Journal Timex's Journal: Stuper Tuesday 10
I have a new blog entry up. The text, to save Captain Splendid from spraining his finger from chasing links, follows:
Super Tuesday has come and gone, and we seem to have come no closer to knowing who the choices will be for the Democrat and Republican party than we were on Monday.
I actually went in to see what would be on the ballot. Some communities like to deal with other issues than the presidential race, such as the choosing of representatives for local and state government positions.
As it happened, I got my choice of ballots. I am registered in Massachusetts as a member of the America First Party, which I turned to when I left the Republican Party a few years ago. The trick is that because of state rules, the America First Party is treated as "Independent", so for the primaries, I got to pick which party I wanted to vote in.
On Tuesday, I did something I thought I would never do: I chose the Democrat ticket. There was a method to my madness, though: I wanted to cast my vote against Hillary Clinton. People that know me know that I harbor no love for the woman. I think she's an opportunistic witch that has no place in the Oval Office. I voted for Barack Obama, because if this nation is going to elect a Democrat for President, I would rather see him in office than her.
Oddly, a simple majority of people voting in the Democrat primaries opted for Hillary. I have no idea why.
- She favors a "health care system" that puts people at risk of euthanasia at all stages of life, at the whim of any doctor that will declare one's quality of life to be of no use to society.
- She has no respect whatsoever for our men and women in uniform. You may recall shortly after her husband was elected President the first time, she complained that the Marines stationed in the White House made her "nervous", and she wanted them to do their duty in "civvies" instead of their uniform. Hillary also wants to conduct a unilateral pull-out of Iraq, which would cause more problems than it solves, including (but not limited to) allowing al-Qaida to focus on attacks on the United States, instead of watching their backs in their own back yard.
- She made the irresponsible comment recently that "there are no illegal women". I found this comment to be rather sexist, and I was offended. Nobody of consequence called her on it, and to the best of my knowledge, she hasn't offered an apology. The United States has a problem with illegal immigration that must be addressed sooner rather than later, and hoping that the problem doesn't exist (a favorite past time of the Democratic Party) won't make it go away.
At any rate, I've done my part for this phase of the process. I will be voting in November, and I hope that you all will, too.
Aren't you tired (Score:2)
Besides, if McCain wins the Republican side, wouldn't it be fun to get the lists of side by side "ethical indiscretions?"
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I'm more tired of voting against someone instead of voting for the candidate of my choice.
I've become rather cynical of politicians over the last few years: I'm steadfast in my belief that all politicians should serve two terms-- one in office, one in jail. I leave it an exercise for the reader to determine which should happen first.
I'm also building a list of "things we'll never see Congress do". So far, I have:
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Pass a law limiting the number of terms a member of Congress may serve to two terms in either the House or the Senate, for a total of four terms combined.
I don't want that. I want term limits, but I think they should be consecutive, and four House, two Senate, with at least one election in between switching houses. And it would require a Constitutional amendment, absolutely.
Pass a law restricting 'riders' of bills to subjects directly relevant to the matter at hand.
Simpler put: one subject per bill (budget, and maybe some other appropriations bills, excepted, as long as those are restricted to only allocation of money, and the legislation governing how to use it is a separate bill). I don't think this could not be implemented via law, since it
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I don't want that. I want term limits, but I think they should be consecutive, and four House, two Senate, with at least one election in between switching houses. And it would require a Constitutional amendment, absolutely.
Naturally, it would have to be a Constitutional amendment. My idea of 2x2 terms is arbitrary, but I think that what's good for the goose (ie the President) is good for the gander (ie Congress). If the point of term limits is to limit the (real or imagined) power of the president, then term limits of some sort must be applied to members of Congress for the same reason. (For the benefit of those that think that I'm mistaken, how many times do we read about "junior members" not being as influential as "sen
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A true line-item veto is unconstitutional. It requires an amendment to the Constitution.
Why? Ultimately, Congress still has the opportunity to override the President. The only thing I see a line-item veto taking away from Congress is the ability to add "poison pills" to bills. There is no way anyone can justify adding some pork to a badly-needed bill (or adding a much-needed item to a pork bill that's going to get vetoed anyway, just so Congress can say that the President vetoed the needed part).
A true line-item veto is the rewriting of a bill by the Executive. The Congress has the only authority to make laws. Unless it goes back to the Congress AFTER the President modifies it, before it is enacted as law, then it is unconstitutional. The Supreme Court ruled on this [wikipedia.org].
Predictably, the two people who dissented, for the reason that "the objective is consistent with the Constitution's purpose, even if inconsistent with the LAW," were Breyer and O'Connor, the two justices at the time with the least r
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of voting for the lesser of two evils?
The question is what you think is more likely to make us better off in the long run: work within the system for slow change and get what you can in the process (maybe keep taxes low, prosecute war on terror reasonably, get some decent justices to make precedents for the next many decades or longer), or try to work outside the system to bring it down (destroy the GOP so it, or something else, can come back better than before)?
Since none of us knows exactly what will happen, we can each only do what we think
Awww (Score:2)
For the record, my motives are selfless, not selfish. I hate internet tribalism. Share share share, say I.
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That's so sweet of you!
I thought you'd like that. :D
For the record, my motives are selfless, not selfish. I hate internet tribalism. Share share share, say I.
I know what you mean, but I'm more interested in preserving what I write. I don't like the idea of leaving my posts at the whim of others whose political bent may be diametrically opposed to mine. I'm not saying that the folk at Slashdot would stoop to such activity, but I'm not exactly in the majority in my line of thought here...
I make a reference here to posts I make on MY server. *I* control what happens to the software and any posts made there. If anyone is worried th
political homes (Score:1)
I hadn't heard of that one, prolly because there isn't one in my state of California. They'd probably be pretty agreeable with me, except for the opposition to the Iraq War, and presumably any other component of the War on Terror that involves taking the fight off of American soil and to the enemy where they live. Basically the only thing (that I'm aware of) that stops me from supporting Ron Paul. And because it's a biggie to me.
We h
one more thing (Score:1)
I would've done the same (we have a "closed by default, open at the option of the individual party" primary system here, and the Dem party opted to open theirs) if I had known Mitt was going to drop out two days later, leaving the prez race on whole between basically 4 Democrats. Barack is a less abrasive, less power-obsessed, presumably less fascist (e.g. his socialized medicine plan is not to build a wall to keep people in it, but to make it