Day111 Saturday 12/18/10

ran 2.5 miles
President Barack Obama was quoted as being “Incredibly disappointed” today when Senate Republicans blocked a bill to grant certain illegal immigrants a chance to clench legal status.

The Dream Act failed to pass this morning. The measure was five votes short of the sixty needed to pass. It is actually quite amazing that this piece of legislation was not enacted, considering our Congress is in its advantageous Lame duck session, in which numbers are significantly more favorable now for liberal ideas than they will be in January when our newly elected officials are sworn in.

The Dream Act, in simple terms, is an opportunity for illegal aliens between the ages of twelve and thirty-five to earn amnesty and citizenship by enrolling in college or joining the military. This will give you all of the details of the proposed bill, but here is what I read between the lines:

First, this is a step, one of many to come in the next two years, towards legalizing and making voters out of the millions upon millions of illegal immigrants that we tolerate in America, fortifying an immense, untapped voting base for Democrats and their ideas. The second thought that comes to mind is this---once the illegal alien, between the age of twelve and thirty-five, files his paperwork, can we deport his parents back to the country they came from, or maybe naturalize them with the incredibly obvious contingency that they become classified and proud citizens of the United States of America? Third, in order to pull this off, it will require money…taxpayer money, which illegal immigrants do not pay. It is not naïve to assume that the majority of illegal aliens in this country more than likely do not have a college fund for their children or a nest egg for their futures. This legislation would fund, in the form of scholarships, educations for people in this country who are flagrantly breaking the law by simply being here. And our government wants to pay for these people to succeed when so many of us legally and proudly live in this country and work as hard as we can every day to succeed and provide for our families. I’m still paying off student loans and our president is proposing to fund illegal aliens to get a free ride?

For the amount of common sense that resonates in not passing this bill, it is still surprising that our liberally favored Senate ultimately said “No”. His counterparts did not even back this bill, at least enough of them to stop it. It is a sign of the times and the power of the people. Obama’s presidency has been the catalyst for the biggest awakening of concern in American voters in a long time.

1,809.1 miles to go.

Day110 Friday 12/17/10

ran 3.0 miles

• Illinois was the twenty-first state to join the union on December 3, 1818, one year before Alabama and one year after Mississippi.

• Population, as of 2009, is 12,910,409.

• Senators are Richard Durbin (D) and Mark Kirk (R).

• Representatives are Bobby Rush (D), Jesse Jackson (D), Daniel Lipinski (D), Luis Gutierrez (D), Mike Quigley (D), Peter Roskam (R), Danny Davis (D), Melissa Bean (D), Janice Schakowsky (D), Deborah Halvorson (D), Jerry Costello (D), Judy Biggert (R), Bill Foster (D), Timothy Johnson (R), Donald Manzullo (R), Phil Hare (D), Aaron Schock (R), and John Shimkus (R).

• Illinois has 21 electoral votes. Historically, the state has voted largely Republican from the Civil War through the 1920s. Through the Great Depression and World War II, Illinois voted blue. Between 1952 and 1988 the state voted red for eight out of ten presidential elections. And all the way up to Barack Obama’s presidential election, Illinois has voted for a Democrat in the last five elections.

Since Illinois is the topic of today’s post it is fitting to cover some information on our current president who came from Illinois. We are all aware of the controversies surrounding Barack Obama’s birth certificate and the millions of dollars he has exhausted in legal fees to maintain as much privacy as possible pertaining to his past, and how under-qualified he is to be a president of the United States of America, and how underwhelming of a job he is doing, but, just once more, lets take a look at the gristle on the bone of what Barack Obama’s achievements are.

Straight out of the “Biographical Directory of the United States Congress”, Barack Obama is a Senator from Illinois and 44th President of the United States; born in Honolulu, Hawaii, August 4, 1961; obtained early education in Jakarta, Indonesia, and Hawaii; continued education at Occidental College, Los Angeles, Calif.; received a B.A. in 1983 from Columbia University, New York City; worked as a community organizer in Chicago, Ill.; studied law at Harvard University, where he became the first African American president of the Harvard Law Review, and received J.D. in 1991; lecturer on constitutional law, University of Chicago; member, Illinois State senate 1997-2004; elected as a Democrat to the U.S. Senate in 2004, and served from January 3, 2005, to November 16, 2008, when he resigned from office, having been elected president; elected as the 44th President of the United States on November 4, 2008, and was inaugurated on January 20, 2009.

He has some impressive credentials and rare achievements few others will experience in their lives, but in terms of being the President of the United States of America, the greatest country on Earth, he falls short. First, the birth certificate fiasco was absolutely ridiculous. I don’t know anyone who would not simply show another person their birth certificate if they were asked to present it. Regardless of where our president was born, the simple fact that he was so reluctant to prove his origin speaks for itself. People do not behave the way he did when they have nothing to hide. Second, Barack Obama was not the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review and nor is he the first African-American to reside as the President of the United States of America. I hope that within my lifetime I do get to witness a black man or woman sitting behind the desk in the Oval Office. I also hope that man or woman will have enough sense and integrity to not refer to his or herself as an “African-American” because an American is simply an American. I’d also like to see a woman elected as president in my lifetime because these are things that have never happened before and they would be signs of progress. If Barack Obama was conceived by a red man and a blue woman and he was born purple, why would he refer to himself as the first Red-American president when he is clearly as purple as an eggplant? It makes no sense. And, finally, a Community Planner and three years as a Senator? If I were a Community Planner with three years of experience in the army would I campaign for General? No!

America voted him in and America can vote him out.

1,811.6 miles to go.