Say the next Congress votes to relocate the nation's capital.

[saltpoint]

Say the contracts for additional construction are fairly distributed and are not no-bid Halliburton contracts.

Say that requisite security and infrastructure are covered.

Where should the new capital be?

[Broken_Hero]

1. easy...other

Somewhere, Texas....

[saltpoint]

2. Hi, petersond. Help me out here. Is that a real town? (I don't

travel much in Texas these days...)

[Broken_Hero]

24. I don't think so, but

you know what I mean...;) But my sarcasm almost made me blurt out Saudi Arabia, but I have control of myself...:)

[saltpoint]

30. Ok, got it. I was just lost on that town -- I hear ya now loud and

clear.

Saudi Arabia! LOL!

[ashling]

9. AUSTIN

On second thought, that would mean that be here all of the time ... as opposed to just most of the time.
:yoiks:

[saltpoint]

12. Not a bad idea. Austin's a lot bluer than most of the rest of

Texas, and I love the part of the state it's in - very handsome city and region.

[theHandpuppet]

26. So we could be the United States of Texas?

Sorry, but it feels too much like that already.

[readmoreoften]

43. Hell no I don't want those Capitol Hill assholes in my Austin. /nt

[Dover]

80. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Just NO.

It's already the capitol of Texas, and stinks with politicians. It's like the toilet overflowed.

[Warren DeMontague]

3. Oh, that's easy. Vegas. nt

[ribrepin]

4. I second vegas

[saltpoint]

5. Interesting choice. Wouldn't it be a leering temptation for people

like Randy Cunningham?

:evilgrin:

[Warren DeMontague]

42. No, see, I figure we'd save money by putting everybody right

where they ought to be. And you'd spare thousands of hookers from having to endure East Coast weather.

[saltpoint]

48. Well, that's true. Maybe Las Vegas is the most practical option.

[LiberalVoice]

6. Other, Boston nt

[saltpoint]

11. A town rich in Revolutionary War history. Plus, it has Fenway Park.

And the Boston Symphony.

I could live with that decision, no problem.

[Oversea Visitor]

7. Hey

where the uber embassy in the US lastest state you knwo the bush palace.
Sounds good place dont you think?

[saltpoint]

10. Hi, Oversea Visitor. Nice to bump into you tonight on DU.

I thought of several places. Even Alaska or Hawai'i.

(I try not to think of Bush. It only depresses me!)

[Oversea Visitor]

21. Me too (the thinking of bush part)

but he keep jumping into my reality x(

[saltpoint]

29. Well, a lot of us are volunteering for local Congressional Democrats

and other Democrats in local races.

I don't have a crystal ball but the weather looks pretty darn good for Democrats in November.

[Broken_Hero]

25. No not Alaska...no way....:) nt

[IChing]

8. To their local districts

the internet and internet conferences would supply interactions for the house and senate.

members would have to talk and deal with their constitutes
they would meet in DC only 1/12 of their normal time and spend more time talking face to face with their district or state.

I had a link on this and a greatest recommendation on this about a year ago
but it is late at night.

It came from a major player in technology

[saltpoint]

14. Hi, IChing. A very plausible possibility, perhaps not so far away in

the future.

If we can just get Ted Stevens to explain once more about all those tubes...

[IChing]

18. Lol....I forgot about those damn

BP tubes in Alaska...........LOL

[saltpoint]

19. LOL! Well, thank god we have a tech wizard like Ted Stevens

to sort it all out.

[IChing]

20. I think DU is a start

It is a place where locals in coffee houses a long time ago
would discuss local, national and world matters and then decide what is best for their town.

[wiley]

13. Buffalo, New York!

Because Camden, NJ isn't an option on this poll

[saltpoint]

16. I could see either one. I like the idea of walking across the Walt

Whitman Bridge into Camden, the nation's capital city.

And Buffalo's a long-time favorite city of mine to visit. I'm not afraid of a little snow.

[man4allcats]

15. New Waverly, TX (Population: 950)

It's about an hour north of Houston on I-45. There's a great old bar there called Borski's Tavern. Ben Franklin would love it. Bush would probably get his ass whipped there for being a plastic cowboy.

[saltpoint]

17. LOL! Sounds like a real-time, real-world bar, and I bet you're right

about its patrons not thinking much of Bush's cowboy act.

[OneBlueSky]

22. Provincetown, Massachusetts . . . n/t

.

[saltpoint]

31. Beautiful place. Plus, it would really piss off Jim Dobson to move the

capital there.

[DRoseDARs]

23. Easy: The Moon.

They already live in a vacuum.

[theophilus]

27. I voted for Omaha. That's where Titor said it would be after the nuclear

war Maybe if we put it there now we can skip the nuke part?

[saltpoint]

33. I say we definitely want to skip the nuke part no matter what. n/t

[LWolf]

28. others:

I wouldn't pick a city; the capital is supposed to be in it's own district, separate from the rest of the states. You'd have to take a chunk of another state to create a new district and capital. A larger state, with some space to spare, would be better.

You'd want someplace not likely to be bothered by tornadoes, hurricanes, or earthquakes. Where is that?

A central location would be good, except for the tornadoes. So close to central, but out of tornado alley.

Utah or Colorado.

[lonestarnot]

32. Death Valley. Put some heat on 'em.

[saltpoint]

36. LOL! Death Valley. That kills me. The first thing they'd do is

resolve to switch the name from Death Valley to Freedom Valley.

But the sun is as hot by any other name.

Excellent suggestion!:toast:

[lonestarnot]

38. I figured you'd like that place!

:toast: :hug: Yes under the auspices of Freedom Valley

[saltpoint]

41. - - -

:hi:
:thumbsup:
:hug:

[LWolf]

40. That would do it.

I've only visited Death Valley in the winter and spring; I guarantee that any legislation that needed to be completed before a summer session would get done.

[proud patriot]

70. It's hot there

but Bullhead City Az , is just a bit warmer .

[saltpoint]

35. Yes. There'd have to be some map-carving done.

I had towns in Utah and Colorado in the first draft of my post, then swapped 'em for other regional cities.

But I could definitely see it.

[treestar]

34. Philadelphia

The historical capital.

[saltpoint]

37. Yes. The spirit of Ben Franklin might like that idea, too.

I visit Philadelphia from time to time and never get tired of it.

It hosted fromer Phillies pitcher Jim Bunning when he was still a fire-balling, sentient being and not a brain-addled U.S. Senator from Kentucky.

[titoresque]

39. It will be located in Omaha Nebraska n/t

[mitchum]

44. In this age of technology, there is NO reason for Congress to meet...

in a central location. Those poltroons could live year round in their districts, be more responsive to their constituents, and no longer have the "but I have to maintain two residences" canard as justification for their high salaries.
And the scumbag lobbyists would really rack up the frequent flier miles if they had to go all over the country.

[Posteritatis]

51. Easy solution: Congressional barracks!

I do like the idea of them meeting in some centralized location though, if just because you simply can't easily hold a multi-hundred-way live teleconference that easily or reliably yet. If you went that way, there'd be a lot of conveniently-timed connection failures or phone outages, and that's even without idiot griefers messing with the network.

And sometimes, security reasons would mandate closed-door sessions of at least parts of Congress, though those could (or should) also be rare enough that one could arrange them ad-hoc for a decentralized legislature.

[sandnsea]

69. We'd have a real Federalist government

And see what the power of the elite and Executive Authority really looks like. I understand your thinking, but I really think we'd end up with the lobbyists, cabinet and bureaucrats in charge of everything leaving us with even less representation than we have now.

[Critters2]

75. This is what I keeping telling my Conference Minister

everytime she wants me to drive to Chicago for some meeting. She doesn't get it, either.

[hedgehog]

45. Buffalo, New York 3 out of 4 seasons ain't bad, they only

close the city once every 10 years for snow storms (I figure DC shuts down a couple times a year), the winds keeps the mosquitoes down and you can get pirogies at the grocery store. What's not to like?

[saltpoint]

46. Yep. 'Had friends go to college there at the university and they

all stuck together. They're fierce in their praise of that city, snow or no snow. Loved your description of an under-rated American city.

[Hubert Flottz]

47. Other

BERLIN 1939

[saltpoint]

49. HF, you very often come in to a subject from an exciting angle.

You do it again here. Berlin is one of the cities on earth I love most.

In 1939 it would have been a wild, unpredictable, and sometimes dangerous place to be. I consider the heroic anonymous champions of the everyday in the decade leading up to Nazi control and wish there was some way to honor and thank the bravel souls who defied the Nazis, some way I mean other than a monument alone.

I don't want to bore you to bits here, but your mentioning Berlin really got me to thinking.

[Hubert Flottz]

54. I love Germany too Old Crusoe.

It's a beautiful place. I loved the friendly people that I met there. When I was there it was a far different place than it is today. I got a real good, up close look, at some of the subjugated people of East Germany and it wasn't pretty or nice. I saw them through barbed wire and across mine fields. I could wave at them and speak to them, but they could never wave back, or speak to me for fear of their government attacking them, just for being friendly. They were never even allowed to act like they saw or heard anyone from the West. That walled off border, where our two worlds could never connect, was a very sad thing to see. I met a few East Germans who had escaped and I always got the feeling that they loved their new found freedom, more than anyone else I've ever known, because they grew up without it.

The people in East Germany paid the highest price of all Germans, for the third Reich's horrible crimes against humanity. The day the walls came down I was very happy indeed, because I knew exactly what it meant to millions. I hope America doesn't ever suffer the same sad fate, for Bush and the PNAC's crimes, but I'm very afraid we will someday.

[saltpoint]

55. What a great post. I needed a moment after I read it just to

catch my breath.

I endorse what you say with great respect. I've only visited Berlin once, but it was a long enough period for me to fall in love with the place almost instantly.

It was at once calming and terrifying to walk in the Teirgarten oak groves, planted now with the replacement oaks after the Third Reich cut down the original ones there to burn as fuel in the last, desperate days of the war. I pocketed some of the acorns from these new oaks, and shipped them back to the U.S. to plant and keep.

And the trains. And the museums. I saw one exhibit of hidden art from then-East Germany, work that had not been before any general audience ever. It was a knockout.

When the Wall came down, I simply stared at the news footage, unable to believe my eyes. I truly never thought I would live to see it come down, much less to the free music of Crosby Stills and Nash and images of very young children from the East side chipping away at the Wall with tiny mallets. Just astonishing.

Ok, I better stop before I start wailing out loud.

I thank you for a couple of absolutely terrific nerve-jangling posts, HF. Bravo, and thank you.

[Hubert Flottz]

58. Thank you, very kind of you to say so...

I have a small piece of the wall from down town Berlin. A friend of mine had an exchange student from Bonn here at his home for a couple of years and she and my friends daughter were visiting Berlin, at the very time the wall came down. When the little ladies came back to the states, they brought me my prize little piece of concrete. They spent two weeks in Berlin right when the wall came down.

I lived at Bad Hersfeld when I was there and I never got to Berlin, but I was all over southern and central West Germany. The food, beer, wine, fishing, my apartment, the people, the night life and the beautiful scenery, were all fit for a king. I'll admit that the Army did kind of suck though!

[saltpoint]

62. Reading your descriptions and observations and accounts of

Germany, I am reminded of how much better off we would be as a nation if your attitude toward another country or culture could prevail and not George W. Bush and his clueless, insenstive administration.

He lumped Germany in with "Old Europe," and dismissed it when the intelligent officials of its government told him an invasion of Iraq was a damned stupid idea.

Looks like the Old Europe officials knew what they were talking about, and Dubya's recent poll numbers are "10 degrees and gittin' colder," as Gordon Lightfoot might put it.

You make me jealous with your sojourn in the south of Germany. Never made it down there. But would love to see it and just mill around.

Hold onto that piece of the Wall. What a piece of history it is.

[Posteritatis]

50. Take a drunk guy, blindfold him...

Spin him around a few times, get behind cover, and have him throw a dart at a giant map of the United States.

He continues doing so until he hits land (as opposed to the middle of Lake Superior or 300 miles off Hawaii or something). You can also disqualify other areas (say, Yellowstone's caldera, mountaintops, particularly fragile ecosystems, etc) as needed or desired.

If he hits a city or major town, relocate there. If he hits the middle of nowhere outside of other disqualified areas, build the new capital there.

[saltpoint]

56. Ok. There goes the dart.... and it lands on...

Key West!

What a surprise!

Jim Dobson isn't going to like this one bit, is he?

[jmowreader]

52. Manhattan, Kansas

Manhattan is the only place to relocate the nation's capital to.

It's very close to the geographic center of the continental United States.

It's also next to an Army base--Fort Riley.

[saltpoint]

57. I could see it. I like Kansas to begin with, and don't blame the State of

Kansas for a cadre of far-right anti-evolutionists.

There's got to be some damn bright-spirited folks in that part of the country. Kathleen Sebelius is going to be our next vice president, for instance.

And DU has a group of Kansans who absoutely shine.

Manhattan. The one without all the taxis and skyscrapers.

[jmowreader]

60. Manhattan's far enough away from Kansas' population centers...

that placing the nation's capital there won't disrupt those cities.

Specifically, I'm thinking Wichita, Overland Park, Kansas City, Topeka and Olathe. (None of these cities are exactly populous, though; the Wichita Metropolitan Statistical Area, according to Wikipedia, consists of four counties and a little over half a million people. The corporate limits of Wichita proper contain about 350,000 people.) Manhattan, according to Google, is Kansas' ninth largest city with fewer than 45,000 residents as of the 2000 Census. But we're talking about a whole state with population under 2.5 million. It's kinda quiet there.

When the United States numbered 13, Washington, DC was in the middle of the country. Now? It's in Kansas.

[saltpoint]

61. Something to be said for a geographical middle for the capital city

especially one like that. I almost put St. Joseph, Missouri on the list, partly for those reasons, but also because of the charm of the town.

Also I think the "Beltway mentality" would be less of a factor if the capital were not necessarily in Washington, but removed to one of the "western" locations -- to begin with the time of the 13 colonies, "west" meant anything west of Paterson, NJ.

Very provocative proposal, jmowreader.

[undeterred]

53. Baghdad, Iraq

[cureautismnow]

59. Deadwood, South Dakota.

An appropriate place for a currently irrelevant branch of gov't.

[Critters2]

74. I'm just guessing,

but I'd bet the people of Deadwood consider themselves plenty relevant.

[cureautismnow]

82. It's a sarcastic play on words...

No offense to Deadwood, SD. I actually enjoyed my visit to the area in '99.

deadwood
One entry found for deadwood.
Main Entry: dead·wood
Pronunciation: -"wud
Function: noun
1 : wood dead on the tree
2 : useless personnel or material
3 : solid timbers built in at the extreme bow and stern of a ship when too narrow to permit framing
4 : bowling pins that have been knocked down but remain on the alley

[Rosco T.]

63. It's GOING to be Denver... half the agencies have already relocated there.

[saltpoint]

66. "And the river she flows..."

--from a song chorus by Aileen and Elkin Thomas:

_____

And the river she flows
On around the bend
On down to Denver
Where she meets a friend

And they sail together
Til they reach the sea
I wish I was the river, lord,
And the river was me
_____

I could live with the capital in Denver, no problem. Mile High Comics. John Elway.

And not a bad view to the west, either.

[Dover]

78. I remember hearing about that. Do you have any links about it?

I was thinking about this when it seemed everyone in Washington was in Colorado for some reason or the other over the last 4-6 weeks. And that's also where Lay 'died'.

Here's one story I found about the CIA moving their office there, to the bafflement of some. Is Denver a decoy?:


DENVER POST.COM

CIA SET TO MOVE UNIT TO DENVER

by, Dana Priest

The Washington Post

Washington - The CIA has plans to relocate the headquarters of its domestic division, which is responsible for operations and recruitment in the United States, from the CIA's Langley, Va., headquarters to Denver, a move designed to promote innovation, according to U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials.

About $20 million has been tentatively budgeted to relocate employees of the CIA's National Resources Division, officials said. A U.S. intelligence official said the planned move, confirmed by three other government officials, was being undertaken "for operational reasons."

(snip)

....CIA veterans said such a relocation would make no sense, given Denver's distance from major corporate centers.
"Why would you go so far away?" one asked. "They will get disconnected."

(snip)

It is unclear how a move to Denver would increase the effectiveness of the domestic division's operations, said several former intelligence officials.

Colorado has become a major intelligence hub since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Aurora is home to the little- known Aerospace Data Facility. Located at Buckley Air Force Base, it has become the major U.S.-based technical downlink for intelligence satellites operated by the military, the National Security Agency and the National Reconnaissance Office, according to military and government documents obtained by William Arkin, author of "Code Names," a book about secret military plans and programs.

About 70 miles south of Denver, the U.S. Northern Command, based at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, is tasked with homeland defense and has been increasing its domestic intelligence work.

It's not known if the CIA's Denver plans are linked to the presence of either facility.

(end snip)

Denver Post staff writers Felisa Cardona, Chris Frates and Manny Gonzales contributed to this report.

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_2714490

[Dover]

79. dupe..n/t

[jmowreader]

87. They also have a good airport

This is something Manhattan, Kansas, is lacking.

Everyone's heard of DIA--its futuristic terminal, its state-of-the-art systems, its heavy traffic.

Manhattan's airport is serviced by US Airways Express, who makes three trips a day on Beechcraft 1900D aircraft. The Beech 1900D is a turboprop. Our nation's movers and shakers don't DO turboprops. Its facilities are rated for "occasional" use by Boeing 727s and C-17s.

Hence, step one in moving the nation's capital to Manhattan is expanding the airport.

Or, if you want to keep the fucking lobbyists out of there, DON'T expand it. Either way works.

[JohMunich99]

64. Chicago or St. Louis

Central locations, great cities.

[saltpoint]

65. Agree on all counts. Just came back from a brief trip to Chicago,

and the place is still powerful.

Great town.

[JohMunich99]

67. Excellent, Chi-town is where I hang my hat.

Hey, if we can't get the capital, maybe we can at least get the 2016 Olympics!

[saltpoint]

68. And you've got Wrigley Field, too. Damn I love that park. One of the

true temples of baseball.

And your orchestra ain't bad, either. Arguably the best in the country, maybe as good as anyone's world-wide.

Carl Sandburg kind of put Chicago on the map for a lot of us who by 6th or 7th grade had never even been there, but on my first trips there, I remembered snippets of that poem. I could look around and see why a city like Chicago would inspire poetry like that.

I like a lot of midwestern cities, but JohMunich, you live in the great one.

[Solon]

71. St. Louis actually makes sense...

A city outside a county, cannot expand beyond its borders, except for the fact that it has actual representation in Congress, it sounds like DC!

By the way, DC needs representation and soveriegnty over local issues for once, but that's just my opinion.

[JohMunich99]

72. St. Louis almost became the capital at one point

I'm not sure what you mean by a city outside a county. St. Louis is in St. Louis county.

[Solon]

86. Actually, no it isn't...

St. Louis City is within its own borders, and is outside the jurisdiction of St. Louis County. Once you reach city limits, you left the county, St. Louis City has its own County government, though both the City and County do have an arrangement for their emergency services(Police, Fire, Ambulance), to share resources. If you have any doubts about this, the Missouri Constitution can clear things up. Also you can look here, St. Louis is considered an Independent city.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Louis,_Missouri

[Critters2]

73. Des Moines

Good folks, easy to get around in, middle of the country, and not the cultural wasteland some would have you think. Also, cost of living is reaonable, so they'd have no reason to keep giving themselves those raises.

Also, helluva state fair1

[FairVotes4all]

76. Rapid City or Sioux Falls SD.

Easy access for me, low cost of living,centrally located, Open space, The honestness of the majority of Southdakotans might actually rub off on the politicians.

[LSK]

77. NOLA

That would show the world that we are actually a great country if we can rebuild a destroyed city into our Capital and our greatest city.

Not that it will ever happen.

:(

[NuttyFluffers]

81. a PO Box in the Bahamas

with residences of other halls of power in Bermuda or Puerto Rico. i'm sure UK could do us this favor; hell they went to war with us based on lies, this would bring them money instead! :D with any luck the Bermuda Triangle would make "disappeared" a few lobbyists and politicians, y'know, regular culling of the herd.

[Spider Jerusalem]

83. Wake Island. Or maybe Midway.

The government and Congress already seem to experience something of a disconnect with the average American; having the capitol isolated in the middle of nowhere in the Pacific, thousands of miles from the American mainland, would be an ironic way to underline that.

[Odin2005]

84. Global Warming will eventually flood DC so this is a good discussion.

I'd sat we plan a new city for our capital sonewhere on the shores of the Great Lakes, I don't want a planned capital in the middle of nowhere like Brazil's capital a Great Lakes location would make the new capital a functioning port city without having to worry about sea level changes. Western Michigan sounds like a good place.

[InaneAnanity]

85. Crawford, Texas

[Brian Stevens]

88. San Francisco nt