Day40 Friday 10/08/10

ran 3.2 miles

• Arizona was the forty-eighth state to join the union on February 14, 1912, one month after New Mexico and forty-seven years before Alaska.

• Population, as of 2009, is 6,595,778.

• Senators are Jon Kyl (R) and John McCain (R).

• Representatives are Ann Kirkpatrick (D), Trent Franks (R), John Shadegg (R), Edward Pastor (D), Harry Mitchell (D), Jeff Flake (R), Raul Grijalva (D), and Gabrielle Giffords (D).

• Arizona holds 10 electoral votes. Historically, the state has voted republican since 1952, barring Bill Clinton’s win in 1996.

In April 2010, Arizona’s governor, Jan Brewer, signed a rigid bill on illegal immigration into law. The bill allows local law enforcement to apprehend illegal aliens if they do not have the proper documents to prove their legal status. This sounds logical. If they are residing in Arizona illegally then they get sent back home. This sounds logical. Most other countries burden foreigners with much gravity pertaining to legal documentation and legal motives for being in their country. But not America. Obama seems to want to level the greatness of this country with scattered shortcomings of various other countries, but is it not an arrogant statement, concerning the status of ultimate power, to say to the world that we are the one nation possessing power and economical strength that is too cool to be more rigorous about the laws concerning what foreign people in our country are doing at any given time? No other country with the success and the verve we possess is nearly as loose on immigration as we are and eventually it will be the end of America as we know it. America will go on, but it will not be our America.

Pertaining to Arizona’s decision to take illegal immigration seriously Jan Brewer, a pioneer in creating some real change in this country, had this to say, “The law represents another tool for our state to use as we work to solve a crisis we did not create and the federal government has refused to fix.”

This sounds logical.

1,975.4 miles to go.

Day39 Thursday 10/07/10

ran 2.6 miles
Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Approval poll indicates that 28% of Americans strongly approve of Barack Obama’s performance as president, while 41% strongly disapprove. His Presidential Approval Index is –13, compared to –17 on this day last week. Overall, 46% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of Obama’s performance and 53% at least somewhat disapprove.

Deviating from statistics and polls, the story about McDonalds and approximately thirty other companies being awarded exemption from Obama’s health care plan was jaw-dropping when I read about it. This makes no sense on so many different levels.

This attempt at health care reform, before it is even implemented, had to be waived for thirty major companies comprising nearly one million part-time or low-wage employees. These are the people that the health care bill is supposed to help most. The bill was designed so everyone could have health care. And now, the majority of people who need health care through intervention of the government, a government that wants other people to pay for it, at a penalty of fines if they don’t, may not be able to receive it because these companies threatened to drop the insurance altogether because they cannot afford it.

“Without waivers, companies would have had to provide a minimum of $750,000 in coverage next year, increasing to $1.25 million in 2012, $2 million in 2013 and unlimited in 2014.” USATODAY.com

If the government waives one single company, that is precedent to waive more. Perhaps if every company requests exemption we can turn this bad idea around. And what’s the end game? If these companies can’t pay these insurance premiums now why would they be able to at any other time in the future. This makes no sense. Our government conjured up this utopian health care bill, which they think is revolutionary and some how good (turn on your television and look at the riots and protests occurring in Europe; their behavior is a product of social programs going bad and running out of money---these plans are designed with the best of intentions, but they just don’t work…ever…anywhere, and our government is trying to do it after so many others have failed?), they believe it is indisputable and necessary, yet they so easily come to the aid of thirty companies, to save them from the costliness of the health care they designed, representing one million employees to grant them waivers from their own ridiculous health care program, which is designed to help, most of all, the very people who said they refuse to participate because it is too astonishingly costly. How can these politicians be so adamant and passionate about something that completely contradicts its intentions before it is even put into effect?

The Department of Health and Human Services awarded these waivers because the part-time and low-wage employees who currently receive minimum benefits were going to lose all benefits because these companies threatened to drop health insurance altogether. President Obama assured America that no one would lose the coverage they currently have. This may be one way to prevent him from breaking his promise but it is certainly not right. It is far from it.

This demands repeating: One million people, who this health care reform was primarily designed for, stood to lose their health insurance altogether, unless the government stepped in to exempt them from the health care plan that is supposed to help them, before it was even put into effect. How does this make any sense?

1,978.6 miles to go.

Day38 Wednesday 10/06/10

ran 3.2 miles
“Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber.”

Plato

“We’d all like to vote for the best man, but he’s never a candidate.

Frank McKinney “Kin” Hubbard

“Politicians are people who, when they see the light at the end of the tunnel, go out and buy some more tunnel.”

John Quinton

Both Democrats and Republicans have successfully contributed in mongering lies, spewing insincere intentions, and uniformly setting this country on a regressive path that will take a long time to reconcile. I’ve said this before and I will continue to say it: Barack Obama and his radical agenda are simply the straws, which his ego views as concrete pillars, that have broken the proverbial camel’s back. That camel is the people of this country, and it actually takes a ridiculous sum of wrongdoing to get a massive number of people of this country to rally against their leader and their government, but Barack Obama and his democratic counterparts have done it. They kicked over the wrong anthill and the ants are tired of rebuilding their humble mound they work so hard for.

Up until now, many Americans shrugged most challenges outside of their personal bubbles because they were unaffected. It was not because they were selfish, but because they were hardworking and self-sufficient. They contributed to society. They did not need to rely on the government for sustenance and they did not want the government interfering with their lives.

These people are being interfered with now by an entity that they believe has no right to impose itself like such an unwelcome houseguest. That entity is our own government and this administration has overstayed its welcome.

1,981.2 miles to go.

Day37 Tuesday 10/05/10

ran 3.2 miles
On this day in 1947, President Harry Truman was filmed for the first-ever televised address from the White House. His primary topic was food-conservation, requesting Americans to decrease their consumption of grain to help starving Europeans. Europe was still rebuilding from World War II and famine was a constant struggle.

Truman, the thirty-third president, had requested farmers and distillers to slow grain use and implored the public to abstain from eating beef on Tuesdays, eggs and poultry on Thursdays, and to save a slice of bread each day. This food program was brief and served its purpose swiftly helping to revitalize economic growth in Europe.

In 1947, television was a new technology and exclusive to a privileged few, numbering in only thousands of homes. But by the early 1950s, televisions were in millions of households.

Each of Truman’s following White House speeches, including his 1949 inauguration speech, was aired on national television. Truman was the first president to air a paid political advertisement on television, as well, pioneering the avalanche of political ads we are bombarded with today.

1,984.4 miles to go.

Day36 Monday 10/04/10

ran 3.8 miles
Oklahoma has recently passed a number of new and bold laws. Surmounting Arizona’s recent new immigration laws with boldness and controversy, the state has enacted six new laws, which more states will hopefully follow the model of.

• Oklahoma has declared itself a sovereign state, not subject to the jurisdiction of the Federal Government, joining Texas, Montana and Utah in sovereign status (HJR 1003).
• On the front lawn of the Oklahoma State Capitol the Ten Commandments will be displayed (HB 1330).
• Oklahoma is now incarcerating all illegal immigrants and sending them back where they came from unless they choose to undergo the process of being a naturalized citizen (HB 1804)
• Oklahoma now has the right to collect DNA samples from illegal aliens for storage in their criminal database, for criminal investigative use (SB 1102).
• The people of Oklahoma voted for the right to bear arms, confirming citizens have every right to possess and transport weapons in their vehicles.
• The people of Oklahoma voted to print all drivers’ license exams exclusively in English, following the logic that all road signs are printed only in English.
  

This is a huge statement and it is likely that more states will follow this stream of logic, unfettering themselves from the shackles of Barack Obama and his agenda. Initiative like this at the state level is a preemptive insurance policy against administrations with ideas like Obama’s and all future governmental gears that have un-American machines to build.

1.987.6 miles to go.

Day35 Sunday 10/03/10

ran 2.0 miles
Today marks five weeks, 88.6 miles, and 16735 words. My daily running average is 2.53 miles a day and my daily posting average is 478.1 words a day. These miles and words have opened my mind and heart to avenues they have never known before now.

To establish where I am coming from and how valuable this goal is I would like to point out that I have no desire to run everyday or to post on this blog every night. But I find it to be a necessary burden for a worthwhile cause. This world may be large but that is no reason for anyone to be small. When I don’t want to run I convince myself to persevere by imagining how petty I am to consider idleness when so many soldiers have and continue to serve in our military, fighting for our freedom. They don’t get to wake up and say, “I don’t feel like doing this today.”

When I don’t have time or energy to type a post for this blog I remind myself that, by candle light and no modern technology, our forefathers drafted a brilliant path against all odds for this country to follow. And for me to not continue this goal would be an insult to every success this country has had for more than two centuries. It is a testing goal, but it is nothing compared to what so many others have done.

1,991.4 miles to go.

Day34 Saturday 10/02/10

ran 2.6 miles
Scanning over articles and current events from the past week, I found a lot of bone and not much meat. There was a lot of interesting news but it’s the same predictable material day after day. Countries in Europe are protesting and rioting, Obama is doing everything he can to save his cause, firing and hiring administrative members, blaming republicans for everything that’s wrong, the Pope and the Muslim religion can’t keep the ink off the papers across the globe, Senators and Representatives are spending millions upon millions of dollars to campaign for seats that only earn an average salary of $174,000 per year…

…Let’s take a step back. How can anyone justify spending millions of dollars on vinyl signs, billboards, advertisements and appearances when a candidate’s actual plan is the real substance of the matter at hand? And whatever this man’s or woman’s plan is should be intuitive and self-explanatory. It should not require millions of dollars to sell an election. It should take a plan, common sense, and voters who are interested in the state of their country and educated about its history and current events.

I’m going to crawl out on a thin limb and make a judgmental call. President Obama’s entire plan is to make things work out for everybody and to make things equally enjoyable in America. While I believe this effort is a tenet of communism, I am curious to know why Barack Obama, or Bush, because I know that is who he would blame it on, has not said, “Wake up, America! If you want something you have to earn it. The government is here to serve as little intervention in your life as possible. We want you to succeed by yourself and you have every ability to do it. So what are you waiting for?”

That’s my America.

1,993.4 miles to go.

Day33 Friday 10/01/10

ran 2.6 miles

• Alaska was first made into a district on October 18, 1867. The district became an organized territory on August 24, 1912, and finally became the forty-ninth state on January 3, 1959, after Arizona and before Hawaii.

• Alaska was purchased from Russia through the negotiations of William Henry Seward, secretary of state under President Lincoln. Our government paid $7.2 million dollars for the land (2 cents per acre). Many Americans at the time called the purchase “Seward’s Folly”, regarding Alaska as an icy wasteland. As it turns out Alaska thrives in mining, is rich in oil and draws much tourism.

• Population, as of 2009, is 698,473.

• Senators are Mark Begich (D) and Lisa Murkowski (R).

• Representative is Donald Young (R).

• Alaska has 3 electoral votes. It has been a red state since it joined the union excluding the presidential election of 1964, voting for democrat Barry Goldwater.

• Alaska is more than twice the size of Texas and possesses more than half the world’s active glaciers. The state is larger than England, France, Italy and Spain combined, yet if its population density were applied to New York City, only 16 people would be living in Manhattan.

The polls open up tomorrow for the election of local officials here in Lafayette, Louisiana. Many people fail to vote for even Senators or Representatives, or even for the President of the United States (I used to be one of them), but get out there and make a difference. Do some research. I know voting is the last thing on a lot of people’s minds because it may not seem important, but look at it like a cold, clear glass of refreshing water. You never fully appreciate how good water tastes or how vital it is until you are forced to drink a warm cup of murky water filled with impurities. If you ever lost your right to vote you would cringe like you had just took a sip of that rusty, parasitic water. Appreciate and utilize your right to vote. People died for it.

1.996.0 miles to go.

Day32 Thursday 09/30/10

ran 3.2 miles
Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Approval poll indicates that 29% of Americans strongly approve of Barack Obama’s performance as president, while 46% strongly disapprove. His Presidential Approval Index rating is –17, compared to –14 on this day last week. Overall, 45% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of Obama’s performance, and 55% at least somewhat disapprove.

These are the current polling results, according to Rasmussen Reports, of the Senate race in November.

Solid democratic states are:
Hawaii
Maryland
New York
Oregon
Vermont

Lean democratic states are:
California
Connecticut
Delaware

Toss-up states are:
Illinois
Nevada
West Virginia
Washington
Wisconsin

Lean GOP states are:
Colorado
Florida
Missouri
New Hampshire
Ohio
Pennsylvania

Solid GOP states are:
Alabama
Alaska
Arizona
Arkansas
Georgia
Idaho
Indiana
Iowa
Kansas
Kentucky
Louisiana
North Carolina
North Dakota
Oklahoma
South Carolina
South Dakota
Utah


And one last thing, I stumbled across a cool website hosted by “Citizens Against Government Waste”, www.cagw.org, and they had some interesting facts about 2010 earmarks. These are a few examples of how our government is spending our taxes.

$465 million for the Joint Strike Fighter alternate engine. This military aircraft has an engine that does not work and apparently we need to find one that does.

Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) received $7,287,000 to continue the Harkin Grant program and Senator Robert Byrd (D-W.Va) received $7,000,000 for the Robert C. Byrd Institute of Advanced Flexible Manufacturing Systems.

And here’s to Representative Leonard Lance (R-N.J.) for his ever-changing stance on earmarks; first signing a no-earmark pledge, then receiving $21 million in earmarks, then supporting the Republican earmark moratorium.

Today is the first day of a new month of running and blogging and I am now officially under 2,000 miles.

1,998.6 miles to go.

Day31 Wednesday 09/29/10

ran 2.6 miles
“Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.”

Thomas Paine

“If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.”

Thomas Paine

“If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.”

George Washington

“Advertisements contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper.”

Thomas Jefferson

Much of the media continues to harpoon blame of Obama’s low approval numbers by essentially attributing all of our current turmoil to Bush’s eight years, which does actually hold a substantial amount of truth, and an underwhelming generalization that American voters simply disapprove of Barack Obama’s actions because we are all frustrated by the economy and an overall lack of productive results.

American voters want to reconcile wrongdoings and problems from the past decade as much as Barack Obama does, but would it be possible for us to not be depicted by the media as a simple-minded herd of cattle, only capable of mooing that we want results and that we want them now? We certainly want some real change soon, but could it be possible that millions of people in this country firmly believe Obama’s direction and his ideas are shaded with dangerously dark tints of socialism? Newspapers don’t allude to this real possibility very often. Our voice stands as simple results of random polls.

“From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.”

This line from Karl Marx is possibly the most naïve and out of touch series of letters ever pushed onto a sheet of paper by a pen. It is a utopian fairy tale. Read George Orwell’s “Animal Farm”, or read the “Communist Manifesto”. They are both very quick reads. The former is a step-by-step demise of applied communism and the latter is a collection of theoretical wishful thinking that simply does not work without compromising every fiber of what a country like America is.

“The meaning of peace is the absence of opposition to socialism.”

“The theory of Communism may be summed up in one sentence: Abolish all private property.”

“Religion is the impotence of the human mind to deal with occurrences it cannot understand.”

These quotes from Karl Marx sound like the words of an angry, bitter man who takes everything he sees in the world very personally, as though everything were an insult to him and his ego, and he wants to put the world in its place, regardless of the others around him. That is what Communism is. It is like an angry child throwing a tantrum and wanting everything his way and all of his things to be in their proper place.

2,001.8 miles to go.

Day30 Tuesday 09/28/10

ran 3.2 miles
On this day in 1781, General George Washington began the siege known as the Battle of Yorktown. Washington led a force of 17,000 French and Continental troops to Yorktown, Virginia to face off against General Lord Charles Cornwallis and 9,000 British troops for what would arguably be the most important battle of the Revolutionary War.

By mere luck or divine intervention, the French fleet, commanded by Count de Grasse, left St. Domingue (the French colony that is now Haiti) and headed toward Chesapeake Bay. At the same time, Cornwallis coincidentally had chosen Yorktown, at the mouth of the Chesapeake to station his base. Washington was dealt a good tactical hand and he reacted. He ordered Marquis de Lafayette and an American army 5,00 strong to block a British escape from Yorktown by land as the French naval fleet blocked the British by sea. By September 28, 1781, Washington had Cornwallis surrounded. Three weeks of day and night battle finally ended with Cornwallis’ surrender in Yorktown on October 17, 1781, officially ending the War for Independence.

Cornwallis, claiming to be ill, did not attend the formal surrender ceremony two days later. His second in command, General Charles O’Hara, carried Cornwallis’ sword to the American and French officers.

Though the war briefly continued to persist in certain areas of little historic consequence, the Patriot victory at Yorktown ended battle in the American colonies. Peace negotiations began in 1782, and on September 3, 1783, the Treaty of Paris was signed, officially acknowledging the United States as an independent nation after eight years of bloodshed and toil for freedom.

Reading about history like this is one of the many reasons I feel so passionate to run and write. Running is a real bummer some days and I have very little time to post anything with substance on other days. But I try as hard as I can with what I have to work with. If I don’t do at least these two things every day, it is insulting and ungracious to the amazing men and women who have made this great country what it is. Whether they were brilliant minds, brave soldiers, unknown names that history neglected to put in its books or normal people that simply felt compelled to preserve what this country is meant to be, their efforts deserve our efforts, as small or large as they may be.

2,004.4 miles to go.

Day29 Monday 09/27/10

ran 3.2 miles
Health insurance has an interesting history in America. Somewhere along the way companies who sought quality employees began offering the incentive of paid health insurance, as well as a good salary. Innocently and in the spirit of free enterprise, ambitious and successful businesses wanted to find the best employees they could and so they offered benefits to acquire the quality employees they desired.

Health care in America has never been mandated by the government since its origin, until now.

In 2014, everyone who is not in the lowest-income bracket will be forced to pay a fine if they choose to not be insured by the government’s health care plan. What began as a simple insurance industry has become one of the priciest government investments in American history. Health care is automatically associated with government. It did not start this way and it was not intended to end this way.

Our government believes the 938 billion dollars it plans to spend over ten years on comprehensive health reform should reduce long-term growth of health care costs, protect families from bankruptcy or debt that may have been attributed to health care costs, guarantee choice of doctors, encourage prevention and wellness, improve quality of health care, assure affordability and quality care for all Americans, and continue coverage whether you are working or not.

I’m no oracle, but common sense tells me this is way too good to be true. Being too good to be true is a characteristic of utopian ideas and utopian ideas are associated with Marxism. Marxism is communism and it just does not work.

2,007.6 miles to go.

Day28 Sunday 09/26/10

ran 1.1 miles
Four weeks in. I have run 69.2 miles and typed 14,310 words in the name of what I believe to be an imminent overthrow of everything that is wrong in America. Barack Obama’s second term can only be attributed to reasonable minds that fail to vote or radical minds that don't seem to have very much appreciation for the foundations on which this country was built.

My daily running average is 2.47 miles a day. My daily posting average is 511.07 words a day. For those of you who think nothing matters and that American politics are just American politics, I implore you to realize that one day politics will be a very big deal for you, and the sooner you prioritize your political agenda, the better.

America, in the next couple of decades, will either remain American or it will no longer be America as we know it. And much of that direction starts right now with what path we choose in the midterm elections and who we don't elect on November 6, 2012.

When a government or an administration sinks, its final bubbles rising to the surface are reminders of why we made that mistake and we ought to aspire to not repeat the same mistakes in the future.

2010.8 miles to go.

Day27 Saturday 09/25/10

ran 2.6 miles
Running today was more demanding than usual. This whole week I have felt like I was pulling a tractor tire behind me. Weeks like this are bound to happen but I am highly motivated about next week because I will be completing my first month of running against Barack Obama and blogging about it.

My main interests in pursuing this campaign deal with government-run health care, government stimulus packages and bailouts, and immigration, among many other topics. These are the three that I seem to gravitate to. Health care run by the government is communism. Washington has no place in free enterprise and free enterprise has no place in communism. And, as with anything else, it doesn’t seem so bad on the surface but it establishes a sense of precedent that Congress can use to socialize other industries one after another if they see fit. In a similar light, Obama’s stimulus packages and bailouts, straight out of the Keynesian Economic Playbook (see Day20), which has been proven to be a dubious waste of time and money in other countries and in our own during various administrations, also reek of socialism. The stimulus money, which has been barely noticeable, will have to be paid back by generations of Americans, not the Congressmen and women that advocated the decision to do it. And the bailouts of automobile companies and banks enabled the American Government to waltz right into the boardrooms of the private sector. Not a big deal, right? Not right now, as it may appear, but the government has its foot in the door, and it is not going to close any time soon. This is the foundation of socialism. The government sets the rules and prices. Free enterprise, ambition, dreams, and everything that makes America such a great country diminishes to nothing one day at a time. My final disapproval on our government’s policies is immigration. Put up fences! Nothing is more aggravating or more unexplainable as when I see various immigrants, legal or not, waving their flags and singing the songs of their homeland, which they had fled for a better life in America. Ungraciously, many of these people have no desire to assimilate to the ways of this country, which are obviously good ways and successful means. Instead, many seem to have a feeble and misunderstood perception that they have a right to turn their America into whichever country they came from. And this is an odd behavior when you consider that many of our naturalized citizens and illegal aliens came from perilous, inopportune, corrupted and broken countries. And yet they have the audacity to not assimilate and to project their culture and ways upon everyone around them, as though they might have a better idea of what America ought to be even though it has proven itself to be quite successful for nearly two and one half centuries.

One last thing, I recently found a very informative website that focuses on Barack Obama’s daily actions, conferences, meetings, etc. There are more articles and videos than you can possibly read or view archived on this site.

2,011.9 miles to go.