June 15, 2005

• Wow. To think, he could have chosen to do this when they'd elected an actually good president, rather than Slappy McNewkewlar. But shit, let's run Clinton against Chimpy, see what happens.
• I have no problem with getting rid of term limits. I think that they are silly. However, if we are not going to have term limits, then we have to get fairly serious about campaign finance and contributions.
• Without this, Bush and co. might get out of office before the war, the deficit, et al effect the utter collapse of the economy/the house of cards/western civilization/a.), b.), and c.). If he stays in office he'll at least have the opportunity to reap what he's sown. (I was betting they were going to manufacture a bogus state of emergency which would make it necessary to 'postpone' elections, but this would work too.)
• Surely it'd never pass. Repealing an amendment must require two-thirds of both houses, right? Surely even with a Republican majority in the Senate and in Congress they still couldn't pull it off.
• No it will never pass in a million years.
• Not exactly. As pointed out over in the blue, it is Hoyer -- the Democratic whip -- who introduced the resolution. Sensenbrenner is just a cosponsor, along with Sabo (D-MN), Pallone (D-NJ), and Berman (D-CA).
• Regrettably, I can't see how this would change anything. Legitimization is cheap these days. That, and I really don't want Clinton back anyway. I'd rather Gore, the way nature seemed to have intended in the first place.
• No need for this foolishness The oligarchy will continue with the election of Jeb
• >That, and I really don't want Clinton back anyway. If I were Bill Clinton, I have to say, in the ENTIRE WORLD a sufficient number of zaftig interns could not be found to lure me back into the oval office.
• >The oligarchy will continue with the election of Jeb I think some quotation marks around the 'e' word would be appropriate.
• 1. It'll never pass. 2. Clinton and Bush Jr would have to be inelegible since they were elected when term limits were in place. 3. It'll never pass.
• I'm with Stan the Bat and the "bogus state of emergency" option, and, if the Republicans don't have enough Diebold machines to neutralize the backlash against them, it'll happen before the 2006 Congressionals. /deep cynicism
• Maybe FDR can run again.
• Getting rid of Presidential term limits: Bad idea.
• I, for one, welcome the... aw, the hell with it.
• the next thing you know, only members of the Bush family will be eligible to control our country. . . Hey, wait. . .
• Someones yanking our chain.
• Add me to the chorus of "it'll never pass"es. But as for a Jeb in '08 run, I doubt it. First, he's happy as the chief exec of Florida. Second, a *third* Bush? No way. Third, the Republican Congress (NOT Bush, I might add, he's been imo far more moderate this term than last,legacy building, I suspect) have been acting like drunken pirates. Even amongst the diehard Bush supporters that I know, I've seen a bit of chargrin, evangelical or no. Bush has been slipping in the polls, as has been support for the war in Iraq. I think in 06 you'll see the Democrats gain a few seats. Who the Republicans run in 08 is the real question: I can't see it being Cheney; I can't see it being Rice, either. A year ago I'd have said Frist, but today he's damaged goods - hell, a LOT of the senior Republicans are becoming damaged goods. So who's left? McCain, I think. Maybe Hastert. What they need is a nice, capable Republican governor (Kerry redux fans, take note) - someone with executive branch experience and *without* a big bag of ammo called a congressional voting record to hand to their opponent on the day they announce for office. And to be honest, I don't know enough about the governors of other states to tell you who's good and who's a nut. My $2 says McCain. Rice as a VP, maybe? So who for the Democrats?
• Gee, I don't know Fes, first it'll be Jeb, then 'the little brown one', then the Bush twins (whoo-hoo!!!), then the offspring of previous, rinse/repeat until the end of time or the fall of Rome/Warshingtown Dead Ceed.
• If it passes, vote for me as President-For-Life. One of you guys will have to remove limitations on non-citizens, but I promise in return that every US citizen will get broadband.
• Hey Tracicle, I'll take care of that non-citizen thingy on Monday. Consider it done. 1 vote for Tracicle for Presient-For-Life! if that doesn't work, can we declare Monkeyfilter as a sovereign nation?
• Remove limitations on non-citizens? -and, presumably, naturalized citizens as well? I don't know... 'President Schwartzenegger' just sticks in my craw somehow.
• Don't worry about Arnold. I'll take care of him; I saw T3.
• It'll never pass a *third* Bush? No way Ah, don't know anymore... of late, weirder things have happened.
• Stan, an amendment to fix the Governator's little problem is already in the works. If it passes, I'll vote for tracicle first, I promise. I don't think the 22nd amendment will get repealed, but if it does, I'd vote for Slick Willie and his intern-chasing ways again. Sure, he did things I didn't like, but he's a damn sight better than what we have now and he might be able to fix some of what ails us. I wouldn't expect him to restore our long national nightmare of peace and prosperity, when they were hiring monkeys for $100K for tech jobs and the biggest political problem was whether or not Clinton had gotten a BJ in the Oval Office, but if he ran (a BIG if), I think he could come closer than a lot of people.
• Ok, I'm voting Tracicle in '08. AND I'll handle your midwest fundraising and logistics. But in exchange, I want to be your ambassador to Italy. Also for life. Whaddya say, Mrs. President?
• ***Tracicle - Moneyjane in '08*** Wanna pray? On your Knees! Ah, that would look great on a bumper sticker... I blame the non-continuous 3 hours of sleep I've had for the past 20 hours.
• ...a *third* Bush? No way. *shudders, knocks on wood, pretends I dind't read this thread* Wait, someone said tracicle President-For-Life in 2008!? If you enact emergency powers that allow you to banhammer at-whim, count me in!
• With that ticket, I may have to buck for Secretary of State.
• I'm in -- please make me Secretary of Partying Down.
• jim sensenbrenner is a wanker.
• Ooo! Ooo! Put me down for Minster of Tourism! Or Secretary of Tourism, whatever. America still accepts tourists, right? On a serious note, I'm not going to say that it'll never pass. If I've taken any lessons from recent American history, it's that a) the Bush crowd will stop at nothing to get their way, and b) they'll get their way, and c) fuck you. I'd like to think that it'll never happen, (if only to force an end to Chimpy's reign), but I've seen too much illegality and madness and greed to give me any hope. But, correct me if I'm wrong -- it was put in place by the GOP just to stop FDR from running again, and then they screwed themselves by having to get rid of Eisenhower, right? So it was an amendment based entirely on naked political lust? If so, what would be the problem in getting rid of it (Chimpy aside, I mean)?
• If I've taken any lessons from recent American history, it's that a) the Bush crowd will stop at nothing to get their way, and b) they'll get their way Well, the slowly deflating Social Security "debate" and the recent thumbscrewing of the Nuclear Option showed, if anything, that the Republican legislative ramrod leaves a bit to be desired. A big juicy target like this is, even discounting the difficulties of changing the Constitution (which are, gladly, significant - thanks, Founders!), seems like it would end up in the same rat trap.
• You can have Blair if you like. I know he's not American but then neither is Arnie ...
• If I were Bill Clinton...could not be found to lure me back into the oval office. I'd have to agree with that sentiment. The right-wingnuts treated him like the anti-christ the first time around. Can you imagine the crazy hate-explosion if he got back in? But as for a Jeb in '08 run, I doubt it. First, he's happy as the chief exec of Florida. Keeping in mind he's already headed out of office in Florida, he's also on record saying that he's not running in 2008. Whatever you think of his politics, in objective profiles he comes across as a surprisingly sensible (and thus politically dangerous) guy. I suspect he's happy to slip out of the limelight for a short while and bide his time before his run, aiming for a more favorable climate that doesn't include a dozen hungry opponents, an ugly guagmire of a war, and an extremely worrisome economic situation. I wouldn't be surprised if Jeb secretly dreams of a Democratic win in 2008 to sweep potential challengers away, and put a non-GOP scapegoat in office for when his brother's chickens come home to roost.
• Fes -- I wish I could believe you. I really do. Nothing would give me more comfort knowing that the Bushites could be defeated at something. Facts, law, simple politeness -- nothing seems to be able stop these guys once they have their mind set to something. That they might change their mind in the face of political expediency doesn't mean that they still don't get their way. The target may change, the time frame may change, but they'll still get their way.
• That's glass-half-empty thinking, Cap'n! The Republicans haven't changed their mind on either of those items I mentioned - Bush is still on his nationwide tour to promote the sinking like a stone SocSec thing, and did you see Frist after those Senators torpedoed the torpedoing of the Fillibuster rule? He's a senator, but he ain't no actor - he was ready to chew nails and spit tacks over that. The Republicans may have sway today, like the Democrats had sway yesterday - about the same, if you ask me, like rats in charge of the cheese. What changes? The clock on the wall, the date on the calendar, and the whim of the electorate. If Bush and the Republicans were going to seriously toast off America-as-we-know-it, they'd have done it by now. But they didn't, mostly because they can't, but a lot of they didn't want to, too. Republicans are people too, and many of them respect the traditions of American culture, jurisprudence and freedom. But the economy is growing (minimal thanks to the party of "fiscal conservatism" thank you very little!), the Iraq war is settling down (elections, Iraqi police and military coming on line), even Iran and North Korea, oil prices, last week's bugaboos? Fading, into next week's bugaboos. Perspective should be the order of the day - for all the whooping and whinging we do about Bush, Iraq, whatever? These times are not even CLOSE to as bad of times as America has had in even recent history. For war? Vietnam. For economics and oil? Carter Administration. Executive branch chicanery? Nixon. If not all of them. These are all serious issues, but we all live daily in the vanity that today is the most interesting, important and contentious day EVER -that is, until tomorrow! When really, today smack in the middle is a fairly smooth, uneventful, peaceful period in American history. Ask any veteran of the 60s. And yeah, they fungo the facts - they're politicians! And yeah, they skirt the edges of the law - they're politicians! And yes, simple politeness often seems beyond them - they're politicians! Take comfort in that it was ever thus, and will always be so. And that there will, in America, always someone on the other side of the aisle to call them on it, regardless of who or what party.
• My glass is always half-empty. In fact, it's half empty right now. (God, I need more Scotch... where'd that pantsless waitress go?)
• *gives waitress universal sign for "this pessimist needs a wee single-malt"*
• I really don't see the democrats coming back into power for a while. They need to work on the mass-appeal thing. Classic example: when Bush wanted to attract the Latin-American vote, his ads were specific to the ethinic groups of the areas they were played in. Separate accents and angles for each differant ethnic group that "Latin American" covers. Kerry did not do this. This is a pipe dream, but I'd really like to see Sen. Olympia Snowe run. I'm an independant, but I really like her, and Susan Collins. But I think Snowe would make a better President.
• They're the two from Maine in case anyone was wondering.
• My god Fes, that was... entirely sensible. Don't you know that's bad form? We're supposed to be working ourselves into a frenzied lather, here!
• I'm not saying this to be snarky, but watching people debate American politics is a bit like watching people choose between apricot and orange marmalade, especially if you don't like marmalade. Your parties are so close together in their policies. I don't think American people are that narrow in their politics, but it seems like the parties that come out of the system are.
• its self-perpetuating, jb. also hard to gather momentum when guys like ralph nader (or dennis kucinich, rev. al sharpton, et al to some degree) are decried as kooks, commies, and inevitable losers. especially unhelpful when they're not even allowed to debate, in the first place.
• An amendment to repeal the 22nd was also proposed in the 102nd Congress, along with an amendment to repeal the 2nd and one to amend the 26th to lower the voting age to 16. Between one hundred and two hundred Constitutional amendments are proposed in every Congress. Do y’all care, or is this just another flimsy pretext to shit on the President? ’Cause y’all don’t need flimsy pretexts any more. You can just have a daily “Let’s complain about the government” topic if you want to. Free country.
• Amending the US constitution is difficult. The ratification process takes years. But congressmen often propose amendments which they know won't be passed, just to fluff up their constituants, expecting the proposals to not even get out of committee. Seems to me our last example was the "marriage = man + woman" one which was defeated before it got to the amendment stage. And repealing the 22nd would require an amendment. And jb - your perception of the right vs. the left in the US is a little skewed. The problem, it seems to me, is not that the liberals think like the conservatives, but that the ideals of militancy and activism have been lost on the liberals' part, and that the conservatives have just recently taken up those ideals. If we were back in the era of overt racial discrimination on a national basis, would liberals go to the exrememes they did in the 1950s and 1960s - organizing, protesting en masse, educating the disenfranchised, actually leaving our womb-like homes and making a difference? Some might try, but the rest of us are so distanced from activism that I don't think it would change anyone's mind. As you may have noticed, liberal internet denizens here espouse all sorts of theories as to how the country should be run, but they haven't figured out how to bring that message to the populace at large, so the liberal contingent is left with rants instead of action. The citizen leaders in the 1960s took on activism as the way to change things, and they actually did. If there are any citizen leaders now, they're not very noticeable. In fact, I would posit that they're avoiding activism (except for PETA, maybe.) So, the liberal politions have no clear message from their supporters, or those who might support them if they could find a core of opinion to agree with. Barring that, they have to seek the path closest to the apparent opinion in the country to get elected.
• Jeff Harrel - thank you so much for a topic that can be debated without rancor. You presented so many facts in your argument that I'm completely convinced that you have the upper ground. Gee, if I'd just known that disagreeing with the current administration was "shitting on the President", I'd have thought twice before expressing a different opinion (as is allowed by our system.) But you didn't provide any debatable topics !?!? We like debate here, and have, at least in our past, discussed disagreements without rancor. So, if you presented a reasonable argument, you might have a venue to really examine the differences between the right an left. That assumes that you really want a discussion, or want to understand the differences. I mean, really, understanding seems to me to be key to ameliorating the divide that we now have in this country. If we can't discuss the issues in a way that could bring us together, how do we solve our problems - and we do have them. You appear to assume that those of us to your left have only one mission - to discredit the President - but that's not the case. It's easy for us to demonize Bush, as it's easy for you to demonize liberals, but none of that gets us anywhere. Discussing issues in a way that persuades others gives us the opportunity to look at our own stances and to think about changing them. If you just want "preaching to the converted" stuff, you're really in the wrong place. If you're really up to testing your beliefs, you might find that those of us on the "other side" are too. Dare you!
• >Do y’all care, or is this just another flimsy pretext to shit on the President? I'd characterize it as 'another rock-solid pretext to shit on the president'. For purposes of comparison, Iraq's weapons of mass destruction were a flimsy pretext.
• Don't y'all have a plane to catch, Jeffrey?
• Look! Jeffy's back to tell us what bad people we are for not believing the preznit has our best interests at heart! He's right you know. We're awful. We don't know what 9/11 meant and how it changed everything. We suck. And Trace, you and MJ get in, I want Sec Def. I'll invade Aruba and make it safe for cute white girls.