Current Events roundup

A quick check of how some of the headlines of the day are playing out over at Tradesports.com's futures markets:

Oui on the EU? Tradesports bettors: Non!

Market chart for the "France adopts the EU Vote"

Z-Man: soon to be worm-food?

Tradesports bettors: nyet in the short-term, but by December, a decided maybe.

Bolton the Barbarian to be US UN Ambassador?

Tradesports bettors: Bring. It. On!

What's revealing about this last graph is notice the point where the market broke in favor of Bolton's likely confirmation: the market seems to believe that Bolton was the secret protocol in the Judicial filibuster deal. So here's what happened: Dubya gets up or down votes on the core nominees, the ones most likely to become Supreme Court appointees. And in return for letting the Democrats save face on a couple of less significant appointments, he gets The Man He Wants for bringing the fight to the United Nations.

Sounds like a sweet deal to me.

The hardcore bitterenders on the appointment issues need to take a good look at history: the last president to really get his way with the judiciary in the way they desire was Andrew Jackson. FDR was able to completely restructure the federal judiciary, but only at the tremendous political costs incurred in the Court Packing debacle. If they want to get the long term results, they need to rack up 4-5 more Senate victories in 06, which is not outside the realm of possibilities. In the meantime, take what they get, and keep forcing the Senate Democrats to increasingly act and feel like a minority party, which after awhile politically becomes self-reinforcing.

I'm smelling win-win here, but that's just me, Mr. Vegas.