Post by Lobo solitario on Apr 7, 2012 1:27:25 GMT -6
Labor Pains, Book 2,,The New America Series
CHAPTER 9
It took something over six months for state and local governments to all meet standards acceptable to their citizens, the president, and the US Supreme Court as being practical, trustworthy, and constitutional. Some members of the SCOTUS had actually been on the dodge from the thugs and stooges of the previous administration. The FBI would investigate each state and report to the new president who would when satisfied pass the information on to the SCOTUS for their review. Normally the US Marshals' Service is the investigative and enforcement arm of the federal court system. However the FBI and Secret Service were the only ones that Joe Bighten yet trusted and they not fully.
Most of the states still had a substantial part of their previous government structure in place, but some, not so much. A few had new governments in place backed by a political group, or a militia with a greater or lesser degree of political organization behind it. The Illinois National Guard, with popular support, had actually pulled off a bloodless military coup. All were eventually brought into some form acceptable to SCOTUS, but under the watchful eye of citizen groups and citizen militias.
National elections were scheduled for the first Tuesday in November of 2020 AD.
There were no elections called minutes after the polls closed. At least not national elections. It was over a week before all the dust settled. All incumbents were not turned out, but those who kept their seats were less than 10 percent. Those retained were not friends of the old corrupt system.
George Church, the outgoing Speaker of the House of Representatives, began trying to contact as many of the new congressmen and senators elect as he could. He offered to be available to answer questions and generally help them to get the new congress up and running ASAP. He was also contacting old outgoing members and asked them to help the new blood as much as they could. He cautioned them that they should stick to the nuts and bolts of making the legislature work. If they tried to influence the new folks’ opinions on the changes that needed to be made they would just see through it anyway.
The new Congress would beguine its first session January 3rd and the outgoing President wanted to deliver a state of the union address by the 16th so as to give everyone a chance to digest it before the new President was inaugurated on the 20th of January. Getting organized would be a good trick due to the fact that almost all of the newly elected Congress members were without affiliation with either of the old parties.
On the 16th of January Joe Bighten, acting, possibly illegally, as President of the United States of America, stood before a joint session of the oddest congress in almost two hundred years. He gave them his assessment of the state the Union was in. It was not the usual distorted; “Look at what a great job I’ve done.” Speech. It was a, gloves off, warts and all, admission that it was in a mess. Then he gave his vision of how to work the nation out of the mess. He advised the new legislators to not be in a hurry. He told them the most urgent thing that, had to be addressed soonest was to see that military funding was restored to tenable levels. He told of runways bordered by grain fields and parade grounds planted in vegetables, of farmers and ranchers donating food to bases and military families, of military work parties organized to trade work for produce and beef. This led to nods of agreement and understanding from legislators who had seen this first hand back home. He advised that the next two things taken up should be tax reform and monetary reform. Both of these he recommended be in the form of constitutional amendments so they would be hard to meddle with in future times; as should be the issue of commerce clause abuse.
When it came time to close Bighten extolled; “It is indeed not often that a nation has the good fortune to have leadership as close to being by, for, and of the people as this nation does today. It took hardship, hunger, and the very edge of civil war to bring us here; don’t waist it! You must think very hard and very thoroughly about what went wrong and you must call a constitutional convention and do your best to correct it, and to prevent its reoccurrence. If you do that, maybe we can have another century or two before greed, avarice, arrogance, and just plain human nature bring us down again. Good night. It’s time for me to go.”
With that he turned from the podium and walked toward the exit amid thunderous applause. No, he was not a Jefferson, a Madison, a Franklin, or even a Churchill, but maybe, just maybe, there was a touch of Washington.
That concludes: Labor Pains; Book Two of the New America series.
Lobo
CHAPTER 9
It took something over six months for state and local governments to all meet standards acceptable to their citizens, the president, and the US Supreme Court as being practical, trustworthy, and constitutional. Some members of the SCOTUS had actually been on the dodge from the thugs and stooges of the previous administration. The FBI would investigate each state and report to the new president who would when satisfied pass the information on to the SCOTUS for their review. Normally the US Marshals' Service is the investigative and enforcement arm of the federal court system. However the FBI and Secret Service were the only ones that Joe Bighten yet trusted and they not fully.
Most of the states still had a substantial part of their previous government structure in place, but some, not so much. A few had new governments in place backed by a political group, or a militia with a greater or lesser degree of political organization behind it. The Illinois National Guard, with popular support, had actually pulled off a bloodless military coup. All were eventually brought into some form acceptable to SCOTUS, but under the watchful eye of citizen groups and citizen militias.
National elections were scheduled for the first Tuesday in November of 2020 AD.
There were no elections called minutes after the polls closed. At least not national elections. It was over a week before all the dust settled. All incumbents were not turned out, but those who kept their seats were less than 10 percent. Those retained were not friends of the old corrupt system.
George Church, the outgoing Speaker of the House of Representatives, began trying to contact as many of the new congressmen and senators elect as he could. He offered to be available to answer questions and generally help them to get the new congress up and running ASAP. He was also contacting old outgoing members and asked them to help the new blood as much as they could. He cautioned them that they should stick to the nuts and bolts of making the legislature work. If they tried to influence the new folks’ opinions on the changes that needed to be made they would just see through it anyway.
The new Congress would beguine its first session January 3rd and the outgoing President wanted to deliver a state of the union address by the 16th so as to give everyone a chance to digest it before the new President was inaugurated on the 20th of January. Getting organized would be a good trick due to the fact that almost all of the newly elected Congress members were without affiliation with either of the old parties.
On the 16th of January Joe Bighten, acting, possibly illegally, as President of the United States of America, stood before a joint session of the oddest congress in almost two hundred years. He gave them his assessment of the state the Union was in. It was not the usual distorted; “Look at what a great job I’ve done.” Speech. It was a, gloves off, warts and all, admission that it was in a mess. Then he gave his vision of how to work the nation out of the mess. He advised the new legislators to not be in a hurry. He told them the most urgent thing that, had to be addressed soonest was to see that military funding was restored to tenable levels. He told of runways bordered by grain fields and parade grounds planted in vegetables, of farmers and ranchers donating food to bases and military families, of military work parties organized to trade work for produce and beef. This led to nods of agreement and understanding from legislators who had seen this first hand back home. He advised that the next two things taken up should be tax reform and monetary reform. Both of these he recommended be in the form of constitutional amendments so they would be hard to meddle with in future times; as should be the issue of commerce clause abuse.
When it came time to close Bighten extolled; “It is indeed not often that a nation has the good fortune to have leadership as close to being by, for, and of the people as this nation does today. It took hardship, hunger, and the very edge of civil war to bring us here; don’t waist it! You must think very hard and very thoroughly about what went wrong and you must call a constitutional convention and do your best to correct it, and to prevent its reoccurrence. If you do that, maybe we can have another century or two before greed, avarice, arrogance, and just plain human nature bring us down again. Good night. It’s time for me to go.”
With that he turned from the podium and walked toward the exit amid thunderous applause. No, he was not a Jefferson, a Madison, a Franklin, or even a Churchill, but maybe, just maybe, there was a touch of Washington.
That concludes: Labor Pains; Book Two of the New America series.
Lobo