition government of the old two-party system would not have sufficient legitimacy or sufficient domestic and international credibility if it would gather a slim majority,” Venizelos said. “A government of national unity with the participation by all the parties that favor a European course, regardless of their positions toward the loan agreements, would have meaning.”

If borne out by final results, the outcome is devastating for PASOK, which won a landslide victory in 2009 with more than 43 percent of the vote.

Voters outraged by Greece’s protracted financial crisis and the austerity measures imposed in return for international bailouts punished both main parties, turning to smaller anti-bailout groups instead. The leftist Syriza, which was projected in second place with 16.3 percent and 50 seats, has been strongly opposed to Greece’s bailout agreements.

“For us in PASOK, today is particularly painful,” Venizelos said. “We knew the price would be heavy and we had undertaken for a long time to bear it.”

Things aren’t  so peachy-keen in Germany, either:

German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s centre-right coalition lost power in the state of Schleswig-Holstein, first estimates showed Sunday, after a vote that could presage national elections next year.

Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) scored 30.6 percent, according to ARD public television, with her junior partners at the national level, the Free Democrats (FDP), winning 8.3 percent – not enough to retain power in the northern state.

However, the opposition – combining the centre-left Social Democrats and ecologist Greens – also failed to gain sufficient support to form a government, with 29.9 percent and 13.6 percent respectively.

This left as a strong possibility a so-called “grand coalition” between the CDU and SPD, which many believe could be the final result of the national elections due in September or October 2013.

The big winners on the night were the Pirates, an upstart party that has shaken up the staid world of German politics with a campaign based on more transparency in the political process and internet freedom.

For the third consecutive regional election, they breached the five-percent mark needed to enter the state parliament, winning 8.2 percent of the vote.

But for the FDP, although they lost more than six percent compared to the last election in 2009, it was a better-than-expected result, given that they are polling nationally at around three percent.

Turnout was low, with around 60 percent of the 2.2 million registered voters casting their ballot, compared to more than two-thirds in 2009.

The socialist Left party failed to clear the five-percent hurdle, scoring around 2.4 percent. A party representing the state’s small Danish minority also fell below the threshold, with 4.5 percent.

The parties will now engage in days of horse-trading before the final make-up of the state parliament is determined.

However, the election will have little impact on the make-up of the Bundesrat, the upper house of parliament where Germany’s 16 states are represented, and Merkel’s personal popularity remains high.

Back on April 24th, Robin Wells reported on the effect of what was happening in European Politics on the markets, for guardian.co.uk:

When markets contemplate that it’s likely that another austerity-skeptic, François Hollande, will win the presidency in France, then the pattern becomes impossible to ignore: the “core” eurozone countries are fragmenting. While it would be foolish to make predictions, what is probable is that Germany’s political isolation within the eurozone will deepen, leaving German taxpayers unwilling to continue backstopping the whole system.

Unthinkable as it seems, the logical conclusion is that the eurozone cannot continue to exist, at least in its present form. Markets, which hate unquantifiable uncertainty, are sensing this. We are likely to be in for an extended period of gut-wrenching turbulence.

What are the implications for the US, economically and politically? Direct links between the US and eurozone economies are fairly minor: we don’t export that much to them, they don’t import that much from us, and US banks have had an extended time to cut their exposure to eurozone risk. Yet the collateral damage could still prove significant.

When the stock markets fall, consumer and business confidence falls, leading to cutbacks in spending – bad news for an American economy that is still mired in recession. In addition, crisis in Europe makes for a stronger US dollar, as investors flee to safer abodes. Again, bad for the economy as a stronger dollars hurts US exports.

The reality of the eurozone’s troubles should lend support to President Barack Obama’s campaign against GOP presidential nominee presumptive Mitt Romney and congressional Republicans. It provides a demonstration that austerity is self-defeating, that fiscal stimulus is needed in a deeply depressed economy, that recovery from a financial crisis is a slow and halting process, and that by grasping the nettle immediately, the Obama administration has succeeded in stabilizing its financial sector – while the Europeans have made a hash of it.

Ms. Wells’ thoughts about our economic plight are way off…unless she calls the Obama Administration embracing of European Socialist-style Big Government, spending like there’s no tomorrow, and keeping unemployment at over 8% “stabilizing the financial sector”.

It is imperative that America not follow Europe’s example, this November 6th.

One Nation, Under God

On By kingsjesterIn Politics11 Comments

Here are a few quotes from American Presidents, expressing their love and reverence for the Almighty.

That is, all except one.

You do well to wish to learn our arts and ways of life, and above all, the religion of Jesus Christ. These will make you a greater and happier people than you are.

…While we are zealously performing the duties of good citizens and soldiers, we certainly ought not to be inattentive to the higher duties of religion. To the distinguished character of Patriot, it should be our highest glory to add the more distinguished character of Christian.

…The blessing and protection of Heaven are at all times necessary but especially so in times of public distress and danger. The General hopes and trusts that every officer and man will endeavor to live and act as becomes a Christian soldier, defending the dearest rights and liberties of his country.

…I now make it my earnest prayer that God would… most graciously be pleased to dispose us all to do justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that charity, humility, and pacific temper of the mind which were the characteristics of the Divine Author of our blessed religion.

– GEORGE WASHINGTON

The doctrines of Jesus are simple, and tend all to the happiness of man.

The practice of morality being necessary for the well being of society, He [God] has taken care to impress its precepts so indelibly on our hearts that they shall not be effaced by the subtleties of our brain. We all agree in the obligation of the moral principles of Jesus and nowhere will they be found delivered in greater purity than in His discourses.

I am a Christian in the only sense in which He wished anyone to be: sincerely attached to His doctrines in preference to all others.

I am a real Christian – that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus Christ.

– THOMAS JEFFERSON

If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

-ABRAHAM LINCOLN

The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were. . . . the general principles of Christianity.

– JOHN ADAMS

[T]he teachings of the Bible are so interwoven and entwined with our whole civic and social life that it would be literally….impossible for us to figure to ourselves what that life would be if these teaching were removed.

-TEDDY ROOSEVELT

America was born a Christian nation – America was born to exemplify that devotion to the elements of righteousness which are derived from the revelations of Holy Scripture.

– WOODROW WILSON

American life is builded, and can alone survive, upon . . . [the] fundamental philosophy announced by the Savior nineteen centuries ago.

-HERBERT HOOVER

This is a Christian Nation. –

– HARRY TRUMAN

Let us remember that as a Christian nation . . . we have a charge and a destiny.

– RICHARD NIXON

We do not consider ourselves a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation. We consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values.

– BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA

In a unrelated matter, or is it related?  I certainly believe so.

Per Breitbart.com –

Barack Obama launched his campaign in unspectacular fashion today at Ohio State University, the largest college in the crucial swing state. A photo posted to twitter by Mitt Romney’s campaign spokesman Ryan Williams reveals sparse attendance. The above image, according to Williams, was taken during the President’s first official campaign speech.

During the speech, Obama ripped into the presumptive GOP nominee and discussed nation building at home, but the most newsworthy item of the day was not the talking points Obama delivered: it was the crowd… or lack thereof. According to ABC News, the Obama campaign had expected an “overflow” of people. Instead, the arena looked half-empty. The Columbus Dispatch reports that Obama organizers even had people move from the seats to the floor of the gym in order to project a larger crowd on television.

According to the Toledo Blade, the venue for Obama’s rally seats 20,000 but “there were a lot of empty seats.” Comparatively, Obama drew a crowd of 35,000 at Ohio State when he campaigned for former Governor Ted Strickland in 2010.

The official Barack Obama Tumblr boasts a figure from ThinkProgress that 14,000 attended the event–70% of the stadium’s seating capacity.

To hold a campaign event in a room that you can’t fill is a mistake; to promise the media a more-than-capacity crowd then fall this far short of that promise is utter incompetence. In 2008, Obama ran a near-flawless campaign, buoyed by enthusiasm and effective organizing. But it’s not 2008 any more, and on day one of the 2012 campaign, Team Obama has already made an embarrassing blunder.

Yes, they have…they overestimated the crowd and underestimated the American people and the Solid Rock upon which this nation was built.

However, God always has a way of getting your attention.