Finished goal of running the distance of 2,080 miles from Lafayette, LA to Washington D.C and back!!!...plus 339.1 miles
0.0 miles run this week. Daily running average for the week is 0.00 miles per day. Total amount run in the past 800 days is 2,419.1 miles. Daily running average overall is 3.02 miles per day.
Erskine Bowles, Clinton White House chief of staff, praising Paul Ryan nearly one year ago at the University of North Carolina. This video could be the most inexpensive ad for Republicans in presidential campaign history. It speaks for itself.
2,080 miles from Lafayette, LA to Washington D.C. and back + 158.0
On April 4, 2011, President Obama signed the proper paperwork to begin his re-election run and, since then, here are a few of his crowning achievements:
200 fundraising events (George W. Bush had 88 at this point in his re-election)
45 rounds of golf (this is an awesome site that has taken the liberty of itemizing each of his numerous golf outings with locations and timelines)
Unemployment has remained above 8% for this period of time (although it has been above 8% beyond April, 2011)
Barack Obama has met with his Jobs Council one single time since then, in January, 2011
I'm sure there are many other notable achievements but these are some of the highlights. Check out more here.
2,080 miles from Lafayette, LA to Washington D.C. and back + 154.6
Romney and Ryan it is. I was taken aback at first but this is the decision that was made and that reality makes it easier to rationalize all the different things this means. I knew Ryan was on the Veep short-list but he struck me as a man who would energize the Conservative base. The thing is the Conservative base doesn't need any energizing. I think most Conservatives would vote for a plank of wood running against Barack Obama. So why Ryan?
It is common knowledge that approximately 45%-47% of Americans on each side of the aisle know exactly who they are going to vote for and they cannot be dissuaded. I am one of them. That leaves 6%-10% who are undecided and they are the individuals who are going to decide this election. So, again, why Ryan?
As a side note, this small fraction of individuals who comprise the undecided votes of America are a mystery to me. How someone can be on the fence about two such extreme directions in government and the future of America is incomprehensible to me. It's like arriving at the most important fork in the road of your nation's modern history and long-term future and genuinely being baffled as to whether you should turn left or right. Indecision like this is usually left to children who can't decide whether they want blue shoe laces or red shoe laces.
Why Ryan? The first thing that comes to mind is Florida and Rubio. Florida is a critical state to win and Rubio would have energized Florida the same way Ryan will energize Wisconsin. Perhaps Romney is confident in Florida---and Wisconsin is the controversial state Scott Walker governs and has recently succeeded in overcoming a recall election fueled by the heavy union presence in the state. Wisconsin is about as divided as a state can be, but Florida still seems more critical to win.
These next three months will unravel and what will be will be. I'm a big fan of Paul Ryan, always have been, but my only concern is that he simply makes way too much sense and employs far too much rational logic to the problems America faces to appeal to the short-term memory and low attention span of the average voter, which is a really big slice of the demographic pie. His ideas are just too realistic for our federal government.
That being said, as it sinks in I am getting excited about this guy. As I stated above, I assumed Romney would have picked someone who would persuade some of the undecided fence hoppers to join his side. Instead, he chose one of the most fundamentally fiscal conservatives in Congress. It was a bold decision and I like the idea of not settling for a running mate strictly based on his or her ability to finagle a few extra blocks of voting support from people who are too indecisive to pick what pair of socks they want to put on their feet each day. America's bigger picture is much larger than these decision-challenged individuals who keep leaving every presidential poll within its margin of error with their 6%-10% of uncertainty.
2,080 miles from Lafayette, LA to Washington D.C. and back + 147.2
In 2008, Goldman Sachs financial services companies gave three-fourths of their campaign donations to Democratic candidates, committees, and Barack Obama's campaign---$6.1 million to be precise.
Then Barack Obama got elected and here we are four years later. Employees of the New York-based Goldman are now giving 70% of their donations to Republicans. So far, Goldman employees have given $4.9 million to Republican candidates, committees, and Mitt Romney's campaign. An unprecedented reversal among the 25 companies whose employees have given the most to candidates and parties of interest since 1989 is unfolding in this 2012 presidential election.
Some of the more recognizable companies include Goldman, Bank of America Corp., Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan Chase & Co. (four of the top five financial institutions), Citigroup Inc., and UBS AG (UBSN).
That's a big statement. No doubt this will be fodder for Obama's ruthless campaign team to push the OWS agenda, but he sure wasn't complaining in 2008 when he was receiving the money and it was yet to be determined how much of a failure he would become.
2,080 miles from Lafayette, LA to Washington D.C. and back + 144.1
Over 110,000,000 Americans are currently receiving some form of government welfare. This is not even including Social Security and Medicare. That is more than a third of our entire population. Under President Obama welfare programs have exploded and are projected to grow exponentially ($800 billion on food stamps alone in the next decade).
The numbers in the chart above represent not only American citizens but non-citizens, as well. In case you didn't know, America has partnered with Mexico to boost food stamp enrollment among non-citizens, migrant workers, and foreign nationals.
SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), or the food stamp program, has expanded from providing for 17 million in 2000 to 45 million in 2011.
Here are 70 facts about America's economy that President Obama will definitely not be campaigning on. It is frightening how far we as a collective nation have let America slip. This list puts into perspective how petty most of the news that is gathered for us and distributed in mass quantities is.
Why are we talking about things like Chick-fil-A and Mitt Romney's tax returns? Chicken, gay rights, personal beliefs, and the obvious fact that Mitt Romney is filthy rich can't hold a candle to the more important issue of what we are going to do with our economy and how we are going to take on this national debt.
Here are a few examples from the list:
The price of gas – When Obama took office, a gallon of gas cost you $1.85. Today, it's up to $3.59 per gallon.
71% of small business owners believe we’re still in a recession — Despite government claims that the recession actually ended years ago.
You have to work 107 days each year just to pay Federal, State, & Local taxes – That means you don't earn a penny until April 18.
More than 30% of unemployed Americans have been out of work for more than a year–In 2007, that number was 10%.
Today ends week 101 of running against Obama. I ran 22.6 miles this week, averaging 3.23 miles per day.
Special treat for you today. The following is a cartoon from over fifty years ago warning Americans of that time, and future generations, of the exact dangers that have befallen us presently. Apparently, not enough of us saw this prophetic cartoon in time. Highly recommend checking it out! Our modern state of affairs have made a fortuneteller of this cartoon.
2,080 miles from Lafayette, LA to Washington D.C. and back + 126.8
The RNC sent the Democratic National Committee a birthday cake for President Barack Hussein Obama today. The DNC must not have appreciated the gesture because they sent it back to the sender.
“Since President Obama’s birthday is tomorrow, we actually wish him a
happy 50.99726 years with this ‘you didn’t bake this’ cake.” (mocking the fact that yesterday the White House actually clarified that unemployment had not risen to 8.3%, but 8.254%, as though that is some sort of consolation prize worth mentioning)
RNC spokesman Tim Miller
Here are some birthday cards for President Obama the RNC took the liberty of designing:
On to more serious matters, Gallup has just released a state by state job approval poll for Barack Obama spanning the first half of 2012. In 37 states his job approval is below 50%. Here is how it breaks down:
Top 10 states (Washington D.C., 83%):
Hawaii, 63%
Rhode Island, 58%
Vermont, 56%
New York, 55%
Massachusetts, 55%
Maryland, 55%
New Jersey, 53%
Connecticut, 53%
California, 52%
Washington, 51%
States just above 50%:
Illinois, 51%
Delaware, 51%
Minnesota, 50%
Ten states with lowest approval:
Utah, 26%
Wyoming, 28%
Alaska, 29%
West Virginia, 31%
Idaho, 31%
Montana, 34%
Oklahoma, 35%
Alabama, 36%
Tennessee, 37%
North Dakota, 37%
States just below 50%:
Michigan, 49%
Wisconsin, 49%
Maine, 47%
Oregon, 47%
Iowa, 46%
Florida, 46%
Virginia, 46%
Pennsylvania, 46%
“Presidents with approval ratings below 50% have more uncertain
re-election prospects. Historically, two presidents below 50% in their
final approval rating before the election — George W. Bush and Harry
Truman — won, and three, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and George H.W.
Bush, lost.”
The lunatics are taking over the asylum. This video perfectly illustrates how ridiculous maneuvers in the political arena can be and, consequently, how uninformed and challenged by immense lapses of attention span an overflowing handful of American voters are. Harry Reid and his counterparts want Mitt Romney to release more of his tax information than he has already divulged. Well, why does Mitt Romney not bully back and demand that Barack Obama release his college transcripts? Why does he not elaborate on how miserable, and unsuccessful of a first term Barack Obama has had (the numbers are there to prove it---this guy is breaking records). Why not itemize those failures and take inventory of them day in and day out from failed green projects funded by tax dollars to the refusal of the Keystone pipeline---from unprecedented debt building to unemployment numbers that refuse to budge?
It is because our agenda-bent media is delivering to us the greatest disservice possible at the most critical time possible. They misinform and they might as well wear "Obama/Biden 2012" buttons on their lapels and blouses. If your immediate thought is that Fox News takes the same slant for the opposite side, then fine, but they stand alone fighting the other networks. Are they biased? Yes. They are somewhat subtle about it, but how else can they fight the gang of networks they are up against, which, coincidentally, they absolutely smash in the ratings department.
Unemployment has been above 8% for 41 straight months. As of today it is up 8.3% from last month's 8.2%. Running out of ideas today for damage control, the White House took the measure of clarifying that unemployment was actually only up to 8.254% from 8.214%.
If that is the best they can do to find a silver lining in their failures then things are obviously pretty bad. Once again, the lunatics are taking over the asylum.
2,080 miles from Lafayette, LA to Washington D.C. and back + 119.9
I thought fairy dust was one of the tools in Barack Obama's own presidential utility belt along with unicorn horn shavings, phoenix ashes, and griffin talons.
It is as simple as this---trickle down economics is highly effective, far more effective than the Keynesian approach our president applied early in his term by stimulating the economy and far more useful than the idea of wealth redistribution he is currently advocating, but when our nation has a president that does everything in his power to convince the people in this nation that the government will take care of them and that they have no need to do things for themselves---when he makes them feel like they are victims and that they are treated unfairly, well, as we can see, many people unfortunately believe him. And, in this belief and this false justification to find a source of blame for their circumstances, they are robbed of everything that makes being an American special and something to be proud of.
The thing about the trickle down theory is that its results are based on an unleashed private sector and a government that gets the hell out of the way. Our current president has little interest in either of these two variables of the American equation.
2,080 miles from Lafayette, LA to Washington D.C. and back + 115.7
Yesterday would have been the 100th birthday of Nobel Prize-winning conservative economist Milton Friedman, were he still with us ("Nobel Prize-winning" doesn't seem to carry the same weight it once did since Barack Obama won the award for doing absolutely nothing). Here are a few of his most memorable quotes:
"Concentrated power is not rendered harmless by the good intentions of those who create it."
"Governments never learn. Only people learn."
"Many people want the government to protect the consumer. A much more urgent problem is to protect the consumer from the government."
"If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in five years there would be a shortage of sand."
"I am in favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it is possible."
2,080 miles from Lafayette, LA to Washington D.C. and back + 111.7
