It has been a month since my last post on the Senate races, and the likelihood of a GOP senate takeover has become nearly certain. In my prior post I noted the GOP had three races in the bag (SD, MT, WV) and three races were on the cusp of being GOP wins: LA, AK, AR.

My argument then is the same I have now: all three Democrat incumbents are polling at sure-to-lose levels.  The rule of thumb I was referencing was recently discussed by Sean Trende who did some actual data mining:

For quite some time, analysis of incumbent races was guided by the so-called “incumbent rule.” This rule, which grew out of a thorough analysis by Nick Panagakis in 1989, postulated that late undecideds tended to break for the challenger, and that an incumbent who fell below 50% was vulnerable and could potentially lose.

The rule has fallen out of favor, in part because subsequent research has eroded its credibility and in part because people interpreted the rule too literally, with analysts hyperventilating every time an incumbent fell to 48-49% in the polls.

To be clear, my bar was never 50% (or even 48%). Most polls have a Margin of Error (MoE) of 3% so it would be silly to apply this too precisely. My bar was 45% or below.  And Mr. Trende has confirmed this:

There seems to be a cut-point at 46-47%, where an incumbent at that level really does find himself or herself in a Toss-Up race. Below that point, incumbents are in deep trouble.

I know pollsters are waiting for the challengers to build a big lead or top 50% before tipping a race one way or the other, but incumbents are well known and are not going to see a huge rise in support this close to an election. So I think this hesitancy is unwarranted.

Here are the RCP averages for the incumbents in these three races in September and now in Oct:

• Alaska [Begich]: September 24th = 41.7%; October 17th = 42.6%
• Arkansas [Pryor]: September 24th = 41.8%; October 17th = 41.6%
• Louisiana [Landrieu]: September 24th = 41%; October 17th = 44%

All are below 45%, two are well below.

It is extremely unlikely these incumbents will survive – ss Sean Trende also notes in his piece – due to the fact this close to the election if you are polling 4-5% below the challenger, it is also extremely rare to come from behind and win.  Given these incumbents are showing both indicators, I am confident they will lose and the GOP will pick up the Senate.

The real question is how big is the wave. Since another post last month Colorado has gone from GOP -0.6 to +3.6, with the incumbent polling at 41.6%. So that would be the 7th pickup for the GOP.  In NC, incumbent Senator Hagan was polling at 45.1% with a  4.5% lead over her challenger.  Today she is at 44.8% with only a 1,4% margin.  She is clearly in the incumbent danger zone. That would be pick up 8. Iowa is trending towards the GOP as well, which is pick up 9.

I do not see the GOP losing any seats because the polls are all trending the GOP’s way.  But even if there is a risk to lose 1 seat, the GOP is sitting at 8-9 seat pick up for the GOP.  A healthy cushion for control of the senate.

What I am watching is NH and VA.  The NH race has also trended towards the GOP recently and is now a toss up. VA is also moving, but may not move far enough, fast enough to be a GOP pick up. One of these two races will represent the high-water mark for the 2014 election wave. That much I am sure of.

The last trend to watch is how the President’s Party candidates end up with a percentage of the vote near the President’s support in the polls for that state. If this kicks in over the next 3 weeks, the wave will be high.

Update: Seeing similar conclusions over at Huffingtonpost:

What may be of more concern to Democrats is the way these shifts have occurred. Since early September, our model’s estimates show the Republican share of the vote in these six battleground states growing by 2 percentage points (from 45.2 to 47.3 percent), while the Democrats share of the vote has remained essentially even (nudging up from 44.6 to 44.8 percent).

That pattern matches a theory offered in September by RealClearPolitics election analyst Sean Trende. Trende noted that in recent elections that the support for incumbent Senators appears capped by the President’s approval rating in their state …

Tags: GOP Takeover, Senate Elections

I have been expecting the folks over at Real Clear Politics to move two senate races out of the “Toss Up” category and into “Leans GOP”, which would be a strong indication the GOP is on the path to takeover the Senate. This would put them in the same category as Louisiana and put the GOP over the top in terms of probably senate pick ups.

What confounds me is the trigger they use to move races between the categories.  I am not sure how you have a Toss Up when the incumbent senator is polling around 40%. Below 50% is bad enough.  45% usually indicates certain death.  So 40% would – by extrapolation – indicate certain career annihilation.

Here are the races I expect to see RCP move into the Leans GOP column anytime now [click image to enlarge]:

First is Alaska:

Second is Arkansas:

Note how both incumbents are polling near 40%!

While the challengers may not have pulled ahead yet, given how the voters are disgusted with government in general I don’t think the undecideds will decide until late October (so they can minimize the time they have to deal with such disgusting matters).

I guess we could start a pool on when RCP will finally admit these two incumbents are in really serious trouble!

Update: USA Today just released a poll showing Pryor up 2 over Cotton (43-45). That will definitely extend the time before RCP moves that race into the “Leans GOP”, but Pryor is still way to low for incumbents to survive.  As I noted, the swing voters won’t engage until late, this year so we may not see this race move until late. But I just cannot see Pryor surviving with his overall average at 42.3%

After a summer break from posting I am back as the nation enters the final lap of the 2014 election cycle.  Today I am going to review the state of the Senate and discuss where the GOP sits in terms of taking control (pretty much a given now) and by what margin.

Since Labor Day the pollsters have migrated from their “registered voter” models to “likely voter” models. The former model tends to show Democrat strength, the second model looks to who is likely to vote, and in non-Presidential election years turnout has favored the GOP.  As it will again this year.

But the turnout model used to estimate “likely voters” is tricky. There may be a national mood that is not seen in the state races until very late. In the end, it is a combination of who is willing to be polled, and from that group who is going to the polls. biases in the first step (who is talking to pollsters) can impact the accuracy of the latter (who ends up voting).

Swing voters and non-party aligned voters are hard to estimate because they are not into politics and may not vote. Irritation with DC is so high they won’t even talk to pollsters. So even when the bases of the parties responsd as usual to pollsters, the wild card is independents and swing voters

My feeling is the GOP is in for a real good year, and here is why.  Three current Democrat senate seats have been pretty much given to the GOP column by pollsters. These are (with the current Realclear Politics poll averages in parenthesis R-D-I)

• Montana (54-19-n/a, R+19)
• South Dakota (42-29-16, R+13)
• West Virginia (53-34-n/a, R+19)

The next three races are more than enough needed to win control of the Senate, and each is on the verge of tipping into the GOP win column:

• Louisiana (47-41-n/a, R+6) [runoff since incumbent is at 33% in the open election on Nov 4th]
• Arkansas (45-42.5-n/a, R+2.5)
• Alaska (44-42.7-n/a, R+1.3)

These are all sitting Senators running in the low 40’s.  This means they are very unlikely to win given the fact once an incumbent falls below 45% they are just not going to get the undecideds to break for them (being the known quantities they are).  If an incumbent is stuck below 45% at this point, they have tapped out their support.  The other 55% are shopping for an alternative (which can include sitting home).

The next group  of Democrat incumbents are also at or below 45%, but the state polls have yet to give the GOP challenger a lead.  But I am sure it will arrive come November 4th:

• Colorado (43.4-44-n/a, R-0.6)
• North Carolina (40.6-45.1-n/a, R-4.5)

Add in the President’s horrible approval numbers and how independents are fleeing the Democrats and I see all of these 8 being picked up by the GOP.  Plus Iowa (open seat).

So R+9 just using normal off year dynamics, the 6th year itch against the President’s party, etc.

Now layer in the Immigration Issues seething across the country, the international bungling of ISIS, the shrunken work force, the shrunken paychecks, the shrunken and more expensive healthcare and you have another layer of headwinds battering the Democrats.

I think the country is so fed up with DC most independent and swing voters are not responding to pollsters.  Thus the pollsters cannot tune their turnout models.  The ones answering the phones are party supporters, and their addiction to politics will skew the polls for a while

But come November 4th the swing voters will hold their nose and focus just long enough to send a signal to DC. And that message is people are fed up with the way things are going. Voters find government mostly the source of problems, not the solution.  The recent rise in ‘independence’ movements is a sign of how tiresome government nagging and bungling has become. So are the many incumbents of both parties in trouble.  Long term GOP senator Roberts of Kansas is one such sign of the Libertarian fever beginning to rise.

So I am very bullish on the Senate this year, and I expect a late breaking wave to hit DC upside the head.

As predicted Obama’s unilateral and unconstitutional rampage on liberal policy fantasies (see open borders, government run health care, massive deficit spending, Global Warming scare mongering (without the warming of course)) is creating the expected broad and deep backlash.  In Part I and Part II of this series I predicted the dismissal of due process by our Lame Duck President would not be well accepted – even by the Democrat base.  This is due to the fact that while some Democrats have strong opinions on policy, they have no stomach for throwing out the rule of law to have them enacted.  And also by they fact that many liberal fantasies pretty much suck when they meet reality.

The insane “open borders” fantasy is one such example. The border crisis is sucking limited resources from government programs and away from needy US citizens:

Children housed at Fort Sill and facilities like it have been placed in communities across Oklahoma and across the country with “sponsors.” These sponsors may or may not be family members, and they may or may not be illegal immigrants themselves. Federal officials tell us the sponsors have instructions to bring these children to a future court date for possible deportation. The wait for a court hearing is over a year in Oklahoma. Only about half of these children show up when their court date arrives.

What happens to the rest? They simply disappear. They are absorbed into our public school systems, which are already at capacity and struggling to find the funding and resources required to give our Oklahoma children the education they need and deserve.

Eventually, these children become undocumented adults. Many work; some do not. Some end up in our hospitals or using other state resources where Oklahomans foot the bill.

…

One in four Oklahoma children struggle with hunger. One in four will drop out of high school before graduating.

There are poor children in Tulsa, Oklahoma City, Guymon and McAlester. They need our attention and our help. There are children who will grow up being abused, being lead into drugs, who struggle with poverty, or who will be recruited by violent gangs right here in our home state.

It is wrong for the president to ask Oklahomans to divert their attention and limited resources away from our own children, just as it is wrong for him to ask our military to play host to a large daycare facility for undocumented minors. Oklahomans are not equipped to solve problems in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, just as we are not equipped to end conflicts or suffering in the Ukraine or Libya.

This realization is beginning to sink in across America. And as the party of Big Government, it will be the Democrat base that loses the most, who will have to compete for the federal largess. And so it is no surprise Obama’s support is beginning to erode among what was the hard core base of the Democrats:

As for the politicians measured in the NBC/WSJ poll, President Obama’s overall job rating stands at an all-time low of 40 percent, a one-point drop from June.

That decline comes from slightly lower support from Democrats and African-American respondents. …

H/T Ed Morrissey on finding that little gem from a devastating WSJ/NBC Poll:

Two words sum up the mood of the nation: Fed up.

Six in 10 Americans are dissatisfied with the state of the U.S. economy, more than 70 percent believe the country is headed in the wrong direction, and nearly 80 percent are down on the country’s political system, according to the latest NBC News / Wall Street Journal poll.

This is a downward spiral that is not bottoming out.  President Obama’s unilateral acts are not just disturbing, but inflicting a lot of pain and consternation. I think the biggest hit will come if along with this flood of people comes a spread of illness.  You cannot have this much migration in this manner without a requisite spread in disease. It has nothing to do with foreigners, just mass movement of people from one environment to another. The immigrants are picking up disease in their dangerous travels here, plus they are not accustomed to the illnesses Americans have resistance to. This will create a feeding ground for disease to spread and evolve, which will then come back into the US population as new strains.

Add on this the Ebola scare and you have a recipe for political disaster.  Obama has no clue what he has unleashed. But he and his party will sure reap the rewards.

As I expected, the madness in the White House has begun to have its political repercussions. The flood of illegal immigrants being transported into every state has created a broad backlash. It is not just the “right wing” or the GOP, or even independents and moderates beginning to cry foul.

Less off Americans are beginning to realize this Democrat President has thrown them under the bus – or at least under a wave of cheap labor who will also drain limited state support systems for the less fortunate.  Just wait until the long lines are everywhere, packed with people from outside our country competing for the fruits of America.  From schools to emergency rooms, free clinics to DMVs, Americans are going to be competing with unwanted ‘guests’ in many parts of this country. And they will have a Democrat President to thank.

The first big sign of this erosion I have seen is a massive dip in President Obama’s Approval rating at Gallup. Today it is underwater 39-55%.  A little over a week ago it was only under 44-49%. Going from -5% to -16% in one week is a bit of a hint.

And for Democrats this is just the first of many dying canaries to come leading into the November elections where now 10-12 Senate seats could be in play and where a GOP takeover is becoming almost a given. So while Obama thumbs his nose at the Democrat base (e.g., the poor, the under employed and minorities) and turns a wave of illegals into a wave of needy mouths and cheep labor, that base will slowly begin to turn away from the Democrats.

As AllahPundit noted, when you lose Ed Schultz you can pretty much be sure something has gone horribly wrong in the Democrat White House. Watch and wonder!

Amazing! I truly love the part where Ed observes there is no way Democrats can go home and campaign on blanket Amnesty!

Schultz also is correctly alarmed about handing out unearned work permits to 5 million illegal immigrants to compete for jobs with Americans who are themselves hurting economically. These newly challenged Americans who vote, or will just not vote for a Democrat, will create a political shift never before seen once the President allows  people from other countries to jump to the head of the line for a better life here in America

Funniest point: Schultz is crying for ‘process’ – code word for ‘rule of law’.

He is not the only one beginning to panic on the left, and he won’t be the last

As I stated in part 1 of this series of posts, Obama is beginning to lay down enough damage to Democrats that they soon will be the ones crying for Impeachment. Right now Shultz is just trying to wave Obama off. What happens if Obama does not care, then what will the Democrats do?

H/T Ace of Spades

Update: More polls showing the damage being done to Democrats by our Lame Duck President:

Public approval of Obama’s immigration policies has slipped from 22 percent in May, to 18 percent in July, according to a late July poll of 1,044 Americans by Associated Press and GfK Public Affairs.

Disapproval climbed from 43 percent to 57 percent, marking a 18-point shift away from Obama, said the poll.

The remaining 25 percent of respondents didn’t care much about the immigration issue.

…

The public’s attitude toward legal immigration has shifted by 25 points in only two months, according to a July 29 poll by the D.C.-based Public Religion Research Institute, which generally promotes a pro-immigration perspective.

In May, 61 percent of respondents to an earlier Public Religion poll agreed that “Immigrants today strengthen our country because of their hard work and talents.” Just 29 percent agreed that “Immigrants today are a burden on our country because they take our jobs, housing and healthcare,” said the earlier poll.

But those 61 percent to 29 percent scores shifted sharply after early June, once the public noticed the flood of Central Americans across the borders and into the welcoming arms of Obama’s federal government.

The new poll showed that only 49 percent of the July respondents approve of immigration, and 42 percent disapprove of immigration, despite the social pressure on Americans to welcome immigrants.

Tags: Border Crisis, Ed Schultz, Impeachment, Obama

I am here to remind everyone who sees deep, ever-lasting dangers in President Obama’s current actions to remain calm.  Right now our Lame Duck is attempting to create enough emotional strife between left and right to save his clearly damaged legacy.  The latest effort – the border and immigration crisis – is meant to push reasonable people into unreasonable reactions.

In other words, Obama is poking at Main Street in hopes they give him a forced error.

Don’t bite.

Be patient.

This will all rebound on Obama in the end.

All executive orders can be undone with the stroke of the next Executive’s pen. Executive Orders don’t have the staying power of real legislation. And while the current damage being done by the liberal madness in the White House seems to be more than the country can take, people forget this country has survived much, much worse.

Team Obama has made a huge miscalculation this election year. He thinks he can push the conservative and the middle of the electorate into a heated reaction – Impeachment. But the fact is Impeachment is not viable until AFTER the election. Contrary to the mindless thinking in the White House:

“For all I know, Obama is preparing to process five million illegal immigrant kids and teenagers into the United States,” Stockman said upon observing border operations near McAllen, Texas.

“He wants us to impeach him now,” Stockman theorized, “before the midterm election because his senior advisors believe that is the only chance the Democratic Party has to avoid a major electoral defeat. Evidently Obama believes impeachment could motivate the Democratic Party base to come out and vote.”

I stated why this makes no sense before. This Congress ends in January of next year. There will be a significant shift in its membership – especially in the Senate. The matter of impeachment must be left to that Congress to decide. They will be the only ones that could carry it out, and so their views must control the decision.

But Obama is trying to prod and poke the electorate into hot headed frustration now. He has been using the power of the Government to push around everyone on many fronts. But this actually plays to the Libertarian argument for reduced size and power of government.

• Obama has sent the IRS against political enemies large and small
• Obama has sent the EPA against the energy sector and claimed Global Warming is a threat after two decades of no warming
• Obama has sent the HHS to take over (and destroy) the medical services and insurance sector
• Obama has sent the Department of Justice after gun owners, etc

The list of Obama’s attacks and screw-ups is legendary. The man has been one of the worst Presidents of all time.

An. Epic. Failure.

Which is why we can all be patient. As Obama pokes more and more of America in the eye trying to provoke a response, he is quickly destroying the Democrat Party. Fewer and fewer are going to be backing the party that clearly demonstrates why power (and hope) invested in government is really a recipe for disaster and lost freedoms. More and more government has been getting into our daily lives, like the snooty neighbors who thinks they KNOW EVERYTHING.

Just think Nanny Bloomberg – the soda jerk! Who died and made this guy in charge of telling us how much soda we can drink each day?

 

Government is trying to micro-manage our lives. And screwing it all up in the process. Best Example: Obamacare is a disaster, with twice as many potential VOTERS saying the mess created by Team Obama is hurting rather than helping:

Here’s the point. Obamacare was one of those pokes in the eye to Americans. It was DESIGNED to punish those who failed to get in line and do as they were told. It is the penultimate example of “bullying governance” employed by liberals and Team Obama. This has been emphasized recently in the exposure of how the architects of Obamacare designed in financial punishment to those who pushed back on government-run healthcare:

Two years ago, though, Gruber gave a much different explanation for this part of the ObamaCare statute. Speaking at a January 2012 symposium for a tech organization that this was no typo. It was, Gruber said, a deliberate policy to twist the arms of reluctant states to set up their own exchanges — and that a failure to do so would mean no subsidies for their citizens.

…

“What’s important to remember politically about this is if you’re a state and you don’t set up an exchange, that means your citizens don’t get their tax credits—but your citizens still pay the taxes that support this bill. So you’re essentially saying [to] your citizens you’re going to pay all the taxes to help all the other states in the country. I hope that that’s a blatant enough political reality that states will get their act together and realize there are billions of dollars at stake here in setting up these exchanges. But, you know, once again the politics can get ugly around this.”

Emphasis added. This was pure political bullying of the electorate. Make the common person hurt to force the political win.

Same thing is going to happen with the border/immigration crisis. As long as there is human suffering, the elite knuckleheads on the left see this pain and suffering as their way to winning:

When President Obama issues executive orders on immigration in coming weeks, pro-reform activists are expecting something dramatic: temporary relief from deportation and work authorization for perhaps several million undocumented immigrants. If the activists are right, the sweeping move would upend a contentious policy fight and carry broad political consequences.

The irony of all this is that the economic jolt that could save Team Obama and the Democrats would be to reduce the influx of cheap labor – pushing low end wages up and not down.

By stressing the opposite option — reductions in legal immigration — during his campaign against Cantor, victorious economics professor Dave Brat has suddenly given hope to the many members of Congress whose immigration policy vision for wage-earning Americans has been blocked by their parties’ leaders. Echoing themes articulated tirelessly by Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., Brat argues for dramatic cuts in future visas for immigrant and other foreign labor, The purpose is to allow the labor supply to tighten, raise wages and make it more likely that employers will recruit from the neglected American populations in today’s economy.

Emphasis added.

Either Team Obama is so ignorant they don’t understand this basic economic principle, or so ruthless they do not care. Americans are suffering chronic economic pain, and all Team Obama can think to do is INCREASE the pain.

Apparently the White House has been fighting Straw Men opponents for so long they have lost all touch with reality – and its ramifications.

• The IRS actions have demonstrated that the Party of Big Government is no more ethical than the Party of Big Business (never mind this label is inaccurate since all politicians owe Big Business).
• The EPA actions against CO2 and energy in general has removed the authoritative veneer the Green Movement once maintained. They no longer represent Earth, just liberal political interests (and money – think Solyndra)
• The Shovel Ready jobs of the Stimulus Debacle (which never appeared) demonstrated the impotence of government to fix an economy.
• The numerous stupid Nanny State efforts show how shallow and simpleton government is when dealing with the infinite complexities and wonders of life.
• ObamaCare has also cemented the image of incompetent government, where even a website is too much to deal with given a couple 100 million dollars to fund it.

Main Street is beginning to see government for what it is: an incompetent bully.

And Team Obama seems hell bent on doubling down on this “win through pain” path as their “Hail Mary” effort for the 2014 elections.

All I see is a super-sized level of Obamacare incompetence at work here. And soon the moderate Democrats will see it too.

Get through these elections. Let the Democrats feel the heat of their mistakes. Yes, it will be painful to wait until November, but the pain in this case will be worth it.

Because once the Democrats get a second round of political repercussions from Team Obama, it will be THEY who will be calling for Impeachment. They will scream “Uncle” because it will finally be they suffering the effects.

Obama is no Nixon, he won’t be “bullied” to step down by anyone. No more than he could be bullied to go to the border and see what he has wrought.

This is some interesting news:

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit delivered a huge blow to Obamacare this morning, ruling that the insurance subsidies granted through the federally run health exchange, which covered 36 states for the first open enrollment period, are not allowed by the law.

The highly anticipated opinion in the case of Jacqueline Halbig v. Sylvia Mathews Burwell reversed a lower court ruling finding that the federally run exchange did have the authority to disburse subsidies.

In other words, the Administration cannot hide the true  cost of ObamaCare anymore behind “subsidies”. Which means consumers get to feel the real pain of this tragedy, as opposed to paying through all forms of taxes – which hide the cost.

How did this happen? It is clear Team Obama has jettisoned the rule of law, and traditions of the Executive Branch and the cross-checks of the divided powers of government. And now the courts are starting to undo this madness.

Good intentions are not amnesty from the laws of land.

At Hot Air they have a similar take:

Plain and simple, if Congress wants to rewrite the law to extend subsidies to federal enrollees, they’re welcome to do it. That’s what legislatures are for. But the law, as written, says what it says, and that’s not the court’s problem.

…

Update: Another report estimates that 7.3 million people will be affected by 2016 if this stands, to the tune of $36 billion.

To understand ObamaCare is to live it in its rawest form.

The Obama administration is starting into Class 5 political death spiral. The vortex of which is becoming so intense and wide spread that it is going to pull a lot of Democrats and Liberal dogma down with the administration as Team Obama augers in.

Obama’s spiral is evident everywhere: from Iraq, to Gaza, to Ukraine and on the US border with Mexico. From the Veterans Administration, to the Internal Revenue Service, to Health and Human Services (HHS with Obamacare) and onto the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA with the myth of Global Warming). It is also evident in the US economy has it is experienced on Main Street USA as the myth of shovel-ready jobs implodes and generational debt is being piled up at an alarming rate.

The spiral was initiated with epic incompetence by Big Government that was hiding behind liberal fantasies. For example, the idea behind Obamacare was to turn America’s Health Care system into something modeled after the Veterans Administration (VA). And as that liberal fantasy became reality, the spiral was fed by success in achieving this naive goal. For example: people dying on secret VA wait lists for life saving health services, has been achieved with people dying on Obamacare insurance with list for access to life saving health services.

The VA’s cruel incompetence:

Doug Chase, a Vietnam veteran, was diagnosed with a brain tumor in 2011, his widow Suzanne, of Acton, told a CBS affiliate in Boston.

In 2012, Mrs. Chase said she tried to move her husband’s medical care from Boston to the VA hospital in Bedford, so they could be closer to home, but they waited four months and never heard anything. He died in August 2012.

….

More than 1,000 veterans have died over the last decade as a result of a failure to provide care or malpractice by the Department of Veterans Affairs, according to the findings of a new report authored by retiring Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK).

Obamacare’s cruel incompetence:

A Sonoma County man battling more than a dozen tumors in his body is fighting a new battle with his insurance carrier, who has denied coverage for his treatments.

…

Guam – There is an ongoing crisis within the dialysis community. At least one local medical transport company has been forced to cease services for dialysis patients because the claims contractor for Medicare, Noridian Healthcare Solutions, is refusing to reimburse Medicare claims unless patients are on a ventilator.

…

In Nevada, the recently filed lawsuit alleges that numerous state residents have been going uncovered despite enrolling and paying for insurance.

The lawsuit says that one plaintiff, Larry Basich, had a heart attack at the end of last year and required costly surgery on Jan. 3 – in theory the third day of his new insurance. But the legal complaint says his payment wasn’t processed properly, leaving Mr. Basich stuck with more than $400,000 in bills.

This is just one jarring example of Obama and his liberal fantasies running amok – and the cruelty being inflicted on average Americans in the process. There are sadly many more. On the economy Obama looks more like the Sheriff of Nottingham than anything else. He bankrupts the masses so he and his cronies can line their pockets.

But more than just mad liberal policies are at play now. We have a bizarrely detached lame-duck president who at times seems bizarre in contrast to current events. If this is the President Obama that will be in the Oval Office for 2.5 more years, the vortex of his political death spiral will spread and consume with an intensity not seen in living memory.

Just this week, in response to a human tragedy involving a commercial airline being downed by a missile, President Obama was only able to muster 40 second of scripted concern before going back to his “loose bear” schtick [emphasis mine]:

President Barack Obama provoked fury in the U.S. on Thursday by casually devoting less than a minute to the deaths of 295 people aboard a Malaysian airliner, as he began an often jokey 16-minute speech about the need to expand America’s transportation infrastructure.

…

Traveling in Denver, this reporter heard gasps from guests watching a hotel lobby television as Obama spoke.

One remarked: ‘A tragedy is when you lose control and fly into a mountainside. This is mass-murder. What a disappointment.’

‘His distance from reality is just bizarre,’ said another.

Truly bizarre. And something we are seeing more and more common. The border crisis has been providing endless incidents of Obama’s depth of denial and unwillingness to be Presidential. To be a leader. There too he turned a blind eye to the human carnage.

Team Obama claims the President is fed up with politics and gridlock.

Well cry me a river. It is clear Obama’s incompetence has achieved its expected results. His snarky straw man insults against those he needs to work with  is just one of his many character flaws working against him. Add to this is complete lack of experience in the real world and the private commercial sector and you have all the ingredients you need for a political train wreck. A straw man leader attacking straw man opponents.

If Obama is done being President already, why did he run for a second term? If he was not going to work with the full spectrum of Americans (including the political opposition), why did want a second round of frustration? What is this man thinking!?

Where is the coherence when President Obama does days of beer and pool photo ops only to go to Texas and refuse to do a photo op with the immigrant children who are alone, sick, victims of crime and dying? As the border situation continues to deteriorate, so will support for Obama and his party. How can anyone stay detached as this is happening?

The federal government is so overwhelmed by the current tide of migrants crossing the border it can’t provide basic medical screening to all of the children before transporting them – often by air – to longer-term holding facilities across the country, ABC News has learned.

…

Two unaccompanied children were flown from Nogales to California despite having 101-degree fevers and flu-like symptoms, according to the Department of Defense memo. Those children had to be hospitalized.

The memo said pointedly that officials in charge of moving the immigrants from Border Patrol processing centers to Health and Human Services facilities are “putting sick [fevers and coughing] unaccompanied children on airplanes inbound for [Naval Base Ventura County] in addition to the chicken pox and coxsackie virus cases.”

The document said three other kids were in the ICU at local hospitals in California, and two of them were diagnosed with strep pneumonia.

Not to mention the influx of violent criminals, etc. Obama’s blind eye will reflect back not just on Democrats, but the tenants of liberal dogma he has been pushing has his excuse for his actions. As long as the liberal groupies applaud, Obama will expand and increase his rebellion against his won job.

Obama has ushered in the Age of Cruel Incompetence. The result of Big Government run amok. The acts we have witnessed by government officials under Obama would never even be contemplated in the private sector. Probably because when someone deflects medical services from critically ill patience to ensure their own bonuses they would face jail (and should face the death penalty). In government, acts like this face no justice and Main Street is getting fed up.

Obama’s pivot from the airline disaster to joking about NJ politics shows a man who is so detached from reality one has to question his sanity. Has he snapped under the pressure of the office he now is running from?

If this is the new Obama who will be leading this nation for the next 2.5 years I can safely predict it will not be Republicans who push for his Impeachment. If Obama has snapped (even partially), and if he has decided he will operate completely outside the rules, traditions and decorum of the Oval Office (which he now seems dedicated to do), he will be a black eye on his party at every turn.

Once the carnage of the 2014 elections is realized by Democrats and what it will mean for 2016, it will be Democrats who will pushing to stop Obama.

Update: Hot Air is starting to call Obama “Semi Retired”.  I think that understates the questionable behavior of our President, who seems to have “snapped” more than wanting to “nap”. The word “retire” sounds way to benign for what could be a very turbulent ride for this country over the next couple of years

For President Bush, Katrina became a toxic political subject due to dead bodies floating in the waters to underscore the human crisis. But at least he responded.

For President Obama the question is, will the floating bodies of young “Dreamers” finally stop the President from playing politics and start playing leader of the free world?

The life jackets helped many make it across the Rio Grande from Reynosa, the Mexican city across the water from Mission, just west of McAllen. Sources say they come over on rafts ferried by the so-called “coyotes,” the human smugglers whose means of transport are rendered useless whenever discovered by the Border Patrol. Many don’t make it across the river; multiple sources became emotional when recounting their discoveries of small, lifeless bodies washed up along the riverbank.”

And here is a picture of the liberal news media, and their response to the games our commander-in-chief plays:

Speaking of the children, does Obama know what kind of lawlessness he has created:

Authorities in Parker County have arrested a man suspected of molesting a 9-year-old girl as she slept in her home. The man, 35-year-old Israel Andrade, has been deported from the United States on four different occasions.

President Obama and his “handlers” assume a certain level of ignorance by the general population (aided by a biased media willing to sacrifice their honor and morality for the political cause). For example, the method by which President Obama is creating a border crisis to extort legislation out of Congress requires a certain amount of ‘forgetfulness’ if not ignorance when it comes to Administration responses to past disasters and crisis.

President Bush was unfairly tagged as aloof because he did not want to divert much needed rescue resources to fly in and do a photo op of the damage left behind by Katrina (and left behind by a Democrat Mayor and Governor who refused to order evacuations in time). But even after the criticism he did respond – and did so immediately.

In hindsight, little of this seems fair. What Bush saw as he flew over the battered region shocked him. The next day, he publicly pledged $10.5 billion in federal aid, enlisted his father and Bill Clinton to help in recovery efforts, and spoke about the tragedy from the Rose Garden. The next day, he headed down there, where he literally put his arms around shell-shocked survivors, many of them black people. Bush returned again in mid-September and made a nationally televised address from Jackson Square in New Orleans.

President Bush took the heat because he wanted to end the crisis, not exploit it. What he did was act:

1. Within four days of Katrina’s landfall on Monday, Aug. 29, 2005, then-President George W. Bush signed a $10.4 billion aid package and ordered 7,200 National Guard troops to the region. A few days later, he requested — and Congress approved — an additional $51.8 billion in aid.

2. Hundreds of firefighters from other cities who volunteered to help in the response were rerouted to Atlanta, where they sat through two days of presentations on sexual harassment and the history of FEMA before being sent to New Orleans.

…

9. Before the storm hit, Amtrak ran equipment out of the city. With rooms for several hundred evacuees, they offered the spots to the city. Officials declined, so the train left with no passengers.

FEMA  had pre-positioned supplies and volunteers inland of Katrina’s impact zone, which meant he acted proactively as well as after the damage was done.

More importantly, President B ush moved out and acted – he  did not wait for (or extort) Congress to act. Probably because Katrina was an act of nature.

Where the Border Crisis is the act of a desperate, lame-duck President who has shown his true colors. And incompetent bully:

When he’s not berating Congress for not passing his ballooning supplemental request fast enough, Obama harangues Republicans in the House for not passing the Senate’s immigration reform bill – a legacy initiative Obama promised would be one of his accomplishments in his first year in office.

He has ignored Democratic lawmakers who demanded the president see the border for himself, preferring instead to maintain his distance from the crisis so as not to be too closely associated with it.

The guy insults those he needs assistance from. Which shows he does not care.

Obama has not called out the national guard. He has not changed the policy of holding children from Central America while deporting those from Mexico. And he sure has hell has not gone to ground zero to see first hand what his political games are causing.

He is an elitist out of his element.  Theory has fallen to reality, and Obama’s inability to function as a leadrr is now on full display. He has and always will be an ankle-biting back-bencher.

And he is so arrogant, he actually thinks he is winning the optics and the political debate. Guess he needs a wake up call come November…

Tags: Border Crisis, Bush, Illegal Immigration, Katrina, Obama