Here's a hopeful scenario:
HRC administration:
Day 1: Order the NSA to provide secure phones for all senate-confirmed appointees. This is a long list, but the key is the head of the 24 executive agencies, such as State and Treasury. They get real phones by Executive Order.
Day 2: The NSA balks, so HRC sets up a white-hat agency, whose entire purpose is to create IT for the appointed and elected parts of the Executive branch. Comey is summoned to the Oval Office, and given a new project: Figure out why the NSA and FBI do not want our officials to be able to do their job.
Day 3: Nancy Pelosi gets her gavel back. The 54 Democrats in the Senate approve rules which include the Real Filibuster, but not the procedural filibuster.
As an aside, the difference is key. Standing up, talking for forever? That's a filibuster. Saying that you might do that, and not letting a bill come to the floor? That's a procedural filibuster, and it is bad for democracy.
Day 4: HRC sends a budget to Congress. It is like no budget ever sent: It cuts federal spending, reduces the military infrastructure, and increases spending for women, infants, and children.
Day 5: HRC ends the undeclared and illegal wars fought for oil across the world. You know, the five secret wars we're not talking about.
What else do you see happening in a hopeful scenario? What did I miss?
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My hopeful scenario plays out differently:
ReplyDeleteDay 1: HRC schedules private meetings with the head of the NSA, the Senate minority leader, and some others.
Day 2: HRC sends out detailed agendas regarding those meetings. Those close to the people receiving them indicate that all blood drained from the faces of those reading them.
Days 3-7: A round of quiet meetings take place.
Days 11: The NSA director indicates his full support for the creation of an independent agency whose remit will be providing secure IT for the Executive branch. He also announces that independently and voluntarily he has decided that recent events warrant the ramping up of internal investigations into NSA procedures. Snowden is blamed.
Day 14: Director Comey retires, citing a vital need to spend more time with his family.
Day 15: The White House press secretary quietly hands the press corp copies of the list of appointments being forwarded for every Secretary, all their Deputy secretaries, and all their Assistant Deputies. They are copies of an internal memo the date of which (two weeks earlier) has been ineffectually covered over.
Day 20: Senate leaders bilaterally move to bring the appointment of Judge Merrick Garland to the floor. Anonymous sources report mutterings in the Minority bloc of "It could be worse ... so. much. worse."
etc....
Basically, I like all the things you're pushing for, but I don't think the way you're imagining them is HRC's style ... and I actually like what I've perceived of her "Call the right people together, put the screws to them, then let them take whatever credit they want" style.
Could be! My morning precoffee musings likely say more about me than anything else.
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