Jan 20, 2005 - Not One Damn Dime Day

They already tried this a few months ago. It flopped.

Yeah, it does sound like it would flop. Democrats always have cool ideas, they just have trouble putting them into action. What's the matter with us?

A much better damn idea would be suspending the buying and selling of shares for the whole week. Watching the Dow Jones take a bashing will bring it home to the right folks.

That ain't going to happen, Mr Still.
To make rystall's idea work, where commerce is shut down and everyone gets a day off without pay, you also have to endure a little bit of pain.
On the morning of the 20th, everyone should flip the breakers in their homes: no electricity, no heat, no water, no nothing. How's that sound as a protest...and a small bit of solidarity for the people in Iraq.
One day. For just one day. Does it sound reasonable, rystall?

What a great idea - while you sit there cold, hungry and without transportation - I'll go fill up my SUV and maybe purchase a snowblower.

LOL.
I think that is a gross exaggeration.
"Cold, Hungry and without transportation"?...it's one day, not one year.

The undeclared war in Iraq causes no visible deprivation for those in the United States, and, unless you count the occasional picture on TV of a soldier saying goodbye to his or her family at the bus loading area or someone mentions one of the 9-11 dead from my neighborhood, there aren't enough reminders to those of us here of the life and death struggle in which we are engaged in Iraq, Afghanistan and the world.

Women and men from both sides die each day, some horribly, some in an instant, some before the sirened Humvees reach them, some after long months of lingering in a hospital in Germany, some clearly committed to a cause, some just on the way through an alley in Bagdad, some just arrived from the States, some with a paper in their locker that says 8 more days and wake-up. This is war. This is human made horror and the biggest sacrifice those not connected to the military must make is to remove their shoes at the airport check-in.

Joe(the world is not crazy, the humans on it are, but not the world)Nation

Thanks Joe, as always.

As the magnitude of the tragedy in the Indian Ocean countries has unfolded, a unique opportunity has also developed for George Bush to show true leadership and statesmanship.

Which is precisely why it will never be realized.

The opportunity? Cancel or scale back inauguration festivities. It's simply not the time for a Queer Eye for the Straight Guy gala. Never mind that the big-money boys and girls will be partying in the wake of 200,000-plus dead and/or missing in the tsunami-affected areas. And based on the administration's own predictions, U.S. soldiers will be at the apex of risk in a pre-election Iraq. Lastly, without question, Washington DC itself will be ripe for anti-administration induced protests.

Nope, it's not a good time for a coronation, but the show must go on.

What a real leader would do is conduct a quiet swearing-in ceremony, and within minutes get back to the business of state. But then, it's already been established that benevolent leadership and global statesmanship is not high on this President's priority list.

And don't expect anyone associated with the party planning to have second thoughts about how the grandiose coronation ceremonies will play in the rest of the world. The Bush administration has never much cared about what the rest of the world thinks, anyway -- unless a U.N. representative criticizes something done (or not done) by Bush or one of "his people".

They didn't earn the moniker "Grand Old Party" for nothin', after all.

Here's an excerpt and link to their Bizarro World:



Forget Iraq and South Asia, It's Party Time

And there is this to think about, Ornstein likens it to not having written a will for the Nation.

WHY INAUGURATION DAY IS DANGEROUS.
Unprepared
by Norman Ornstein

Post date: 01.07.05
Issue date: 01.17.05
Traveling around Boston, Massachusetts, during the Democratic convention last summer wasn't easy. Fearing a terrorist attack, the Secret Service had ordered the closure of 40 miles of roads around the FleetCenter, where the convention was held, and 3,000 police were on duty to guard the site. The security measures taken during the Republican convention in New York City were even more extreme, with 10,000 police--many clad in riot gear--patrolling the streets immediately surrounding Madison Square Garden, seven police helicopters hovering overhead, and 26 police launches patrolling the Hudson and East rivers. There were stories everywhere about the potential threat to the conventions, leading the two parties to develop their own contingency plans. And, once the conventions passed without incident, federal and state officials began fretting over how to secure the nation's 193,000 polling places on November 2. After all, a presidential election seemed like a logical target for terrorists aiming to disrupt or devastate U.S. democracy.

Now consider the upcoming Inauguration Day on January 20. Washington, D.C. and the Department of Homeland Security plan to beef up security for the inauguration ceremony itself. But there has been almost no public discussion of the issue. I trust the security specialists have done what they can to prevent an attack. But I know that next to nothing has been done to minimize the disruption that will follow if there is an attack.

At noon that day, as specified in the Constitution, the president and vice president will be sworn in for four years in the White House. Over many decades, it has become a singular event, with a ceremony on the west front of the Capitol attended by thousands of people and televised to hundreds of millions around the world. Every second of the inaugural ceremony--from the entrance of the president to the benediction and the swearing-in by the chief justice--is carefully choreographed by a joint panel of congressional leaders. The inaugural address is one of the most significant speeches a president makes. The whole spectacle is a celebration of our democracy.

It is also the single most vulnerable moment for our constitutional system--far more dangerous than either the conventions or the general election. Gathered on the west front terrace at the same time are the president and vice president (as well as the outgoing president and vice president in some years), the entire Supreme Court, the congressional leadership and most of the members of the House and Senate, the incoming Cabinet, and a slew of other dignitaries and high government officials.

Here is the nightmare scenario: Right at noon, a suitcase nuclear bomb goes off somewhere on the Mall--a bomb small enough to fit in a satchel but powerful enough to devastate six to ten square city blocks, or most of the area between the Capitol and the White House. (Such a bomb could easily wreak havoc even if outside the zone of protection contemplated by security authorities this year.)

The result would be mass chaos in Washington. There is no president to be sworn in at noon. The Presidential Succession Act of 1947 says that, after the president and vice president, next in line is the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, followed by the president pro tempore of the Senate, followed by the Cabinet in order of the creation of each office. But there is no vice president, speaker, or president pro tempore; all are dead. This year, when some of President Bush's Cabinet secretaries are continuing on in the next administration, one of them might survive and be able to serve as president. But what if that weren't the case? And what would happen if an attack occurred during a year in which a new president assumed office? Who would be president then?



There would be many contenders, each eager, à la Al Haig, to be "helpful" by stepping into the vacuum to bring stability, including military leaders, surviving members of Congress, and maybe even outgoing Cabinet members who have forgotten to submit their letters of resignation--or at least who say they have. The House, if there were one, could appoint a new speaker. But the Constitution says that, to conduct any official business, the House must have a quorum of 218 of its 435 members. Since the Civil War, tradition has modified the quorum requirement to include half of the living members, so if any members of Congress have survived the attack, they could band together and select a new speaker--who would then become president for the next four years. That could conceivably be done by a handful of representatives--if even three survived, two could make a quorum, choose a speaker and, thus, a president. But, if there is no way of determining for some time whether other members of Congress are still alive, the tiny quorum would be potentially unconstitutional. And who would serve as president in the meantime?

All these questions--Whose claims to be next in line prevail? When can a reduced Congress meet and make decisions under extreme conditions?--could normally be resolved by the Supreme Court. But all the justices, or at least enough to eliminate the statutory quorum requirement for the court of six justices, are gone under this scenario. The 13 federal courts of appeals would still be in existence (or, at least, all except perhaps the Washington, D.C. Circuit), but no method exists for making one of them, or some other body, the alternate Supreme Court if needed.

Of course, even if the handful of lawmakers choosing a president under these circumstances were somehow deemed legitimate, the new president could well be radically different in ideology from the deceased president-elect, thus reversing the will of the voters for a full four years; imagine, for example, if a Speaker Bernie Sanders came to replace Bush, or if Tom DeLay replaced a future incoming liberal Democrat.

Doomsday scenarios like this have been the stuff of science fiction and Tom Clancy novels. But now they are no longer fanciful or virtually impossible. Suitcase-size nuclear bombs exist and are supposedly being sought by terrorist operations.



What needs to be done? First, we need to be sure we can quickly reconstitute a representative and a functional Congress to prevent the specter of months of martial law and to make sure that a democratic body can resolve disputes over power or legitimacy that might be triggered by the disaster. To do so requires a constitutional amendment to provide for emergency interim appointments to the House in the event that a catastrophe kills many of its members, and such appointments for both houses if a large number are incapacitated or missing, making a quorum of living members impossible.

Second, Congress and the White House need to revamp the presidential succession process to make sure that some figure from outside Washington is in line. A full reconsideration of the Presidential Succession Act of 1947 would remove members of Congress (the speaker of the House and president pro tempore of the Senate) from the line. Most constitutional scholars believe that it is unconstitutional for members of the legislative branch to be eligible for succession, which the Constitution limits to "officers" of the United States, meaning executive branch officials. Constitutional or not, it is simply unwise to allow the possibility of a speaker from a party different than that of the president-elect to assume the White House, or to have a senator high up in the line of succession whose main qualification for being president pro tempore is longevity (think Strom Thurmond).

Third, Congress and Bush should adopt an informal process for 2008 and any future instance when there is a change of administration, whereby the outgoing president nominates, on behalf of the president-elect, one or more of his or her Cabinet choices in December or early January, allowing the Senate to hold hearings and then vote to confirm the new Cabinet secretaries by the morning of January 20, with enough time for at least one of the secretaries to leave Washington by noon. Then, if there is a disaster at the inaugural, there is a clear alternative in the line of succession ready to step in with full legitimacy.

Fourth, we need an alternative Supreme Court in the event that our existing one is wiped out. The obvious solution is to allow for the creation of a temporary Supreme Court consisting of the chief judges of the 13 appeals courts, along with any surviving Supreme Court justices, whenever the Supreme Court drops to four or fewer members.



Which of these steps has been taken? None. Just as real and frightening as the prospect of doomsday is the lack of planning by our elected officials in the three-plus years since September 11 to cushion against the chaos such an event would trigger. With the exception of a handful of members of the House and Senate, in the three years since September 11, both Congress and the Bush White House have reacted to this doomsday threat with yawns or annoyance that anyone would even mention the potential risk.

Why? Focusing on issues like these is like writing a will. It forces people to contemplate their own mortality and the difficult issues associated with it. Without leadership forcing lawmakers to take on these questions, rank-and-file members can easily rationalize doing nothing. And that is what they have done. Neither Speaker Dennis Hastert nor Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has made any of these issues a priority. In the House, Hastert has been intimidated by Judiciary Committee Chair James Sensenbrenner, who opposes allowing emergency interim appointments on the grounds that the House should keep its tradition of selecting members only through elections (even if the alternative is no functioning House). And Congress has become only more complacent as the time without a terrorist attack on the United States has stretched beyond three years.

Homeland security, military, and Washington, law enforcement officials have put in place unprecedented security measures for this January 20. God willing, there will be no incident, and Bush and the country will have another wonderful demonstration of democracy in action. But that will not erase the threats to future inaugurations or to the larger vulnerabilities of our government in an age of terrorism.

Norman Ornstein is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

Ornstein's contention is that this would be a bad thing?

I don't follow... :wink:

Heh. heh.

Yes, I'm sure he hasn't thought it all through.

J

Some-one's going to notice?

I've been forwarding it... and I won't be spending anything that day either.

So, let me get this straight. You folks are willing to hurt your fellow workers, particularly those that need tips, in an attempt to stall our economy for a day? Do you honestly think this will send a message to anyone in Washington, at all? It's not going to cause one singel politician any pain at all. It will, however, cause pain to the very people Democrats claim to care about - the workers. You're willing to try to harm the economy (not that I believe you will succeed), which in a capitalist country is the very heart of the country? Why not do something meaningful instead of wasting your time and other people's money? How about spending some time and effort rather than withholding time and effort?

According to Scripps Howard, security for the Bush coronation includes this bizarre, weirdly disconcerting instruction:



WTF?

What's the point of marching in the Presidential Inauguration Parade if you're disallowed from looking at the President?

What if a drum majorette trips? Is she going to be shot by the Secret Service?

What exactly could happen if someone were to glance at Our Leader?

I want to know. Seriously.

Do these people ever make any sense whatsoever?

This is a really silly idea and like most "slacktivism" does more for the participants temporary sense of worth than anything else.

What exactly are we celebrating, then, with these public inaugural festivities? The freedom and openness of our society? The fact that our president is one among us? Unless there is a special al-Qaeda Marching Band scheduled to perform, why the big fear over a Sadat-style assassination?

It figures that our intelligence and law enforcement people, after blowing off a report entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US," are now twitchy about 16-year-old trombone players looking up at the presidential reviewing stand.

Idiocy. And madness.

So, all you folks that plan on participating in this "Not one damn dime day" here are some hidden costs you might want to think about:

1. Turn off electricity at midnight. No microwave, no alarm clocks, nothing.
2. Turn off the heat - you wouldn't want to give any money to the oil companies (might get a tad cold for those folks in Minnesota, but no pain, no gain.
3. Don't send your kids to school - school districts get some of their money based on butts in seats each day.
4. Don't drive - that will only result in you paying for more gas on Friday.
5. No eating at restaurants.
6. No eating at home - you'll just have to pay for that food.
7. No cell phone - you might want to ask your service provider for a refund for the day.
8. No long-distance calls.
9. No television - electricity, you know.
10. No water - no showers, better not flush.
11. If it's your garbage day, better keep the trash in the house.
12. No internet.
13. No morning paper.

I'm sure there's more - just trying to be helpful so you can adequately prepare.

Meanwhile, I've been needing a new car - maybe I'll buy it tomorrow.