Month: March 2017

Four years ago I was on my evening stroll in the woods, sitting on a log with a beer and a cigar, thinking deep thoughts.  I was coming up with some good ones, and I was frustrated that I had no one to share them with.  There are a thousand people out there somewhere, I thought, who felt as I did, but I had no way to communicate with them.

Then my son and Reagan Project Co-founder Darren decided to set me up with a blog, and I started it up in November of 2013, just when I was getting in touch with Lew Uhler, and eventually the BBA Task Force.  I’ve been at it ever since, and this morning the thousandth reader signed up to receive it in their email.  It’s not a big audience, but I like to think it is select.   Anyone who reads this stuff is not your average bear.  So, thanks to all who have encouraged me by signing on.  I have no idea who you are, but somebody reads this thing.

It just so happens that the course of American politics since this blog started has been among the most tumultuous in our history.  The tectonic plates are shifting, and the election of Trump was an earthquake.  We are witnessing a radical political evolution, and possibilities abound.  In times like these great and new things can come into being.  It’s in periods like this that something like an Article V Convention can finally happen, and once that occurs the possibilities of fundamental reform become real. It’s a hell of a time to be alive, and to be writing a political blog, and to be working on Article V.

First the Cubs win the World Series, then Trump gets elected, and then we all watch the greatest Super Bowl ever.  In four months we get the first Convention of States in 156 years, and in August the Great American Eclipse. It only seems right that the next step is getting to 34, and the first use of Article V in American history.

The final step would be the rejection of the Cold War era Liberal International Order, and its replacement by a new global entente, led by the United States, Japan, the Anglosphere (including India), and Russia.  There is no reason on earth that couldn’t happen, and if it did we can start reducing nuclear weapons all over the world.

The fly in this ointment is our leader, Trump the Improbable.  He needs to get his wife and young son into the White House.  It’s like he’s going stir crazy, getting up in the dark of night and tweeting like a bird.  This is no way to run a government, and he needs his family around him before he does something really bad, if he already hasn’t.  His young son can miss a couple months of school.  It won’t do him any harm, and home schooling with the President of the United States is more interesting than whatever he’s doing now.  At the White House, he can watch history being made.  It’s an opportunity for his education, not a burden.  It’s time for Ivanka and the rest of the family to have a talk.  I’m the same age as Trump, and it’s not healthy for guys like us to be on our own.  The testosterone starts flowing, and you need your wife around to cool you off.

It’s spring in Gold Country, with sprouts and shoots and blossoms.  We’ve had a good, wet winter, and baseball is just a few weeks away.  The days warm and lengthen, and my little valley will be full of flowers before long.  Time for a walk, a beer and a cigar.  What have I got to complain about?

A new conservative journal is out, and I think it’s going to be worth subscribing to.  It’s called American Affairs, and it has an article by Michael Anton,  who is currently serving on Trump’s NSC.  Anton wrote a famous piece back during the campaign (it seems like yesterday) calling 2016 the Flight 93 election.  The ship was going down, and it was going to be necessary to turn the cockpit over to an unstable rookie.  It was very well done, and nearly convinced me.

Anton says that a nation seeks peace, prosperity and prestige.  He says a nation doesn’t have to be prosperous, but that’s the way Americans like it, and that’s what they want.  He goes on to say that “Our commercial relations around the globe are thus matters of national security.”  On that point, he’s wrong.  They are matters only of national interest, and are subordinate to the national security.

Anton served in Bush II’s NSC, and here is where it shows.  Bush was a chamber of commerce Republican, and Anton is advocating a chamber of commerce foreign policy, where American blood is shed for commercial interests.  Iraq was a war, in part, for oil security.  America doesn’t need that oil any more, so we’ll never go to war in the Middle East again.

A chamber of commerce foreign policy is anti-Russian and pro-NATO.  That’s where the money is, in Europe. They are our most important trading partner, and the chamber of commerce would go to war on their behalf.

Trump is not a chamber of commerce Republican.  He’s a stone cold American patriot, and I don’t think he’s going to allow the sons and daughters of America to get killed fighting for the Europeans.  I suspect Bannon shares his views.

All this anti-Russian hysteria is a political problem, one which will impede better relations with the Russians.  Political problems have political solutions, and I think Trump and his innermost circle, (which, I’m pleased to point out, definitely includes Jeff Sessions) will figure their way through this.

It seems to me that the media are going whacko, on all this Russian stuff.  It’s like they’re whipping themselves into a frenzy, in their hatred of Trump.  You wonder, how long can they keep this level of hysteria up?  They’re going to burn themselves out.

Like the man says, the dogs bark, but the caravan moves on.

“You can’t know what it’s like out there!  I’ve WORKED in the private sector.  They expect ‘results’.”  Dr. Raymond Stantz, in Ghostbusters. 

Common Cause, lavishly funded by the public employees unions, has emerged as the strongest ally of the John Birch Society in its efforts to block the Article V BBA.  Special Agent Enns reports that, when the BBA Resolution came to the Idaho Senate floor, the scene outside the Senate chambers was a little incongruous, with crowds of Birchers intermingling with public employee union supporters.  Gathered as one, to fight for unrestricted federal spending, until forever, or when the money runs out.

This odd couple was joined by representatives of the ACLU.  How a BBA threatens civil liberties was not explained.  What is clear is that the Birchers, and those who heed their call, are dupes of a left wing conspiracy to stop a BBA.   George Soros is writing big checks.  My guess is that if the United States goes bankrupt, Soros has figured out a way to make a killing in the market.  So the  money he’s spending is kind of an investment.  If an Article V Convention was actually a threat to the Constitution, Soros would be all in.  He hates this country, the people in it, its history, and its Constitution.  He’s declared war on us.  We’ll see who wins.

Our main man in Idaho, Greg Casey, an old acquaintance of Lew Uhler, is ready for round two next year, and he and his associate Ken Burgess, along with Loren, have already sketched out a game plan.  As Arnold said in The Terminator, “I’ll be back.”  Our principal opponent, Sen. Bart Davis, is on tap for appointment to become the U.S. Attorney for Idaho, and his presence will not be missed.   Now that we know what we’re up against,  we’ll be better prepared in 2018.  If there was some way to induce Casey to become active outside Idaho he would be a tremendous help.

We got a shout out from another old friend of Lew’s, Senator Orrin Hatch, on the Senate floor.  It’s a speech no one paid any attention to.  The media is too busy asking every Republican in Washington, “Are you now, or have you ever been, in contact with a Russian?”  That’s important stuff, and a $20 trillion debt is uninteresting.

With respect to Article V, Sen. Hatch said “… questions remain unresolved, and theories untested.”  Well, we’re going to resolve some questions, and test some theories, at the Nashville Convention of States.  He also noted that the citizen’s movement for an Article V BBA is only six States short of the needed 34.  Actually, right now we’re only five States short, after Wyoming.  He closed his speech, “… the decision to use the Constitution to require fiscal responsibility belongs to the American people, not to Congress.  We can either take the responsibility we were elected for and propose a balanced budget amendment or the American people will do it for us.”

Well, we’re trying, Orrin.  It would be nice if you could direct some help our way.  Actually, I would hope that Sen. Hatch could come and testify before one of the Committees of the Convention of States.  He’s been at the BBA game, as a United States Senator, for a very long time, and I’m sure he’d like to put in his two cents worth.

I think Secretary of the Treasury Mnuchin should be there as well, and maybe Fed Chair Janet Yellen.  I’m sure they all have views on the subject.

Nashville could be very interesting.  Babbie and I had a great time at the Grand Old Opry a couple years ago.  Being a kid from Richmond, California, I was never into country music, and I was blown away by the quality of the music.  And there was an undercurrent of patriotism that made the whole thing a night to remember.

 

 

 

 

All Article V proposals face a common enemy, the frightening spectre of a “runaway” Convention that somehow subverts our Constitution.  This fantasy was originally ginned up in the 60’s by, among others, Bobby Kennedy.   Rather than bicker with one another, all Article V campaigns should work together to destroy this pernicious myth.  Yours truly is guilty of some of that bickering, and will try to avoid it in the future.

The recent debate in the Idaho Senate on the BBA Resolution is a prime example of the problem.  The opponents, led by Majority Leader Bart Davis, talked a lot about balancing risks and rewards   — the reward of a desperately needed Balanced Budget Amendment, vs. the risk of a runaway.  Davis stated that the risk would have been outweighed by the reward, if Clinton had won the election.  But with Trump’s victory, the calculation changed, and now the risk is not worth taking.  So our Resolution was defeated.

The prime purpose of the Nashville Convention is to demonstrate that, in reality, as opposed to theory, there is no risk.  Not at this time, under these circumstances.  50 years ago, with the progressive anti-Constitutionalists in control of our politics, it might have been of concern.  But today, in the midst of the Trump insurrection against progressivism, it’s pure paranoia.

How would an Amendment Convention “run away”?   The delegations from 33 States will be controlled by conservative Republicans.  Why, in the name of God, would these delegations, mostly from small States, allow voting to take place on anything other than one State, one vote  —  especially since that is the universal precedent, dating back to Colonial times?   And if, as it surely would be, the voting is one State, one vote, why would these 33 Republican States go outside the scope of the Call, and allow any attack on our liberties?   Is George Soros going to bribe them all?  Can you be serious?

Or, alternatively, are Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell going to try to force the Amendment Convention to vote by something other than “one state, one vote”?   This would be lunacy, and would be ignored by the Convention if it were tried.  Congress has no authority over the conduct of the Convention, and the Convention would dissolve rather than submit to any outside authority.

The runaway argument then proceeds to ratification.  It’s claimed that the Convention of 1787 changed the rules on ratification, so any Amendment Convention could do the same.  Aside from the fact that this is historically inaccurate, it is utterly ludicrous.   What they’re describing is a coup d’etat, a group of conventioneers seizing control of the Constitution and the government.  Who would allow this coup to take place?  Where are President Trump, the Congress, the State Legislatures who control their delegations, the Courts, and the military?  Are they all going to stand down in the face of a preposterous plot to destroy the Constitution?  Or, rather, would any such attempt be made, would it be laughed at?  Is the foundation of the Republic so fragile that it could be undone by a sort of beer hall putsch?

But these are mere arguments, and the Nashville Convention will be more than that.  It will be a tangible demonstration of the absurdity of the whole idea.  The men and women present will be the same, to a great extent, as the ones who will attend an Amendment Convention.  The idea of “running away” is so foreign to these people that the subject will never arise, except to be ridiculed.  Senator Davis and other skeptics, it is hoped, will attend.  They will have the opportunity to observe, up close and personal, the people who will be entrusted with power at an Amendment Convention.  And when the Nashville Convention adjourns, will Davis and the others still fear them?  Or, rather, will he find that the delegates he has met from around the country share his devotion to the Constitution.  They are his peers, his colleagues, his fellow constitutional conservatives.  They should be embraced, not feared.

The Nashville Convention is not just about the BBA.  It’s about discrediting the whole idea of a runaway convention.  It’s good for all Article V proposals.  The Balanced Budget Amendment is in the vanguard, but Article V will be the real winner.

So it is with great frustration we see talk of protests in Nashville about the conduct of the Panning Convention.  I earlier made a reference to a proposal to modify the Resolution calling the Nashville Convention, but that was merely a concept being floated around.

The Legislature of the State of Tennessee has stepped up, shown some leadership, and is prepared to make a critical contribution to the entire Article V movement.  For this they deserve our support.  From all of us.

 

It’s hard to know what to call the cabal set on preventing a Russian-American entente.  Atlanticists, neocons, Russophobes, the Deep State, whatever you want to call them, I think they have overplayed their hand.  The attacks on Jeff Sessions, Secret Agent Man, are so over the top that their determination to control Trump’s Russia policy is blindingly obvious.  If Trump’s half the man I think he is, he won’t let them get away with it.  It may well make him more determined than ever to reach an accommodation with Putin.

If you want peace, prepare for war, as Trump is doing with his military budget, but at the same time seek some common ground with potential foes.  Russia and the United States have a common enemy in ISIS and all of radical Islam.  Working together, it’s even possible we and the Russians could establish regional stability in the Middle East.  Like us, Putin is a friend of Israel.   There are a million Russian Jews in Israel.  They’re really Israelis now,  but they are former Russians, and retain some Russian culture, and Putin is attached to them.   Both Russia and the United States are now oil exporting countries, and want to see stability in the price of oil, and the Middle East is where that can happen.  Perhaps Jared Kushner, Trump’s unofficial envoy to the Middle East, is looking into all this.  He may have even talked to the Russian Ambassador.  Lock him up!

I’d be surprised if Trump doesn’t have a back channel to the Russians.  It’s important for every President to have one.  John F. Kennedy’s back channel to Khrushchev helped avoid a nuclear confrontation with Russia in the Cuban Missile Crisis.   FDR had Harry Hopkins, Kennedy had his brother Bobby, and so on.  Jeff Sessions has Trump’s total trust, and is a man of absolute discretion.  He’s smart as hell, knows a thing or two about the world, and would be a perfect unofficial intermediary.  I hope he and the Russians stay in touch.

As soon as the Tennessee Legislature issues the Call for the Nashville Convention, I’m going to be on the phone with the Nashville Convention and Visitors Corporation (NCVC).  These people are pros.  Nashville gets 13 million visitors a year, and wants more.  They all spend money.  I’m going to try to get NCVC to promote the historical significance of what we’re doing.  This will be the Second Nashville Convention.  The first, held in 1850, helped put off the Civil War for a decade.  Because of its historic nature, I’ll try to convince them to pop the money for a documentary of the entire proceedings.  Maybe they could split the cost with the Tennessee Legislature.  I want a professionally produced video record of the entire proceedings, including interviews with Delegates off the floor, the whole background story.  This is the first Convention of States in 156 years.  Let’s make a record of it.

These crazy Convention of States people are going to  mob the Capitol in Nashville  next week because they feel they’re being excluded from the Nashville Convention.  This threat is backfiring, as most people in the Article V movement see it as political sabotage.  No good will come of this idea.  It’s childish and counter productive.

I can’t wait for that lucky day, 7-11-17.