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Why do I have the suspicion that this is for your homework assignment ?

I would have great fun as president, right up until I got assassinated....

1] No feeding antibiotics to meat animals that aren't sick - this causes the evolution of antibiotic resistance, which should scare the *** out of everyone. The farm lobby will scream bloody murder, but fooey on them. I do not want to die from an infected cut, like people did before antibiotics.

2] The Religious Right can go pound rock salt where the sun don't shine. See the first amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof... - Sunday liquor laws are a blatant violation of this, for instance. Christ said to pray in your closet, not on the street corner.

3] The US government, at all levels, needs to consume a smaller fraction of the GDP. There is a clear correlation between what fraction the gov't sucks down and how fast an economy grows.

4] Education: Vouchers for all. The public school systems are grossly bloated with nonproductive administrators. Ditch all of them and there will be enough money left to pay teachers a decent wage.

Make schools compete for students, and make students compete for the school they want to attend.

Make teacher salaries high enough that people who are really bright go into it. Change college level education courses so they cannot be passed by perpetually drunk morons.

I want the US to have an intelligent, educated, and informed populace. It is required for democracy to function properly, and it is also required if Americans want to have high paying jobs; we cannot simply close our borders [not they way we buy oil]. Protectionism just destroys an economy.

5] Health care: Ban advertising to the consumer by prescription drug manufacturers. They spend more there than on R&D for ***s sake ! Require that US customers get prices no higher than they give to overseas customers. I for one am sick of subsidizing drugs for the rest of the world.

Look closely at Canada, Britain, and other places. See Michael Moore's Sicko, but be skeptical, as it is more than a little slanted. It does however have a number of good points.

6] Appoint Bjorn Lomborg to a high position in the EPA. Execute James Watt.

7] Make it very clear to the Iraqi Shiites that we are sick of them screwing around; make a durable peace with the Sunnis and Kurds NOW, or we will partition Iraq and not in a way they will particularly like. While the surge is working, it is too damned expensive in american lives and money to be doing for any longer than absolutely required, and the Shiites screwing around is not helping a bit.

Castrate Rumsfeld and send him to sea in a tub of excrement.

8] The War on Drugs has been lost, years ago. They have spent billions on it, to no avail. We have huge amounts of money going to the Mob [Prohibition made Al Capone], vast incentives for police and politicians to be corrupt, and the war is shredding the constitution. In the Bill of Rights it says: Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

The case law [which is the composite of all judicial decisions to date; judges have to follow precedent or explain why not in their opinion, and may be overruled on appeal] is very different. While the Supremes have decided that one anonymous tip [that a cop SAYS he got] isn't enough for a warrant, two are. Sworn testimony my ***.

Case law also says that having mud on your license plate, even if it does not obscure the numbers/letters, is probable cause for a cop to pull you over and search your car.

There is a saying that tough cases make bad law. Consider a case where a judge is trying a dope dealer who was caught only because of a plainly illegal search. He doesn't want to let the dealer go [especially if he is facing reelection soon] so he comes up with some exceptionally contorted logic as to why the search was, after all, legal.

Judges decide how they want to rule, then find the law to support that position.

People wait months or years in jail awaiting trial, but: Amendment VI

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial,...

We should just do what the Netherlands do; effectively legalize pot, hash, mushrooms, Lsd, and ex, but keep heroin and cocaine illegal. Focus on harm reduction, not punishment.

Look at how the British handle heroin; they realized pushers hook people to make money, then made that hard. Anyone can go to national health and get a maintenance prescription. So pushers cannot jack up the price to the hugely profitable levels they can in the US, the addicts simply go to national health. There is some heroin problem in the UK, but not what there is in the US. Make policy based on what works, not on what feels good.

9] Make Shrub [little bush, ie, W] and everyone working for him read the constitution and beat them severely when they get it wrong. There is NO PLACE ON EARTH controlled by US forces where the constitution does not apply, whatever Shrub may think, eg, Gitmo.

Take Ashcroft and Gonzales, castrate them, and send them out to sea in a tub of excrement.

10] There are several reasons to oppose the death penalty:

a] Some think it plain wrong. I would have no problem seeing Bin Laden or TImothy McVeigh executed. Where it is exceptionally clear they are guilty I do not see a problem.

b] It is hard to un-execute someone if it turns out they were innocent, and given how many people on death row have been exonerated, this is a real concern.

It is also a great concern that many places are not required to keep physical evidence that might exonerate someone [eg, by DNA analysis], and are discarding such evidence.

Especially of concern are cases where prosecutors have withheld exonerating evidence [which legally they must give to the defense] or engaged in other misconduct. Charge those prosecutors with attempted murder and prosecute vigorously [they tried to get someone they knew was innocent executed. That is attempted murder, and of a particularly foul nature].

To prosecutors [and defense lawyers], eyewitness testimony is the best evidence there is, but many many many studies have shown it to be only so-so as far as accuracy. Make all jurors aware of this.

c] The appeals process for someone condemned to die are more costly than keeping them in prison for the rest of their life. So save a buck and throw away the key.

11] End all farm subsidies, if not immediately, by tapering them to zero in not more than ten years.

I bet GM wishes it could sell leftover cars to the government for a price higher than what the market will bear - but that is what farmers get. And 90%+ of the subsidies go to mega corporations like ADM, Cargill, et al, not to Ma & Pa farms. If nothing else, put a cap on how much money any particular farm can get, and write the law intelligently, so ADM doesn't suddenly have 50,000 ten acre farms each of which can earn the max.

Of course, you would have to figure out how to get Congress to go along, when ADM et al are passing out so much in campaign contributions....

12] End gerrymandering [arranging election districts so that there is no contest, the result is not in question].

Gerrymandering is essentially denying people the right to vote.

The House of Lords [UK], where you only leave because you choose to give up your seat, or you die, has a higher turnover than the House of Representatives.

Come up with some mathematical algorithm that produces only one map of election districts, and require its use.

Gerrymandering is also behind much of the polarization of our politics. If a seat is gerrymandered such that only a [say] Democrat can win the election, the primary will be the real fight. To win the primary, you have to go to the extreme [since the party faithful are less toward the center].

Make all elections competitive !

13] Require all states to apportion their electoral votes in proportion to the results in the state, not all-or-nothing. This would give no incentive for such as Ken Blackwell to steal the '04 election for Shrub by cooking the results in a few dozen precincts.

14] Scrap immediately ALL electronic voting machines. I think the only reason Bill Gates didn't win in '04 was that he didn't want the job.

Go to the system where voters fill in circles on a paper sheet [which has the questions or names right there] which is then fed into a scanner. This is much cheaper [sorry Diebold], more reliable, and leaves an extremely clear audit trail for recounts.

Using electronic machines is just asking for stolen elections.

Just ask the ex-governor of Alaska. She writes her concise speech on her left palm and had gotten pretty good at it.

I shouldn't be president. You have to be crooked and lower your standards to become president. You also have to be able to look people right in the eye and lie your tail off. Then you have to remember which lie you told to who and when. Plus this sounds like a homework assignment.