Day280 Sunday 06/05/11

ran 3.0 miles
Today ends week forty of running against Obama. I ran 31.1 miles this week averaging 4.44 miles per day. For the past couple months I have set a goal to accomplish thirty miles in one week and I have continuously fell short of that goal. I’ve gotten close, but just couldn’t see it through. After today I have finally achieved thirty miles in seven days, with 1.1 miles to spare. It was a tough challenge but so are most of the important decisions and goals we all face.

This blog has always been about the strong history America has relentlessly flexed against every challenge it has ever encountered, in contrast to the current challenges we face in Washington D.C., namely a president intent on weakening the principles America represents and a liberal platform racing toward the exact predicament we have been staving off and have been liberated from for 235 years, since the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776. That predicament is a nation free of tyranny, one based on freedom and all of the tenets that follow such a God-given right. Barack Obama and liberal ideals are deconstructing, what was once a single brick at a time, now with a wrecking ball, entire layers of principles embedded with centuries of idealistic American brick, mortar, and concrete.

2012 is going to be the biggest crossroads this nation has faced in a long time. Our president is almost three years deep in failure, using scapegoats like the necessity of needing more time and blaming businesses for not hiring more workers. In three years this guy has wasted more money on more things than a human brain can even comprehend; he has wasted money on ideas that have been proven to fail and designed his plans around a multitude of arguments that an overwhelming many have condemned from the start.

What is he after? I just don’t get it.

I began this blog and started running all of these miles against Barack Obama to evaluate, on a daily basis, every argument, and there have been many every single day, to express how important it is to get this guy out of the White House. Lately, Obama’s shortcomings and his ability to not address his many failures, side-stepping them like a nervous child, appears more like a sabotage of America than a plan because there is no possible way that a man with the education and experience he claims to have can be this blind and juvenile.

I can hardly wait for the 2012 election to appear clearly and with more definition on the horizon of America’s future. There is nothing left to point out in Obama’s character that he does not exhibit daily, flaw by flaw.

Who is Someone Else and where do I get in line to vote for him or her?

1,251.5 miles to go.

Day279 Saturday 06/04/11

ran 3.8 miles
Some stats and facts about the state of North Carolina:

• North Carolina was the twelfth state to join the union on November 21, 1789, one year before Rhode Island and one year after New York.

• Population, as of 2010, is 9,535,483.

• Senators are Richard Burr (R) and Kay Hagan (D).

• Representatives are George Butterfield (D), Renee Ellmers (R), Walter Jones (R), David Price (D), Virginia Foxx (R), Howard Coble (R), Mike McIntyre (D), Larry Kissell (D), Sue Myrick (R), Patrick McHenry (R), Heath Shuler (D), Melvin Watt (D), and Bradley Miller (D).

• North Carolina has fifteen electoral votes. Historically, the state voted nearly exclusively blue from 1876 through 1964. Beginning in 1968, North Carolina has voted almost entirely red. Barack Obama ended the Republican trend by beating McCain 49.7% to 49.4%. North Carolina voters cast 4.3 million votes and the decision came down to merely 14,000 votes. In 2012, North Carolina will be one of the most battled-for swing states.

I’ve been posting these facts and stats for each individual state for the past thirty-three weeks. I’ve gathered some interesting history and realized certain things I never would have considered, otherwise. For example, the nine most populous states claim more than half of America’s total population. The twenty-five least populous states harness less than one-sixth of the U.S. population. Make of that what you will, but I can say, regarding our electoral college, something about the overwhelming differences in those two sets of numbers seems frustrating and highly consequential. I am not suggesting that popular vote alone should be the deciding factor in determining what single man or woman gets to sit in the Oval Office, but nor am I dismissing it as a better idea. Popular vote would have been a game changer on some occasions in the past. It is a different approach, yet it equally lacks any strategy or planning for the presidential election process we currently have.

This is what rattles me. A state like California, a state that if the other forty-nine states aspired to be like or viewed America through the same set of eyes with, a state who's example would lead to monumental failure the likes of which America has never before seen, has such a population and so many electoral votes. The questionable legislation California passes in their own state compared to the failures the state faces constantly and the bailouts their decisions cause the federal government, my and your money, the businesses they force out of their state with high taxes and incomprehensible restrictions, sending these businesses to states like Texas who legislate and think rationally, completely losing out on opportunity in their own front yard---and this state, California, has the electoral power to negate the rational thinking of ten other states in our union.

1,254.5 miles to go.

Day278 Friday 06/03/11

ran 4.1 miles
Some stats and polls from Rasmussen Reports:

• Barack Obama’s presidential index rating shows that 25% of American voters strongly approve of his performance while 36% strongly disapprove, giving Obama a presidential index rating of –11.

• Overall, 49% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of Barack Obama’s performance and 50% disapprove.

• Rasmussen’s latest telephone poll among likely U.S. voters finds that a generic Republican candidate earned 45% of votes and Obama attracted 43% of the vote.

• Among U.S. voters, 26% say America is heading in the right direction.

Sorry for the short post tonight. Sometimes there just aren’t enough minutes in the day. I’ll have more time tomorrow.

1,258.3 miles to go.

Day277 Thursday 06/02/11

ran 5.2 miles

As I’ve previously mentioned in numerous other posts, I am a big fan of Herman Cain for president in 2012. Cain has outlined a five-point tax plan to put America back on top and to undo the anti-American trail our president and his liberal counterparts have been blazing through a forest of American logic and economic rationale, which already had its paths carved out. Here are Cain’s ideas and take note of how utterly different and full of sense his ideas are in contrast to what has defined the last 2 1/2 years of decision making in this country.

1. Eliminate the taxes on repatriated profits, which are earnings of American-based multinational companies that sit in bank accounts overseas to avoid double taxation for bringing their profits back to the U.S.

2. Make the current tax rates permanent. Families and businesses do not plan for two years at a time!

3. Reduce the corporate income tax from 35 to 25 percent, with the potential for additional incremental decreases over time.

4. Eliminate the tax on capital gains and their dividends.

5. Suspend payroll taxes for both employees and employers for one year.

Herman Cain is a proven leader and has a successful track record of turning large scale, borderline bankruptcies right side up. Our economy is in serious jeopardy, and Barack Obama and liberal ideology is doing nothing to make matters better.

Herman Cain intends to increase opportunity and expansion for those who desire to work hard and invest their time and money in an America that works. One of the primary reasons businesses are harboring so many dollars that they refuse to spend is because they have little confidence in Obama’s economic decisions or in his second term. This is only my opinion, but there is certainly a very big reason that so few American companies are contributing even half of their resources to attempt to keep our economy afloat. There is an immense lack of confidence in something in this country. It is certainly not doubt in hardworking American people. I think it is quite reasonable to believe it has much to do with Congress and our president.

I think there are a lot of people hoping this guy gets voted out in November 2012 and they have no reason to waste their money on Barack Obama’s plans when something as beneficial and fair as Herman Cain’s plan is potentially right around the corner. Rewarding businesses and making things easier for them, and interfering less with individual Americans, not raising taxes; these are all great ideas. And, for any of you out there who care little for hard work and the rewards that follow, and perhaps you cherish entitlements and avoid opportunity like the plague, by voting for a president in 2012 that does not want to raise taxes and wants to give huge breaks to Corporate America and maybe even let the wealthy keep their wealth, you will have a much better shot at riding out the ability to accomplish nothing and to earn money for it with Someone Else than you will with another four years of Barack Obama.

Just my opinion.

This is an interview Walton and Johnson conducted with Herman Cain today.

1,262.4 miles to go.

Day276 Wednesday 06/01/11

ran 4.6 miles

Chapter 10

Jonas always felt something was wrong. It was something greater than he could explain. He did not know how to take out of his heart the feeling he could not explain. The next best thing for him to do was to throw away everything he knew and to pursue this inescapable calling that demanded his every fiber of existence. After years of flowing from underground puddle to underground stream to underground puddle of so many unaccepted, black-marketed thoughts and actions that the rank-and-file surface no longer accepted or was brave enough to reclaim, he now found himself at the bay of his destiny.

Jonas inhaled. “Americanadexico”, he had thought to himself.

That was it. It was what it was. He did not know what he was going to do or what would happen if he had done it, but he knew he had to do something.

As a boy every man dreamed about being a hero. They all wanted to do “good” and to protect others from harm. Every man once wanted to battle villains and to bring criminals to justice. They wanted to stop evil and to save the girl. But something had happened along the way. Boys had grown into men. Very few men had remembered their dreams but they had recalled enough to recognize the confusion they had felt any time they saw something un-American or unfair. They were holding onto an almost unrecognizable smidgeon of American patriotism that their grandfather’s grandfathers had bled for them.

America had reached a point where the only choice left to sustain itself was to expand and socialize its people. America was dead. Everything that George Washington, Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin, Andrew Jackson, Alexander Hamilton, and hundreds of thousands of other unnamed heroes had given their ideas and lives for was gone. As tragic as that was it was even more tragic that people simply did not care. They no longer had the ability, the passion, or the intelligence to care.

In the eighteenth century, a tiny coastal sliver of what America was to become took on the international leader of that time. England was the unequivocal King of the world and America was nothing more than a futile, unattainable idea. Whether it was God or human perseverance that allowed a man to be defeated by a mouse was of no consequence that thirteen colonies had defeated England, became America, and grew for many more than two hundred years into a religious and political paradigm of strong and faithful people that had been unmatched anywhere until now.

1,267.6 miles to go.

Day275 Tuesday 05/31/11

ran 4.6 miles
New Mexico will be ending a food stamp supplement for elderly and disabled residents of the state on July 1, 2011. There is no money left in New Mexico’s budget for it. As awful as it is that these highly dependent citizens of New Mexico are going to lose $25.00 monthly from their own state, it is one of many different examples festering in all fifty states of a truth that is growing more and more severe.

Even if you happen to be someone who clings to Bush for the blame of every problem we currently have, which is pure poppycock, what has this current president done that has moved us forward? Regardless of whose fault it is, Barack Obama is doing nothing but perpetuating an irresponsible cycle of empty promises and false hopes. And the near-future outcomes of his actions quite possibly will end in the same way as the events I am about to describe in New Mexico.

Federal law requires that recipients of food stamps receive a minimum of $16.00 a month. New Mexico is currently paying $25.00 to all who qualify for food stamps. This is down from a total of $30.00 last year.

If I might make a comparison, New Mexico is one single state and their circumstances cannot possibly be applied to every other state (for the same reasons that Obama’s universal health care plan would not work for fifty different states), but notice the abrupt transition from what was a small decrease, yet still more than a necessary amount, to what will soon become nothing at all, in the case of New Mexico versus the ability to afford food stamps for elderly and disabled residents.

Nearly 14% of Americans receive food stamps. Don’t quote me on this, but I am pretty sure that the Tea Party represents 13% of the vote. Those are two extremely different sides of the aisle when it comes to casting votes. I'm not trying to capture any real point that isn't immediately obvious, but it is certainly an interesting couple of numbers to look at. As of March, under Obama, there was an 11% increase of food stamp recipients from the year before, more than 44.5 million Americans, and the number of recipients from four years ago is up 61%. That’s a lot of voters who would never vote for a man or woman who campaigned on and threatened to fix this problem that has been created.

To take a step back to the comparison I was trying to make in the paragraph before last, it is unfortunate, but what happened in New Mexico is a very common sequence of events, which tend to lead up to the utter failure of government programs. New Mexico was given a $16.00 per month minimum to disperse, they upped it to $25.00 per month, raised it to $30.00 per month, dropped it back down to $25.00, and then, unexpectedly, completely ignoring the idea of reverting back to the minimum, as established by the federal government, they went from $25.00 to zero. Nothing! And, they could have not upped the amount and let the program last twice as long.

Just think about how terrifying it could be if that standard method of operation was applied to a much larger scale. Health care, serving all fifty states, for example, in the very near future. This is a micro-example of such a larger national scale, but do you honestly think for a second that the federal government would behave any differently if their bottom fell out?

You are promised $16.00, you receive $25.00, then $30.00, the bottom falls out and they return to $25.00…and then it’s over. Just like that! It is a similar sense of utter denial that children often exhibit and it is cruel and unusual punishment to be so deceitful and out of touch with the people who are being served that rather than prepare for and adapt to the realities before our leaders, they too often go on lying and behaving as though everything is fine.

Our national debt? Health care? Our borders? Idiotic spending at an incomprehensible scale? If you back Obama than good for you, but I can tell you this, as New Mexico has just made a great example of; Barack Obama and minds like his have great intentions but they seem to lack rationality and feasibility. If you voted for Barack Obama in 2008, whatever it is you disagreed with on the conservative side of the political arena, I think it is important to note that here in 2011 and on into 2012, there is only one side that has an attainable goal to flip this country right side up, and it is not the liberal, or progressive side. The House had a vote tonight on whether or not to raise the debt ceiling and if I remember correctly, only 10% voted to raise it, further hurling our nation into financial oblivion. The 300-something House members who voted against it, many of which were on the left side of the aisle, obviously realized that they would quite possibly lose their jobs in 2012 if they continued to do what our president wanted and what the people did not.

1,272.2 miles to go.

Day274 Monday 05/30/11

800 miles!!!

ran 5.8 miles

Today marks 800 miles and the end of nine months of running against Obama.

I hope you had a nice Memorial Day weekend and thank you, military men and women, veterans, and those soldiers who we mourn, for the brave and noble sacrifices you have made for America.

Watching Memorial Day specials on television today I noticed a recurring theme through the many different testimonials that were given by active and veteran military men and women. That theme was one that underlined the fact that many of our physically wounded and emotionally devastated soldiers lack many of the resources they need once they return home. It seems that our soldiers’ wellbeing and their futures should be a top priority compared to many other things that seem to claim priority over them.

For example, wasteful earmarks, which have only recently been fully exposed and limited for the wasteful and abusive spending they are, serve very little purpose other than as an obstacle to more important and needy uses for tax dollars, such as the healthy and dignified futures of our veterans and their families. Our federal government spends our tax dollars on many questionable things, and these many curious things have no rhyme or reason of importance.

While our active military and veterans are often compromised after having served their country, it is insulting when you look at how many of our tax dollars go to other nations, countries that wish harm upon us and are perhaps considered our enemies. It is insulting how much we spend for illegal aliens in hospitals and how certain states are beginning to start programs that pay for the college educations of illegal aliens, while legal citizens have to work twice as hard to succeed, and veteran causes and programs take second place to helping illegal aliens adjust to the traumatic transition of being lucky enough to become an American. It is so backwards! Welfare recipients who stay fused to the teat of the government, food stamps, unemployment benefits…these are all valid, necessary and important programs that America no doubt needs, but the system is taken advantage of to such a degree it is simply insulting to needy veterans, whatever their needs, when they cannot be helped but so many millions of others, who contribute so little to society, are so well taken care of. There are a lot of undeserved tax dollars being delegated to more mouths than we can feed, yet our military men and women work the hardest for what amounts to so little when you begin to compare what is really important.

There are better answers out there but none of them can be looked at until we lock elbow to elbow and pull our economy up from the cliff’s edge it is desperately hanging onto.

1,276.8 miles to go.

Day273 Sunday 05/29/11

ran 2.3 miles
Today ends week thirty-nine of running against Obama. I ran 21.2 miles this week averaging 3.03 miles per day.

Wearing black from head to toe, clad in leather, Sarah Palin kicked off her “One Nation” tour by showing up at a motorcycle ride today from the Pentagon to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, which thousands were participating in. Palin chatted with other motorcyclists and was quoted as saying “I love that smell of the emissions”.

The pictures taken of Palin and some of her comments made me think of Johnny Cash meets Colonel Kilgore in “Apocalypse Now”, this theme manifesting itself in the form of a female Alaskan governor who ran for Vice President in 2008.

I’m excited to follow Palin on the campaign trail. She has some great ideas and she gets things done. She is a candidate that backs the Tea Party and she will be campaigning on many of their values, which coincidentally contradict most of the ideas our current president holds and acts upon. The Tea Party represents the largest organized uprising of people against their federal government in the modern history of America, and Barack Obama and his ideas are very much responsible for the emergence of the party.

Less taxes, small government, and fiscal responsibility---I cannot comprehend why so many people think ideas like these are bad ones, but they do. Hopefully common sense will prevail and we can elect to repeal the health care law and start slashing our national deficit, among many other things that need fixing, when we vote on November 6, 2012.

1,282.6 miles to go.

Day272 Saturday 05/28/11

ran 3.4 miles
Some stats and facts about the state of New York:

• New York was the eleventh state to join the union on July 26, 1788, one year before North Carolina and one month after Virginia.

• Population, as of 2010, is 19,378,102.

• Senators are Kirsten Gillibrand (D) and Charles Schumer (D).

• Representatives are Timothy Bishop (D), Steve Israel (D), Peter King (R), Carolyn McCarthy (D), Gary Ackerman (D), Gregory Meeks (D), Joseph Crowley (D), Jerrold Nadler (D), Anthony Weiner (D), Edolphus Towns (D), Yvette Clarke (D), Nydia Velazquez (D), Michael Grimm (R), Carolyn Maloney (D), Charles Rangel (D), Jose Serrano (D), Eliot Engel (D), Nita Lowey (D), Nan Hayworth (R), Chris Gibson (R), Paul Tonko (D), Maurice Hinchey (D), William Owens (D), Richard Hanna (R), Ann Marie Buerkle (R), Brian Higgins (D), Louise Slaughter (D) and Tom Reed (R).

• New York has twenty-nine electoral votes. After the 2010 Census Reapportionment, the state lost two of its electoral votes 2020. Historically, New York has been primarily a “blue” state since the Great Depression. Obama defeated McCain by 27% in 2008.

President Obama is scheduled to return tonight and to begin taking stock of the many events he missed on our own soil for the past week. I feel better already.

1,284.9 miles to go.

Day271 Friday 05/27/11

ran 3.1 miles

Today was yet another eventful day in the news. Barack Obama is still touring Europe. Not only is he pledging to rebuild everything lost to cyclones in Joplin and numerous other devastated cities, but he is doing it as wholeheartedly as any man can who is stuck in elite hotel suites across the European landscape. Today I heard he actually signed legislation to continue the Patriot Act from France using an “Autopen Machine” here in America. Seriously, it’s a rectangular little gadget with tiny gears and pulleys and torques and twists, holding a fancy little White House pen at the end, which allows Barack Obama to sign any legislation he wants from anywhere he wants without having to endure the burdensome dignity of actually being present for such unimportant issues.

Palin, Giuliana, and Perry were all over the news today. It looks like Sarah Palin is officially in, while Giuliani and Perry are being tested and weighed in polls regardless of whether they intend to run or not.

Back to our current president, some of the actions he makes each and every week, that would be unacceptable and ridiculous for any other president to do without receiving full scrutiny from a seething mob of media, make me wonder what is so special about Obama and why do we have to be so nice and accepting of his actions. Is our president some sort of special man that requires some sort of special needs or attention that no president before him was special enough to receive?

I would have loved to see George Bush try to sign the Patriot Act with a little robotic arm holding a fancy little pen somewhere in the White House while he was riding horseback somewhere in Texas explaining to Congress how he had somehow overlooked that the bill had to be signed by this one specific final day and had regretted that he could not be there to sign it personally. Instead, stick the stack of papers under that fancy little signing machine we have. That way, since no one will call me out on it because I am “special”, I have the ability to keep the Patriot Act renewed and if anything bad comes from it I can always say that I didn’t actually sign it; a tiny little robotic arm forged my signature.

Now I’m just rambling and letting frustration get the best of me. Let’s end this post on a pleasant note…



…maybe try back tomorrow.

1,288.3 miles to go.

Day270 Thursday 05/26/11

ran 4.2 miles

Chapter 9

It seemed things used to make so much more sense when Jonas was younger and more confused. As a child, Jonas remembered his house being an entire universe. His backyard was a neighboring galaxy. To ride in the car with his mother to go to MacDonalds for french fries or to pick out a candy bar at a gas station seemed far more exciting to him at four than traveling to the moon would have been when he was forty. Now that Jonas was well-invested into his thirties, MacDonalds menus were written primarily in Spanish and the moon, often shadowed into a mysterious crescent like a sharp edge in the hand of a madman, mocked everyone in its path with a cold, mercurial gleam. The shine of its reaper’s edge was a glowing reminder hanging in a vast sky devoid of what was once hope and imagination that everything was what it was and that there only just so happened to be a huge, majestic jewel in the sky that refused to stop watching us.

Jonas exhaled. He thought about the decisions and steps in his life that had brought him to where he was. He was both selfless and proud, yet disparaged, and constantly looked for courage. He thought about his country and what it once was and where it once started. Things were not always like this. His country was gone. It was now a continent. It was augmented with the same superficial and silicone motives that enlarged breasts. Things were not always like this. The rest of the world laughed at us. It had been determined by our own leaders that when their country was too hard working, too economically incomparable per capita, and too driven to succeed at all costs, that their own people should have been tempered into a less resourceful and more docile population of equal rights regardless of ability. Things were not always like this. It had somehow become America’s responsibility to level a proverbial playing field of opportunity for anybody of any age, gender, or ethnicity. In doing so America lit a fire under its own ladder and prioritized an agenda of appeasing everybody and every country it was better than. Things were not always like this.

Professional football players made ridiculous amounts of money for being the best they could be and not one of them would ever ease up on their competition because ability or race was questionable. Lawyers have one of the most respectable titles in the world, doctors and architects demand distinction, and not one of them would ever compromise litigation, a triple bypass, or a set of World Trade Center Towers because other methods or designs were weak, inexperienced, or had said, “It’s not fair.”

“It’s not fair” was the weakest and most supple condition used. It’s based on sympathy and charity. Charity was the worst thing to give anybody and sympathy was the water that extinguished the American fire to succeed. Things were not always like this. America had churned like butter into a fluffy froth mutilating its original design and intention of rigid perseverance and stout will to succeed.

Things were not always like this.

1,291.4 miles to go.

Day269 Wednesday 05/25/11

ran 0.5 miles
On some days the news we read and hear is as fluffy as cotton and riddled with questions of why one certain bloom of soft comfort is being reported when, if you apply the slightest pinch, you may find seeds within that prick your fingers and require plucking. On other days the news is overwhelming to such an extent, regardless of what hue the media paints it in, that to fully comprehend one single event of the past twenty-four hours that you have just read or heard about becomes a frustrating task with no end, not much unlike staring into the sun to get a better idea of what it really looks like, at something more than a glance.

Today is one of those latter days. I am going to stare into the sun for a moment and pinch an unprocessed handful of cotton. When events become too numerous and overwhelming, rather than elaborate on one or two things, I find it far more effective to just rant, so here we go:

Benjamin Netanyahu. If you had a friend who you respected and protected to the same extent you regarded and helped any others you had a deep relationship with, would you suggest to them that they ought to tie their hands behind their backs and run into a battlefield with an enemy bent on their destruction? For anyone who knows nothing of this long Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Palestine is associated with Hamas, an organization classified by the European Union, the United States, Canada, Israel (put them at nine miles wide? Any soldier or terrorist can run that distance in mere minutes over an hour), and Japan, as a terrorist organization. Israel is the greatest chance of democracy the Middle East stands and they are actually really good at it. You tell me what’s going on. Kathy Hochul, the projected winner in New York for the seat of Chris Lee, who resigned for lewd behavior, was arguably based on a Medicare vote. Ironic that the privatization of Medicare is as hot of a topic as the socialization of health care at large. The split between Hochul and Republican candidate Jane Corwin was 48% to 42%. In the middle of these two candidates was a Tea Party candidate, Jack Davis, who obviously had no right to be in the running other than to take votes away from the “Republican”. Is that how they are going to win in 2012? Implosion? Paul Ryan is extremely focused on reducing the size of federal government. Sounds great. His plan knocks Obama’s off at the knees by saving $6 trillion over the next ten years. Our debt right now is in the fourteen trillions and if Obama gets reelected that is four more years of two-fifths of $6 trillion added on to only God knows what else. Medicare and Medicaid are bankrupting us and if Obama would come up with a solution that addressed this factor of our dismal economic equation it would earn him some points to at least show that he had tried. Many may feel that Ryan’s plan is too radical, but I look at it like a shaken up bottle of soda that someone just handed me and I was foolish enough to open up; you can either let it spill and make a mess like a child with wide eyes and no solution or you can quickly tighten the cap until the carbonation dissipates. Barack Obama is shaking the can like a six-year-old in complete denial of the laws of physics, and his actions are proving to be incapable of understanding the reasons why. He has a nice, clean glass for every one of us, filled with ice on a summer day full of potential, but his drink is going to be flat if he pours it into our glasses. One thing that really irks me is when people clearly see such a large problem before them and they refuse to look at it. They stir and pour its inconceivability into a filthy jar, and then they sell it.

Today is my birthday and I am optimistic to say that I am officially one day older and one day smarter than I was yesterday.

1,295.6 miles to go.

Day268 Tuesday 05/24/11

ran 3.4 miles
In case you didn’t know, there is now a “Director of Progressive Media and Online Response”, appointed by the White House. He is being paid with our tax dollars and his job is to build up Obama’s online presence and to squash any negative stories or messages circulating through social networks, blogs, or major media networks.

I am a small fish in a big pond but I would welcome any criticism Mr. Lee has for me. His name is Jesse Lee and he was cited in numerous articles today as being a familiar name for writing a White House blog post bashing Glenn Beck in 2009. The most detailed description I found today regarding Mr. Lee is that he worked in “new media” and has served as the White House’s liaison with the progressive media and online community.

One of the articles I’m sourcing claims, “If you’re going to post something online about Obama that isn’t true, Lee is going to be the one to handle you. Considering that Lee’s first tweet about his new position included a picture of The Terminator, we suggest you watch what you say OR BE DESTROYED.”

The article went on to say, “Okay that was a little dramatic, but you get the idea.”

So, considering the history of American politics, and 2012 is going to be a big one, one side will be funded by tax dollars to play with the rules while the other side will be enforced by this ministry to explicitly follow the rules. Hopefully, good prevails, depending upon which side you're on.

These are the two articles I used as sources:

...new story squasher director...

...new position to deal with unfavorable online media...

1,296.1 miles to go.

Day267 Monday 05/23/11

ran 4.3 miles
The Government Accountability Office, and yes, this is a real office of the American government that actually seeks accountability, in a report being released tomorrow, states that at least 3,700 government contractors and nonprofit organizations that received more than $24 billion from Barack Obama’s stimulus package owed $757 million in back taxes as of September 30, 2009, the end of the budget year.

In an article from the AP, the report indicates that nearly 6% of the 63,000 contractors and grantees examined were tax delinquent. The report also cautioned that this number is most likely significantly higher because the known tax debt fails to measure certain factors like income underreporting.

Here are two examples of how little scrutiny was exercised by Obama’s administration in dishing out our tax dollars into numerous trashcans:

• An engineering firm that received a $100,000 stimulus act contract but owed $6 million in back taxes.

• Social services nonprofit that received more than $1 million in stimulus funds owed taxes of $2 million.

Our government is currently in the process of drafting legislation to deny contracts and grants for entities that are delinquent in their taxes. Here we are in 2011, with our economy gasping for breath and our government has finally decided to consider not giving our money to groups that owe exponentially more in taxes than the dollars they take in. Our federal government is giving them even more free money.

"It is a matter of basic fairness that those who take government money should be required to pay their taxes like everyone else. That such a huge amount of the stimulus money went to known tax cheats should be a wake-up call for Congress."

Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK)

The current value, which continues to rise as distribution gets further analyzed, of the February 2009 stimulus package is $821 billion. Nearly 35% of the unpaid taxes from those delinquent entities that received stimulus were for debts incurred as far back as 2003. This is blatant waste and it is throwing $4.00 gasoline on the fire that is crippling our economy.

"This shows how fundamentally flawed the failed stimulus has turned out to be when Washington jams through almost a trillion dollars in spending with little scrutiny."

Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT)

1,299.5 miles to go.