Democrats Should Go Into Shock.

I'd be shocked if Republicans don't take at least 50 seats next November. I expect this year will match or even exceed the victory totals from 2014, when the G.O.P. picked up 63 seats in the House.

Here's Thomas Edsall, at the New York Times, "Democrats Shouldn’t Panic. They Should Go Into Shock":

The rise of inflation, supply chain shortages, a surge in illegal border crossings, the persistence of Covid, mayhem in Afghanistan and the uproar over “critical race theory” — all of these developments, individually and collectively, have taken their toll on President Biden and Democratic candidates, so much so that Democrats are now the underdogs going into 2022 and possibly 2024.

Gary Langer, director of polling at ABC News, put it this way in an essay published on the network’s website:

As things stand, if the midterm elections were today, 51 percent of registered voters say they’d support the Republican candidate in their congressional district, 41 percent say the Democrat. That’s the biggest lead for Republicans in the 110 ABC/Post polls that have asked this question since November 1981.

These and other trends have provoked a deepening pessimism about Democratic prospects in 2022 and anxiety about the 2024 presidential election.

Robert Y. Shapiro, a political scientist at Columbia, holds similar views, but suggests that the flood tide of political trouble may be beyond Democratic control:

Biden and the Democrats have had almost all bad news: the pandemic is still going; the economy has not picked up in terms of perceptions of the expected increases in employment and economic growth not on fire; perceptions of what happened in Afghanistan; what has happened on the southern border; high crime rates, all amplified in news reports. It is all perception, and the latest is the increase in inflation and gas prices that people see/feel. The critical race theory controversy and perceptions of Democrats being too woke and extreme. The bad news is overwhelming.

Bill McInturff, a founding partner of Public Opinion Strategies, provided me with data from the October WSJ/NBC poll asking voters which party can better manage a wide range of issues. On three key issues — controlling inflation (45R-21D), dealing with crime (43R-21D) and dealing with the economy (45R-27D) — the Republican advantage was the highest in surveys dating back to the 1990s.

“Washington Democrats are spending months fighting over legislation,” McInturff wrote by email,

but, during this time, voters tell us prices are soaring, the cost of living is tied for the top issue in the country, and there is a sharp increase in economic pessimism. It is these economic factors that are driving negative impressions about the direction of the country to unusually high levels, and this is hurting Democrats everywhere. No administration is going to thrive in that economic environment.

In his analysis of the Nov. 6-10 Washington Post/ABC News Poll, Langer made the case that

While a year is a lifetime in politics, the Democratic Party’s difficulties are deep; they include soaring economic discontent, a president who’s fallen 12 percentage points underwater in job approval and a broad sense that the party is out of touch with the concerns of most Americans — 62 percent say so.

The numbers are even worse for Democrats in the eight states expected to have the closest Senate elections, according to Langer — Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Not only is Biden’s overall job approval rating in those states 33 percent, 10 points lower than it is in the rest of the country, but registered voters in those eight states say they are more likely to vote for Republican House candidates than for Democrats by 23 points (at 58 percent to 35 percent).

On Nov. 3, Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball updated the ratings for three incumbent Democratic senators — Mark Kelly of Arizona, Raphael Warnock of Georgia and Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada — from “lean Democratic” to “tossup.”

An examination of Gallup survey results on the question “As of today, do you lean more to the Democratic Party or the Republican Party?” reflects the damage suffered by the Democrats. From January through August, Democrats held a substantial 7.9 point advantage (48.2 percent to 41.3 percent). In September, however, Gallup reported a 2-point (47-45) Republican edge that grew to a 5-point (47-42) edge by October.

In terms of election outcomes, Republican are once again capitalizing on their domination of the congressional redistricting process to disenfranchise Democratic voters despite strong public support for reforms designed to eliminate or constrain partisan gerrymandering. On Monday, The Times reported that the Republican Party “has added enough safe House districts to capture control of the chamber based on its redistricting edge alone.” The current partisan split in the House is 221 Democratic seats and 213 Republican seats, with one vacancy.

There is perhaps one potential political opportunity for Democrats — should the Supreme Court overturn or undermine Roe v. Wade, mobilizing supporters of reproductive rights across the country.

In the meantime, uneasiness prevails. Stephen Ansolabehere, a professor of government at Harvard, noted in an email that

Biden had two drops in approval ratings, one from June to August of about 6 points, and another from September to October of another 6 points. The first was a response to Afghanistan. The second was a response to Covid and weak employment growth over the summer.

Passing the infrastructure bill should help “with the sense that the administration wasn’t doing enough for the economy,” Ansolabehere continued, but “the hit from Afghanistan is going to be harder to reverse, as it was a judgment about the administration’s handling of foreign affairs.”

Micah English, a graduate student in political science at Yale who studies race, class and gender dynamics, argued in an email that Democratic leaders have, at least until now, mismanaged the task of effectively communicating their agenda and goals.

“The Democratic Party has a messaging problem that they don’t seem to have any plans to rectify,” she wrote:

The Republicans message right now is essentially “Democrats and Biden are only concerned about teaching your children critical race theory instead of focusing on the economy!” The Democrats have no unified countermessage, and until they do, they are likely to continue to suffer major losses in the midterms and beyond.

This failure, English continued, has resulted in an inability to capitalize on what should have been good news:

The Democrats have proposed legislation that contains incredibly popular policies, but if they continue to fail to communicate the benefits of this legislation to the wider public, it won’t do them any good in the midterms. Additionally, as the 2020 election demonstrated, the Democrats cannot continue to rely on the prospect of changing demographics to deliver them electoral victories.

One theme that appeared repeatedly in the comments I received in response to my questions is that even as Biden has succeeded in winning passage of the $1.2 trillion bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, he has struggled to maintain an aura of mastery.

Brian Schaffner, a political scientist at Tufts, argued in an email that

what a lot of swing voters expected from Biden was competent leadership during a time of crisis. And many perhaps expected that a return to normal leadership would immediately solve the unprecedented problems facing the country. Of course, that was never a realistic expectation.

The crucial factors underlying Biden’s declining favorability rating, Schaffner continued, are “several things calling into question Biden’s effectiveness — the Afghanistan withdrawal, the continued impact of Covid, the struggling economy and the difficult time Democrats have had in passing their major legislative initiatives.”

I asked a range of political scientists for their projections on how the 2022 elections for control of the House are likely to turn out. Their views were preponderantly negative for Democratic prospects.

Matt Grossmann of Michigan State wrote: “Based on simple midterm loss averages, the Democrats are expected to lose 4 points of vote share and be down to ~45 percent of seats on ~48 percent of votes in 2022.” Those numbers translate into roughly a 24-seat loss, reducing Democrats to 197 seats. “There is not much under Democrats’ control that is likely to make a big difference in the extent of their losses,” Grossmann added. “They can try to avoid retirements and primary challenges in swing districts and avoid salient unpopular policies.”

Robert M. Stein of Rice University is even less optimistic:

In South Texas, Florida and parts of Arizona immigration policy is hurting Democrats with traditional-base voters. This is especially true with Hispanics in Texas border counties, where Trump did well in 2020 and Abbott (incumbent Republican governor) is making significant gains by appealing to the concerns of Hispanics over jobs and immigration.

Stein adds:

My guess is that Republicans are poised to take the House back in 2022 with gains above the average for midterm elections. Since 1946, the average seat gain for the party not in the White House is 27 seats. The best the Democrats can do is hold at the average, but given the Republican’s advantage with redistricting, my guess is that the Republicans gain 40+ seats.

Martin Wattenberg of the University of California-Irvine wrote that “it would take a major event like 9/11 to keep the Democrats from losing the House.” He was more cautious about control of the Senate, which “really depends on the quality of the candidates. Republicans have had the misfortune of nominating candidates like Christine (“I am not a witch”) O’Donnell who have lost eminently winnable races due to their own foibles. It remains to be seen if they will nominate such candidates in 2022.”

Wattenberg cited data from the General Social Survey showing a sharp rise in the percentage of Democrats describing themselves as liberal or slightly liberal, up from 47 percent in 2016 to 62 percent this year: “The left-wing movement of the Democrats is probably going to hurt with the 2022 electorate that will likely be skewed toward older, more conservative voters.”

Still more.

Supreme Court Blocks Obama's DAPA Illegal Alien Amnesty Program

This is major.

At WaPo, "Supreme Court won’t revive Obama plan to shield illegal immigrants from deportation":

The Supreme Court handed President Obama a significant legal defeat on Thursday, refusing to revive his stalled plan to shield millions of undocumented immigrants from deportation and give them the right to work legally in this country.

The court’s liberals and conservatives deadlocked, which leaves in place a lower court’s decision that the president exceeded his powers in issuing the directive.

This is a developing story. It will be updated.

And at LAT, "Supreme Court deadlock deals defeat to Obama immigration plan":

The Supreme Court deadlocked Thursday over the legality of President Obama’s sweeping immigration plan, dealing a defeat to the White House.

The tie vote leaves in place lower court orders from Texas that have blocked Obama’s plan to suspend deportation and offer work permits to about 4 million parents who have been living illegally in the U.S.

It's a tie. Sends it back to the lower court and let's that decision stand.

Great news, heh.

California Citizenship

As the national political system responds to the GOP presidential race and controversies over birthright citizenship, Democrats in California continue to push the envelope on the Mexifornication of the state.

And this is why a lot of folks are bailing out. I connected with a woman from the 2010 tea parties on Facebook, and she moved to Utah. There's a classic old political book called "Exit, Voice, or Loyalty," and exit seems to be the increasingly popular option for those looking to preserve their liberties and maintain their moral selves. California's gone to the dogs.

At the Los Angeles Times, "California gives immigrants here illegally unprecedented rights, benefits, protections":

It started with in-state tuition. Then came driver's licenses, new rules designed to limit deportations and state-funded healthcare for children. And on Monday, in a gesture heavy with symbolism, came a new law to erase the word "alien" from California's labor code.

Together, these piecemeal measures have taken on a significance greater than their individual parts — a fundamental shift in the relationship between California and its residents who live in the country illegally. The various benefits, rights and protections add up to something experts liken to a kind of California citizenship.

The changes have occurred with relatively little political rancor, which is all the more remarkable given the heated national debate about illegal immigration that has been inflamed by GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump.

"We've passed the Rubicon here," said Mike Madrid, a Republican strategist. "This is not an academic debate on the U.S. Senate floor about legal and illegal and how high you want to build the wall.... [The state] doesn't have the luxury of being ideological.... The undocumented are not going anywhere."

Democratic lawmakers and immigration activists, with diminishing opposition from the GOP, continue to seek new laws and protections. These measures include cracking down on employers withholding pay from low-wage workers and expanding state-subsidized healthcare to adult immigrants without papers.

These new initiatives face obstacles, but backers say such hurdles center on the hefty price tags of the programs, not political fallout from the immigration debate.

California officials have been spurred into action in part by the lack of action in Washington to overhaul the nation's immigration system. The stall in Congress has motivated advocates to push for changes in state laws. But they acknowledge that their victories are limited without national reform.

"The reality is, despite the bills that we've done, there are up to 3 million undocumented immigrants that still live in the shadows," said Assemblyman Luis Alejo (D-Watsonville), chairman of the Latino Legislative Caucus. "Their legal status as immigrants does not change — only Congress can do that."

Karthick Ramakrishnan, a public policy professor at UC Riverside, calls what's emerging "the California package": an array of policies that touch on nearly every aspect of immigrant life, from healthcare to higher education to protection from federal immigration enforcement.

Other states have adopted components of the package; Connecticut, for example, offers in-state tuition and driver's licenses, and passed legislation known as the Trust Act to help limit deportations before California did.

But Ramakrishnan said California is unique in how comprehensive its offerings are...

How unique ... and how morally bankrupt.

Still more.

Leftists Push for Release of Woman and Children from Illegal Alien Detention Centers

So far officials are resisting the depraved leftists, but it won't be long.

Our "sovereign" borders are meaningless nowadays.

At the Los Angeles Times, "Pressure builds to release mothers and children from immigrant detention centers":

Federal officials face increasing pressure to stop detaining immigrant families and release more than 1,300 mothers and children.

At least 600 families — many of whom fled violence in Central America — were being held at three federal detention centers, officials said recently.

As of April, half had stayed there less than a month and 70% for less than two months, according to a law enforcement official who asked not to be identified because the official was unauthorized to speak publicly.

More than 4,500 individuals were in family detention centers from July through April, the official said, with 67% of them released and 664 removed from the country.

The Unitarian Universalist Service Committee became the latest group to call on the government to end family detention. The group's leaders posted a petition on their website Friday demanding that the director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement release the children and mothers, including a woman who had attempted suicide and others who were pregnant.

"Neither ICE nor the private owners of its family detention centers are capable of providing the levels of care for vulnerable people like pregnant mothers that are even marginally acceptable by any humane, legal, moral or American standard," said Rachel Gore Freed, a program leader with the group who has visited the Karnes City, Texas, detention center.

Officials said a woman at the Karnes City detention center was under observation after suffering a wrist abrasion, but they denied there had been miscarriages or attempted suicides.

Gillian Christensen, an ICE spokeswoman, said the agency "takes very seriously the health, safety and welfare of those in our care."

The agency "is committed to ensuring that all individuals housed in our family residential centers receive timely and appropriate medical screenings and treatment," including "pregnancy screenings at arrival, onsite prenatal care and education, and remote access to specialists for pregnant women who remain in custody," she said.

Some pregnant women have been released, but decisions are made on a case-by-case basis, she said.

Last month, 136 Democratic members of Congress called on Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson to stop confining families. "We cannot continue to hear reports of serious harm to children in custody and do nothing about it," they said. "Detaining mothers and children in jail-like settings is not the answer."

An 18-year-old court settlement is complicating the situation. Flores vs. Meese required the U.S. to release migrant children or house them in the "least restrictive environment."

Immigrant rights advocates have sued, contending that family detention violated the Flores settlement...

More.

The Unitarian Universalists are communists working to destroy the United States. What better way than to organize the invasion of aliens from Latin America, people who don't speak English, who don't share American values, and who will flood the social welfare agencies in a Cloward–Piven attack on the system? And these aliens will vote Democrat eventually, further propelling the Marxist-Leninist evisceration of this once great nation.

Man, we're doomed.

Hillary Clinton Seen Launching White House Bid in April

Well, the only surprise here is the timing. I mean, does anyone think Hillary wasn't mounting a run for the 2016 Democrat Party nomination?

At WSJ, "Hillary Clinton Seen Launching Presidential Bid in April":

Hillary Clinton and her close advisers are telling Democratic donors she will enter the presidential race sooner than expected, likely in April, a move that would allay uncertainties within her party and allow her to rev up fundraising.

Clinton aides have spoken of the earlier timetable in private meetings, according to people engaged in recent discussions about the presumed Democratic front-runner’s emerging 2016 campaign. Many within her camp have advocated her staying out of the fray until the summer.

Jumping in sooner would help the Democratic field take shape, reassuring party leaders and donors that the former first lady, senator and secretary of state is running. A super PAC loyal to Mrs. Clinton has faced hesitation from donors who don’t want to make big pledges until she is a candidate. Such concerns would evaporate after she announces.

But Mrs. Clinton would become an even larger target for Republicans when she enters the race. She also would be pressed to opine on a raft of thorny issues in the news, including how to combat the military advances of Islamic State militants in the Middle East.

One influential proponent of an earlier announcement is John Podesta, who is expected to play an important role in Mrs. Clinton’s presidential campaign, one person familiar with the matter said. Mr. Podesta, who in January resigned as senior adviser in the Obama White House, declined to comment, as did a spokesman for Mrs. Clinton.

Many Democratic activists say they would like to see the race begin in earnest—something that won’t happen until Mrs. Clinton jumps in.

Mrs. Clinton “should get in right now. If she’s going to run, get a campaign going,” said Jason Frerichs, a county Democratic chairman in Iowa, the state that holds the first contest of the 2016 campaign.

Mrs. Clinton, according to some close associates, doesn’t relish the campaign trail and is in no particular hurry to announce, especially given the scant competition for her party’s nomination. Most polls show Mrs. Clinton running far ahead of her nearest potential challenger, Vice President Joe Biden .

“She’s obviously biding her time before she gets out there,” said Delaware Gov. Jack Markell, a Democrat.

Mrs. Clinton, 67 years old, made known her feelings about grueling campaigns in a private meeting last month with London Mayor Boris Johnson. Mr. Johnson later said she had bemoaned the lengthy U.S. presidential campaigns.

During her 2008 bid, she teared up at a campaign event in New Hampshire when describing the rigors of campaign life: lack of sleep, an overreliance on pizza and limited ability to exercise.

“If I were taking this on, seeing what candidates went through last time around, I’d sure want to put it off as long as I could,” said Doug Goldman, a major fundraiser for President Barack Obama who lives in San Francisco. At this point in the 2008 cycle, Mrs. Clinton already was a candidate.

Mrs. Clinton’s team has considered first forming an exploratory committee, a common in-between step candidates use to signal they are running while avoiding the formal launch of a campaign. But her camp now appears likely to scrap that idea.

A later entrance into the race comes with certain perils. She hopes to raise more than $1 billion for the campaign, people familiar with her plans said, and some Democratic donors are concerned that if she waits until the summer, she would be hard-pressed to meet that goal...

More.

PREVIOUSLY: "Can a Democratic Win the Presidency After Two Terms of Obama?", and "Hillary Clinton Faces Uphill Fight for White, Rural Vote."

Republican Party Faces Its Palin Problem

Palin's Iowa speech on Saturday was disjointed, to say the least. It made me confident that she'll never run for president, and will in fact hang out on the sidelines, firing up the crowd for the home team. I'm good with that. 2016 is shaping up to be an interesting year for the GOP. Scott Walker was very strong, for example. Confident. It's going to be interesting.

In any case, here's Byron York on the "Palin Problem":

DES MOINES — As a chance to evaluate possible 2016 Republican presidential candidates, the Freedom Summit here in Des Moines was a solid success. Several potential candidates — Scott Walker, Ted Cruz, Chris Christie, and a few others — left the 10-hour political marathon with their prospects undeniably enhanced.

All that was good news for Republicans. But at the same time, more than a few GOP loyalists came away shaking their heads at the performance of a party star, former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, whose long, rambling, and at times barely coherent speech left some wondering what role she should play in Republican politics as the 2016 race begins in earnest.

Palin made news when she arrived in Iowa saying she is seriously considering a run for president. In an interview with ABC the day before coming to Iowa, Palin answered "of course" when asked if she is interested in running in 2016. Then, when she arrived at a Des Moines hotel late Friday evening, she told the Washington Post, "Who wouldn't be interested?" Asked to clarify, Palin told the paper, "You can absolutely say that I am seriously interested."

The news, given big play on the Drudge Report, heightened the anticipation of Palin's speech to the Freedom Summit. After all, there were still memories in the crowd of her rousing speech at the 2008 Republican convention. But when Palin took the stage, it was clear this would be no inspiring effort.

First, Palin embarked on an extended stream-of-consciousness complaint about media coverage of her decision to run in a half-marathon race in Storm Lake, Iowa in 2011. She then moved on to grumbling about coverage of a recent photo of her with a supporter who had made a sign saying "Fuc_ you Michael Moore" in reaction to the left-wing moviemaker's criticism of the film "American Sniper." Then it was on to Palin's objections about the social media ruckus over a picture of her six-year-old son Trig standing on the family's Labrador Retriever.

It was all quite petty, and yet the complaining took half of Palin's allotted time. She then proceeded to blow through her time limit with a free-association ramble on Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, the energy industry, her daughter Bristol, Margaret Thatcher, middle-class economics — "the man can only ride ya when your back is bent" — women in politics, and much more. It would be hard to say that Palin's 35-minute talk had a theme, but she did hint that she is interested in running, although there are no indications she has taken any actual steps in that direction.

"Long and disjointed," said one social conservative activist when asked for reaction. "A weird speech," said another conservative activist. "Terrible. Didn't make any sense."

"There was a certain coarseness to her that wasn't there before," said yet another social conservative who noted that some in the crowd were uncomfortable with Palin declarations like, "Screw the left in Hollywood!" (It's not that they like the left in Hollywood — just the opposite — but the crudeness of Palin's expressions turned them off.)

"I know she is popular, but it is hard to take her seriously given that performance," said Sam Clovis, the conservative Iowa college professor, radio commentator, and sometime political candidate. "Palin was a sad story Saturday. With every speech she gives, she gets worse and worse. If one were playing a political cliche drinking game, no one would have been sober after the first 15 minutes of an interminable ramble. It was really painful."

"I think she has a role in the conservative movement and in the party," Clovis continued, "but she needs to get serious about what it is she can contribute and accomplish."...

Sarah Palin at Iowa Freedom Summit: 'Screw the Hollywood Left'

At the Hill, "Palin: 'Screw the Hollywood left'."

Watch, at C-SPAN: "Iowa Freedom Summit, Sarah Palin."

Governor Scott Walker at Iowa Freedom Summit (VIDEO)

The dude with perhaps the greatest contemporary record of destroying despicable progressives.

Watch at C-SPAN, "Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (R) at the Iowa Freedom Summit."

At the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinal, "'Go big and go bold' Scott Walker tells Iowa GOP summit":

Des Moines, Iowa — A day after rejecting a proposed Kenosha casino and two days after making his toughest comments yet on fighting terrorism, Gov. Scott Walker told Iowa Republicans the country needs leaders who are willing to break out fresh ideas.

"We weren't afraid to go big and go bold," Walker told some 1,200 people at the Iowa Freedom Summit.

"Maybe that's why I won the race for governor three times in the last four years. Three times, mind you, in a state that hasn't gone Republican for president since I was in high school more than 30 years ago... If you're not afraid to go big and go bold, you can actually get results. You can applaud for that. And if you get the job done, the voters will actually stand up with you."

And applaud they did. Walker — one of several potential presidential candidates who spoke Saturday — received hearty responses as he talked about putting restrictions on abortion, approving a voter ID law, giving people the right to carry concealed weapons and tightly limiting collective bargaining for public workers.

"I'm going to come back many more times in the future," he said.

Shit just got real.

OK, now it gets real, here comes Scott Walker #freedomsummit

— James Pethokoukis (@JimPethokoukis) January 24, 2015

White-Out: Where #Democrats Lost the House

From Ron Brownstein, at National Journal, "In 2009, 76 Democrats represented primarily white working-class congressional districts. Just 15 of them are still in the House today":

Beautiful RT @BlakeSeitz: Zero to 100, real quick. pic.twitter.com/tgetbB22LR

— Kemberlee Kaye (@KemberleeKaye) November 5, 2014

Republicans have surged to their largest majority in the House of Representatives since before the Great Depression by blunting the Democratic advantage in districts being reshaped by growing racial diversity and consolidating a decisive hold over the seats that are not.

Compared with 2009 and 2010, when Democrats last controlled the House, the Republican majority that takes office this week has essentially held its ground in districts where minorities exceed their share of the national population, a Next America analysis has found. Aided by their control of redistricting after the 2010 census, Republicans over the past three elections have simultaneously established an overwhelming 3-1 advantage in districts where whites exceed their national presence, the analysis shows. Those white-leaning districts split between the parties almost equally during the 111th Congress, in 2009-10.

A majority of the GOP gains since then have come from the Democrats' near-total collapse in one set of districts: the largely blue-collar places in which the white share of the population exceeds the national average, and the portion of whites with at least a four-year college degree is less that the national average. While Republicans held a 20-seat lead in the districts that fit that description in the 111th Congress, the party has swelled that advantage to a crushing 125 seats today. That 105-seat expansion of the GOP margin in these districts by itself accounts for about three-quarters of the 136-seat swing from the Democrats' 77-seat majority in 2009 to the 59-seat majority Republicans enjoy in the Congress convening now.

The GOP dominance in these predominantly white working-class districts underscores the structural challenge facing Democrats: While the party has repeatedly captured the White House despite big deficits among the working-class white voters who once anchored its electoral coalition, these results show how difficult it will be to recapture the House without improving on that performance. "The question is: Are we at rock bottom here?" says Tom Bonier, CEO of the Democratic voter targeting firm TargetSmart Communications.

These trends present Republicans with a mirror-image challenge. The vast majority of their House members can thrive without devising an agenda on issues—such as immigration reform—that attract the minority voters whose growing numbers nationally have helped Democrats win the popular vote in five of the past six presidential elections. "When you can go out screaming 'amnesty' and not get any pushback in your districts, you are more prone to scream 'amnesty,' " says veteran GOP pollster Whit Ayres. "It leads to an attitude of: 'problem, what problem?'"...

Keep reading.

The way things are going it could be a decade before the Democrats are competitive in congressional elections --- that is, they're not likely to retake the majority in the House for quite some time. Thus, even if the GOP can't retain their Senate majority, Republicans will still have a legislative check on the White House should the Democrat Party continue its dominance in presidential elections. And keep in mind, the Democrats are the party of old white people (as seen in their top-tier candidates for the 2016 nomination). If Republicans remain disciplined, and select an excellent candidate for the GOP nomination, look out.

It's going to be fascinating.

Central American Migrants Allowed to Stay in U.S. Go Missing, Fail to Show Up at Deportation Hearings

Well, here's an "I told you so" follow-up from last summer's blogging on the Central American illegal immigration onslaught, when I predicted that alien migrants wouldn't be sent back home. See, "Few Central American Illegals Will Ever Be Sent Back Home — #BorderInvasion," and "Wave of Unaccompanied Alien Children Swamps the United States — #BorderInvasion."

And now, via Blazing Cat Fur, "U.S. shocker: Illegal Immigrant Families With Deportation Orders Go Missing."

Can a Democratic Win the Presidency After Two Terms of Obama?

Just seeing this posed in the MSM is not good for the Democrats. Not good at all.

From Mark Barabak, at LAT, "Big obstacles await both parties in 2016 race for president":

Twelve months before the voting is set to begin, the 2016 presidential race is shaping up as a fiercely competitive contest driven by two overriding forces that — candidates aside — will go a long way toward deciding the next occupant of the White House.

Whoever Democrats nominate — Hillary Rodham Clinton being the heavy favorite — will face the inherently difficult task of winning the presidency for the party for the third time in a row. That has happened only once since Harry Truman was elected more than half a century ago: in 1988 when Republican George H.W. Bush succeeded President Reagan.

"People always choose, even if you have a popular president, the remedy [to] and not the replica of what they have," said David Axelrod, a Democratic strategist who twice helped Barack Obama win the White House.

At the same time, Republicans face another wide-open contest for their nomination — and, with it, a gravitational pull from the right flank of the party. That wing of the GOP is far more conservative than the country as a whole, potentially making the winner less appealing to a broader November electorate.

"The stark reality that Republicans face is that the nation is younger and it's more diverse ethnically," said Dick Wadhams, a Republican strategist in Colorado, a state expected to be among the hardest-fought in 2016. "We've got to have a Republican who can speak to that reality."

With each side facing hurdles, the bottom line is a presidential contest that could be the most competitive since at least 2000, when the U.S. Supreme Court stepped in after weeks of legal jousting to break an effective tie and put Bush's son George W. in the White House...

Yeah, yeah.

Candidate quality goes without saying. In 2014, Republicans ran far superior candidates, confident "happy warriors," compared to the glum, morose and fearful Democrats who couldn't run away from Obama fast enough.

But keep reading.

PREVIOUSLY: "Hillary Clinton Faces Uphill Fight for White, Rural Vote."

Hillary Clinton Faces Uphill Fight for White, Rural Vote

Heh.

The MSM collectivists are simply obsessed with the GOP's alleged Hispanic problem, but as we saw in 2014, it's the Democrats who're facing the biggest demographic political hurdles. It's going to be extremely difficult for the Dems to win the White House in 2016, ironically so if Hillary Clinton wins the party's nomination. To put it matter-of-factly, she'll be an old white lady in a party coming off two terms of the left's so-called "rainbow" coalition of "the ascendant." It was Barack Obama who mobilized this coalition based on his diversity and radical Marxist pedigree. Clinton's got none of that, which is of course why leftists are jonesing for an Elizabeth Warren "populist" candidacy (more irony there, of course, with "Fauxcahontas").

In any case, see the Wall Street Journal, "Uphill Fight: Interviews in Arkansas Suggest Leeriness of State’s Former First Lady" (via Memeorandum):

DEVALLS BLUFF, Ark.—White, working-class voters in eastern Arkansas for years backed Democratic candidates, among them Bill Clinton and outgoing Gov. Mike Beebe, but have moved sharply toward Republicans in recent elections.

Now, as the 2016 election takes shape, some of Hillary Clinton ’s allies are trumpeting her potential as a presidential candidate to bring these voters back to the Democratic Party and to run competitively in a handful of states, including Arkansas, that have spurned President Barack Obama .

But even here, where Mrs. Clinton was the state’s first lady, many voters say they view her with the same leeriness they do Mr. Obama and other national Democrats. That points to a significant question should Mrs. Clinton run: whether enough such voters can separate her from the national party many have grown to dislike.

“I’m mad at the Democratic Party, and I don’t see Hillary changing that,” said Eddie Ciganek, a 61-year-old farmer who serves on Prairie County’s governing board and who has voted Democrat at times. “Her thinking isn’t going to be very far off from President Obama’s thinking, and I don’t think they’re moving the country in the right direction.”

Occasional Democratic voter Johnny Watkins, 64, wearing a light-blue work shirt after finishing his shift at the county landfill, said of Mrs. Clinton: “I don’t think she has any concerns about us.”

Working-class voters have long been a bedrock of Democratic support, and the party continues to do well with voters from lower-income households overall, according to exit polls.

But white, more rural voters in the South and elsewhere have been fleeing the party. Just five years ago, Arkansas Democrats held both Senate seats, three out of four House seats, the governor’s office and control of both chambers of the state legislature. The election in November of Republicans Tom Cotton to the U.S. Senate and Asa Hutchinson to the governor’s office will leave the Democratic Party without a single federal or statewide officeholder in Arkansas, a state that Bill Clinton carried twice by at least 17 percentage points.

Mrs. Clinton’s allies are confident she can attract white voters who have turned away from her party, particularly women. Democratic pollster Geoff Garin, who worked on her 2008 campaign, said she “demonstrated a significant ability to not only win votes from working-class white women but to connect with them on a personal level.”

After a rocky start in that campaign, Mrs. Clinton cast herself as a scrappy underdog and union ally while topping Mr. Obama in more than 20 states in Democratic primaries in places such as Pennsylvania and Ohio that have many white, working-class voters...

More.

PREVIOUSLY: "Why the Democrats Got Crushed — Totally Freakin' Crushed! — And Why They Have No 2016 Lock."

Californians Rising Up Against Obama's Lawless Open Borders Amnesty

Shoot, good thing.

Folks on the grassroots are standing up to Obama's lawlessness.

At LAT, "President Obama's executive action has served as a recruiting tool for groups opposing illegal immigration":

For years, Raul Rodriguez Jr. would let out an exasperated sigh, then move on, whenever he read or heard news about illegal immigration. But something clicked last summer when he saw reports of multitudes of Central Americans illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.

"I've got to do something," Rodriguez, 72, said he told himself. "I've got to get off the couch and need to get people involved."

Rodriguez crafted signs denouncing illegal immigration for various rallies, including one in Murrieta a few days after busloads of Central American detainees were turned back amid vocal protests.

After President Obama announced his immigration reform plan last month, the Apple Valley resident started contacting congressional leaders to express his displeasure.

California's anti-illegal immigration movement has lost a lot of steam in the 20 years since voters passed Proposition 187, the ballot measure intended to deny taxpayer-funded services to those in the country illegally.

Polls consistently show that Californians don't see illegal immigration as the same type of threat they did in the 1990s, and a September USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll showed 73% of voters support some type of path to citizenship for those here illegally.

But the last few months have shown that the anti-illegal immigration forces remain small but potent — and a movement that backers hope will get stronger with Obama's action.

Tactics this time are changing. Robin Hvidston, president of We the People Rising, a Claremont organization, said her group and other California activists have focused on targeting congressional leaders outside the state because they know there's little they can do here.

"They see their only hope being the national government," said Roy H. Beck, who heads NumbersUSA, a powerful national advocacy group opposing illegal immigration. "They don't see a solution coming from inside California."

Less Than 25 Percent of Americans Satisfied with Direction of the Country

Following up on the previous post, "The Obama Administration May Represent the 'Peak Left' in American Politics."

Despite all the bullshit MSM hoopla about how Obama's going all 2.0 and such, bedrock Americans --- i.e., real Americans, not the treasonous bastard leftists --- continue to say the country's going to hell.

At Gallup, "Satisfaction With Direction of U.S. Continues to Languish."

Even though Americans are more positive about the economy than they have been in recent years, it still ranks at or near the top of their list of the most important problems facing the country. In addition to the economy, dissatisfaction with the government has also consistently ranked among the most important problems facing the country in the last two years. As a result, Americans' frustration with Washington's ability to address the country's major issues could be holding satisfaction down, as it likely did in 2006 and 2007 when the economy relatively good. With Republicans taking control of the Senate and the House in January, the prospects for greater cooperation in Washington are not bright.

Right.

And the idiot Obama continues to push for policies everything of which are besides the economy. Fucking Democrat morons.

The Obama Administration May Represent the 'Peak Left' in American Politics

Or, to put it another way, the high tide of leftist "progressive" perversion, deceit and moral decay.

From Walter Russell Mead, at the American Interest, "Next Up in America: The Liberal Leftist Retreat":

As the United States staggers toward the seventh year of Barack Obama’s tenure in the White House, a growing disquiet permeates the ranks of the American left. After six years of the most liberal President since Jimmy Carter, the nation doesn’t seem to be asking for a second helping. Even though the multiyear rollout of Obamacare was carefully crafted to put all the popular features up front, delaying less popular changes into the far future, the program remains unpopular. Trust in the fairness and competence of government is pushing toward new lows in the polls, even though the government is now in the hands of forward-looking, progressive Democrats rather than antediluvian Gopers.

For liberals, these are bleak times of hollow victories (Obamacare) and tipping points that don’t tip. For examples of the latter, think of Sandy Hook, the horrific massacre in Connecticut that Democrats and liberals everywhere believed would finally push the American public toward gun control. Two years later, polls show more Americans than ever before think it’s more important to protect gun access than to promote gun control.

Sandy Hook isn’t the only example. There was the latest 2014 IPCC report on climate change that was going to end the debate once and for all. The chances for legislative action on climate change in the new Congress: zero or less. There was Ferguson and the Garner videotape showing the fatal chokehold, both of which set off a wave of protests but seem unlikely to change public attitudes about the police. There was the Senate Intelligence Committee “torture report” that was going to settle the issue of treatment of detainees. Again, the polls are rolling in suggesting that the public remains exactly where it was: supportive of “torture” under certain circumstances. And of course there was the blockbuster Rolling Stone article on campus rape at UVA, the story that, before it abruptly collapsed, was going to cement public support for the Obama administration’s aggressive attempt to federalize the treatment of sexual harassment on campuses around the country.

In all of these cases, liberals got what, from a liberal perspective, appeared to be conclusive evidence that long cherished liberal policy ideas were as correct as liberals have always thought they were. In all of these cases the establishment media conformed to the liberal narrative, inundating the airwaves and flooding the cyberverse with the liberal line. Some of the stories, like the UVA rape story, collapsed. Some, like the Ferguson story, became so complex and nuanced that some of their initial political salience diminished. But even when, as with Ferguson, other follow-up stories seem to reinforce the initial liberal take (the Garner case, for example), the public still doesn’t seem to accept the liberal line or draw the inferences that liberals want it to draw. It’s becoming hard to avoid the conclusion that many Americans will continue to disagree with many liberal policy prescriptions no matter what.

Shell-shocked liberals are beginning to grasp some inconvenient truths. No gun massacre is horrible enough to change Americans’ ideas about gun control. No UN Climate Report will get a climate treaty through the U.S. Senate. No combination of anecdotal and statistical evidence will persuade Americans to end their longtime practice of giving police officers extremely wide discretion in the use of force. No “name and shame” report, however graphic, from the Senate Intelligence Committee staff will change the minds of the consistent majority of Americans who tell pollsters that they believe that torture is justifiable under at least some circumstances. No feminist campaign will convince enough voters that the presumption of innocence should not apply to those accused of rape.

These are not the only issues in which, from a left Democratic point of view, the country is overrun with zombies and vampires: policy ideas that Democrats thought had been killed but still restlessly roam the earth. The finale of the George W. Bush presidency was, for many Democrats, conclusive evidence that conservative ideas just don’t work. The post 9/11 Bush foreign policy led to two long and unhappy wars. America had lost the trust of its allies without defeating its enemies. At home, the Bush tax cuts led to an exploding deficit, and the orgy of deregulation (admittedly, much of it dating from the Clinton years) led to the greatest financial crash since World War II and the most serious economic downturn since the Great Depression...

Still more, and be sure to click through for the links to polling data that show the public's repudiation of idiotic leftist policy positions down the line.

Meanwhile, little Scotty Lemieux, at Leftists, Losers and Perverts, mewls about how Obama's going to be the most "substantial" and "significant" president since LBJ and FDR. Heh, I know. The lulz. They hurt!

Democrats Divided on Their Path to 2016

From Karen Tumulty, at the Washington Post:

In the six weeks since their repudiation in the midterms, Democrats have seen the opening of fissures within their once-disciplined ranks, marking the start of an internal struggle between now and the 2016 election over the ideological identity and tactical direction of the party.

The tension — shown in high relief during the messy final days of the congressional session — is in some ways a mirror image of the stresses within the Republican Party, which has been divided between its tea party and establishment factions in recent years.

In the case of both parties, the argument pits the more populist, purist elements of the base against the more pragmatic center.

For Democrats, “it is a conflict that was looking for an occasion,” said William Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, who was a policy adviser to former President Bill Clinton. “The election provided the occasion.”

Having lost big in November, two wings within the party have been trading recriminations over which was more to blame while jostling for position to be the face of the Democrats going into 2016.

They are personified by former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton, the presumptive presidential front-runner by virtue of her stature and fame, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, the anti-Wall Street clarion favored by many on the left to challenge Clinton for the Democratic nomination.

If the loss of the Senate intensified strains within the party, the $1.1 trillion spending bill that passed Saturday night raised two issues that acted as matches to gasoline. One was a provision rolling back portions of the 2010 financial regulatory law known as the Dodd-Frank Act. The other loosened campaign donation limits, allowing the wealthy to give three times the current maximum to the national political parties. That means even more clout for rich donors and the interests they represent.

In both instances, the question was not whether Democrats supported the individual provisions — they generally do not. It was whether individual members considered them so egregious as to merit blowing up a wide-ranging deal to which Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.) had been a party and for which President Obama was personally lobbying.

“What we saw over the last couple of days is an example of a debate that is probably going to go on for a while in the party,” said Jim Manley, a Democratic strategist and former aide to Reid.

Proponents of the legislation argued that they had succeeded in preventing even more provisions weakening Dodd-Frank from being inserted in the bill. And at any rate, they said, the legislation was far better than anything Democrats could expect should they allow the debate to continue into next year, when Republicans will be in control of the House and Senate.

But Warren urged her colleagues to hold the line, particularly against the banks whose political influence she accused her own party of abetting.

“Enough is enough with Wall Street insiders getting key position after key position and the kind of cronyism we have seen in the executive branch,” she said in a fiery speech on the Senate floor. “Enough is enough with Citigroup passing eleventh-hour deregulatory provisions that nobody takes ownership over but that everybody comes to regret. Enough is enough.”

So strident was her opposition that it drew comparison with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), who had led the charge against the bill from the right based on opposition to Obama’s immigration policies.

Democratic leaders denied any symmetry.

Cross your fingers in the hopes that Fauxcahontas runs. She'll get a national vetting the likes of which was denied to the voters of Massachusetts. And of course, Hillary Clinton actually losing the Democrat nomination for a second time would be priceless. Heh.

Washington's Disfunction Is the New Normal

Hey, fine by me.

I'm looking for Republican control of the both the executive and the legislature in 2017. Then we can finally begin to reverse the collectivist damage suffered during the Obama interregnum.

From Dan Balz, at the Washington Post, "In Washington, political dysfunction and grim outlooks are the new normal":

The November elections brought significant changes to Washington and to many states. What they did not produce was any greater sense of optimism on the part of the public about the state of American politics. If anything, they produced the opposite.

A new report from the Pew Research Center lays out the evidence in clear and unrelenting detail. The survey of attitudes at the close of the year offers a reminder to political leaders, and especially prospective presidential candidates, that among their biggest challenges ahead will be finding ways to begin to restore faith and confidence in the political system.

Four in 5 Americans say the country is more politically divided than in the past. Although that is no worse than it was two years ago, it is far gloomier than it used to be. Scroll back to the early days of President Obama’s tenure in the White House, and the differences between then and now are particularly stark.

During George W. Bush’s second term as president, a period of rancor and division because of the Iraq war, almost 7 in 10 Americans said the country was more divided than it had been.

After Obama’s election in 2008, there was a brief thaw in attitudes. At that moment, as many people said the country was not more divided than in the past as said it was, hardly a consensus that the country was heading toward a period of greater unity, but at least a sign of optimism.

That disappeared quickly. Today, perceptions of political division are even more negative than during the worst days under Bush, and there is minimal confidence that things will change for the better anytime soon.

Just 1 in 5 surveyed by Pew say they think the country will be less divided in five years than it is today. More than a third say the country will be even more divided, and the rest say it will be no different.

Seven in 10 say the failure of Republicans and Democrats to work together over the next two years will hurt the country a lot; another 16 percent say it will hurt some. And more than 4 in 5 say it will hurt them personally...

More.

Elizabeth Warren's 'Festival of Hypocrisy'

Here's Charles Krauthammer on Senator Warren's grandstanding for the 2016 presidential primaries.

Democrats Lost the South via Culture War and Elitism

They're such stuck up, contemptuous assholes.

From Timothy Carney, at the Washington Examiner.

ObamaCare’s Casualty List

At WSJ, "Three elections later, the law continues to be a political catastrophe for Democrats":

Mary Landrieu ’s defeat in Saturday’s Louisiana Senate runoff was no surprise, but that doesn’t mean it should be ignored as inevitable. Ms. Landrieu was a widely liked three-term incumbent, and her GOP foe was hardly a juggernaut, yet she lost by 14 points after Washington Democrats all but wrote her off. Think of Ms. Landrieu as one more Democrat who has sacrificed her career to ObamaCare.

It’s hard to find another vote in modern history that has laid waste to so many political careers. Sixty Democrats cast the deciding 60th vote for the Affordable Care Act in 2009 and 2010, but come January only 30 will be left in the Senate. That’s an extraordinary political turnover in merely three elections, the largest in the post-Watergate era. As it happens, the law has been nearly as politically catastrophic for Democrats as Watergate was for Republicans.

Three of the ObamaCare 60 died in office, while 19 declined to run for re-election. Some of the retirees left for reasons such as becoming Secretary of State ( John Kerry ), but others left because their own re-election prospects were hardly stellar. Think Chris Dodd of Connecticut in 2010 or Virginia’s Jim Webb in 2012. At least Democrats succeeded them.

Yet no fewer than eight of the retirees handed their seats to Republicans: They include Ben Nelson, of Cornhusker Kickback fame, who deprived his state of the pleasure of returning him to private life in 2010. After five terms, Jay Rockefeller was increasingly out of step with West Virginia, not least on ObamaCare. Max Baucus (Montana), Tim Johnson (S.D.) and Byron Dorgan (N.D.) would have had rough rides had they tried to stick around.

When they got the chance, voters dumped eight ObamaCare incumbents who dared to seek re-election. In addition to Ms. Landrieu, four are moderate-in-name-only Democrats who went along with President Obama ’s lurch to the left: Mark Begich (Alaska), Kay Hagan (North Carolina), Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor (Arkansas).

But conventional liberals like Russ Feingold (Wisconsin) and Mark Udall (Colorado) also lost in states Mr. Obama carried twice. In Pennsylvania, Arlen Specter left the GOP to vote for ObamaCare after Republican Pat Toomey announced he’d run against him in a primary. Specter, since deceased, lost the Democratic primary to Joe Sestak, who lost to Mr. Toomey in two degrees of ObamaCare separation.

Mr. Obama told Democrats at a March 2010 pep rally that he knew they faced “a tough vote” but was “actually confident” that “it will end up being the smart thing to do politically because I believe that good policy is good politics.” That month, New York Senator Chuck Schumer claimed on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that “by November those who voted for health care will find it an asset, those who voted against it will find it a liability.”

Mr. Schumer has since recanted, calling ObamaCare a disaster for the party of government. Nancy Pelosi said his remarks were “beyond comprehension,” which for liberals like her happens to be true. Their goal is to expand the entitlement state whether the public likes it or not, figuring that sooner or later enmity will subside and new programs will acquire a constituency. So it has always been in the Entitlement Age—until ObamaCare...

More.

RELATED: At Politico, "The Dems' Final Insult: Landrieu Crushed."