PrairiePundit

Karl Rove makes his predictions for 2012.  His rationale is pretty sound.  Obama will be dragged back to earth by his scandals.

Washington Times: House Republicans have a not-so-secret weapon that could bring the National Labor Relations Board to a halt and block Democrats’ Wall Street watchdog agency from getting started — and all it requires is just sitting around. By refusing to adjourn for the rest of the year, the House GOP, under a provision of the Constitution, would force the Democrat-controlled Senate to stay in session, too, thus denying President Obama the chance to make recess appointments and leaving the NLRB without a quorum to do business. Likewise, Mr. Obama would not be able to make a recess appointment of Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, leaving that body stillborn. It’s exactly the same strategy House Republicans used throughout the summer, when a group of lawmakers gaveled in a House session every few days, forcing the Senate to follow suit and effectively tying Mr. Obama’s hands. ...   The stakes are particularly high now, at the end of the...

Image via Wikipedia Opinion Journal: Talk about a financial scandal. A consumer borrows money to buy a house, doesn't make the mortgage payments, and then loses the house in foreclosure —only to learn that the wrong guy at the bank signed the foreclosure paperwork. Can you imagine? The affidavit was supposed to be signed by the nameless, faceless employee in the back office who reviewed the file, not the other nameless, faceless employee who sits in the front. The result is the same, but politicians understand the pain that results when the anonymous paper pusher who kicks you out of your home is not the anonymous paper pusher who is supposed to kick you out of your home. Welcome to Washington's financial crisis of the week. In the 23 states that require judicial foreclosures, lenders seeking to seize property from a delinquent borrower must file a summary judgment motion in court. Typically, this document must be signed in the presence of a notary by a "witness...

Donald Lambro: Republican campaign strategists and independent election analysts say that after five months of contentious House Democratic rule, the Republican Party's once-bleak congressional prospects for 2008 have markedly improved. The Democratic Congress' job approval score is now worse than President Bush's, plummeting to 23 percent, a drop of eight points since April. House Democrats have been forced to retreat in the face of a furious assault by Republicans on pork-barrel spending, an issue that hurt the Republican Party in November. And Republican recruiting has produced plenty of candidates eyeing weak Democratic freshmen in Republican-leaning districts that swept them into office last year. "Republican recruiting seems to be progressing at a reasonable pace. GOP strategists have about half a dozen seats that they know the party should never have lost ... and eight of the nine most vulnerable House seats currently are held by Democrats," electio...