Monica's baby, the ruin of Clinton - a TL

[jerseyrules]

jerseyrules

If BlairWitch749 gives his permission I could forward you the huge number of PMs that have gone on between BW749 and I over details on the future Miller updates. But I don't know how BW feels about that. We've only agreed on a general outline at this time. I feel very strongly that I have to do serious research about Zell Miller The Man, not Zell Miller The SNL Punchline.

I can only promise that circumstances about Miller in the TL will probably not be what people expect.

EDIT: At this time it looks like the setting will be in the Fall of 1997.
EDIT2: Hmm... Its shocking how many relevant books Miller has written post-2000 "revelation", and how few before. Looks like the only relevant one for looking inside his head (in 1997) is his book on the USMC and its applications to American culture. It was published just one year after the "present" of TTL-1998. I'll have that in a few days.

All right; thanks

 

[Glen]

POD date means this technically belongs in the increasingly misnamed Future History.

 

[AbeLincoln1865]

Glen I almost feel you are going a little crazy with the movings. Now some are justified but this is too much.
(please don't ban or kick me)

 

[Hendryk]

POD date means this technically belongs in the increasingly misnamed Future History.

I'm not really seeing the justification to move this thread to FH. It takes place in the recent past, with no FH elements that I've noticed. Now, by all means move it to Chat, since it is, by the author's own admission, an openly partisan tract rather than legitimate AH; but I don't think it belongs in the FH forum unless the rules have been changed.

 

[Evan]

POD date means this technically belongs in the increasingly misnamed Future History.

What? Last time I checked the calendar, it was 2012. The PoD for this is in the 1990's!

 

[usertron2020]

What? Last time I checked the calendar, it was 2012. The PoD for this is in the 1990's!

Future History?

Well, if we've finished the 1997-2005 Gramm Administration, finished the 2005-2013 W Administration, finished the 2013-2021 Jeb Administration, and are now in the Santorum Administration...

 

[Tovarich]

POD date means this technically belongs in the increasingly misnamed Future History.

Glen, I seriously think you're wrong about POD date, rather than time of content, being the prime marker for which forum a TL belongs in.

Could you ask Ian to clarify for us all, maybe?

(Heh, is this what it's like for Americans all the time, having to wonder what the Founding Fathers would've wanted? Good thing ours is still alive and can be asked directly)

 

[Teshuvah]

I've brought up Glen's actions in this and other threads for discussion here.

 

[Glen]

POD date means this technically belongs in the increasingly misnamed Future History.

I screwed up - confabulated Turtledove categories with Forum categories (again).

Now that I have had more sleep - I have reconsidered and I do believe that this belongs in After 1900 - my apologies for the confusion and disruption.

 

[BlairWitch749]

I screwed up - confabulated Turtledove categories with Forum categories (again).

Now that I have had more sleep - I have reconsidered and I do believe that this belongs in After 1900 - my apologies for the confusion and disruption.

by all means move her back

 

[BlairWitch749]

I'm not really seeing the justification to move this thread to FH. It takes place in the recent past, with no FH elements that I've noticed. Now, by all means move it to Chat, since it is, by the author's own admission, an openly partisan tract rather than legitimate AH; but I don't think it belongs in the FH forum unless the rules have been changed.

Did you have a plausibility argument to make there?

didn't think so

 

[usertron2020]

Did you have a plausibility argument to make there?

didn't think so

BlairWitch749

I think what's happening is that you are being tarred by the brush deserved by some of your posters. If one takes the time and carefully sifts through your updates compared to the posts of some of the readers? There's the political destruction of Clinton, yes. In your updates, that is. Also, I can see the chortling glee by SOME posters at what is happening, clearly filtered by and based on their political POVs. That is true. But YOU YOURSELF have made things abundantly clear about your disgust with, even hatred of, the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy[SIZE=-4](tm)[/SIZE]. Which we have both agreed could be counted among Clinton's biggest enablers (in spite of themselves).

Were you a naked political hack (ala Sean Hannity say) you would have had Clinton taken away in handcuffs, leg irons, orange jumpsuit, perp walk and all. But the selection of Phil Gramm as the recipient of the Greatest October Surprise Ever marks a departure from just Clinton bashing. You had Gramm pull the plug on any last minute political BS the GOP House wanted to pull on Clinton as he went out the door. This is why I think this TL has not been consigned to CHAT.

Also, has anyone noticed how much friendlier things have gotten (short of one area I will address in a second) regarding the TL now that we are in Gramm's first year? No blue v. red crossfire.

The only exception for this has been discussion of the 1998 Mid-Terms. I must take full responsibility for this entirely upon myself. It was I who started the HUGE battle over midterms long before the TL has ever come close to those elections. You yourself BW would only say again and again that you hadn't outlined anything for the 1998 elections, and THAT'S IT. That didn't stop me and everyone else from engaging in nonstop speculation about the future results.

However, those discussions were a sad eye opener.

NOTE: With the exception of myself and later Ariosto... He and I started out on opposite sides of the arguments being made but came together in the end... Everyone else was predicting a GOP landslide in an off-year GOP incumbency election. Despite my pointing out that that has never happened in the last century w/o extraordinary circumstances developing, which you yourself BW have made clear will not happen ITTL. Everybody else seemed to think that a bustling economy (plus Monica-gate STILL burning two years later!?) would solve all problems for the GOP. I kept repeating the words "wishful thinking" but it was like cannonballs off an ironclad.

What this all told me was that the readership of this TL was not only VERY conservative, but much more conservative than you BW. While Hendryk's politics are no secret to anyone, it doesn't make him WRONG. Not in his predictions of story flow, at least. I just don't agree with him about it being a blatant political tract. The trouble is everything has gone so easily for the GOP so far that it allows for the argument that the TL looks like one. But only because the storm clouds are still beyond the horizon. But they are there and they are coming. Its just that some of them are years away.

If one takes the time to LOOK, a non-biased reader can see the differences between your own political beliefs and those of most of your fans. At least those who are posting.

The difference between you and I BW is that you and I both despise Slick Willie, while I love Hill and you... I don't really know. You really don't seem to like her very much AT ALL. But you keep promising she'll do well ITTL. I'm damned to see how she could do AS WELL, much less better, than she's done OTL, unless you see her as POTUS one day.

 

[Ariosto]

NOTE: With the exception of myself and later Ariosto... He and I started out on opposite sides of the arguments being made but came together in the end... Everyone else was predicting a GOP landslide in an off-year GOP incumbency election.

Yes, but few are going to be happy with the results as I predicted them up to 2002, at which point they would be breathing a sigh of relief. At the same time I would not be able to determine how certain Senators, such as Jim Jeffords, would react to the more Conservative direction, and if they might go Independent and caucus with the Democrats so as to remove the Republican Supermajority.​

 

[usertron2020]

Yes, but few are going to be happy with the results as I predicted them up to 2002,(1) at which point they would be breathing a sigh of relief.(2) At the same time I would not be able to determine how certain Senators, such as Jim Jeffords,(3) would react to the more Conservative direction, and if they might go Independent and caucus with the Democrats so as to remove the Republican Supermajority.(4)​

1) By "few are going to be happy" are you referring to the TL readership?

2) Ditto.

3) Actually, Jeffords' defection had more to do with the GOP's threats to strip New England dairy farmers of price supports, a supreme political no-no in New England. As was typical of the W Administration, they just blew him off, despite his threats of defection. The usual maladroitness to be expected of W, when it came to anyone who refused to march in lockstep with him 100% of the time. Particularly with the Senate split 50-50 at the time. No wonder W left the White House with New England so totally sapphire blue (outside the Maine Ladies).

4) That's up to the OP. I don't see that happening, unless Gramm grows as arrogant as W did OTL. BW knows Gramm's mind far better than I, so I won't even make predictions in that regard.

 

[BlairWitch749]

A new social promise and opportunity A special offshoot of chapter 31 100 days series - As we have always seen here in the U.S. the universal truth about elections is that people vote their pocketbook -Congresswoman Jennifer Dunn

January 1997 and ongoing Washington DC

Jennifer Dunn was one of the THE prime examples of Phil Gramm picking technocrats and people gifted in their understanding of the economy to be a part of his administration, even versus Dell and Mulally

Dunn, 56 had graduated from the University of Washington and Standford with advanced degrees in business and engineering and had worked as a systems engineer and network administrator prior to being elected to congress in 1992.

On her entrance she had rapidly risen in the house leadership and quickly became one of Speaker Newt Gingrich's primary hatchetmen; or woman in this case. Prior to Gramm's decision to leave Robert Rubin in place at treasury, Dunn had been rumored to be on the short list for that posting. Her position not only involved running the white house's involvement in the ongoing evolution of the federal budget, but she served as a critical go between for Gramm and Gingrich; both of whom had large ego's that Dunn was able to carefully coddle when needed and put into place when required.

Dunn was a bit shocked when Gramm gave her the assignment to draw up all the necessary planning documents and charts for what he believed would be the cornerstone of his first term. "Jenn, I want you to draw up a plan to change the allocatation of social security into more diverse securities and investments; I don't want young people to be outpaced by inflation on 13 percent of their income any more... I want it to run like a soveriegn wealth fund, but for god's sake don't call it that, write it up so it can be a more mobile body like state pension funds; draw up lot's of comparison charts to the success rates of CALPERS and the NYS state pension fund

Dunn was quick to point out that such a plan would incur a very high political cost and that the democrats would label any plan to alter social security as "the destruction of social security"

Gramm replied that he anticipated this, and planned to win the argument over the next 7 or 8 months with the hopes of getting this to congress for votes in September

Dunn suggested it might be a wiser course to press the matter in the first 100 days to take advantage of their high levels of political capital and limit the window for the democrats to attack the plan but Gramm was adamant "Something this big can't be rammed through without consensus and genuine public debate and support, we have to win the argument"

For the next 30 days, Dunn and her team crafted a new plan which they called the Social Promise and Opportunity Act or SPOA for short, it's key points where as follows:

• Existing seniors and those 54 and 1/2 and older would stay in the current system with no changes to allocation or benefit structure
• Those who wished to stay in the existing system would be allowed to do so
• An automatic management option would be offered for those who didn't want to be in the old system but didn't want to take an active role in overseeing their social security funds; which would see them placed into so called "target funds" which would be more aggressive for younger workers, steadily switching to more secure and income oriented funds as the citizen got older
• A self management option would be offered, allowing the citizen to pick a series of 401k style mutual and target funds of a diverse nature, with the ability to make changes on a quarterly basis
• The amount allowed to be allocated (to start the program) would be on a sliding scale... those 40-54 could allocate up to 33.3 percent, those 30-39 could allocate 47.5 percent and those 29 and younger could allocate 60 percent; younger workers would be allowed to keep their higher level allocation percentages as they got older, if they chose to
• Excess gains beyond the needs of existing social security payouts and services are to be equally split between paying off the national debt, and being held in reserve for social security in the even of down or flat stock sessions
• Should the national debt reach a level less than 10 percent gdp in total, triggers would be emplaced to allow for higher allocation percentages to try and stem of the need for bonds to be bought by social security; at this point excess gains would be 50 percent social security reserve 50 general operations

to be continued...


thoughts?

 

[Hendryk]

As we have always seen here in the U.S. the universal truth about elections is that people vote their pocketbook -Congresswoman Jennifer Dunn

If that was the case, the Republicans wouldn't stand a chance, considering their consistent record of shilling for a tiny minority of superrich at the expense of the overwhelming majority of the population. Quite a lot of people actually cast their ballot on non-economic criteria, the so-called "values" that right-wingers love to campaign about to keep a good chunk of the country voting against its self-interest.

 

[usertron2020]

Who's gonna take my phaser?

If that was the case, the Republicans wouldn't stand a chance, considering their consistent record of shilling for a tiny minority of superrich at the expense of the overwhelming majority of the population. Quite a lot of people actually cast their ballot on non-economic criteria, the so-called "values" that right-wingers love to campaign about to keep a good chunk of the country voting against its self-interest.

You know I have a relative who BRAGS that he only has three questions on deciding who he's going to vote for:
1) Who's gonna take my guns?
2) Who's gonna take my guns?
3) Who's gonna take my guns?

This is a tale as old as time itself.

In ancient times, the Mob was told their problems were the fault of either a) foreigners/barbarians, or b) other political factions than the class of rulers currently in power.

In the middle ages up to today, its...actually, the number of targets to "BLAME FOR EVERYTHING" today are far too numerous to even list. But basically, everyone who isn't a middle-aged straight white male republican conservative (but I repeat myself) upper-class($$$) christian evangelical (MASWMRCUCCE). But if you ARE a MASWRCUCCE, then YOU ARE GUILTY OF EVERYTHING! Heck, even if you're just a MASWM, YOU STILL ARE GUILTY OF EVERYTHING!

 

[jerseyrules]

Great to see this updated . Liking this...

 

[Plumber]

That's one way to be a one-term President...

 

[usertron2020]

That's one way to be a one-term President...

BW749 has made it clear he hasn't outlined the story even to 1998, much less 2000. Also, he's said that there will NOT be an October Surprise 2.0/3.0. Either in '98 or 2000. Whether for Gramm or against him.

If this passes though, we could see 1998 as an even bigger Democratic landslide (1) than OTL. We shall see.

1) Not trying to start this AGAIN, but OTL that year WAS a Dem landslide. Coming out of the "Sixth Year Curse" election with a wash in the Senate and five seats lost in the House. But if POTUS Gramm is seen humping the "third rail"... This time, with a GOP President... Gramm is not a sixth year incumbent, but Slick Willie isn't on the ballot either. The Senate shouldn't change TOO much from OTL. Except as another poster said one of Kentucky's Senate seats will turn blue. The House on the other hand... Lucky for the GOP the House represents the "Tyranny of the Majority".