We're Being Regulated to Death

Somewhere out there is a postulate that states, "More government equals less freedom." And if there isn't one there should be, because that's one of the unwritten rules of life.

Here's another one: the way our form of government is constructed, we're free to do as we please unless and until there's a law against something. This is why no one needs a busy Congress, for if they're busy writing laws, they're busy making sure we're all less free.

Now that I've established The Backwards Political Postulate, here's a story you won't like if you love your freedom, courtesy of the Wall Street Journal: Regulator Without Peer.

Congress may be mired in gridlock, but the federal bureaucracy is busier than ever. In 2013 the Federal Register contained 3,659 "final" rules, which means they now must be obeyed, and 2,594 proposed rules on their way to becoming orders from political headquarters.

 If you wonder why our economy is in the shitter, wonder no more. We'll never see a robust economy again until we start electing people who will dedicate their lives to reducing the size, expense, and intrusiveness of the federal government.

Tourists Imprisoned by Yellowstone Park Officials

Gee, they seem to be serious about this partial shutdown of the government, aren't they?

The seniors quickly filed back onboard and the bus went to the Old Faithful Inn, the park’s premier lodge located adjacent to the park’s most famous site, Old Faithful geyser. That was as close as they could get to the famous site — barricades were erected around Old Faithful, and the seniors were locked inside the hotel, where armed rangers stayed at the door.

The tourists were treated harshly by armed park employees, she said, so much so that some of the foreign tourists with limited English skills thought they were under arrest.

When finally allowed to leave, the bus was not allowed to halt at all along the 2.5-hour trip out of the park, not even to stop at private bathrooms that were open along the route.

“We’ve become a country of fear, guns and control,” said Vaillancourt, who grew up in Lawrence. “It was like they brought out the armed forces. Nobody was saying, ‘we’re sorry,’ it was all like — ” as she clenched her fist and banged it against her forearm.

Gloria Allred was unavailable for comment.

h/t Ace of Spades HQ

Your Government Atwerk - Updated

Lovely, just lovely.

The games politicians play: Barack Obama is having a lot of fun using the government shutdown to squeeze the public in imaginative ways.

The Park Service appears to be closing streets on mere whim and caprice. The rangers even closed the parking lot at Mount Vernon, where the plantation home of George Washington is a favorite tourist destination. That was after they barred the new World War II Memorial on the Mall to veterans of World War II. But the government does not own Mount Vernon; it is privately owned by the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association. The ladies bought it years ago to preserve it as a national memorial. The feds closed access to the parking lots this week, even though the lots are jointly owned with the Mount Vernon ladies. The rangers are from the government, and they’re only here to help.

“It’s a cheap way to deal with the situation,” an angry Park Service ranger in Washington says of the harassment. “We’ve been told to make life as difficult for people as we can. It’s disgusting.”

It should be noted that this is the direct result of Harry Reid's obstructionism. This shutdown is owned wholly by the Democrats, not the Republicans. Anyone who tells you different doesn't know what they're talking about.

UPDATE! - Here's a list of the  unnecessary shutdowns - Link  to Breitbart.

UP-UPDATE!! - The Pentagon is withholding the Death Gratuity to families, falsely blames Tea Party.

Congress passed the bill paying the military, and Obama signed it. Yet the Pentagon is interpreting this to deny the families the benefit, and telling the families it is because of Congress. This is beyond obscene, a part of a continuing attack on the military to diminish and divide.

h/t Drudge Report

Your Democrat Government At Work: Incomes Down, New Poverty Record

President Obama's "fundamental transformation" of America is proceeding right on schedule.

During the four years that marked President Barack Obama’s first term in office, the real median income of American households dropped by $2,627 and the number of people in poverty increased by approximately 6,667,000, according to data released today by the Census Bureau.

Someone help me remember, is this the "Hope" part or the "Change" part?

252 Reasons Why You're An Idiot If You Voted For Obama

That's really not the title of this post from Danfromsquirrelhill.wordpress.com. That would be Obama supporters will go hysterical over this well sourced list of 252 examples of his lying, lawbreaking, corruption, cronyism, etc.

It's long but worth your time. Even better, if you show it to someone who voted for him (or any Dimocrat for that matter) and their head explodes, you get extra credit.

Poll News - Obama's Disapproval On Economy Now at 62%

My only question is, why this isn't much higher?

Link.

h/t to Ace and Jammie Wearing Fools.

Audit the IRS Rally at Noon, June 19, US West Capitol Lawn

From the Another Video You Should See file...

h/t Bad Blue and The Gateway Pundit

Here's the link: Tea Party Patriots.org


Join in Rand Paul's class action lawsuit against the NSA. "If you suspect me of a crime, have probable cause."


Be there or be square.

How ironic indeed. "We always wanted a President who would listen to all Americans. Now we have one."

 

 

h/t Ace of Spades HQ

Oh, President Obama, those voices we're supposed to dismiss: those were recorded, right?

Mitt Thumps Obama in First Debate

If you somehow missed it...




Actually, it was much more than a thumping. It was a smackdown of nearly Biblical proportions.

You could say that Obama had a drug problem: Mitt drug him all over the stage. (*rimshot*)

Needless to say, Republicans and conservatives are all atwitter at the masterful performance by Mitt last night. Confident, self-assured, in command of the facts and figures, presidential, these are just some of the adjectives you could use to describe Mitt's evisceration of Obama.

Early viewer estimates have this as one of the most-watched political debates in history. Over 70 million tuned in. Here in Casa Backwardio, there were high-fives and fist-pumps as Mitt landed one body blow after another to the hapless incumbent.

Mitt pressed buttons I didn't know I had.

I'm pretty sure this debate has sealed the victory for Mitt in a month. Now, we can't go getting cocky. There's still a lot of work to do. Not only must we get Mitt in office, we need to get control of the Senate too. Your job is clear: do whatever you can to get out the vote. Talk to your friends, especially if they're of the Dimocrat persuasion. Volunteer locally if you can. Put up a yard sign.

Every little bit helps.

A Compendium of Obama's Broken Promises

Is this the type of guy you want as your president?

A liar?

I certainly hope not.

Debate Prep Questions for Obama

Courtesy of Instapundit, Jennifer Rubin has some questions for President Obama that just might come up. That is, they'd  come up if there were politically balanced moderator. As it stands now, we can probably expect Mitt to get questions like, "Have you stopped beating your wife?" while Obama would get questions like, "What's your favorite color?"

Anyway, here are a few of hers...

If Iran is much closer to getting a bomb than when you took office, isn’t your Iran policy a failure?

 After Sept. 11, 2001, there were no terrorist attacks on the United States, but during your administration there have been the jihad-inspired Fort Hood massacre and the killing of four Americans in Libya, so isn’t your anti-terror record worse than Bush’s?

Why is the recovery under your presidency worse than any other recovery since WWII?

If you can decide not to enforce all of our immigration laws or amend the welfare work laws without Congress, why couldn’t a President Romney decide not to enforce Obamacare or parts of the IRS code?

 

And here are a couple of mine...

You promised to make energy prices "skyrocket," one of the few promises you've managed to keep to the American people. Would you please explain your reasoning and tell us how this will benefit the average American family whose breadwinners may be struggling. 

Since man-made climate change has been proven to be a hoax for several years now, can you explain to us why you continue to believe in it and to pursue related policies that hinder the economy?

You often confuse your Fast and Furious project that allowed thousands of guns to be put in the hands of Mexican narco-terrorists and resulted in many deaths on both sides of the border, including Border Agent Brian Terry, with  a similar, smaller program by president Bush. Do you know the difference between those two separate programs?

Have you stopped beating your children?

 Have I mentioned that I'd love to moderate one of the presidential debates?

Well, I'm Convinced.

This has to be the best argument I believe I've ever heard to vote for Obama.






Does that phone come with my second or third voter registration card? Or does it come before that?

Where do I sign up?

Dave In Florida Has His Own Blog

Fellow Moron Dave In Florida liked his guest gig here so much, he now has his own blog named, appropriately enough, Dave In Florida's Poll Analysis.

Having squinted at his numbers for minutes, I've found his methodology to be more accurate than anything the Idiot MFM is citing. And if you think for one moment that any of the polls you hear about from the Vintage Media showing Obama with the lead are accurate, you're being fooled.

Do like the rest of us are doing: ignore everything you hear or read from places like CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC, HLN, NYT, or NPR and just vote for Mitt Romney.

Like your life depends on it.

(h/t to Dedicated Tenther)

Obama - "I want to see us export more jobs!"

In a speech yesterday, President Obama pulled a vice-president Biden when he said, "I want to see us export more jobs!"

As Pee Wee Herman might have said, "I meant to do that."

What is it with the left and their insistence that their boy or girl is always the "smartest person EVAH?" Real-world evidence doesn't exactly prove it, but then again, we aren't dealing with practical people, are we?

Beware the Wolf in Sheep's Clothing (The Fabian Socialist)

If you've watched Glenn Beck, you've probably seen his explanation of the Fabian Window (not to be confused with the Overton Window).




William Kevin Stoos over at the Canada Free Press gives us this reminder...

The wolf plays a prominent role in socialist thought. V.I. Lenin once said “When you live among wolves you must howl like a wolf,” meaning, of course, that if political necessity requires you to act like a capitalist or live among capitalists while you organize and work for socialist causes, you must act like those among whom you live. This is simply a matter of expediency. Norman Thomas, a founder of the A.C.L.U. once said:

“The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism. But under the name of ‘liberalism’ they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program until one day America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened.”
 

 Couched in flowery prose of "caring" and "fairness," we've been fed the socialist line for decades. And the easily led among us are made to feel guilty for not being "good people."

I'm not speaking of personal charity. This is a true act of compassion and not at all what these wolves are talking about. Their goal is to forcibly take your money and give to others through government. This is what Obama meant when he said he believes in redistribution. If you can be made to think that it's "for the common good," then you'll go along with it.

It's what all the cool people are doing, aren't they?

Um, not so much.

We're seeing the fruits of socialism: an economy and a nation in shambles.

I sincerely hope that no one wants four more years of this "goodness."

The Obama You Don't Know

If only this has been done four years ago, we could've saved ourselves a lot of trouble.

From the Washington Examiner...

The Obama You Don't Know

Obama Appoints New Foreign Security Chief

Captain Morgan.

 

 

Special Guest Post by Dave In Florida: The Real Poll Results

Good morning, y'all. I have a special treat for all fourteen of you today. For this post, I'm turning over the keyboard to fellow Ace of Spades HQ Moron Dave in Florida wherein he'll explain what the poll numbers should be.

I'm sure that everyone sees all the poll results that show President Obama with a slight lead nationally despite all evidence that should show him trailing Mitt Romney. There's more to this than meets the eye, as is common with political matters.

Dave is an engineer and works with numbers for a living as I once did. He's gone through the figures in these polls and will show that this presidential race is far from over and Obama is not in the lead as the MFM would have you believe.

Fair Warning: this post contains maths and it's quite comprehensive in showing how the actual numbers were reached. I concur with Dave's conclusion: Mitt is actually ahead.

Got your coffee ready? Good.

Take it away, Dave...



There has been considerable discussion among us all regarding the validity of
the national polls that are being published.  Obviously, when polls are being
put out that use samples that are larger than the results of the 2008 election,
then many of us become suspicious.  With this latest round of Eeyorism (Erick
and Ace, I'm looking at you), I decided that I was going to take a real look at
the polls and see if I could make sense of them.

As I examined the top line numbers, I realized what has been bugging me for
months about the polls.  There isn't enough noise in the samples to make them
credible.  Let me give an example I am used to in the real world.  If you sample
a specific frequency for a signal, you expect to see a lot of noise from other
signals in other bands interfering with your sample, due to harmonics.  What is
done is, the sample band is run through a filter to clean up the signal, removing
spurious signals first.

Look at the results of 7 polls currently being used in the RCP average:

Tipp - O+2
CBS/NYT - O+3
Fox - O+5
Ipsos - O+3
Dem Corps - O+5
ABC/WaPo - O+1
WSJ/NBC - O+5

Those are all in a nice tight grouping with an average of 3, with not a single
results more than 2 away from the average.  It looks like nothing is outside of
a single standard deviation.  That alone is a HIGHLY unlikely event.  I'm not
expert enough of a statistician to figure out the odds, but the probability of
getting a random sample this tight is very low against a truly random signal. 
In the signal processing world, we would look at this result and ask what type
of filter was used on the source signal, it doesn't occur in nature.

So if I want to be paranoid, I can think of an alternate sampling method that
would result in these results.  Suppose I start with a very large sample with a
relatively even distribution, such as 100,000 marbles which are half red and
half blue, then I determine that I want to end up with a result that I have
selected 52% blue marbles.  What I can do is keep picking marbles until I have
selected enough to show a random sample was used (e.g. at least 800 selections)
but not stop the selection until I reach the 52% number.  I might get there at
800, or at 900, or even at 1000.  But it won't take me long to get a result that
is a desired small deviation away from the actual distribution of the entire
population.

If I then report those results as an actual probabilistic outcome and not report
that I had a specific result desired, then it is not discernible from examining
the results.  Hence the old saying, "lie, damn lies, and statistics".

Over the last few days there has been some discussion of a few web postings
about this over sampling, and the Rasmussen Party ID poll.  If you aren't
familiar with the latter, Scott Rasmussen conducts a monthly sample of partisan
identification.  It is one question, asking are you a Republican, Democrat, or
Independent?  The sample size is 15,000, which in polling terms is an enormous
sample.  Most credible polls require about 800 samples to reach a 4% margin of
error.

The August result for this poll is as follows:

Democrat 33.3%
Republican 37.6%
Independent 29.2%

This R+4 results is dramatically different from the sampling results used by all
of the polls above.  These polls are using samples that range from D+4
(ABC/WaPo) to D+13 (CBS/NYT).  The basis for such dramatic over sampling of
Democrats is never given, but the Rasmussen poll (and it's inherent accuracy
given sample size and simplicity) shows these samples to be inappropriate. 
Again, being paranoid, it looks a lot like sampling to produce an intended
result, rather than justifying the sampling due to demographic expectations.

The problems with these polls are then further compounded by the RCP average. 
This is commonly reported by the media, even on Fox.  However, the value of an
average is questionable, when the demographic samples are different.  A more
useful average would be if every poll was using a single demographic metric,
then averaging them.

I decided to see if it was possible to reweight these polls to do exactly that,
using the Rasmussen party ID as a baseline.

Methodology:

1) I'm starting with the Rasmussen party ID results.  Since August showed a
dramatic rise in Republican identification, I am normalizing the results and
using the average in this poll over the last three months.  The partisan ID mix
that I use for normalizing all of the media polls is D/R/I of 33.8/36.0/30.3.  I
am confident that this represents a conservative view of the actual electorate,
without considering voter enthusiasm or any other demographic breakdown like
ethnicity or gender.

2) I then go into the internals of each of the polls and adjust their results to
account for partisan shift.  I am not going to try to equalize based on factors
such as number of Democrats supporting Romney or Republicans supporting Obama. 
I assume that a Republican is worth equal "weight" of Romney support as a
Democrat is of Obama support.  I also assume that an Independent or Undecided is
neutral.  50% of both types will support Obama and Romney (or stay home, which
is also a neutral effect).

3) If a poll identifies a level of Independent support for a candidate, then I
violate the above rule and assign a weighting factor to Independents of a
corresponding value.  For example, if the poll shows Independents support Romney
55 to 45, then a .55 weighting factor is used for Independent voters, rather
than .50.

4) Finally I add or subtract the appropriate weights corresponding to the
correct demographics.  If Democrats are over sampled by 4 points (38% used by
the poll), then 4% worth of Obama support is subtracted.  If Independents were
under sampled by 4 points (26% used by the poll), then 2% worth of Obama support
is added (the 50% Obama support with Independents rule).

Reweighting all of these polls results in the following:

Tipp - R+1.37
CBS/NYT - R+6.52
Fox - O+4.48
Ipsos - O+4.35
Dem Corps - O+0.79
ABC/WaPo - R+5.54
WSJ/NBC - R+2.43

The average of these reweighted polls is then a Romney lead of 0.89%, rather
than an Obama lead of 3%.  Almost a 4% shift.  We also see a much more noisy
result, with polling results ranging from Obama 4.48 to Romney 6.52.  This is a
much more believable result, since we are seeing variation over more standard
deviations.

Note a couple items here.  First of all, it is tempting to use Rasmussen's
latest results, which would given Romney a 2 point lead in the average.  But I
took a more conservative approach and used the average.  So the result is a
45,000 sample partisan ID poll conducted over 3 months.  Second, for half of
these polls, I am using a very conservative value of 50% for Independent
support.  All of the polls that report this value, report Romney with a
significant advantage in Independents (with the exception of the Fox poll). 
This analysis also assumes that undecideds will break 50/50, which is
historically untrue.  Finally, this analysis does not account for partisan
enthusiasm, if the reported measurement of that is true, then Republicans will
turn out higher than Democrats, increasing Romney's final results.

As a final piece of data, let's go ahead and average in the Rasmussen tracking
poll (Romney +3) as of Sep 18 when I did this analysis:

Current reported average: Obama +2.63%
Actual average of normalized polls: Romney +1.16%

I think this is a much better view of where the race currently stands than is
being reported.

Dave in Florida

U Didn't Build That by MC 'Bama

Heh.

New Ad Blisters Obama's Support of Muslim Brotherhood

This is gonna leave a mark...



By the way, anyone who thinks that the events in the Middle East just happened to get out of control "unexpectedly" are mistaken. This was the planned outcome from the beginning.

I Just Wanted to Post This Golf Joke

OK, here's the link: Golf lobby urges Rubio to drop the Obama golfing jokes.

And here's the joke from the comments:

Ye Can't Fool a Scottish Caddy

During his golfing vacation at Martha's Vineyard - President Obama had been slicing off the tee on every hole.

He asks his Scottish born caddy if he has noticed any obvious reasons for his poor tee shots, to which the caddy replies: "Aye, there's a piece of shyt on the end of yer driver."

The President picks up his driver and cleans the club face, at which point the caddy says:
"No, the other end."