American politics; faith and secularism, NaNaWriMo and Gaming

[tcpip]

The new leader of the United States is wasting no time; with a number of the most troubling laws (restriction on stem cell research, oil drilling in the wilderness) being slated for veto when he actually takes office. Perhaps in time a federal intervention on same sex marriage will also occur given the results of Proposition 8 in California et al. lederhosen provides a list of the organisations sponsoring the constitutional revision (now longer available on google cache), which indicates a hefty number of conservative and fundamentalist Christian organisations - once again determined to inflict their notions of sacredness unto others in secular law. slit takes up the problems related to race baiting in the referedum in an intelligent and future-orientated manner.

Going back in posting history, I've found the post when I last did NaNaWriMo; which incidentally was the time when I'd been given the 'OK' to do a game based on Greg Costikyan's Barbarian Kings. Now, two years later, I find that I that I'm working on the game as NaNaWriMo (now at twenty five thousand words) and the novel (only a third completed after being abandoned in early 2007) is being double-checked by the good phoebe82 who seems to know something about the region. In other gaming-related news, I'm being interviewed by a NZ gaming 'blog, played Middle-Earth Role Playing on Friday, and continued the RuneQuest Prax story on Sunday.

Comments

[djayha.livejournal.com]

What's interesting to me is that Obama IS the new leader of the United States despite not yet having taken office. He's just not waiting for Bush's term to end; he recognizes that the mess we're in simply is not going to wait until he's in the White House, and that it's necessary that he begin his work NOW. Even so, I am somewhat fascinated as I watch the transfer of power already beginning to take place, even if only in an unofficial way.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

I'm trying to recall the days of transfer between Clinton and Bush and I'm really not getting any pictures...

[djayha.livejournal.com]

Same... And I was dismayed enough about the whole mess that I SHOULD remember SOMETHING. But no. I don't remember President-elects behaving like Presidents until AFTER they were in office.

[taavi.livejournal.com]

Would it take a constitutional amendment to kick bush out early? Or is it a congressional law? As was done with Hoover to get FDR in?

[notthebuddha.livejournal.com]

Yes, no, and didn't happen. In fact, the serving president is not even allowed to voluntarily let the president-elect take over early.

[cluebyfour.livejournal.com]

It would require a Constitutional amendment. In fact, it's already been amended once, by the Twentieth Amendment.

Originally the new President didn't take office until March 4 following the election. The reason for the delay was simple; it often took weeks for remote states to deliver election results. Once transportation and communications became modernized the gap no longer became necessary, and it was changed to January 20. This also eliminated the so-called "short session" of Congress, since their terms also used to end on March 4, and the possibility that a Presidential election could be thrown into a House of Representatives filled with members who had just been voted out of office.

The Twentieth effectively shortened FDR's first term by about six weeks, since it was ratified in Feb. 1933, after he was elected but before he took office.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Is there an argument for shortening it even further for the same reasons?

In Australia the new prime minister seems to take office very soon after the declaration of results.. I recall working in state MPs offices where it was basically total shutdown on the weekend that an election was held - just in case.

[cluebyfour.livejournal.com]

I don't think there's much further damage that either Bush or Congress could cause post-election. Sometimes Congress would get away with voting itself a nice little raise before adjourning, but another amendment put paid to that practice (by not allowing the raise to take effect until after the next election). Bush can't really do much either--any executive order he'd sign could be reversed by Obama. All he can really do is pardon people convicted of Federal crimes.

I'd think you'd run into diminishing returns by shortening it further. As it is, the new President has about 10 weeks to assume control of the executive, form his Cabinet, make appointments, etc. That's a hell of a lot of work, especially when transitioning from a two-term administration.

Maybe it's a general flaw in two-party systems--the winning party in the election is doing all of the transition work, whereas in parliamentary democracies where coalition governments are common, the load is spread out a bit. That is, perhaps you're not replacing everyone each time an administration changes like we do.

[taavi.livejournal.com]

As I recall, there were a lot of pardons, a lot of extremely left wing regulations that were promptly overturned by Bush (hopefully Obama can do the same) and there was a rumour that when Bush moved in, all the computers were missing the "w" key.

The White House vandal scandal that wasn't

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

How the incoming Bush team nudge-nudged a credulous press corps into swallowing a trashy Clinton story.
http://archive.salon.com/politics/feature/2001/05/23/vandals/index.html

[cluebyfour.livejournal.com]

It was a bit rushed. For one, Bush's transition team initially received no funding because of the legal dispute over the Florida vote. Until Al Gore formally conceded the election, Bush wasn't considered the President-elect and thus did not have direct access to Clinton and his team to start the transition process.

Although according to some observers, including a Gore adviser, it went quite smoothly given the circumstances.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Ahh, that would explain it.. Yes, I suppose under the circumstances it was quite smooth.