I find it terrifying that Romney is essentially one point more acceptable to the rightards than Palin.
-Joe
Quite so. As a matter of fact, I expect him to be reelected. After all, he’s doing damn well as our more-equal-than-thou board member of World Inc.
I realize I haven’t really defined the bet so let’s make it simple.
Assuming Kagan is confirmed after some vigorous Pub grumbling, I’m betting that in six of her first nine 5-4 decisions, we find her on the winning side with at least three of the following: Scalia, Thomas, Alito and Roberts.
Why am I remorseful? I have no excuse. I voted for Blackface Bush.
$5. 10 takers?
C’mon Ravenman, get some of this. Think of the bragging rights coming to anyone who helps hang adhay from a lamp post ten times in his own cartoon. In that event, I’ll be very glad to admit that I was wrong and, after paying up and offering some lame justification for my derangement, I’ll rejoin the electorate and eat some [del]crow[/del] raven.
Of course, there is that remote possibility that you’ll end up eating yourself. Take a chance?
Doubts? I thought so. Let me recommend a hedge with AIG and sell BP way short and QUICK. When BP shares join Confederate Dollars in history’s dustbin, you’ll be sitting pretty and BP’s off the hook. It’s The American Way.
Yes? No? Whatever?
Scratch “often”; virtually always the people who talk like that are his enemies. Partly in an attempt to discredit him, and partly as psychological projection; that is after all how the Right treats their Presidents.
I constantly wake up wishing I had voted for the clueless old man who gave up his principals to appeal to tea party extremists and the dimwit VP who even her own side knows is unqualified to be in power.
-sarcasm
If you actually do the work of compiling the data on all the 5-4 SCOTUS decisions, I’ll take some action. But $5 is a waste of time. I propose the stakes be a nice bottle of whiskey. Not Jim Beam nice, like aged 15 years nice. Plus I want your vote for Obama. You can name your stakes, too.
It does look like a lot of work. After googling around, the best I’ve found is this.
http://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/wdc/scotus0607/index.html . It’s an AP interactive site that makes it easy to sort the Court and its cases ideologically. Unfortunately, it’s limited to the 2006 term.
Basically, in framing the bet, I tried to arrive at a simple objective metric by which to judge Kagan’s performance. As I’ve stated, my major concerns are corporate regulation/personhood and the expansion of Executive power esp in regard to Bill of Rights infringements like the Patriot Act, Guantanamo, etc. When you include cases about religion, guns, local statutes, etc, my issues are diluted and the bet as I presented it doesn’t really do the job.
However, a good single malt is never inappropriate. I’ll rethink things a bit.
You want my vote for Obama? As things stand, I’d sooner write you in. If Kagan actually turns out to bring some balance to the Court to correct its list to starboard, I may reconsider.
I’m one of the lefties who is disappointed in Obama because he is too centrist. I’d vote for him again, though.
It’s interesting to note that Obama’s poll numbers so far have been similar to those of Reagan.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2010_01/021968.php
And that’s what I find so very amusing about this whole thing- just because we might have “buyer’s remorse” about Obama, that’s only because we don’t think he’s Liberal enough. His failure to live up to our every expectation does NOT mean that we wish we’d voted for one of the other candidates, it just means that he was the best option. Run him against McCain again, and we’d *still *vote for Obama.
Republicans and Libertarians don’t seem to understand this very simple point.
You could fill a library with stuff Republicans and Libertarians don’t understand… in fact, they do.
There is no magic wand he can wave to make things all better, he still has to work within the framework of the constitution and laws of the country.
Reasonably cooperative congress, theya re not a rubber stamp body at this time, a ;ot of politicing goes on that we don’t see. Compromises get made.
Very good point
And how is Palin better? Some idiot who can’t even finish out a term of governor, and whinges when some reporter with an agenda moves in on one side of her into a rental house, when to the other side of her property is a freaking hotel that probably has 20 more reporters and their camera crews?
Exactly, with a behemoth like the US, shit takes time for the changed to whack the head around and move the body into a new direction. Elephants aren’t speedy gonzales.
exactly. As long as he is giving it his best shot, what more can you really ask for? Expecting an instant change is pie in the sky politics.
I do agree with you there, and wis you did have the franchise, a reasoning voter beats someone who votes straight party without thinking. I have to agree, I was disappointed in the finanical bailouts - mrAru and I stayed well within our budget, and have been paying off our mortgage steadily all along, no matter what my job condition was [we bought a property that could be serviced on his income alone] and refused to go nuts with credit cards or personal loans. Some jackass who was totally irresponsible and bought a huge mcmansion with huge balloon payments, and went nuts with credit cards gets a bailout, and we get nothing for being thrifty and responsible. The fuckwads resonsible for getting the financial industry screwed up keep their jobs and get bonuses? That fucking blows ass. The only good thing to come out of it is we were too poor to actually have any sort of investments to lose.
As a national figure head, he is doing a decent job - he is calm, responsible, and gives the appearance of trying to work with the other national leaders peacefully.
He could do better with the detainees, but then again he didnt start it. If he can figure a way to process the rest of the detainees into the penal system or into release somehow it would be great.
I am also disappointed in the whole Cuban situation, it is fucking rediculous - we can go to freaking communist china, korea, many of the -istans and myanmar, why the heck cant we go to Cuba? Ah, because a bunch of expat Cubans have their pantie sin a bunch, and enough financial/political clout to kee p the embargo on. It is well past time for them to put on their big girl panties and deal with the fact they will never get the factories and plantations and bank accounts back, suck it up and give in. I for one would love to be able to take a cruise to Cuba to sit on the beach and swill a mojito. Right now the closest I could do is get a MAC flight in to Gitmo and shop at the exchange there.
The reason Obama hasn’t done anything like normalize relations or lift the trade embargo with Cuba is because it’s low priority. There’s nothing going on in Cuba right now that makes it especially important to the U.S. Thus, you might as well wait until Fidel buys the collective farm before doing anything.
No buyer’s remorse from me. I am dissappointed though.
The big question for me was "Will Obama sincerely try to make things better or is he merely another politician who will protect his buddies and thier financial interests. What I keep seeing are the kind of compromises that are bought and paid for and will keep us from aming much real progress.
Obama is a centrist liberal, they are devoted to gradualism, being suspicious of drastic changes as too destructive for the return benefit. As a radical, I am suspicious of gradualism, but have to admit that they have a point, the best is probably somewhere in between.
I am reminded of Dick Gregory’s words back in Civil Rights struggles: “Get your foot off my grandmother’s neck! NOW, goddamit, not one toe at a time!”
I sure can understand that and have the patience it takes to watch things unfold. Drastic changes can hurt a lot of people while a problem is addressed and adjustments are made.
It just seems to me that the Dems are beholding to money about as much as the GOP , just different money. So while some changes are made enough loopholes are allowed to just shift the crap around rather than make real changes , gradual or otherwise. I hope I’m wrong.
Me too. In fact, forget Cuba and the beach.
Yes, because the fireman threw gasoline on the fire instead of using water.
If that were factual in the Obama context the same way it would be factual in the real fire/water/gasoline context, you might have a point.
But it isn’t.
The most generous way to express the facts with the analogy would be more like the fireman threw “Fire Extinguishing Chemical A, Approved by Firefighters Everywhere!” on the fire instead of “Fire Extinguishing Chemical B, Approved by Firefighters Everywhere!” on it, making the argument: which firefighting chemical is more effective?
I think it would be more accurate to modify the analogy still further, and say the fireman threw Fire Extinguishing Chemical A (“Approved by firefighters everywhere!”) and another firefighter said it was a waste of perfectly good Chemical A and we should just have let the building burn down.
I suspect this is in fact likely to be the de facto government plan and probably has been for a few administrations. If the US waits for Fidel to croak it can start “working with the new leadership to rebuild a relationship” without having to concede that Old Beardy ultimately won the battle of wills.
And if Castro outlasts Obama (unlikely, but he’s definitely a tough old coot) then the next guy (or gal) will adopt the same policy.
amen…amen another jimmy carter oh yhea…2 more years 2 more years