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.

Day266 Sunday 05/22/11

ran 0.5 miles
Today ends week thirty-eight of running against Obama. I ran 19.8 miles this week averaging 2.83 miles.

Herman Cain officially threw his name in the hat for the 2012 presidential election. He is my official top candidate at this early point in the race to November 6. He made his announcement Saturday in Atlanta, urging Americans who are frustrated with the direction our country is heading to read the Constitution.

Cain supports many good ideas, which are not nearly as radical or life altering as what is going on in this country we call America, less and less. Repealing Obama’s health care law and implementing the Fair Tax are two of his ideas that would work toward getting America back on its feet.

1,303.8 miles to go.

Day265 Saturday 05/21/11

ran 1.7 miles
Some stats and polls from Rasmussen Reports:

• Barack Obama’s presidential index rating shows that 24% of American voters strongly approve of his performance while 37% strongly disapprove, giving Obama a presidential index rating of –13.

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

• Among American voters, 64% believe that improving border security is more important than addressing the status of illegal immigrants already in the country.

• Of those polled, 60% say the Federal Government encourages illegal immigration.

• Only 29% say U.S. is heading in right direction.

1,304.3 miles to go.

Day264 Friday 05/20/11

ran 4.0 miles
Happy “Rapture” Eve. There has been a lot in the news today regarding all things disturbing. Harold Camping and his prediction about tomorrow are as realistic as Obama’s idea to revert back to ’67 borders in Israel. Camping has no idea how many people he suckered into a bad night’s sleep and Barack Obama is completely out of touch with reality if he believes for a second that Israel would be safe, based on the vision he has.

This has been a very odd week. It’s been an odd year. I find it very difficult to wrap my mind around what is going on in America and to a greater effect the entire globe.

After posting on this blog for nine months and receiving comments and feedback, following news closely from both completely contradictory sides, and following my own heart and beliefs, I have found that this country is simply divided up the middle. I think Barack Obama is the wrong man for the job at this current time and circumstance, but there is exactly one other person who completely disagrees with me. Whatever your opinion is, exactly one other person in this country thinks you are as absurd as you think they are. We are a nation divided 1:1 and I don’t think anyone can argue otherwise. A ratio like that, marginalizing unity, is not what America was intended to be.

Harold Camping does not give me goose bumps; Barack Obama does.

1,306.0 miles to go.

Day263 Thursday 05/19/11

ran 2.3 miles
Breaking News!!! Breaking News!!!

Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel, has called for the United States to give Texas back to Mexico. He is demanding North America return to its nineteenth century borders. Starting in 1836 with the Treaty of Valasco, to July 4, 1845, when Texas joined the union, to the Mexican-American War that followed from 1846-1848, in which America defeated Mexico and fully secured Texas as an undeniable state, Netanyahu somehow feels that all of this history should be erased and that Texas’ status as a member of the union should be revoked.

I am only trying to illustrate how audacious and unhopeful Barack Obama’s intentions for Israel are. Revert back to 1967 when Israel won the Six Day War and claimed their current borders. America has been a strong ally of Israel’s up until now. Obama is placing a great deal of unproven peace and unrealistic confidence in the bordering nations surrounding Israel.

Speechless.

1,310.0 miles to go.

Day262 Wednesday 05/18/11

ran 3.3 miles

Chapter 8

The door opened achingly with a dull creak like an old man slowly extending his jaw to form words with garbled consonants and muted vowels. It was dark inside as a single figure emerged before Jonas. A dull lamp directly behind the figure’s head distorted his shady features.

Jonas had a cynical wit for detecting trouble and at that moment nothing had felt right. The figure in front of him looked vaguely familiar and particularly threatening. Jonas could see it was a large man and there was something in his hand. After a few seconds of silently staring at Jonas the figure stepped forward into the light and spoke.

“You don’t look like much. Come in.”

Jonas immediately recognized the man as both a friend and a stranger though he had never personally met him. In the underground world, which they were both cast into, real names were rarely ever used, close friendships were a burden of too much emotional gravity, and staying in the same place for too long was considered dangerous. The underground was larger than any of its enemies had estimated, yet this rendezvous had much planning and very specific purposes. For now, 216 Fifth Street was Jonas’ temporary destination and the man standing in front of him was a face he had seen not very long before.

Upon entering, Jonas felt coy and small. The space was confined and the windows were boarded up. The interior had an odd presence similar to that of a fortified brown paper bag. The walls were chipped all over with various rotted materials. A derelict, thin curtain hung over an obscured window, which looked like it would tear in half were a tiny mouse to cling to it. The floor was a decrepit stretch of wood-paneled unreliability that creaked with every step. In many spots the outside ground was visible through cracks and holes.

There were two other men sitting at a small table in a corner and neither of them acknowledged Jonas’ presence. He heard a toilet flush in the back of the house and asked, “How many of you are here?”

“You make five. The two over there are harmless, Ben and Thomas. You can call me Mason. I’m sure you know names don’t mean a thing around here.”

There was an awkward pause similar to that of the moment a truth may have suggested falsifying itself.

“And you are Jonas Cassidy, one of the few most admired and hated men on this new continent, Americanadexico.”

A voice came from afar. It was a woman. Her voice was familiar yet distant.

Mason was the crescent shaped man on the side of the road. The object in his hand was a pack of cigarettes. Grinning, he asked Jonas with a mild nudge and a restrained push, “Got a Bic or a match?” Ben and the other two men started laughing as she suddenly walked into the room. A brisk silence fell over everyone.

It was Carmen.

“Hello, Jonas. Outside…we had to do what was necessary to ensure no one was following you or watching us. We could not bring attention to ourselves.

Carmen was now wearing plain, loose clothing. She was a fugitive in white cotton and baggy denim.

“From this point forward you will address me as Erica.”

Jonas and Carmen were the only ones in the dimly lit room who knew one another’s true identities. Jonas could sense no one else knew and that Carmen wanted to keep his and her history hidden.

“It is dangerous to be free in this country and too many people are looking for us. I know you are already aware of our disposition but I don’t want you to misinterpret our first impression with you. We are good at what we do and we believe in what we do.”

Jonas was impressed and in awe of Carmen. Moments ago he had felt sorry for her and he was disappointed in her. Now he had discovered that she was like him. He saw that she was one of the few people that were not afraid.

“These are my friends and now they are your friends. If they introduced themselves already then you probably know them as Ben, Thomas, and Mason. I do not know their real names and they do not know mine. We choose to know as little as possible about each other. However, we all know who you are and unfortunately everyone else does, too. I hope you will trust us, Jonas. And if you don’t, I will personally hand you over to the authorities with no remorse. You’ve come this far, Jonas, and if you don’t challenge yourself to succeed right now then what was it all for? You can either testify your faults to the government or you can falsify the government with your truth.

A curtain suddenly tore in half as a tiny rodent fell to the floor and scampered across the splintery terrain with a rather large and weightless strip of yellow flowered pattern falling further apart with each tiny step.

“Jonas, we know who you are and we know what you are. Our task is to make sure you understand what you are."

Jonas had a look of excited terror on his face. Everything was happening so fast. Minutes before he was content to wander aimlessly in what seemed to him a museum of uninitiated existence. It was so comfortable and easy to sit aside and watch things rapture and to blame others instead of expressing his ideas and making his voice heard. Jonas had always dreamed about the rapture and rising above the silence, but now that he was at his destination, he was afraid.

Carmen, or Erica, could sense the urgency and immediacy of the moment in Jonas’ despairing eyes. She slowed things down to give him a chance to catch up.

“This man that keeps shoving you around and asking for a Bic or a match is Mason. Ten years ago I would have said that he was a patriot, a proud American and an enemy to anyone who threatened the preservation of America and its freedom. If I were to call him a patriot now he would be offended to hear that I was referring to him as an ungrateful and disillusioned man who had the overrated ability to passionately recite words from newspapers, television shows and radio programs like a talking head with a string drawn from the back of its plastic skull that was incapable of acting upon his own thoughts. If I were to call him a proud American now he would be enraged by the notion that I may have thought he approved of the actions of his government. And now that America’s greatest enemy is its own government, Ben is an enemy to his own country.”

Jonas grabbed the pack of cigarettes out of Mason’s hand and lit one. He looked at Erica through a cloud of smoke and said, “So what do we do now?”

“That’s what you’re here to tell us, Jonas.”

Jonas was now alone. Like a lake, hidden, he was surrounded on all sides but he was by himself. The two that went by Ben and Thomas looked at Jonas with critical eyes carefully sizing his silence. Mason lit a cigarette. The sound of the match igniting seemed to vibrate in the ruinous walls and the odorous smell of sulfur emanated through the still of the moment. Jonas and Carmen stared into one another’s eyes. He knew this would be the last time he could think of her as “Carmen”. They both wanted to say so many things they each knew could not be said.

The vacancy of emotion Jonas displayed was a disappointment to all. He had tentatively received the honor and respect of an unlikely leadership for a cause that pervaded and illuminated his very being. For someone who often felt the world and all its creatures to be nothing more than a random pocket of change jingling in the cosmos, he was in awe.

Jonas elected not to display his awe like a stoic poker face concealing a hand. He was still unsure whether his cards were good or bad and if it were not for Carmen’s presence he would have probably left 216 Fifth Street as quickly as he had found it. He did not know these other rogues and he was unaware of how they expected he should have reacted. What Jonas really wanted was to run and that was precisely why he had stayed. Although fear compelled him it was the tragedy of eventually dying with the regret of cowardice and the torment of unanswered questions that truly terrified Jonas and his unknown fate. He was still unsure of any certainties and he did not understand at all what exactly these four individuals had wanted from him.

1,312.3 miles to go.

Day261 Tuesday 05/17/11

ran 4.1 miles
As a follow-up to last night’s post, here are the details about Chris Holton, of the Center for Security Policy, and what his presentation on Shariah law and Islam entailed. There was a lot of information covered and in an attempt to not make this post too lengthy for patience and too jumpy to connect its dots, please bear with me. Here it is.

In May of 2007, the Pew Research Center conducted a survey among all walks of Muslim Americans and one particular question they asked was this:

“Can suicide bombing of civilian targets to defend Islam be justified?”

Among the 2.35 million Muslims in America, in 2007, including 1.4 million over the age of 18 (the target group of the survey), this was the response:

Often/sometimes: 8%

Rarely: 5%

Don’t know/refuse to answer: 9%

Never: 79%

At least 13%, and an undecided 9%, entertain the idea of suicide bombings targeting civilians in America.

Ignoring the 9% who don’t know or refuse to answer, the 13% alone that do condone suicide bombings comprise 182,000 Muslims in America, according to this Pew survey.

This same question was asked to adult Muslims under the age of thirty and these were the results.

Often/sometimes: 15%

Rarely: 11%

Don’t know/refuse to answer: 5%

Never: 69%

Again, this survey was taken four years ago. Among the age group most recruited for suicide bombings, at least 26%, and an undecided 5%, entertain the idea of suicide bombings targeting civilians in America.

Ignoring the 5% who don’t know or refuse to answer, the 26% alone that do condone suicide bombings comprise 109,200 Muslims in America, according to this Pew survey. That percentage exceeds one out of every four Muslims between the ages of eighteen and thirty in America who find suicide bombings to be at least somewhat acceptable.

This was another question:

"What is your view of Al Qaeda?"

Favorable: 5%

Somewhat unfavorable: 10%

Don’t know/refuse to answer: 27%

Very unfavorable: 58%

Same question to Muslim adults under 30:

Favorable: 7%

Somewhat unfavorable: 16%

Don’t know/refuse to answer: 19%

Very unfavorable: 58%

70,000 Muslims in America admit a favorable view of Al Qaeda.

29,400 Muslims in America between the age of 18 and 29 admit to having a favorable view of Al Qaeda.

This was in 2007.

The Muslim religion is far too large to label in any one way. But it appears that a significant and threatening minority of Islam is hijacking the peaceful majority of the Muslim religion.

Moving on, in 1991 documents were uncovered in America from a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, the organization that has sired Al Qaeda and any other organization you can think of that deals terrorism in the name of Islam. The documents were titled “An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America”. (Here is some more information on the documents)

These were the contents:

1. An introduction in explanation

2. The concept of settlement

3. The process of settlement

4. Comprehensive settlement organizations

The mission statement:

“The Ikhwan (brotherhood) must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and Allah’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”

“Sabotaging its miserable house…by their hands.”

Infiltration.

Abdurahman Alamoudi. 2004. Alamoudi was the president of the American Muslim Foundation under Clinton’s and Bush’s presidencies and he is currently spending the rest of his life in jail. He held an extremely high position with much clout and much say in our president’s decisions regarding the Muslim community in America. Alamoudi was a terrorist and, along the lines of the above mentioned mission statement of “sabotage” and implosion by our own hands, he infiltrated the United States to the highest political position a Muslim can hold in this country. He had a hand in global terrorist attacks, he was a mouthpiece and an ear for organizations like Al Qaeda, and he had every desire to kill Americans through acts of terrorism, and he was shoulder to shoulder with two of our presidents.

There is much more to be said but I think this is sufficient enough to make you lift an eyebrow and mull things over.

1,315.6 miles to go.