1. Outlaw the GOP for un-American activities
2. Criminal war trials for neocons
3. Trials for Wall St greed
4. Remove tax exemption for "religion"
5. 5 years hard labor for right wing blog trolls
6. Investigate SCOTUS for Bush v Gore.
7. Put Palin in the moat with "Zero" the stranded polar bear at the Milwaukee Zoo.
Assuming Obama win and 60 in the senate. The best we can hope for is simply not more of the last 8 years. There isn't going to be any ground breaking legislation.
I think Obama will try. He will reach for a couple of things but he is more pragmatic and certainly not progressive. True healthcare reform, I believe is still at least 10 years away. It will take a healthcare system meltdown OR big business getting behind it in a big way to get anything of significance.
What will be enjoyable, I think, is watching the return of real governance. I believe that Obama does know how to organize, manage and govern.
How an Obama admin handles that the return of the absurdly rapid right will be interesting as well.
I'm very worried about transparency. Bush an ugly, ugly hole that will require a lot of self-discipline for the next administration to fall into.
The war on drugs should be a no-brainer and relatively easy to get some reasonable legislation through. The prison and police lobby will be the main hurdle.
Deficit next year *will* be a trillion. The GOP will hang it around Obama's neck like an albatross.
Aside: I have to admit, I pegged Muck as many things, but never a "band-wagoner" Guess we won't hear from him till he comes back off that ledge.
Posted by Simp at October 21, 2008 11:26 AMA wish-list even though it will not happen:
A) Making it a criminal offence to tack “ear-marks” onto any legislation; especially those which have nothing to do with the pending legislation. The criminalization would also terminate said legislator of a job and all retirement benefits accrued by their legislative service. The replacement for the legislator, will be their opponent from the last election or a new election if no opponent is available.
B) Removal of all judicial personnel who have reached their 70th birthday, and replace them only with those candidates under the age of 60.
C) Removal of all legislators, who have served more than 25 years within their present post. This can also be phrased as term limits, similar to the restriction on the post of President.
That is a start for now, feel free to add as needed.
1. Raise taxes. If we want European-style living, we need to raise taxes. Europe has higher income taxes and a sales tax. The US exempts the lower 48% of income earners from income taxes. We need to tax everyone. If you live here, you pay for that privilege.
2. Nearly eliminate military spending. Switzerland has been around a long time with virtually no defense budget. It's time we said, "World, you're on your own. Good luck to you."
3. Energy is a national security issue. The government needs to nationalize the energy industry. Take it over and eliminate the big profits from big oil companies.
Posted by Kelly at October 21, 2008 12:02 PMI agree with Simp, until the part about the drug war.
The Republicans don't need 40 votes in the Senate; the Dems have always been good at providing their own opposition--see 1993-94.
As long as the media tote that corporate barge, the right will be able to split off enough "serious" people to cripple real progressive legislation.
Posted by wmr at October 21, 2008 12:13 PMObama needs to cut his ties to ACORN and their nation-wide voter fraud actions!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pi0pG_SPSk
Posted by Rob at October 21, 2008 12:38 PMVoter fraud is largely a myth. Since it is a crime on the part of the individual, how many individuals are going to take the risk, knowing that their single vote can make no difference on its own? Minorities, illegal immigrants, even legal immigrants, will not want to draw attention to themselves in this way. To work, voter fraud would have to involve a conspiracy of massive, unworkable proportions. Registration is one thing, actual voting another.
Posted by Colin at October 21, 2008 12:55 PMI repeat:
A mighty hoax from ACORN grew.
Posted by TIKI AL at October 21, 2008 01:01 PMWhen I posted my remark about "voter fraud", I'd forgotten that an excellent article explaining the mythical nature of it, was linked by Paradox a few days ago. Let's hear a detailed refutation of that article.
Posted by Colin at October 21, 2008 01:20 PM1. Constitutional Amendment (the Bush Amendment) prohibiting pardons of your own staff, or pardons of crimes before the perpetraitor has been convicted, backdated to 2001. (I suspect that come January 21 this will be a big issue and there should be enough Republican support for this to pass.)
2. Constitutional Amendment (the Scalia Amendment) guaranteeing citizens right to vote, and have your vote counted, in Federal elections if they are over 17 years old on election day and not currently serving a sentence in prison. Include a Scalia clause specifically directing the courts that no excuse is permitted for compromising this right. Mandate that the Federal ballot not be shared with any other ballot (okay to have a separate local/state ballot on the same day). Mandate that voting methodology be secret, secure, and auditable, and uniform nationally.
3. Constitutional Amendment (the Rove Amendment) prohibiting signing statements.
4. Constitutional Amendment (the Ashcroft Amendment) updating the 4th amendment to include "searches" of private communications and data, electronic or otherwise, and be explicit that warrants must be issued by an approved court and fully auditable 10 years after the fact.
5. Constitutional Amendment (the Rumsfeld Amendment) reinforcing the 6th amendment guarantee to speedy trial, and prohibiting the SCOTUS from thinking of excuses for allowing indefinite imprisonment without charges.
6. Constitutional Amendment (the Cheney Amendment) directing that the office of VP may be delegated powers of the executive but must be under full checks and balances of the administrative. Note also the destruction of executive records is prohibited under the Constitution and qualifies as a "High Crime".
None will happen. But we can dream.
Posted by Anonny at October 21, 2008 01:31 PMWithout dreams all you end up getting is nightmares.
Mickey O'Rouke, Diner.
Posted by paradox at October 21, 2008 02:43 PM"We must stop talking about the American dream and start listening to the dreams of Americans." Reubin Askew
Posted by TIKI AL at October 21, 2008 05:05 PMFrom the Washington Post:
"Jason Furman, Obama's economic policy advisor, has held his own extensive talks with Blue Dog Democrats and said obama would seek to establish 'a government unified arround the concept of fiscal discipline and centered around the PAYGO rule. Insisting on paying for things will lead to better economic policy.' "
That's from Jason Furman, Obama's advisor, who was Robert Rubin's assistant.
Obama himself has said that big ticket items like healthcare , education, energy independence will have to wait.
He's not going big.
Posted by Mary at October 21, 2008 05:09 PMObama himself has said that big ticket items like healthcare , education, energy independence will have to wait.
No, not what he said.
He said he'd prioritize.
Now, he did use "pay as you go" in the third debate. I swear not one pundit or blogger I read mentioned that, but that statement was directly targeted at the blue dogs, not at the swing voters or pundits.
But, let's understand. Going into January the budget will have certain prioritized new expenditures on his list, and they will require certain budget cuts.
Do you think they will be able to find something to cut from Bush's old budgets? You know, the $200B of highway upgrades that they sent with a wet kiss to the best Republican vote generating counties in the nation in 2006, while providing pennies to the rest of the nation. Or the $150B of Pentagon programs that no one wanted before Dumsfeld showed up. Or a pointless drug war. Or the massive waste that is TSA. Or the $150B subsidy to drug companies that Republicans filibustered to keep in the budget in 2007.
Somehow, I think that pay-as-you-go is possible while still funding the new programs. Remember, the bailout is mostly equity stakes, and thus recoverable.
Posted by Anonny at October 21, 2008 06:28 PM..as for Palin....Jeb will probably be the one in 2012....jmho, from the guy that told Muck oil would be trading in the sixties before Thanksgiving!!
If Obama pulls a Jimmy Carter, then it could be Jeb. Otherwise, it'll be a sacrificial lamb. Think a "Bob Dole" or "Walter Mondale" kind of person. Running mid-term against a popular President is a loser's game.
I could see Palin continuing to gain experience over the next decade (governor, then senator) and emerge later on as a more serious candidate. Her folksy personality would work better with a better resume. People like her; they just don't think she's ready right now.
According to Muck, he didn't get out of the market ahead of the bear and road it down. He was able to better time the market in previous years, but this just shows you the problem with market timing. You only have to be wrong once. Predicting the future isn't easy. It looks like he also lost a few dollars in Las Vegas this past weekend. Maybe he'll need a Fed bailout package soon.
Posted by Kelly at October 21, 2008 08:11 PMHA ha ha ha ha ha ha. HA ha ha ha ha ha ha. HA ha ha ha ha ha ha. HA ha ha ha ha ha ha. HA ha ha ha ha ha ha.
If we wanted a DEMOCRAT as president, we would have nominated Hillary Clinton, not Barack Obama.
Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com
Further to my remarks about voter fraud. To swing the election, it would necessarily involve thousands of stooges willing to commit a felony by voting more than once. Out of all these supposed thousands, NOBODY has blown the whistle. Whatever the inducement an individual was offered to multiple-vote (offered by whom, by the way?), it would be peanuts compared with what the person would get by confessing to the media, not to mention that Holy Grail - becoming a celebrity.
Posted by Colin at October 22, 2008 07:31 AM