Day731 Wednesday 08/29/12

ran 3.3 miles

“Ladies and gentlemen, thank you. Some of you may know, the last time I spoke at a convention, it turned out I was in the wrong place. So, Tampa, my fellow Republicans, thank you for welcoming me where I belong.”

Former Representative Artur Davis (D-AL) gave a nomination speech for President Obama at the DNC back in 2008. He is now a Republican living in Virginia who changed parties based on the direction Barack Obama is leading our nation.

2,080 miles from Lafayette, LA to Washington D.C. and back + 211.3

Here is what happened one year ago on Day366.

Day730 Tuesday 08/28/12

ran 3.6 miles

Short post tonight. Preparing for this hurricane. I'm in Lafayette, LA, which is about 2 and 1/2 hours northwest of New Orleans. Not expecting it to be too bad but always best to prepare for the worst. I'm not expecting many trees to fall over but any other objects that lack roots will be in a different spot by tomorrow morning if not moved tonight.

This is a video that caught my eye from the Republican National Convention. Mia Love. She is the current mayor of Saratoga Springs, Utah, and she is running for a spot in the House of Representatives in 2012. She is also aiming to earn the title of first black GOP congresswoman. Here is what she had to say.

2,080 miles from Lafayette, LA to Washington D.C. and back + 208.0

Here is what happened one year ago on Day365.

Day729 Monday 08/27/12

ran 4.9 miles

Feds: "Too few Americans turn to government for assistance."---our government took a poll and concluded that only 15% of Americans were turning to the federal government for help in tough times. This is another example of our government calling us stupid. Look around. If our government can get away with making such a foolish statement then what do they truly think of our intelligence?  The number of people who receive federal aid in some form is more like one in every four people you know.

“Given that only 15 percent of you turn to government assistance in tough times, we want to make sure you know about benefits that could help you."

USA.gov

Our government created a website to inform its voters of how unbelievably easy it is to get unearned tax dollars and to suck on that teat for as long as possible. Thank you, federal government. I hope that bodes well for you on November 6. 

These were their findings:

The question posed was, "What helps you the most during tough times?"

• Savings: 44%

• Family: 21%

• Credit cards/loans: 20%

• Government assistance: 15%

It's laughable, yet this is a page with "gov" at the end of its web address. So, by all means, peruse this site and find yourself a way to feel like a victim. Pick it up off the wireless shelf and plug it into the spot left vacant by every dream and ambition you once had.

2,080 miles from Lafayette, LA to Washington D.C. and back + 204.4

Here is what happened one year ago on Day364.

 

Day728 Sunday 08/26/12

ran 2.3 miles

Today ends week 104 of running against Obama. I ran 24.3 miles this week, averaging 3.47 miles per day.

I tried going to a 2:10 showing of "2016: Obama's America" but was told that the show was sold out. I went back at 4:45 and the theater had to have been at full capacity...and this is the third day since the documentary hit theaters. This film has shattered box office records in the genre of documentaries and is competitive in the arena of mainstream Hollywood films. It ranked fourth overall in ticket sales on its opening night.

Barack Hussein Obama and his presidency have disturbed and motivated me enough to run over three miles per day for nearly two years against him. It doesn't take much googling or common sense to realize how much of a threat this president is to what America was intended to be, but this documentary lays everything on the table and consolidates it with such an overwhelming, gut-wrenching succession of reasons why he is a threat that...to be quite honest, it almost makes you want to cry. I don't know if you have children or ever really think about how much longer you have to spend on Earth in the United States of America, but Barack Obama is no savior and he is no leader. 

I could go on for hours, and I would like to, describing how ridiculous and deceitful this man's rise to power was but I will leave it at this: See the movie. If it's not in your city drive to a city it is in. I have run 2,279.5 miles against this guy over the last 728 days and I have spent a lot of time researching him and following his decisions and the disappointing outcomes he has derived---and this movie still managed to drop my jaw. 

2,080 miles from Lafayette, LA to Washington D.C. and back + 199.5

Here is what happened one year ago on Day363.

Day727 Saturday 08/25/12

ran 0.2 miles

2,080 miles from Lafayette, LA to Washington D.C. and back + 197.2

Here is what happened one year ago on Day362.

Day726 Friday 08/24/12

ran 4.1 miles

This is one of the most bizarre and backwards ads I've seen so far in this campaign. Its lunacy doesn't require much explanation, but I would like to point out how many other important issues there are concerning American women that the Obama campaign has little interest in addressing.

“If you’re a conservative woman, and you believe in small government, then Barack Obama is your candidate."

Really???

Here are a few other pressing issues, from an article by Meredith Jessup, women in America face, which have lost their importance to contraception and abortion:

• 17 million women are living in poverty today — up 800,000 since President Obama took office.

• 7.5 million women are living in “extreme” poverty.

• Women working in President Obama’s White House are paid 18% less than his male employees. 

• Women don’t want $4/gallon gasoline prices.

• Unemployment among women has gone up 15 percent since President Obama was inaugurated Women are gaining jobs at 1/4 the pace of men.

• Women want the nation’s economy to grow more than 1.5% annually.

• Women don’t want to pass on trillions of dollars in debt and deficits to their children.

• Women want to retire someday, hopefully before Social Security goes bankrupt.

• Women want stability in the housing market, not continuing record numbers of foreclosures and declining home values.

2,080 miles from Lafayette, LA to Washington D.C. and back + 197.0 

Here is what happened one year ago on Day361.

Day725 Thursday 08/23/12

ran 4.2 miles

Above is a 2012 electoral map predicted by Michael Berry and Ken Bickers. Who are they? They are Professors at the University of Colorado and they have a reason to be taken seriously. They have designed a state-to-state voter equation that has successfully predicted every presidential election since 1980.

Their latest electoral vote prediction:

Romney 320, Obama 218

(Here is how the model works)

This outcome seems perfectly logical to me but I am certainly not going to hold my breath. This is what I find interesting---Berry and Bickers have picked the past seven elections, a couple of which have been curve balls, and they have earned an elite degree of respect for the formula they use, but...Barack Hussein Obama and Chicago politics are a variable they have never had to define and spread across the board of fifty states. Barack Hussein Obama is an "X" factor and these two professors cannot possibly know what values to assign to him because America has not had a man like this in the Oval Office  since they began predicting presidential elections with Jimmy Carter in 1980. We have come full circle.

That being said, if we wake up on November 7 to a second Barack Hussein Obama term, a second term won by the skin of his teeth, it will be evident that he has found a loophole to 32 years of indisputable mathematical evidence that Michael Berry and Ken Bickers of the University of Colorado have used to successfully call elections. But, it would be no surprise.

2,080 miles from Lafayette, LA to Washington D.C. and back + 192.9

Here is what happened one year ago on Day360.

       

Day724 Wednesday 08/22/12

ran 4.3 miles

In case you didn't know, according to the IRS, 81,890,189 tax returns were filed in 2009 that reported taxable income. Let that number sink in. That means a lot of different things.

For starters, there are 314-something-million people in America. That means only one out of every four people you share this nation with even file income taxes. The other three pay nothing...and that was 2009.  It's obvious why Barack Obama has the unexplainable momentum he does---he has numbers on a side this nation did everything it could think of to prevent when its Constitution was written.

Second, the burden of our national debt has been expanded by our Oval Office Food Stamp King by $5,258,977,706,438.39.  What does that mean to you if you happen to pay taxes? You just inherited a $64,000.00 obligation for your nation. Add those fifteen digits to the fifteen digits of debt that Barack Obama swore his presidential oath on and we are at $15,885,854,755,351.47.  Now, if you happen to earn enough to pay taxes, your national debt burden is $193,000.

Lastly, here is a fresh perspective to interpret your tax dollars at work. If you work and pay taxes the way one in nearly four of us seem to do at a tax rate of, let's say, 20%, among the whole spectrum of local, state, and federal taxes, you are basically working for free from January 1 to March 15 of every single year. 

That stings...not because I have a problem with paying into the collective but because so many others do have a problem with it...and, they feel entitled to the collective they do so little to earn a piece of. This is not America.

2,080 miles from Lafayette, LA to Washington D.C. and back + 188.7

Here is what happened one year ago on Day359.

Day723 Tuesday 08/21/12

ran 5.0 miles

2,080 miles from Lafayette, LA to Washington D.C. and back + 184.4

Here is what happened one year ago on Day358.

Day722 Monday 08/20/12

ran 4.2 miles

Did Newsweek just now get the memo? Where were they in 2008 when this guy was freed of all charges our national media traditionally alleges on all presidential candidates? Newsweek, you were once a beacon for political discussion and insightful commentary but you and other media sources are beyond forgiveness for how unscrupulously you've perverted the integrity of journalism. Journalism died in 2008 and Barack Obama's presidency is proof of it, as you mention on your cover above...but, here's the thing---after what you did, or didn't do, in 2008, you have not earned the right to print a cover like this. 

These are your 2008 covers back when you were worshiping this guy despite his numerous questionable associations and utter lack of experience:

You were wrong. Printing a cover like this only shows how meaningless your words were then and how insincere your message is now. You sensationalized this man for every penny he was worth, but now that he has been deemed and appraised valueless you want to get every penny you can for his worthlessness.

Thanks for nothing, Newsweek.

2,080 miles from Lafayette, LA to Washington D.C. and back + 179.4

Here is what happened one year ago on Day357.

   

Day721 Sunday 08/19/12

ran 3.4 miles

Today ends week 103 of running against Obama. I ran 24.8 miles this week, averaging 3.54 miles per day.

2,080 miles from Lafayette, LA to Washington D.C. and back + 175.2

Here is what happened one year ago on Day356.

Day720 Saturday 08/18/12

ran 2.6 miles

Thank you, KOBFM-New Mexico, for sharing the opportunity to speak with the president of the United States of America and asking him the most irrelevant possible questions you could possibly think of during one of the most critical points in America's modern history. This interview is no different than having a comedian on the other side of the phone line and asking him what his thoughts are on America's stubborn unemployment, devastating national debt, skyrocketing food stamp program, failed health care, Israel, and what exactly he plans to do for the next four years that he hasn't royally screwed up already.

2,080 miles from Lafayette, LA to Washington D.C. and back + 171.8

Here is what happened one year ago on Day355.

Day719 Friday 08/17/12

ran 4.5 miles

Because Barack Obama has nothing better to campaign on he is continuing to kick the dead horse that is the release of Mitt Romney's tax returns. Obama campaign manager, Jim Messina, offered a schoolyard challenge to Romney campaign manager, Matt Rhoades, today suggesting that if Romney would release the past five years of his tax returns then maybe (fingers crossed) he would no longer antagonize him over it. The proposition was pretty much a lunch time "twinkie for an apple" sort of deal followed by a punch in the face by the biggest bully in Chicago---and, by the way, President Obama, why don't you release your college transcripts, which you have paid for to be locked away?

Here's the offer:

Dear Matt:

I am writing to ask again that the Governor release multiple years of tax returns, but also to make an offer that should address his concerns about the additional disclosures. Governor Romney apparently fears that the more he offers, the more our campaign will demand that he provide. So I am prepared to provide assurances on just that point: if the Governor will release five years of returns, I commit in turn that we will not criticize him for not releasing more — neither in ads nor in other public communications or commentary for the rest of the campaign.

This request for the release of five years, covering the complete returns for 2007-2012, is surely not unreasonable. Other Presidential candidates have released more, including the Governor’s father who provided 12 years of returns. In the Governor’s case, a five year release would appropriately span all the years that he has been a candidate for President. It would also help answer outstanding questions raised by the one return he has released to date, such as the range in the effective rates paid, the foreign accounts maintained, the foreign investments made, and the types of tax shelters used.

To provide these five years, the Governor would have to release only three more sets of returns in addition to the 2010 return he has released and the 2011 return he has pledged to provide. And, I repeat, the Governor and his campaign can expect in return that we will refrain from questioning whether he has released enough or pressing for more.

I look forward to your reply.

Jim Messina

Obama for America Campaign Manager

Here's the response:

Hey Jim,

Thanks for the note.

It is clear that President Obama wants nothing more than to talk about Governor Romney’s tax returns instead of the issues that matter to voters, like putting Americans back to work, fixing the economy and reining in spending.

If Governor Romney’s tax returns are the core message of your campaign, there will be ample time for President Obama to discuss them over the next 81 days.

In the meantime, Governor Romney will continue to lay out his plans for a stronger middle class, to save Medicare, to put work back into welfare, and help the 23 million Americans struggling to find work in the Obama economy.

See you in Denver.

Thanks,

Matt Rhoades

Romney for President

Campaign Manager

And, just for kicks, here is our vice president in campaign mode: 

2,080 miles from Lafayette, LA to Washington D.C. and back + 169.2

Here is what happened one year ago on Day354.

Day718 Thursday 08/16/12

ran 3.4 miles

Above is the average amount of tax dollars you stand to lose in 2013, depending on what state you're in, if the Bush tax cuts expire.

I took the liberty of adding up the sum of money the average individual in each of the fifty states and Washington D.C. stands to lose ($120,214) and divided it by 51. That number is $2,357. If you multiply that number by a rough population of 314,159,265...let's make this easier with round numbers---lets round all the way up to $3,000 and all the way up to 315,000,000 Americans. That would give the federal government 945 billion more tax dollars. Even if Barack Obama ended the Bush tax cuts completely across the board of earners it would still only be enough to knock out a mere 16.93% of our national debt. Obama's stimulus package was nearly $800 billion---only $145 billion short of taking every single federal tax dollar we are saving from the Bush tax cuts in the entire country for a year and spending it on something that had so few results. And this is not even considering the hundreds of other things tax dollars get spent on from welfare programs all the way up to national defense.

Point is, why are we arguing about who should be taxed more and how much they should be taxed when it clearly makes no difference in contrast to how far behind our nation has slipped economically. Our national debt is out of control and our president is doing nothing to stop it. His latest budget did not receive one single vote in the Senate---and the Democrat-led Senate has not even made a budget in over three years. Who lives like this?

The government doesn't have a revenue problem, it has a spending problem. 

2,080 miles from Lafayette, LA to Washington D.C. and back + 164.7

Here is what happened one year ago on Day353.