Libertarian Leanings

Quantum of Easing

By way of Power Line, a campaign ad from American Crossroads featuring... Obama, Barack Obama.

On the money.  Pun intended.

Poll Weighting At Rasmussen

Today's Daily Presidential Tracking Poll at Rasmussen shows President Obama with a 1-point lead of over Mitt Romney.  But Rasmussen also provides this bit of information.

Romney is supported by 86% of Republicans, while Obama gets the vote from 85% of Democrats. The GOP hopeful has a four-point edge among voters not affiliated with either major party.

So Rasmussen has Romney with a 4-point lead among independents and he attracts a higher percentage of Republican voters than Obama's percentage of Democrats.   The only way I can see Obama with a lead under these circumstances is if there are quite a few more Democrats than Republicans and quite a few more Democrats than Independents in the poll sampling. 

This would be at odds with other Rasmussen polling in which a higher number of people identify themselves as Republicans than Democrats, which they've been doing all year long.  In the latest poll, August, people said they were Republican 37.6% of the time, compared to 33.3% Democrat and 29.2% who said they were neither Republican nor Democrat.

I'm not a Rassmussen subscriber so I can't look very deeply into the poll samplings.  I don't understand why he expects a higher turnout of Democrats than Republicans and Independents unless he is counting on some degree of apathy among Tea Partiers. I'm not sure I'd count on that if I were an Obama supporter.

Looking into the Presidential Approval Index for today we find that only 48% approve of the job Obama is doing while 51% disapprove and 43% strongly disapprove.  As we head closer to election day I have a hard time imagining that there are many, if any, left-wingers among that strongly disapproving group.  I think it's mostly conservatives and Tea Partiers, like the ones who showed up in DC three years ago this month.  They were a motivated group then, and they're a motivated group now.

It still looks like a November blowout to me.

What's Not Showing Up In The Polls

Those polls showing Barack Obama with a 10-point lead in Ohio. Are they realistic? Maybe not. Take a look at this first video, taken as people lined up waiting in the rain for Mitt Romney to arrive at a campaign event in Toledo, Ohio.

In this second video pay attention to the crowd appreciation as Romney winds up his speech.  This is at the same Toledo campaign stop where so many people were standing in line in the rain.

The videos are from Stacy McCain by way of DaTechGuy.

Compassion

Democrats have been masquerading as the party of compassion for decades, but with rare exeption their policies have been a disaster for the people they were supposed to be helping.

Here's Obama's real 4-point plan.  We are staring at disaster. Via Hot Air.

How 'bout Those Independents

According to Breitbart's Big Journalism, the mainstream media are ignoring the Romney's lead among independent voters in Ohio and Florida.

In both Ohio and Florida, Barack Obama’s “clear leads” all come from heavy over-sampling of Democrats, not from winning the crucial Indie vote. In fact, most of the polls that show Obama with big leads also show Romney handily winning Independent voters. Yet, somehow, Obama manages to increase his performance from 2008 despite Independents now opposing him. Let's take a look at how Romney is competing among Independents in recent polls:

Ohio – Leads Among Independents

Ohio Newspaper Organization – Romney +28

CBS/NYT/Quinnipiac – Romney +1

American Research Group – Romney +16

Fox News – Romney +4

We Ask America – Romney +3

Public Policy Polling – Romney +2

Florida - Leads Among Independents

CBS/NYT/Quinnipiac – Romney +3

Gravis Marketing – Romney +4

We Ask America – Romney +2

American Research Group – Romney +1

Florida Times Union – Romney +4

Fox News – Obama +2

Remember, these are states Obama won by small margins in 2008, primarily by winning Independents by 7 and 8 points. If Barack Obama were winning with Independents in every poll, it’s clear the media would be talking about it just as they did, to the point of annoyance, four years ago.

About a third of all voters are independent.

2nd Quarter Growth Revised "Sharply" Downward

The New York Times reports,

WASHINGTON — The Commerce Department said Thursday that the United States economy grew at an annual pace of just 1.3 percent in the second quarter of the year, showing that the recovery came close to stalling in the spring.

The revision was down from the 1.7 percent rate the government reported in August. The economy grew at a 2 percent pace in the first quarter of the year and 3 percent at the end of 2011.

With just 40 days to go until the election, the weak growth figure was sure to take on a strong political valence. Mitt Romney has battered President Obama for failing to foster a robust recovery and has pinned the economy’s weak jobs growth on his policies. Mr. Obama has conceded that the recovery has been anemic, but has argued that his administration put the economy on the right track after the worst recession since the Great Depression.

Thursday’s report underscored that the recovery has proved insufficient to pull down the unemployment rate, which has been stuck between 8.1 percent and 8.3 percent all year.

While the word "unexpected" was unexpectedly missing from the article, it was noted that economists had not anticipated such a steep drop in durable goods orders.

A separate report Thursday showed the manufacturing sector, one of the brightest spots in the recovery, contracting as well. The Commerce Department said that durable goods orders, a key measure of manufacturing strength, plunged 13.2 percent in August, far more than economists had anticipated and the steepest drop since the worst of the recession in the winter of 2009.

Not to worry, though.  This pathetically weak growth is not Obama's fault.

Much of the downward revision to the second-quarter figures was because of the effects of the nation’s worst drought in 50 years. Farm inventories dropped in the second quarter, after falling in the first as well.

More broadly, cuts to state and local government spending have held down growth, and private firms have hesitated to invest during the poor business climate, despite the attraction of low interest rates on loans.

Oddly enough the article did not add George W. Bush to the list factors causing such lackluster second quarter growth.  You'd think a Times article would have included him, knowing that it would give a campaigning Obama support for his continued insistance that everything is all Bush's fault.

3:00 A.M. Call -- Must Have Rolled To Voice Mail

Remember when candidate Hillary Clinton raised the frightening prospect of the 3:00 A.M. phone call to rookie President Barack Obama in the White House?

Well, it was 3:00 A.M. with both Hillary and Barack on the job, and somehow or other they missed the call.  And now the administration is in full damage control mode.  This morming Betsy Newmark has a post explaining why the State Department is attacking CNN for reporting what was in Ambassador Christopher Stevens's journal.  CNN found it in the ruins of the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya nearly a week after the terror attack that took the ambassador's life.  State refuses to answer any questions.  So put this together. We had intelligence officers in the area because we knew it was such a dangerous area, but we allowed our diplomats to be in the region with below-standard security protections. No wonder the State Department is trying to shut down questions on the attack. ... This isn't a crime investigation. It's a major security failure that goes right back to the State Department. No wonder CNN has become the enemy for daring to publish information they got from the ambassador's diary. No wonder they tried to blame the video for a week. Anything to distract from the failures of Hillary Clinton's State Department. Ideologues at State and in the mainstream media are now working overtime to shield not only Barack Obama, but now Hillary Clinton as well.  Her tenure at State was supposed to give her the impeccable foreign policy credentials that would make her the prohibitive presidential favorite in 2016.  She won't be the favorite if Mitt Romney wins, which I believe he will. But the press apparently does not, so we have a cover up going on.  It would be one thing if we were looking at the type of scandal that the press of another day would have swept under the rug.  In the old days the press would ignore a scandal if it was unrelated to the functioning of government.  FDR and JFK both carried on affairs that the press chose to disregard because they judged them to be nothing about policy.  The murder of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and his staff is a scandal of a different nature.  This was a failure of individuals in their execution of policy and, arguably, a failure of the policy itself.  It was a catastrophic security failure and a catastrophic intelligenct loss.  Among the more than two dozen American personnel evacuated from the city after the assault on the American mission and a nearby annex were about a dozen C.I.A. operatives and contractors, who played a crucial role in conducting surveillance and collecting information on an array of armed militant groups in and around the city. “It’s a catastrophic intelligence loss,” said one American official who has served in Libya and who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the F.B.I. is still investigating the attack. “We got our eyes poked out.” If there were all these intelligence gathering assets on the ground before the terrorists attacked, why didn't the administration know that it needed to provide security for the ambassador?  Were the White House and State caught by surprise?  Were they not paying attention?  Ambassador Stevens knew he was in danger.  He even wrote in his journal that he was in danger.  Is there any reason to suspect that he didn't communicate his fears up the chain of command?  It's hard to imagine.  Maybe the White House and State simply ignored warnings.  I can certainly imagine Obama in denial over the prospect of anti-american rioting.  That sort of thing wasn't supposed to happen after the inauguration of Barack Obama.  Muslims were going to see America in a new light.  This is a monumental scandal.  One that other administations might not survive.  What happened to the ambassador's 3:00 A.M. phone call for help?  Will our watch dog media bother trying to find out?  They should.  This is a huge failure. Update:  "Sources say intelligence agencies knew within a day that al Qaeda affiliates were behind the attacks in Benghazi, Libya—they even knew where one of the attackers lived. Eli Lake reports." Another U.S. intelligence official said, “There was very good information on this in the first 24 hours. These guys have a return address. There are camps of people and a wide variety of things we could do.”  A spokesman for the National Security Council declined to comment for the story. But another U.S. intelligence official said, “I can’t get into specific numbers but soon after the attack we had a pretty good bead on some individuals involved in the attack.”  It’s unclear whether any of these suspected attackers have been targeted or arrested, and intelligence experts caution that these are still early days in a complex investigation. The question of what the White House knew, and when they knew it, will be of keen interest to members of Congress in the election year. Last Thursday, the Obama administration formally briefed House and Senate members on the attack. Those briefings however failed to satisfy many members, particularly Republicans. “That is the most useless, worthless briefing I have attended in a long time,” Sen. Bob Corker, a Tennessee Republican, was quoted as saying.   Isn't it funny (odd, not hilarious) that the New York Times celebrated the anniversary of 9/11 this year with an article by Kurt Eichenwald that accused George W. Bush of ignoring warnings before the 9/11 attacks in 2001. While those documents are still not public, I have read excerpts from many of them, along with other recently declassified records, and come to an inescapable conclusion: the administration’s reaction to what Mr. Bush was told in the weeks before that infamous briefing reflected significantly more negligence than has been disclosed. So George Bush, who attended every one of his daily intelligence briefings by the way, should have prevented the attacks when nobody knew where and when al Qaeda would strike.  Can we expect Mr Eichenwald to put his investigative skills to good use and find out why Barack Obama, who attended maybe half of his daily intelligence briefings by the way, didn't prevent the attack in Benghazi when his ambassador there knew he was in danger?  Let's just say I won't hold my breath.

Elizabeth Warren, Fighting For The Little Guy?

The Boston Herald has more good stuff on Elizabeth Warren.

Democrat Elizabeth Warren, who has made fighting for workers a focus of her Senate campaign, was a hired legal gun for a steel conglomerate trying to dodge paying health and pension benefits to thousands of retired coal miners, records show.

Warren represented LTV Steel in 1995, when she was a Harvard Law professor, aiding the bankrupt company’s bid to overturn a court ruling forcing it to pay its former employees and dependents $140 million in retirement benefits.

Warren was one of two LTV lawyers who wrote a petition to the U.S. Supreme Court challenging the appellate court decision siding with the coal miners, documents obtained by the Herald show. The high court never took up the case.

...

Warren’s work for LTV did not keep her from slamming the company 11 years later. In a 2006 PBS interview, she upbraided LTV for treating employees “like paper towels. You use them and you throw them away.”

Warren did not mention in the interview she was a paid lawyer for LTV.

What a piece of work.  I'm speaking of Elizabeth Warren, herself.  But her work as a lawyer is also quite "a piece of work," since it may have been illegal work.  Warren was never admitted to the Bar of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.  Bill Jacobson of Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion explains:

I confirmed with the Massachusetts Board of Bar Overseers by telephone that Warren never has been admitted to practice in Massachusetts.  I had two conversations with the person responsible for verifying attorney status.  In the first conversation the person indicated she did not see any entry for Warren in the computer database, but she wanted to double check.  I spoke with her again several hours later, and she indicated she had checked their files and also had spoken with another person in the office, and there was no record of Warren ever having been admitted to practice in Massachusetts.

Warren’s own listing of her Bar admissions is consistent with not being licensed in Massachusetts.  In a June 25, 2008 CV  Warren listed only Texas and New Jersey.

Warren's legal representation of LTV occurred "when she was a Harvard Law professor" according to the Boston Herald.  That would put her in Massachusetts, practicing law, and without a license.

Obama's 4-Point Plan

Based on the sound bytes coming from his campaign, Barack Obama has a 4-point economic plan that he hopes to implement upon re-election.

1. 2013 -- $1 trillion-plus in deficit spending
2. 2014 -- $1 trillion-plus in deficit spending
3. 2015 -- $1 trillion-plus in deficit spending
4. 2016 -- $1 trillion-plus in deficit spending

I've heard nothing to suggest any other course of action, campaign ads notwithstanding.  You know which one.  The one where he says we need to ask "the wealthy to pay a little more so we can pay down our debt in a balanced way."

"Pay down the debt in a balanced way?"  Who is he kidding?  Clever sound byte, but there's no plan to pay down anything.  Just plans to spend. 

No, I Can't!

Right.  He can't.

The campaign ad that writes itself. Via Moe Lane.