The KaWAAAAHnsas senate race

So a few weeks back I did a blog where I apologized to Sarah Palin, because it turns out you CAN in fact quit to win.  Now in that blog I covered two stories, one of which involved the state of Kansas.

Ok so to recap for those who didnt read the earlier blog: The incumbent Republican Senator, Pat Roberts, isnt doing so well. Most polls taken at the time of my earlier blog only had him getting about 36% of the vote.

The thing was, that actually meant he win, and get to keep his seat because Kansas was having a 3 way senate race, with the Democrat and the Independent basically evenly splitting the remaining 64% of the vote (so 32% each for those not good at math).

Then the Democrat dropped out of the race, and as predicted most of his supporters went over to the Independents campaign. Which now means Pat Roberts is getting his ass kicked.

Which normally wouldnt be that big a deal, well except in Kansas.

But the thing is, at the start of this election cycle Republicans needed 6 seats to take control of the United States Senate, and (since its assumed they will hold the House as well) Congress as a whole.

And 6 seats is actually quite doable assuming polling holds out.

But that number assumed that Pat Roberts, running in arguably the most republican state in the country was in a safe race for his reelection, which no longer appears to be the case.

And polling suggests that 7th seat republicans would need to win to replace the seat they lose if Roberts loses, is well much much much less unlikely to materialize.

So yea, basically the senate race is Kansas, specifically the Democrat dropping out of that race, could have just cost the GOP the senate for the 3rd election cycle in a row.

So the fact that Roberts is losing is a BIG problem.

Now one caveat, Pat Roberts now only opponent Greg Orman is an Independent, NOT a Democrat. So if elected he COULD hypothetically caucus with the Republican Party and give them control of the senate.

Consider that, if Republicans pick up the 6 seats they are expected to and dont unexpectedly lose any others, the current balance in the Senate, not counting Orman would be 50 Republicans, and 49 Democrats.

Now because the Vice President votes in cases of a tie, and the Vice President is a Democrat the Democrats only need 50 seats to control the Senate, the Republicans need 51 (so the VP cant vote).

So a 51/49 split in this case is a tie, with control going to which ever party Orman chooses to join.

Now of course the problem for the Republicans is, although Orman agrees with them on some issues (immigration) he disagrees on others the Republicans tend to consider more important (Abortion).

Also Orman will basically owe his victory to the Democrats in Kansas, and when it comes down to who in the senate can give him better favors, its usually hard to beat the Presidents party in a situation like this.

So basically Republicans are assuming its much more likely Orman joins the Democrats, and gives them control of the senate.

Which is why the Republican Secretary of State, Kris Kobach, sued to keep the Democratic Challenger on the ballot, claiming he hadnt correctly withdrawn,  Even if not campaigning Kobach and other Kansas Republicans believed just having a name on the ballot might get enough people to vote for the Democrat (presumably believing he was still in the race) to give Roberts a chance.

And in all fairness to Kobach, political motives aside, legally he actually appeared to be correct, the laws of Kansas give specific reasons to drop out and the Democrat hadnt given one of those reasons.

Yet, yesterday, the Supreme Court of the State of Kansas ruled unanimously AGAINST Kris Kobach,
They claimed basically that the law needed only a broad explanation to drop out, and that the Democrat had git under that broad interpretation, as had a few other other candidates Kobach himself had allowed to drop off the ballot during his tenure without challenge.

Now this was actually a very fast case, the suit only got to the Court about a week ago, and they already ruled. Which is an insanely short time for deliberations.

But it turns out the speed was not the courts decision, it was Kobach,

See in court Kobach claimed that in order to insure ballots had time to reach members of the United States military they had to be printed TODAY (9/19/2014). So in order to do his job and get the ballots out, he had to know before then WHO was actually on the ballot.

So given that he lost, and he needs to be printing ballots as we speak, this story is over right?

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA o ye of little faith, of course its not over.      

As I explained a few months back, the official republican election strategy this time around is "Fuck the Troops".

You see Kobach is now Demanding the Democrats place a NEW candidate on the ballot, and gave them until September 26th to do so.

Which is a week LATER then the time Kobach said he would need to make sure all Kansans in the Military actually got their ballots on time to vote.

So yea, as I see it, Kobach is now left with only 3 explanations:
1) Kobach believed that less time to deliberate in court would increase his chances of winning, and therefore lied to the court, and attempted to abuse the powers of his office. Which, I would assume is illegal
2) The troops are going to get different ballots with different candidates on them then everyone else.....which basically means they dont get to vote in the same election as everyone else. But hey fuck fair elections.
3) Fuck the troops, who gives a shit if they get to vote on time or at all. I mean hell they should have stayed home if they expected their right to vote to be respected.

Actually, come to think of it, 2 and 3, are basically two different methods of the same idea......

Oh and actually, turns out lying in Court, or screwing over the troops isnt the only problem here.

--------------------------------------------------------UPDATE-----------------------------------------

It appears option 2 is our winner. Earlier tonight Kobach announced he is attaching disclaimers to the overseas ballots informer voter this ballot may not count if the democrats name a new candidate, and the person in question must vote again. 

So much for 1 person 1 vote......not to mention honest, free and fair elections.

UPDATE 2
It seems the text of the disclaimer includes a line "To ensure that your vote is counted your ballot must be received by November 4th 2014, UNLESS A LATER DEADLINE IS COMMUNICATED IN OUR SUBSEQUENT CORRESPONDENCE TO YOU" (Caps mine)

So yea, the election will be nov 4th, unless its not, which we arnt going to tell you until later.....

Other parts: "You may vote using the ballot accompanying this letter as soon as you receive it, or you may wait to vote until you've received further notification from us,"

Again, no rush folks who knows when the fuck this election will be.....

 "If a replacement ballot is sent to you, and you have already returned the ballot that accompanies this letter, only your replacement ballot will be counted."

Even if you dont send the replacement ballot back......because hey YOUR SUPPOSED TO VOTE FOR THE DEMOCRAT SO THE REPUBLICAN WINS.....otherwise we dont count your vote (presumably for the independent) so the Republican wins.

-------------------------------------------------Resume Original Post---------------------------------------------


The other problem is that........Kris Kobach doesnt actually have the power to force the Democratic party to do a damn thing.

Consider; How many times have you heard of a 3rd party candidate dropping out, then never actually being replace? All the freaking time.

Also have you ever voted Libertarian or Green or any other 3rd party for president? Did you also vote for that same parties candidate for State or National House and Senate? Probably not, because those candidates didnt exist.

Or how about an unopposed election? Hell I dont think my hometown has had a competitive election for Mayor in my lifetime.

Cause parties are free to run who they want for what ever position they want.....or dont want.

No one can compel them to run anyone for anything.

So this is basically Kris Kobach crying like a baby, with a nice side of fuck you to the troops.

Now what Kris Kobach DOES have the power to do is strip a party of its "major party" status if they fail to meet state standards for such.

Of course theirs a problem here too, namely the requirements in Kansas are about the GOVERNORS race, and say nothing about the Senate at all. And since polls suggest the Republican Governor may actually lose, the chances are 100% the Democrats will clear the 5% of the vote threshold needed to remain a major party in Kansas.

So yea basically this is all just a bunch of WAAAAH WAAAAH WAAAAH from Kobach, but it turns out even that is good news for Democrats. You see just like Senator Roberts and the Governor, Kobach himself is facing a tight race to keep his job. So the more whining he does about this, the more likely he is to annoy voters and lose his job.

At which point he will have plenty of time to sit at home and get the poopy out of his diaper.

I quit: an apology to the visionary Sarah Palin and the 2014 election.

Since 2008, Sarah Palin has been a household name, and the butt of an ungodly number of jokes.
Most of those jokes involve one of two things: shes a moron and she quit.

Now on the charge of her being stupid well:

BUT on making fun of her for quitting......well on that one we may owe Mrs. Palin an apology. In fact the last week suggests Mrs. Palin was merely a trendsetting ahead of her time.

See early last week Byron Mallott the Democratic Candidate for Governor of Alaska, basically the guy running for Palins old job, 1 uped her and quit before the election even happened.

Which means for the first time in the history of the State their wont be a Democrat on the ballot for Governor. 

And I bet your assuming the Democratic party of Alaska is FURIOUS right?

No actually they are freaking overjoyed.

You see, the Alaska Governors race was a 3 way race, and while the incumbent Republican was beating BOTH the democrat and the independent, polls suggested he would have a much harder time head to head with either one individually.

Oh and Mr. Mallott isnt out of the race, he was just announced as the candidate for Lt. Governor on the 3rd party ticket, basically ensuring his supporters wont vote Republican.

Which means Mr. Mallott may be on his way to successfully completing the very stunt that tragically ended the political life of the trailblazing Mrs, Palin, he may be about to win by quitting.

And a word of warning, this ISNT just another Alaska phenomenon. Its taking place ALL over the country.

It happened in Kansas this week too (sorta).

Democratic Senate candidate Chad Taylor announced HE too was quitting his 3 way senate race.
Now their is no "Lt. Senator" so clearly Taylor doesnt expect personal advancement from this.
But what he did expect was to totally fuck up the GOP's chances of taking the senate.

See most people believe the GOP will quite handily take the 6 seats they need to take the senate. In fact most polls only give the Democrats a 35-45% chance of retaining the senate (to be fair, this is similar to the 2012 numbers where Democrats actually gained seats)

The problem is that 55-65% chance of the GOP taking those 6 seats and the senate assumes the GOP wins all the seats they currently hold.

Kansas WAS one of their safest seats, despite having a very weak incumbent. The current senator was leading in the polls despite only drawing 36%, which is actually a winning margin in a close 3 way race.

But now, in a head to head race 36% is a landslide LOSS for the incumbent. You see the independent was a centrist, midway between the Democrat and the Republican, so its unlikely any of Taylors supporters would move to the Republican and not the Independent who is now the candidate most closely aliened with their views.

In fact the polls that have come out since Taylor quit have moved the Democratic chances of retaining the Senate up to 55-85% (no thats not a typo).

It seems that now needed 7th seat may be a "seat too far" for the republicans, especially with other should be safe seats (like McConnell's) more competitive then they should be.

EXCEPT it turns out the story has a twist......the person who oversees the election the Secretary of State of Kansas, Kris Kobach who is a Republican, is refusing to let the Democrat drop out claiming he legally can not drop out of the race.

Now in fairness, it does appear Kobach is legally correct. Kansas law only allows withdrawal from a race if the candidate would be unable to discharge the duties of the office. 

Now at the end of the day this may not matter much, even if his name is on the ballot, the law cant actually force Taylor to campaign or prevent him for campaigning for and endorsing the independent. But if his names on the ballot at all he will get some small number of votes....which could determine a close election.

But yet their is one more twist to go.  Taylor is claiming he actually talked to Kobach's office prior to announcing he was dropping out and got approval from the office to do it. Because of that, Taylor is indicating he may in fact sue.

If he does this could create a situation where the Republicans are actually in favor of the Democrats running, and the Democrats are in favor of not challenging the Republicans for the seat.

All in the name of quitting for that the entire party wins.

So yea like I said, I should stop making fun of Sarah Palin, it appears she was on to something when she quit........she was just too stupid to time it right or get an advantage out of it.     

A republican primary pre-mortem.

I know I know. your thinking the title is supposed to say POST mortem not PRE mortem, because you cant examine something untill its dead. to which I say, you clearly havnt been watching the unofficial republican primary for 2016.

I truly believe and have stated previously that many inside the Republican Establishment, namely RNC chairman Reince Prebus and House Republican Leadership (or at least the leadership team prior to Eric Cantors departure) actually think Hillary Clinton's quest to the presidency in 2016 is this close to a fait accompli.

One needs only look at Republican attacks in the last few months to see this. After all we've all been told the person 100% responsible for the fictional version of Benghazi that exists only in Republican's minds is Barack Obama.....I mean Hillary Clinton.......I mean Barack Obama......I mean Hillary Clinton.  Now ever since they started waffling on whos at fault, suddenly theyve gotten a lot less traction because no one takes them seriously. Yet they HAD to do it because they had to find SOMEWAY to attack President Elect in waiting, Hillary Clinton.

But I think the bigger indicator of the "Hillary effect" on the GOP is the fact that they basically started the 2016 Primary on the Republican side the hour after Mitt Romney lost in 2012. And the single factor they seem to use to pick candidates is who matches up well in polls with Hillary Clinton (I say matches up well because to the best of my knowledge I dont believe their has been a poll yet saying a republican can BEAT Hillary Clinton, of course to reasonable people a poll this far in advance doesnt mean shit and it totally worthless).

And because of that desire to get the "Hillary stopper" republicans have burned through a TON of now presidential ex-candidates.....because no one alive could ever withstand a two year primary.

Now in all fairness to Hillary Clinton, there is 1 republican ex-candidate who managed to implode without her help, former Virginia governor Bob McDonnell.

For those who havnt been paying attention, McDonnell was elected governor of Virginia in the 2009 governors race, one of the first two (new Jersey being the other) state wide races after Obama's election. His win (and Christie's in NJ) was seen as a major push back against the Obama Administration, and he was  even picked to give the GOP response to the State of the Union back in 2010.

And now its possible that as soon as tomorrow,  Bob McDonnell might be headed to jail, depending on how the jury (currently deliberating as this is written) finds him on his 13 counts of corruption, 11 of which basically have to do with him accepting bribes, and 2 of bank fraud.  His defense by the way, is that basically his wife was actually the one taking the bribes on his behalf, he never knew they were actually bribes so never did any special favors

So yea, my guess is even if he's found not guilty on all counts (which doesnt seem likely) his presidential aspirations are over, you cant blame your wife, call her corrupt, and throw her under the bus and have any real chance of surviving an election

-----------------------------------UPDATE: -------------------------------------

In the time it took me to write this the Jury has decided that Bob McDonnell is GUILTY of  11 of 13 corruption counts. 

Still no word if the ex-governor is going to jail, sentencing has been set for JANUARY of 2015, however at this point, no matter the sentence McDonnell is out of basically every presidential race for the rest of his life. So he is now 150% an ex-candidate.

----------------------------Original blog resumes below------------------------------

And theres a second possible candidate who also may be out of the race in a way that has NOTHING to do with Mrs. Clinton......Kentucky Senator Rand Paul.

Rand Paul currently has two problems, the first is Jesse Benton, his former senate 2010 campaign manager, and assumed campaign manager for any presidential campaign. Until late last week Mr. Benton worked on the reelection campaign of Senator Mitch McConnell, until he was forced to resign after evidence surfaced that he had previously illegally bribed and paid off people for endorsements in the 2012 presidential election.......when he was working for Rand Paul's father Ron Paul.

Now thats clearly not a crippling scandal for the younger Paul, hence why I still call him a "possible candidate", but its definitely one of a number of issues that might dog Paul should he run, and the only one that ventures beyond the realm of whats legal.  

But like I said, Mr. Benton is only one of Rand Paul's problems. The other is the state of Kentucky itself.

See used to be policy in every state that you could only run for one state wide office at a time, until LBJ got the rules changed in Texas so he could run for Senate and President together. Many if not most states followed suit. However one of the states the didnt is Kentucky. And Rand Paul is up for reelection to the Senate in 2016.

Which means he has to pick one, he can either try to keep his current job or try for the super long shot of being president. And most people always saw his father as the "protest candidate" no one expected him to win and I believe the younger paul is being seen the same way.....so basically everyone admits he wont be president any time soon

Thing is if he runs for president and loses, thats it, he's out of national politics for at least 4 years.....at which point he would have to decide once again to run for president or for what is currently Mitch McConnells senate seat, losing that, its another 2 years till he could challenge for his own seat again.

However should Mr. Paul skip this election (which I actually believe he will do), he CAN run for president in 2020 with no conflict, he wouldnt be on the ballot for Senate that year. In fact he could run for president without this conflict popping up again until 2028.

So I assume for mechanical reasons, Mr. Paul is effectively out of the race, until 2020.

Which brings us to the first ex-candidate Hillary Clinton can actually take some credit for: Senator Marco Rubio.

See at first Rubio seemed like the best choice to combat Clinton. Like her he had appeal to minority voters (latinos in his case) and even had an immigration policy plan that could help hit hillary were the former Secretary of state is likely the weakest, domestic policy, but that early attention to Rubio also brought early attention to his plan......which it turns out wasnt a plan in its current form that the GOP base could stomach and Rubio was forced to lead the charge to block his own bill.

In otherwords he was totally for it, before he was against it. And despite that fact that given the way congress works that CAN actually sometimes be a consistent logical and coherent position (it wasnt in this case) we all know how well that kind of stand can work. Just ask Current President Romney and Former President Kerry.......

Now had he not been elevated so early its possible Rubio could have gotten his plan passed, actually gotten Latino votes for the GOP and had a major accomplishment under his belt to point to in his campaign, but because Hillary had to be stopped yesterday, he was elevated prematurely, and is now basically totally out of the 2016 presidential race.....or possibly any presidential race which given his relative youth (he'd be 45 in 2016) could have been any race in the next 20-30 years.

Next up was Chris Christie. Now I'm tempted to put an asterik on Christie, in that I have always believed Christie was DOA. He had a scandal right when he first took office that involved him screwing up, costing his state billions of dollars, and then blaming a subordinate for his mistake and firing him, Despite Christie getting caught on tape making the mistake he lied about and said he didnt. He then proceeded numerous times to try to "redirect" money from other parts of NJ to cover up his mistake....and was repeatedly overruled by the supreme court of NJ.

And none of that got national attention, however given the narrative there (no accountability, seeming incompetence, attempted coverups) I think that would have ended his campaign had he ever run.

And thats before Bridgegate and the allegations "misuse" of hurricane sandy relief funds, which I believe in the public eye have basically ended his future aspirations, reguardless of what if anything hes actually found guilty of/corrupt, in the trial by public he already lost. Here's the thing though, had he not be elevated to "front runner" status by the GOP need to counter Hillary, theres a good chance those two scandals would have gotten as little attention as the first one I mentioned. So assuming he was cleared by the investigations he could have easily claimed they were "water under the bridge" (all puns intended) and at least attempted a run (although I still think he'd have been sunk when the 3 stories would have simultaneously come to national attention)

Next up was Scott Walker, Governor of Wisconsin. Like Christie before him, he was next to be [briefly] elevated to "front runner" status. Now Walker had made a name for himself because he survived a recall election after he basically destroyed unions in Wisconsin (although last I checked the legal fight over if that bill is actually law is still on going but most people dont know that). Now destroying unions is like crack to the GOP base, they went totally nuts in love with the guy, who then basically dropped off the map keeping his head down (a good move for anyone actually looking to run for president this early on). Then Christie imploded, and the GOP came a calling.

And for about a week Scott Walker was king of the world.....until he was suddenly revealed to have been under investigation by the FBI for electioneering and campaign finance fraud, an investigation that has already put 3 of his aids in prison.

Now at the end of the day it doesnt look like there's a good likelyhood Walker will be joining them, so this is another scandal that might have been totally missed by the national media and one Walker might have been able to explain away after the fact. But as the then current "front runner" of the non existent "shit we need to stop Hillary now" primary,  well the story got national media attention and now no matter what the outcome EVERYONE is going to want proof the governor isnt corrupt (this being the second investigation into that, and the 3rd if you count the possible illegality of the union busting). Meanwhile and perhaps much more problematic for Walker, one of his 3 aids in prison right now is gay, and his boyfriend was also indicted and sentenced (although not to jail) for corruption in this scandal. Now most Americans arnt going to give a shit that the gov has two gay aids who are dating, but the problem for Walker is the Republican Base he needs to win the real primary arnt most american's. So now thanks to his elevation they have a whole new disqualifying fact that they never would have known about had the media picked up on this after the fact.

Next up, Republican Governor Rick Perry. Now Perry kinda ko'ed himself the last time around with this line:     

But still, mostly out of desperation, some republicans still saw him as a front runner to counter Hillary....cause hey a Texas Republican Governor whose kinda an idiot, what could POSSIBLY go wrong.

And then, as great a candidate as Perry was, well it turns out he has something in common with fellow ex candidates Walker, Christie and McDonnell......he got indicted for a crime, specifically abuse of power as he punished only democratic government employees for drunk driving and not republican ones (although in an ironic twist his indictment is totally because of actions by republicans)

Now look not gonna lie of the 4 governors currently being investigated for crimes, Perry has the smallest chance of actually going to jail, most likely he will be acquitted and may actually be innocent, and no one would ever have heard about this at all if it wasnt for all the national attention.....

And to be honest he might have even survived even with the attention, EXCEPT he felt the need to address the issue to the national media, and said this to ABC news: "I’ve been indicted by that same body now for I think two counts, one of bribery, which I’m not a lawyer, so I don’t really understand the details here,"

Now that sounds fine, until you try to figure out how bribery fits into the scandal outline I listed above. Hint it doesnt. Because no one is actually accusing Rick Perry of bribery......but he seems to think they should be.

So yea, either Rick Perry's memory hasnt gotten any better in 4 years and may be getting worse, or hes so corrupt he forgot what corrupt things he hasnt been caught doing yet, or both. Either way, thats a fatal attachment to the preexisting narrative he's an idiot.

Which brings us to the "new" republican Front Runner, Mitt Romney. You remember Mitt Romney right? The guy who lost in 2012, the guys whose lose in 2012 kicked off this massive "we need a front runner NOW" crisis before he even gave his concession speech? Well he's apparently now the best person to solve the problem he created by losing.

or he's just the only one left.

I mean basically we havnt even hit the 2014 midterms yet and the republicans have already burned though an entire primaries worth of candidates trying to find some one ANYONE who can take the aura of inevitability off of Hillary Clinton.

By the time 2015 rolls around I'm actually not sure the GOP will have any remotely viable candidates left.   Consider that so far, in 10 months they have gone through 6.5 candidates (.5 being Rand Paul, cause as I said he COULD run and nothing massively disqualifying has happened to him yet, I just dont think he will), given that the primaries wont start for another 10-12 months, its likely more than a dozen possible GOP candidates will fall before the election even begins.

And its all for naught to. I dont expect Hillary to be the Democratic nominee. As much as republicans are loath to admit it shes actually a conservative fiscally, and is at least more conservative than most democrats on a number of social issues. On top of that her inability to give straight answers on simple questions like "greatest achievement as sec of state?" or "did you evolve on gay rights" dont bode well for her ability to take on those kinds of challenges that presumably the entire democratic field will throw at her. I mean dont forget we've been here before. Hillary was the President in waiting in 2008.....then a guy who sounded liberal (but wasnt) ran to her left, and tripped her up on simple questions like supporting the iraq war, and went on to be president. The blueprint for beating her is there and I have seen nothing to suggest hillary has done anything to address her deficiencies.

Which means when the GOP heads into the general election against whatever democrat actually beats Hillary Clinton, they will be doing so with a much weaker candidate than they ever needed to, because they have preemptively set pretty bad national narratives for their top tier candidates. Not only that, but I expect the GOP is going to get caught with their pants totally down, and will have spend every moment up to the 2016 Democratic Convention attacking Hillary and will have to do both opposition research and attempt a massive narrative switch to attack whoever wins the nomination, which makes it highly likely the attacks will be disjointed and likely to fail.

So while Hillary WONT be our next president whoever it is (I assumed Deval Patrick the gov of Massachusetts until he took himself out of the race last month by announcing he wasnt going to run, no idea anymore who it will be) is going to owe Mrs. Clinton one hell of a debt for clearing the field.

Granted they are also going to owe Rence Prebus one hell of a debt too, I mean its mostly been his belief in the inevitability of Clinton that's driving this whole thing, and he was already nice enough to remove the Republican primary debates from any network not named FOX, thereby ensuring no one will actually know who his candidate is.

Actually that removal is pretty much indicative of my point here. Prebus removed the GOP from the other networks because of rumors the other networks would be doing documentaries of Hillary Clinton.

They arnt, but by the time that had become known, Prebus' RNC had already passed the motion to preemptively officially bar republican participation in ANY debate (including general elections?) on a non fox network. All over something that never happened.

it seems if they know history of not, the GOP seems condemned to repeat the same mistake now. 

Getting outraged over sexy spiders.......

You know I'm always amazed at the shit that gets people fired up sometimes. Especially because it seems more and more frequently they miss the point.

Take for example, Marvel's newly released alternative cover for their new spider woman comic:

A lot of people are getting pissed because they say its way too oversexualizing of the character, and object to the fact it was drawn by a well known erotic artist.

Now on its face that seems all well and good. I mean quoting from the article in Elle about the picture

"All in all, the image seems to toe the line of pornographic; imagine Spider-Man in that position instead, and the concept would have never gotten this far." 

that seems fair right? After all Marvel would never ever put a male in that pose, that pose is purely sexual.

The Vox version of the article even outright points out the differences in how Spider Man and Spider Woman are drawn, stating
"To be clear, that is not how Spider-Man poses or is drawn when he climbs buildings:"
Then to drive the point home, they add a helpful picture of the two you can slide back and forth to see the difference. (you can take my word for it, or go to this link since i cant copy there image)

io9 gets even more specific stating "First of all, even the dumbest, horniest teenage boy on the planet knows there's no fabric on this earth that could possibly cling to Jessica Drew's individual buttocks like that. "

Point is though. Clearly Spider-Woman is forced into unnaturally sexy positions you would never ever ever ever ever find a man in.........

That picture by the way, is the cover of Amazing Spider-Man volume 2, number 30. Which was printed in June of 2001. Oddly I cant find any angry posts about the inherent sexiness of that pose and how its degrading to the character for that cover. Also to i09's point, I'm seeing a fair amount of ass cleavage, but I guess fabric can cling like that to man ass? 

Speaking of past covers no one seems to find objectionable:

.

And these are just the ones with Spider-Woman in them. Of course no one said anything at the time. I could find plenty of other much worse examples with other characters.

All of which leads me to one inescapable conclusion. The people who are outraged either dont know anything about comics or dont actually care about the sexiness. They care only that an erotic artist got a job drawing something that everyone still [incorrectly] believes are children's books. 

 Which is a shame, since they almost have a valid point. Comic book characters are overly sexualized. But lets be honest, some of that is inherent in the idea. These are idealized humans. I'm sure there are very few if any women who naturally look like Spider-Woman. Conversely I dont know very many men who look like this:

Just saying.

Now look I'm not going to lie, the playing up the overtly sexual/physical appearances isnt gender equal. Historically its weighted towards women. However an interesting thing has happened. Most of the images I've used so far are fairly recent (last 10-15 years), and theres a reason for that, thats the current marvel style. Now that style has a very detailed body with "depth" to it, so its a basically allows for much more realistic sexy image then this

That's Ms Marvel crica 1980, and that costume is [rightly] the usual go to default for people criticizing the sex appeal built in comic book characters (mostly women) at the time.

But this is her now, in her much less revealing, hailed as "not sexual" current costume:

 

I dont know about you, but I think I find this second lady much more attractive then the first.

Point is though, ever since Marvel adopted its current style, the sex appeal/sexy poses for Men and Women have gotten much closer. Yes it still learns towards women, but we are getting nearer to equality.....just not the equality people had in mind.

And thats a point everyone upset about Spider-Woman's new cover has missed. You can be against the sexiness of comic characters at this point, but if your only aiming it at women your missing half the point, cause men are strutting their stuff now too

Ladies and Gentlemen, the Incredibly unclothed Hercules....

Oh, hey ant man, what were you doing down there?

Furthermore of all the characters to pick on for being overly sexualized, they seem to have latched onto a awkward choice.

You see Spider-Woman isnt a Spider-Man clone. She has her own unique power set. Including Pheromone control, which she can use to make her opponent feel fear repulsion or attraction.

Thats right, she actually has the power to make her enemies (or friends) attracted to her....and how exactly would you depict that in a visual medium? by making her sexy looking. Which would kinda give marvel an excuse to make her look hot....shes using her powers

Oh and before you point out that's sexist to give that power to a woman, meet Starfox, the brother of Thanos (for those who've seen Guardians he didnt make it into the movie)

His superpower? he can stimulate your pleasure center with his mind (not touching the possible contexts for that with a 10 foot pole) and make you fall in love with him....or anyone else. Oh and did I mention his real name is Eros? And how did he get the name Starfox? Well according to the wasp, he came from the stars and he's foxy......

So yea. turns out Marvel's pretty equal opportunity on that too....well except that both Fox and Spider have been accused of using their powers on a lover......want to guess which one wound up in court fighting a rape change and which one got off scott free? I'll give you a clue, the fact that Marvel didnt make it clear enough Fox didnt rape the women (they stated it in the text, but as an aside after the trial that he hadnt done it, not at the trial himself) is one of the reasons he will likely never be seen again, readers incorrectly think he's a rapist so he's now bad PR for Marvel.

Whereas no one really mentions what Spider Woman keeps doing.....

Anyways point is, the overall argument the people who are outraged over the new cover are trying to make is for the moment still somewhat valid. Women are sexualized more than men in comics. But they likely could have picked a better [read earlier] time to do it, before things started to equalize, they should have picked a different hero then the one with a built in excuse as to why she might look unrealisitically attractive, and the definitely should have picked a different cover to fight over, and a better reason to fight, because as I showed, Spiderman, whom they all turned to to make their point, has been shown in exactly the same pose, which actually undercuts their argument of sexism. Which in turn hurts the valid part of their point.

Now thats the end of this rant, but before I leave you, I uncovered one more comic book cover while writing this that I want to include but didnt really fit well anywhere else:

Whatever Herc and Wolverine were doing right before this cover I DONT WANT TO KNOW!!!!!!!!

The war on Whites.

So it seems Congressman Mo Brooks is the first person to actually figure out the truly evil plans of the Democratic Party's stand on immigration reform. You see, you might think its about fixing a broken immigration system, or helping people brought here illegally as children. If your more cynical you might think its actually about pandering to Latino's by trying to convince them your policies are better for them. But you'd be wrong. You see Democratic immigration policies, nay ALL Democratic policies are actually about a WAR ON WHITES!!!!!!!!!

Or as Rep. Brooks put it, “This is a part of the war on whites that’s being launched by the Democratic Party. And the way in which they’re launching this war is by claiming that whites hate everybody else, It's part of the strategy that Barack Obama implemented in 2008, continued in 2012, where he divides us all on race, on sex, greed, envy, class warfare, all those kinds of things. Well that’s not true.”

Now first off I think we all need to admit the truth of Rep Brooks statement. If there is one group through-out american history that has been repeatedly victimized its white folks:

I mean just look at those poor guys. Not only are they required to hide their faces when they go out in public, they are forced to wear white robes to identify themselves publicly as white people, and forced to endure all the scorn that comes with it. Plus look at their chests, like the Jews in Germany they are forced to where a symbol identifying their religion and  singling them out for even more scorn. All thanks to the muslim socialist fascist President. Thanks Obama.

And its not like thats the only example. Take a look at this offensive mocking of the White People.

That woman is CLEARLY in White-Face. She's clearly mocking the chapped lips problem white people can have when its cold, the fact our noses can turn red when we are sick and the fact that our hair can grown in a wide range of colors. Point is its OFFENSIVE and needs to be stopped.

And its not like shes the only one:

Cant you just hear them "Hey dude, you know what would be HILARIOUS? lets all dress up like White People and walk around town for a while....you know with the 3 piece suits, the rosey cheeks, the sneers and weird mustaches" "Dude youre right, that would be TOTALLY EPIC"

So I mean, at the end of the day, you cant deny Congressman Brooks has a real point. Just look how badly white people are singled out in this culture.

Although then again, maybe the identification is needed. I mean, maybe its just me, but it seems I'm a little confused what a white person is.

You see I thought those were all white people (except for Sen Hirono). But it turns out most of them are Democrat's.

Same here:

And here:

Like I said, I thought all those groups were white. My mistake, I guess we really do need the hoods to tell the difference.

Now I know what your thinking, maybe they ARE white and some white folks vote democrat? Not according to Rep Brooks who tried to clarify his first comments with these:

"As best I can in the time limitations I have, I try to make sure people understand what the Democrats are doing by raising race as an issue every chance they get. It's much like the congressmen during the (immigration) debate on Friday: Democrat after Democrat was talking racism and race. And the motivation for their doing so was to try to cause bloc voters of race to vote solely on skin color.

I'm one of those who does not believe in racism and I believe everyone should be treated equally as American citizens. It's high time folks started calling out the Democrats for their racial appeals. Certainly if you were to flip the coin and a white person were to say vote for me because I'm white, it would be an uproar and deservedly so. So why do we allow blacks to say vote for me because I'm black or Hispanics vote for me because I'm Hispanic? Race is immaterial and everybody ought to be treated the same."

See. Democrats only run on the fact they arnt white and you should vote for them because you arnt white either. Its never been that the policy endorsed by Democrats is seen as being better for minorities by minorities One of the most famous examples of cheap vote for me due to my race pandering:

Now as we all famously know "ich bin ein berliner" actually means "I'm Hispanic so vote for me my Hispanic brethren". 

And I mean its not like JFK is the only one. This guy is famous for supposedly being America's First Black President:

  

Which is a TOTAL LIE. I mean we all know who America's first black president really was:

But then again, maybe he was Asian, I really cant tell apparently........but as America's first Democrat president we KNOW he wasnt white.

Point is though, Republicans would never NEVER run a candidate based solely on the fact they werent white and assume that would bring them minority votes.

Remind me again, why this clown was declared the Republican Frontrunner for 2016 8 seconds after the polls closed in 2012? Clearly it was because of his wealth of experience and policy like the famous [editors note find the name of a bill Rubio wrote that became law and edit this later] that he wrote and is now law.

By the way, is Marco Rubio still alive? I'm just saying no one seems to have mentioned him in like a year...ever since he laid out his policy ideas..........

Eh, must be a fluke that ever since he said what he actually stands for, Republicans wont support him, but before when he was only his appearance they loved the guy.

I do legitimately fully agree with one thing Congressman Brooks said though "[If] a white person were to say vote for me because I'm white, it would be an uproar and deservedly so." And credit to Congressman Brooks for having the guts to test and prove that theory personally.

5 most important Vice Presidents in US history.

So I thought this would be a cool follow up to my 2 recent 10 best/worst presidents list. Especially since as a rule the Vice President is kinda an unknown. In fact the only real requirements for most Vice Presidents has been to have a heartbeat......or in the case of Dick Cheney, a reasonable substitute.

So unlike our Presidents list, the rules for Vice President are a little different, their entire political career up until becoming vice president counts....however nothing they did after being Vice President will count, since this is about what made the important vice presidents, not people. (this is also to prevent the list from being populated by presidents who had been VP's)

Also, the rules for electing the Vice President changed in 1804 when the 12th amendment was passed. Prior to 1804 the Vice President was simply the runner up in the electoral college. Which also means the reasoning behind who became Vice President and why also changed in 1804. Therefore in order to ensure an even playing field (and give time to some lesser known VP's) the men who were VP prior to 1804, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Aaron Burr are disqualified. However since the idea usually is that the VP is most important before the election, ALL other VP's including Joe Biden and Dick Cheney are eligible.

One last thing, please take note of the word IMPORTANT. This is not a best or worst list, just a list of Vice Presidents who did something that had a big impact, for better or worse.

First up we have:

Elbridge Gerry. 5th Vice President under Madison

Ever wonder why Gerrymandering is spelled with a G and not a J like is sounds? Because it was named after this guy. In 1812, Gerry "invented" (or perfected) the practice when, as governor, he approved a map of Massachusetts congressional districts that used lots of irregular shapes to make it much easier for his party to win seats in the states, and much harder for the opposition. Pretty much every time we redraw districts after the census the party in control of a state legislator that year will try to do the same thing Gerry did 200 years ago. And it can work really effectively.  Consider, in 2012, the Democrat's got 1.17 million more votes in House races then Republicans, but Republicans still hold a near 30 seat majority. How? because the democratic vote was spread out and mimimized into highly republican districts using gerrymandering in the 2010 redistricting (and to be clear, this is not an indictment of the GOP, the dem's would and have done the same, it just so happens the this is the most recent example). So yea, thats the power of Gerrymandering and lasting legacy of its originator, Elbridge Gerry.

On one last thing, it should also be noted Elbridge Gerry is the only person on this list to not have a post vice presidential career of some kind.....because he died 18 months into his term (the second of 7 VP's to die) prompting people everywhere to go "Dude you had ONE JOB! ONE FREAKING JOB! HAVE A HEARTBEAT! AND YOU FAILED!"

Number 4:

Andrew Johnson. 16th Vice President under Lincoln.

So somewhat shockingly, given his placement on my worst presidents list, Johnson is actually here for a GOOD reason. If you live in the midwest/great plains, you've likely heard of the Homestead Act, a congressional bill that gave public land to settlers to encourage westward expansion. In fact its arguably one of the main factors for all original US migration west of the Mississippi, and it was all the idea of this guy. In fact he introduced it for the very first time during his first term in office as a congressman in 1843....and basically spent the next 20 years pushing for it in both the house and the senate (with a 4 year break to serve as governor of Tennessee.) In an ironic twist however, Johnson would leave the Senate in 1862 just months before final passage occured. Unlike most of his southern ilk though, Johnson didnt leave due to secession, he actually left to become military governor of occupied Tennessee.  As military governor, Johnson, devoted to the Southern way of life (even if he supported the idea of the Union) got an exception for his state from the Emancipation Proclamation, ensuring no matter who controlled which parts of Tennessee after 1863, the whole state could keep their slaves. In another ironic twist, Johnson's final act as Military Governor, before assuming the Vice Presidency, was to sign into law Tennessee's new Constitution.....outlawing slavery forever.

Number 3: 

John C. Calhoun. 7th Vice President under Q Adams and Jackson.

Calhoun is famous in his own right, but most of the reasons he's famous come from his stint as a senator, AFTER being vice president (which it should be noted was not at all unusual, most still living ex Vice Presidents up until and including Andrew Johnson at least ran for the Senate). But he was actually pretty important before that senate stint as well.

First he's an AMAZING set of trivia answers, Second (and last) vice president to serve two different presidents, only vice president to serve two different parties, first vice president to resign the office.

And its actually that last one that gets him on this list. People may remember that when I was talking about Andrew Jackson on my worst presidents list, I mentioned he cant even take full credit for his crack down on nullification because his vice president had mainstreamed the whole idea? yea well this is that Vice President. And the idea of Nullification, was one the south pointed to as proof they could legally secede, and that idea had actually more or less entirely Calhoun's.  So in a nutshell he's kinda responsible for the civil war.

One other less important, but intended to be more positive thing Calhoun did: before becoming VP Calhoun had been Sec of War, and as such was supposed to oversee relations with native america's. In an attempt to better address relations with them, Calhoun created the Bureau of Indian Affairs inside the War department to draw up treaties with native tribes (which as far I can tell Calhoun assumed [incorrectly] we'd honor).

Number 2: 

Thomas Marshall, 28th Vice President under Wilson

Thomas Marshall was only the second vice president in history to serve two terms under the same president. The first was Daniel D. Tompkins under James Monroe a century before. But in addition to serving what was at that point a once in a century term, Marshall was also the first modern Vice President.

Most VP's had focused almost exclusively on their role in the legislative branch (as leader of the senate) up until Marshall. Although the Vice President would continue to preside over the senate regularly until Alvin Barkley (VP under Truman), Marshall would be the one to take the first steps to moving the Vice presidency into its modern fit as part of the executive branch. In fact he was the first to be regularly invited to cabinet meetings (although he often didnt attend after the first year or so), and was the first to be used as a surrogate on campaign speeches and later liberty bond/support the war (WWI) propaganda speeches, regularly.  This would lead to him being the first Vice President to actually conduct a cabinet meeting after President Wilson left the country to negotiate the Treaty of Versailles ending world war I.

Actually to be honest, Marshall had a chance to BE president in his own right. Not long after returning from europe, Wilson suffered a stoke that left him incapacitated. Many members of congress believed without Presidential leadership the Treaty might fail and "League of Nations" (a fore runner to the UN) certainly would (and did). So they called on Marshall to assume the powers of the President due to Wilson's incapacity. Marshall refused citing the precedent this would set for forcing a president from office for a sickness. (Wilson refused to officially admit to his incapacity, so legally it was if he was only ill). The ensuing battle and unsuress on correct legal policy would eventually lead to language clarifying when the Vice President was required to assume power in the 25th Amendment (paving the way for Bush Sr to assume the mantle of President a few times during Reagan's term while Reagan was undergoing surgeries). How many Vice Presidents do you know of who would pass at a chance to BE president? not to many and that alone makes Marshall remarkable.

However even outside of what he did as VP, Marshall was notable, and a kinda awkward pairing for the racist Wilson.  As governor of Indiana, Marshall took a trying to overturn the states Eugenics and Sterilization laws, at the height of such laws popularity in the country (and laws favored by future president Wilson) going so far as to order state institution to NOT comply with the law.  He also was opposed to capitol punishment and would pardon anyone sentenced to death during his term, as a result he was the first Governor to execute no one during his term in office.  He also helped pass Child Labor laws and Anti corruption legislation during his tenure.  All in all he made a rather activist liberal running mate paired with a somewhat conservative racist president.

Number 1: 

Richard Cheney. 46th Vice President under W. Bush

As if it was going to be anybody else. Dick Cheney is possibly the most powerful and influential VP in american history. Rumors persist that he was basically the senior partner and the one calling the shots during the first term of the W. Bush adminstration. He's credited as the architect of the Iraq war, and many of Bush's other policies during that time. He's also so modern I dont really need to go on about him, EVERYONE knows him and why he's famous. Which is actually unusual for any vice president, even the incumbent, and goes a long way to showing why he tops the list.

In fact the best example of his influence comes from hearing talking heads talk about the period between 2000 and 2008. Its just as often referred to as the "Bush/Cheney Administration" as it is just the stand alone "Bush Adminstration". In fact my prediction is in 100 years, Dick Cheney will still be the only vice president (other than the ones who became president) that any school kid will actually know.

(side note: the reason I dont have a "statue" picture of Cheney like I do everyone else is because the statue doesnt yet exist, not for any reason of bias)

So there you have it, the 5 most important Vice Presidents in history, 2 of whom you know, 2 of whom you likely never heard of, and 1 you likely never knew was VP.  

10 worst presidents in American history part 3

So we already covered the best of the worst, and the fairly bad of the worst, in our last two parts. Now its time to see who is worthy of the dishonor of being America's WORST president.

Leading off the final leg of the journey to historic suckatdue Number 3:

Andrew Jackson. 7th President

So I have a hunch a lot of people would call this my "biggest shock/outrage pick" yet, and thats after putting Washington at #4 on the Best List. And your welcome to that opinion.....but here's the thing, I dont get it.

There are very few famous Presidents in US history where some kind of argument cant be made to justify their high standing in the American Consciousness. In fact I can only think of two, Jackson and Reagan. And in Reagan's case, as vastly overrated as he is (and if this were a top 15 worst presidents list, Reagan would probably be on it) , he at least had some small redeeming qualities to his presidency.

That's more than can be said for Jackson.  I tend to think his entire public perception is based on the fact he was the first Democratic president, and since the first ever president, and the first republican were great, people assume he must be too. But its not true.

In fact, the one slightly redeeming thing Jackson did, force South Carolina down on the idea states can nullify federal law, comes with a giant asterisk.....the guy pushing for the idea of Nullification was Jackson's vice president. And this was in the post 12th amendment era, which was designed to make a fight between the President and Vice President much harder.....but at least Jackson replaced him for his second term.

Oh and you remember how I put Chester Arthur at #10 on the best presidents list because he over turned the system of patronage, known as the spoils system that had corrupted pretty much every president since it was put in place? Yea......Jackson is the guy who created it.

And maybe you've heard of the trail of tears in your elementary school? thats another of Jackson's great ideas. In fact his policy towards Native Americans was so bad, its not much of a stretch to compare his policy towards natives to Hitlers policy towards Jews. Hell he even went to war over trying to get rid of the Natives, in the Second Seminole War, america's most expensive war against natives. (and not one we won either, as anyone who roots for Florida State could tell you).

And his stand on African American's wasnt much better. His Attorney General once issued an opinion saying it was legal for the state of South Carolina to legally exclude any free blacks from entering the state. Jackson responded by later appointing his AG Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Oh by the way, this guy's name was Roger Tawney......the Chief Justice who wrote the Dred Scott Decision.

Most famously Jackson killed off the Second Bank of the United States, and ended centralized banking in the country. (side note, the Secretary of the Treasury who actually helped Jackson do this was Roger Tawney, prior to being Chief Justice.....this is how the spoils system works, you just kept kicking your friends higher and higher up the ladder). Now I'm not saying that was a mistake or anything. I'm saying that Jackson paid off the national debt in 1835 (the only time that has ever happened), killed the Bank in 1836, and by 1837 we had a debt of 3.3 million......which meant a lot more back then. Oh and then there was the Panic of 1837, the economic crash that possibly even beats out the great depression as the WORST crash in the history of the country. Technically its official "crash" date is less than 5 weeks after Jackson left office, but since the visible signs of a crash had started before he left, I'm going to break my rule slightly and blame the thing on him, because hey less than 5 weeks really cant be the new guys fault.  

It's also worth noting that in the 40 years before Jackson killed the banks, only two presidents failed to win a second term (the 2 Adams') and in the 100 years since Wilson restarted centralized banking, only 4 have failed to win a second term (Hoover, Ford, Carter, H.W. Bush), not counting those who died in their first term. However in that 80 year interim, only 4 presidents won back to back terms....two who won wars (Lincoln and McKinley) and 2 who were considered the heroes of those wars (Grant and T Roosevelt). Now the reason a lot of those presidents lost in those 80 years was because, as a rule, the economy was in the toilet,

Basically, ending the Second Bank was a historically bad decision, that really could only be beaten by a couple of worse decisions.....which brings us nicely to Number 2:

 

Franklin Pierce. 14th president.

The fact that Pierce was nominated on the 34th round of voting at the 1852 Democratic Convention was probably a sign he was going to suck. Sadly no one knew how much.

First there was the Ostend Manifesto, which was drafted by Pierce's ambassadors and state officials, which was designed to give a rational to going to war to annex Cuba as a slave state (possibly two slave states) if Spain refused to sell it to us. Luckily this didnt happen.....but only because something worse did.

Perhaps you've heard the term "Bleeding Kansas"? that would a mini Civil War (or arguably the start of THE civil war) that raged in Kansas over its admission as a slave or free state starting in 1854.

Well that was Pierces fault. You see the territory of Kansas wanted to come in as a state (well two states, Kansas and Nebraska), and under the preexisting laws at the time, both would have come in as free states since they were north of the Missouri Compromise line. Well pro slavery forces, including the President, objected and instead changed the law to allow "popular opinion" to decide if the states would be free or not. Which worked so well, the first election held on the issue in Kansas had more votes cast then people living in Kansas at the time. And that election led to a Pro slavery Constitution and government. Congress sent a committee to Kansas to look into the results, and the committee declared the results invalid and called for a new election. The second election (which was policed and closer at least to being a real and fair election) nominated an anti slavery government and an anti slavery Constitution. Pierce for his part had the anti slavery government declared insurrectionists, which would be quickly followed up by an attack and sacking of the anti slavery town of Lawrence, and so on and so forth it would go, in fact the bloodshed of bleeding Kansas would only officially end in 1861....not because the fighting stopped but because the fighting in Kansas became national and was absorbed into the Civil War.

Which brings us to our number 1, and unlucky winner of the WORST DAMN PRESIDENT AMERICA HAS EVER HAD:

James Buchanan. 15th president. 

You know, I'm convinced part of the reason Lincoln is seen as such a great president is because he followed these two jackasses. (the fact that both of Lincolns immediate successors are also usually on these "bad lists" likely helps as well)

For starters he had the bad luck to be in office when Dred Scott was issued....although he was hardly a critic of the decision.

But mostly his administration consisted of taking everything Franklin Pierce had done and making it worse.

For example, Pierce had refused to recognize Utah for admission to the Union....mostly because he didnt like polygamists. When Utah tried again after Pierce left office Buchanan sent the military to replace the governor by force. (so yea a military overthrow of a duly elected government). The plan was stopped when the Mormons took up arms and raids all over the territory, the army backed off and Buchanan basically ignored the state for the rest of his term.

He also got involved in Bloody Kansas. He appointed a new governor to hold yet another election to decide if Kansas would be free or slave......well sort of. You see the options to vote were "a Constitution with slavery", and a "Constitution without slavery", except the second choice actually meant not that Kansas was a free state, but only that it would ban the future importation of slaves into the state.....something that basically would have been unenforceable. Not shockingly the "With slavery" option won, despite most Kansans being against slavery. Buchanan then instantly publicly endorsed this Constitution as the legitimate one, only to see it go down in flames in congress. (in fairness to Buchanan's hand picked governor, he resigned after seeing the options for the vote not wanting to be involved with the injustice)

But here's what lands Buchanan at the number 1 spot.....he was the president in office when the South Seceded. South Carolina went first in December of 1860, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas would all follow, and the Confederate States would officially be created while he was in office. Hell Jefferson Davis was even sworn in while Buchanan was in office.

However the big problem was actually that as the states seceded they confiscated all federal property in their respective states, much of which was fortifications and the weapons needed to fight the civil war.

Buchanan's response was to decide that this really wasnt his problem, he'd be out of office in 4 months or less (he'd already lost his reelection bid), stick his head up his ass and do nothing.

Which is possibly the biggest dereliction of duty of any president in US history....even John Adams and Andrew Jackson at least threatened to put down uprisings with military force, Buchanan couldnt even be bothered to do that.

So yea, for basically abandoning his duty, James Buchanan is america's worst president EVER!.

So there you have it folks, America's 10 best.....and 10 worst presidents.

That said I would feel a little remiss if I didnt include my runner up for 10 worst presidents, especially since I did a runner up for 10 best presidents (Harry Truman). Except that in this case, we have a tie.  

The two guys who just missed making the cut would be Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge, the 29th and 30th presidents. Both these guys benefited highly from the fact I cant blame them for the Great Depression because it didnt happen while they were in office, even though it was pretty clearly their policies that led to it (which they still take heat for even under my rules since the policies were bad at the time in many cases). 

However even without that, they both still came close to making my list, Harding for the Teapot Dome and Veterans affairs and Justice Department scandals (all involved his appointees basically stealing money from the government), and Coolidge for his response (or lack of) to the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, leaving flood damage that was only surpassed by Hurricane Katrina.  The only thing that knocked the two of them off was a sense of obligation that I had to include the only president to resign and the one who oversaw the most corrupt administration ever. I would say that Nixon and Grant were actually better presidents than Harding and Coolidge (especially Harding), but I just couldnt justify not including such historic levels of corruption, so Harding and Coolidge got moved off the list.

Finally for those who are interested in partisanship, the final party tallies are as follows:

On the 10 best presidents list:  4 Republicans, 4 Democrats (5 counting the runner up), 1 Democratic-Republican, and George Washington who had no party.

On the 10 worst presidents list: 3 Republicans (5 counting the two runner ups), 4 Democrats, 1 Federalist, 1 Whig, and Andrew Johnson, whom I cant decide what party to stick him with.

Since I didnt really consider party affiliations when I put these lists together, I find it kinda interesting its basically an even balance all around.