Latest RW Scare Making the Rounds: HR 5 - Obama President for Life

[stopbush]

Got one of those e-mails today from my RW brother. The big scare is that back in January, Rep Serrano introduced a bill to repeal the 22nd Amendment. The RW is screaming about Obama being "King for life."

Not a thought given to how difficult it is to repeal an amendment. No thought given to the fact that presidents had no term limits until 1951.

Here's the scare missive. Typical BS:

Seriously BAD news



Abraham Lincoln said, "America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves"

Perhaps we all should think on that for a while!

J.W.



NOTE: I have NOT delved into this yet myself….so I have NO idea about the veracity of this…..but I will when I have time.

THIS is something I predicted the moment I saw the TRUE ARROGANCE of this dictator….so if it’s not true YET – I promise not to be surprised when it DOES become true. This is Chavez #2.







Sent: Wednesday, June 17, 2009 1:51 PM

Subject: BAD, BAD NEWS - H.J.RES.5 - PRESIDENT FOR LIFE ?







THIS IS FRIGIN SCARRY AND APPARENTLY TRUE!







YOU BEST BE WRITING YOUR CONGRESSMEN http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/ AND SENATORS AND GETTING ACTIVE IN COMMUNITY GRASS ROOTS - TIME TO TAKE BACK OUR COUNTRY.

THE REVOLUTION HAS BEGUN. PROTECT YOUR RIGHTS AND KEEP YOUR

GUNS LOADED !! WAKE UP AND GET ACTIVE BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE !!



Bill: H.J. Res. 5 - WAKE UP AMERICA

==============================================
Well, folks, this should make your day. (NOT) You have not heard this on the mainstream media, but that doesn’t mean anything. This bill was referred to the House Committee o n Judiciary on 1/6/09 and then referred to the Subcommittee on Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties on 2/9/09.

(Check it out on the government web sites listed below.)

==============================================
Read and heed...... Read and heed...... Read and heed...... Read and heed......

King Obama: House Considers Repealing 22nd Amendment

Earlier this year, Rep. Jose Serrano, D-N.Y. introduced H. J. Res. 5, a bill that would repeal the Constitution’s 22nd Amendment which prohibits a president from being elected to more than two terms in office, thus potentially paving the way to make Barack Obama president for life. Not surprisingly, the corporate media currently caught up in Obama-mania has not covered this story.


“Will George W. Bush end up being the last true U.S. President?” asked Sher Zieve, writing for the Canadian Free Press on January 14. “As I warned you on multiple times prior to the 2008 General Election, ‘once Obama is elected, we won’t be able to get rid of him.’ Tragically, this warning is now being realized. Not only has Obama established his election-fraud organization ACORN nationwide,

his adherents have now begun the process to repeal the U.S. Constitution’s 22nd Amendment.”

See the proof on any of these websites.

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=hj111-5
http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-hj5/show

http://www.washingtonwatch.com/bills/show/111_HJ_5.html


Or go to Google and do your own search by typing in H. J. Res. 5.

More:

http://bungalowbillscw.blogspot.com/2009/05/hj-resolution-5-repealing-xxii.html

[EnviroBat]

1. Awwww, we can dream can't we?

:rofl:

[tekisui]

2. It'll never go anywhere. I wonder why Serrano even introduced it.

[Blue_Tires]

13. someone should ask him

although a quick scan of the RW conspiracy sites show that Serrano has been introducing this each year since 1997...so the premise that he's doing this for obama falls flat

[underpants]

3. "...George W. Bush ...the last true U.S. President?"

Okay now THAT is funny. Sad but funny

[meegbear]

4. I thought this was supposed to happen only if Hillary was elected?

:shrug:

I can't keep those urban legends straight anymore.

[Bucky]

27. No, Nixon. Didn't you see Watchmen?

Don't worry, lotta people didn't.

[Vickers]

5. It just as dumb when THEY make the claim as when WE make the claim.

I saw plenty of idiocy like that during Wee Cowboy's term (on both sides, actually).

Laughable.

[SDuderstadt]

8. "Wee Cowboy...

L0LOL! That's the best handle I've heard for Bush yet. May I borrow that?

[Vickers]

12. I wish I could take credit for it...and I wish I could remember who coined

the phrase, because it's perfect.

:thumbsup:

[Edweird]

31. It wasn't too long ago that the 'experts' here were wailing about suspended elections,

martial law and interment camps. It was, I agree, just as dumb then as it is now.

[Mz Pip]

6. These people are insane.

<<THE REVOLUTION HAS BEGUN. PROTECT YOUR RIGHTS AND KEEP YOUR

GUNS LOADED !! WAKE UP AND GET ACTIVE BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE !!>>

Just what we need. More hysteria to fan the flames of violence.

[HopeHoops]

7. Communist Nazi space aliens are in control of Congress now.

They're going to force Congress to reject any SCOTUS appointee who isn't a two-headed bat-boy from Toledo. Apparently they have a lot of them there.

[dorkulon]

23. ...

[Cal33]

9. It's a well-known fact that Right Wingers always accuse their

opponents of doing the very things the RWs themselves have done, are doing,
or will be doing. We all had a scare that Bush, Jr. was trying to do
exactly that, didn't we? It didn't happen probably because his advisers
were telling him that it wouldn't succeed -- too many Americans were simply sick
of him.

Right until Nov. 4, 08, I thought it possible that he might declare
martial law under some pretext or other, and suspend the elections.
It was a relief that it didn't happen!

[Blue_Tires]

10. i wonder how the e-mail would have read circa 2005?

[WCGreen]

11. What our wigged out friends on the far right fringe don't understand

is that even if this should be passed and then ratified by at least 2/3 of the states, it would not apply to Obama since he is already sitting in the Oval Office.

[Bucky]

26. Actually, that may not be true.

When the 22nd Amendment was passed, the authors specifically grandfathered in the "current president", meaning Harry Truman, in the language of the Amendment. You don't just get to assume a grandfathering in Constitutional law. If this (pretty dumb and entirely hopeless) amendment were ever ratified, either it would cover the incumbent or there would have to be specific language in there to express exemptions.

[OKNancy]

14. LOL- Let them rant.. DU had the same types of posts about Bush n/t

n/t


.

[niyad]

15. and these are probably the same nutbars who were pressing for wee cowboy to be able to run

for a third term (acutally, I think that moniker is an insult to real cowboys)

[Riley18]

16. Hopefully George W. will be the last GOP president for many many years. We

can only keep our fingers crossed we should be so lucky! It is pretty scarry???? WTF does that mean? Can't these morans spell anything right? Is English their second language or something?

[krispos42]

17. So after 2/3rds of the House, 2/3rds of the Senate, and 3/4ths of the States vote to repeal it...

...it could become law.


I'm sure they'll get right on that, right after they pass the amendments to: ban gay marriage, to ban abortion, and repeal the 13th Amendment (federal income tax).

I'll be in the corner holding my breath.

[MiniMe]

18. I actually googled it because I didn't see a .gov listed

And I actually found one. http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d111:h.j.res.00005:

It is a real bill, no co-sponsors. It was referred to the Judiciary Committee, then to a sub committee, and nothing has happened since then with it. I'm pretty sure it went there to die. It would never pass if it ever even got to a house vote. Why would the dems want this? We could have been stuck with W if he was in office. Power will shift again to somebody else, in the Presidency if nowhere else, and it would never pass the Senate.

This is just like the rumor that the repubs were trying to pass a bill to repeal the naturally born citizen out of the constitution for Ahhhhnold to run for Pres, even if it did get through committee, it would never pass. And if by some miracle it had, what would the birthers have to complain about?

[old mark]

19. I was waiting for W to do that right before the electon in '08 -

the GOP's "October Surprise" - the Great Leader George I of Rovenia...
Start the revolution, load your guns, start marchung, assholes. But wear a hat - they make great aiming points for us Democrats.



mark

[dorkulon]

20. Serrano's been doing this for years:

"In each of 1997, 1999, 2001, 2003, 2005, 2007, and 2009, Serrano introduced a joint resolution proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to repeal the 22nd Amendment, thereby removing the limitation on the number of terms an individual may serve as president. Each resolution, with the exception of the current one, died without ever getting past the committee."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Serrano#Political_positions

[Blue_Tires]

21. if anything we should renew the push for congressional term limits, imo

[dorkulon]

22. I see term limits as a false measure

If an elected official has integrity, he should stay in office forever. If he has no integrity, it's no sweat for the system to replace him with another shill.

I'm glad FDR got to serve all those terms, and wouldn't have minded a third for Clinton.

[Bucky]

29. A good argument from reason. But the argument from experience is stronger.

The only Constitutional term limits--those on the president--are not philosophically consistent with democracy, but then again, neither is the US Constitution. In practice, because of technology and the increasing expansion of US global power, we've seen a steady drift in power in our government away from the legislative branch and toward the "imperial presidency" of the executive branch.

The general drift of history has made executive action more relevant to public problems than the deliberative processes of Congress. As a result, we have a balance of power in the Republic far more heavily weighted toward the president. The power of the incumbent to get reelected was strongly demonstrated four and a half years ago, when an absolute trainwreck of an administration was able to put itself over on the public by utilizing the imperial presidency.

Add to this the tendency of those in power to become corrupt and less scrupulous of their public duties over time--the well documented year six scandals that plague most presidents--and you can see a pattern emerging of a presidential branch designed to perpetuate its own power and marginalize the other branches. I guess you could argue then that the people should just start being more diligent in their citizenship duties and force the legislature to stand up to presidential power more. The problem is that experience shows that the neither the people nor the Congress will actually do this.

From the viewpoint of practical experience, you need to have some external limits on governmental power where the intrinsic limits of democracy don't do the job. In the case of the US Constitution of government, simple voting isn't doing the job. The 22nd amendment effectively prevents crises of power sharing that might otherwise occur because it creates an artificial limit to how long presidents can spend accumulating power.

Or use this analogy: driving over the speed limit isn't dangerous. If you have the right driver in the car and he can handle it at 90 mph, then why should there be an artificial cap on his performance? Because the regulations don't cover what goes right; they serve to prevent that which might go wrong in a more catastrophic way than what you're expecting.

[dorkulon]

30. Fair enough. But...

1. Bush would certainly have lost a third run.
2. Had Bush still been popular, one of his cronies could easily run, win, and continue to accumulate power on the part of the "cabal".
3. The White House HAS been steadily accumulating power regardless of term limits.

[Bucky]

32. I think we agree on quite a bit here

1. Bush would have, yes. But Reagan & Clinton would probably not have been turned out of office. We do know what Bush & Co were willing to do to get their second term--imagine what mullah-like depths they would have sunk to to grasp at a third term. Whether they were successful or not, there would have been massively deeper incentives for political corruption if they thought they could steal a 3rd term.

2. We agree; except that even a proxy under our system becomes his own man after a while. A lot of the power that Bush lost in his last 3 years, he lost because people knew he was out of the game. Term limits do put brakes on some accumulation of power--which was the greatest fear among the Founding Fathers when they wrote & barely ratified the Constitution.

3. We're in perfect agreement here. Despite the 22nd amendment, the presidency has been amassing more power than the Framers wanted. That's not a terrible thing--they also designed the Constitution to be flexible so that future generations could adapt it to their needs. But imagine what additional informal power, let alone formal power, would have accrued to the executive branch if there had not been term limits. Some possibilities include more powerful executive agencies with semi-legislative and semi-judicial power (more than what we have now), more "Blue Ribbon Panels" writing laws, a "line item" veto.

And that's formal power. Imagine how intimidating and personally controlling of the Democrats Bill Clinton would be if he were on his fifth term. What corruption would have seeped into the White House if he had the power to, PRI-like, anoint his own successor. Or how corrupt would an Obama be if for the next 12 or 16 years he was the chief executive. The office has the power to turn a good man bad--executive branches, designed to get things done, are inherently designed to take what shortcuts they can to get there. With all the power that's defaulted into the presidency, basically because of the size of our country, a guy holding the job without a set expiration date is an invitation to corruption, even if there are fully free elections ratifying those corrupt regimes.

[dorkulon]

33. You make a good case.

I could be wrong about this. I guess it bothers me because term limits seem like an easy and ineffective measure if the goal is accountability and reducing corruption. Exclusive public financing, fiscal transparency, and cleaning up the election process are more pertinent, I think, but term limits are an easy talking point. They may be a good idea, but alone I don't think they do much.

[Bucky]

24. You know, every 8 years or so, some knucklehead in the House introduces this same bill

It never goes anywhere. It never should.

[treestar]

25. Just like the Chavez case

Repealing term limits does not make the President "for life." There would still be elections and the people could vote him out at any one of them.

[hootinholler]

28. Here's your reply: