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How Lame Ducks Work · Stuff You Should Know

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  Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
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  Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know
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  Speaker 1: from how Stuff Works dot Com? You're getting smarter? Hey there,
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  Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark as staff
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  Speaker 1: writer here How Stuff Works dot Com, with me as
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  Speaker 1: always as my trustee editor Chris Palette. Chris, Today, I
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  Speaker 1: want to talk about lame duck presidents. Agreed, absolutely, Okay.
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  Speaker 1: Let me give a little background for some what a
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  Speaker 1: lame duck president is. Lame duck president is basically any
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  Speaker 1: president that has already either not been passed over for
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  Speaker 1: election or has served the both of their terms. And
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  Speaker 1: basically they're just sitting around in office waiting to finish
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  Speaker 1: out the rest of their tenure before the next president
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  Speaker 1: takes over. Correct that is correct? And where did this
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  Speaker 1: come from? Lame duck? Do you want me to explain
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  Speaker 1: that part? Why don't you do that? Let me Basically,
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  Speaker 1: a lame duck original it was a financial term for
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  Speaker 1: somebody who couldn't pay their debt. Our current use of
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  Speaker 1: that term has nothing to do with that anymore. As
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  Speaker 1: I said, it's it's a president who's finished out their term,
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  Speaker 1: and it can also refer to Congress. But there's an
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  Speaker 1: amendment in the Constitution called the lame Duck Amendment, and
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  Speaker 1: it is the amenment absolutely, uh, the twenty Amendment is
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  Speaker 1: the lame duck Amendment, and it was instituted in I
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  Speaker 1: believe nineteen thirty three during the Hoover administration. Basically, what
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  Speaker 1: was going on was members of Congress had thirteen months
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  Speaker 1: in between the time they found out that they were
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  Speaker 1: not reelected and the time they actually left office. Thirteen
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  Speaker 1: months is a really, really long time to do a
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  Speaker 1: lot of damage, basically robbing their constituency blind. Right. Well,
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  Speaker 1: you know, they have the opportunity to use the powers
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  Speaker 1: of office for uh, for all sorts of projects, and
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  Speaker 1: you know, once they're not once they don't feel like
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  Speaker 1: they owe the voters anything anymore. They can they can
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  Speaker 1: vote any way they want to, exactly. They could also
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  Speaker 1: pick the president under certain circumstances, those being you know,
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  Speaker 1: a tie in the electoral college, which frankly I don't
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  Speaker 1: even want to get into. But um, Chris, it seems
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  Speaker 1: like there's somebody out there right now who's a lame duck.
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  Speaker 1: Their names slipping my mind. Can you refresh my memory.
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  Speaker 1: I think you're thinking of President George W. Buck exactly.
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  Speaker 1: That's who it was. Tell us a little bit about
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  Speaker 1: his lame duck status, will you. Well, you know, he's uh,
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  Speaker 1: he's actually been fairly busy during his lame duck period. Um.
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  Speaker 1: You know, I saw that people have been talking about
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  Speaker 1: his presidency being entering the lame duck phase as early
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  Speaker 1: as the first part of two thousand seven. So you know,
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  Speaker 1: if if that's true. Obviously this is subjective thing, but
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  Speaker 1: he would have been a lame duck for you know,
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  Speaker 1: almost half of his second term in office. I heard
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  Speaker 1: that the Associated Press actually tagged him with lame duck
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  Speaker 1: in two thousand four. Wow, we'll see, you know, as
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  Speaker 1: soon as you get elected for your second term. I
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  Speaker 1: guess technically you're you're him. Uh, your lame duckness starts. Um.
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  Speaker 1: But he's been he's been actually pretty active as of
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  Speaker 1: late UM worth the Economic Stimulus Package and UM recently
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  Speaker 1: to UH pushing for a permanent extension of his the
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  Speaker 1: UH Surveillance Package, pushing Congress to to extend that permanently
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  Speaker 1: instead of a temporary extension. He's been very vocal about
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  Speaker 1: about doing that. So he's not he's not just sitting
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  Speaker 1: on his on his hands and waiting for his term
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  Speaker 1: to end. Now. Also one of those little balls with
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  Speaker 1: the raccoon tail that is battery powered and cats like
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  Speaker 1: the plue with that's also very active too. But I
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  Speaker 1: think that that has just about as much of a
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  Speaker 1: chance of pushing legislation through as George Bush does at
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  Speaker 1: this point. Uh, from what I understand and doing some
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  Speaker 1: research for this podcast, I found that, um, it's pretty
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  Speaker 1: much open season on Bush. It seems like he's spent
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  Speaker 1: all of his political currency and uh, suddenly the wolves
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  Speaker 1: are at his door, as it were. I quote David
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  Speaker 1: from who's a former speechwriter, there's no possibility at all
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  Speaker 1: of the president advancing anything that is acceptable to both
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  Speaker 1: the Democrats and the Republicans. Talking about what he'll be
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  Speaker 1: able to do his last term, it looks like nothing. Chris,
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  Speaker 1: what do you think? Well, you know, he's he's only
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  Speaker 1: so powerful anyway as president because the members of Congress
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  Speaker 1: are the ones who have to uh push the bills
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  Speaker 1: across his desk form to sign. So you know, there's
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  Speaker 1: there's only he He can talk all he wants, but
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  Speaker 1: if they don't give him a bill to sign into law.
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  Speaker 1: You know, he can't do anything whether he's a lame
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  Speaker 1: duck or not. Exactly two and I think, uh a
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  Speaker 1: further sign of the president's lame duck status that I
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  Speaker 1: was really surprised to find this out. But Nancy Pelosi,
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  Speaker 1: the Speaker of the House of Representatives, in July two
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  Speaker 1: thousand seven, flew to Syria to hold talks with the
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  Speaker 1: President of Syria, who Bush was ignoring at the time,
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  Speaker 1: going completely behind the residents back. Now, if that's not
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  Speaker 1: a sign that you're a lame duck, I don't know
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  Speaker 1: what is. How about you? I do think you have
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  Speaker 1: a point there. Okay, well, please please read how Lame
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  Speaker 1: is a Lame Duck President at how stuff works dot com.
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  Speaker 1: It'll change your life. For more on this and thousands
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  Speaker 1: of other topics, this is it how stuff works dot com.
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