Month: April 2018

I was so incensed after watching the beginning of the Friday Lou Dobbs show that I had to shut it off.  I wanted Trump to fire Mueller, Rosenstein and their whole gang.  My blood pressure was way up, and my my mind was running over the red line.  I had to take a calm down pill and lay down.

I felt a little calmer this morning and watched the rest of Lou’s show, which featured the lawyer couple of Joe diGenova and Victoria Toensing.  They are as outraged as I am, but their advice was sound, unemotional.  Don’t fire anyone, just do your job as President.  Congress can impeach Rosenstein and FBI Director Wray.

This is part of the job of Congress.  They’re pretty much worthless at everything else they’re supposed to be doing.  Maybe they can do one thing right.

Describing the town motto of San Marino reminded me of the motto of a Gold Country town not far from me, San Andreas.  It’s the only such motto I know of which is a disclaimer.

“It’s Not Our Fault.”

 

We’re a little slow on the uptick here at RP.  I tried to figure out Article V for 35 years before I came up with the Mason Amendment, aka the Fix Article V Amendment.

Since I started this blog five years ago, I’ve been trying to get a bigger platform for it.  I’ve submitted articles to American Thinker, but only sporadically.  Some of my stuff was on the website of the Heartland Institute for a while, but it didn’t really work out.

This morning I was informed by editor Thomas Lifson at AT that I should have been submitting blog posts, not articles.  Duh.  When I get a good idea I can send it to AT, confident that if it’s good enough, they’ll post it.  Alexa ranks AT at #37 among conservative websites, which, I believe, means about a million views a month.  Progress, at last.

For years I’ve taped two television programs, Mad Money on CNBC, and Special Report on Fox News.  I’m not really happy with Special Report, and now I’ve found a new show to watch, Lou Dobbs on Fox Business.  I caught Friday’s show featuring Fox legal analyst Greg Jarrett, and I can now forget about Special Report.  Dobbs is far better.

Jarrett is definitely my kind of guy.  We have very similar backgrounds, except I’m ten years older, and wiser.  Greg got in some trouble a few years back, making him even more sympatico.  He got drunk at the airport bar in Minneapolis, and started mouthing off at the cops who came to investigate.  I can see how that could happen to a guy.

Greg hails from San Marino, California, rated the second most boring city in America.  The city motto, “Quis Dan Volo, Dan Accipio”, was taken from the ancient Republic of San Marino, for which it was named.  It means “What she wants, she gets.”  What she wants is a home in San Marino, CA.

If you want to get along in this world, it’s always best to give the lady what she wants.

 

With Article V, you can let your imagination run wild.  Almost anything’s possible, technically.  Politically, it’s an entirely different matter.  Your idea will need broad and bipartisan support.  That’s the way Article V was set up, and it’s why anything that smacks of partisanship won’t work.

The root problem behind most of our ills is Congress.  The Framers wanted the House of Representatives to reflect the current mood of the country, so we get to elect a new batch every two years.  A lot of good that’s been doing us recently.

In 2006 we threw out the Republicans.  In 2010 we threw out the Democrats.  And in 2018 we’re going to throw out the Republicans again.

What changed?  Not much.  Annual trillion dollar deficits are now a bipartisan tradition.

So I propose a Fresh Slate Amendment, to be passed by the states, using Article V.  Every sitting member of Congress would be thrown out of office, and made ineligible to ever run again.

If that doesn’t have bipartisan support, what does?

 

The Framers knew they had a hard sell on their hands.  The idea of giving up full state sovereignty was anathema to the Revolutionary generation.  Who wanted to give up power to an innovation like the Constitution, even with its federalism?

In order to make the sale, they needed to show that the states remained supreme.  That, in the end, the states would have the power to control, diminish, or change the federal government.  That  power resides in Article V.  It’s never been exercised.  Is that because its exercise has never been called for?  I don’t think so.

Part of the problem is psychological.  The concept of sovereignty is poorly understood.  Today we’re fat, dumb and happy, and we don’t have time to think about our rights as Americans.

The widely literate generation of the Revolution devoured political tracts.  Thomas Paine counts as a Founding Father because he wrote two of them.  Above all else, they wanted the preservation of their liberty.

So, how did it happen?  Events.  Here’s a random sample:

1785

U. S, defaults on its French debts, and Congress finds it difficult to pay the Dutch loans.  Ambassador to Britain John Adams tells Congress no commercial treaty with Great Britain is possible unless the states find a way to unite against discriminatory trade practices.

1786

Six states issue their own paper currency.  Congress is told only $2.4 million had been received from the states of the $15.6 requisitioned.  Rhode Island issues paper money and makes it legal tender.  When creditors refuse to accept it, the legislature passes a law establishing penalties for such refusal, and denies trial by jury for those prosecuted.

Shay’s Rebellion begins.  Negotiations with Spain over navigation of the Mississippi have stalled.  The Rhode Island legislature summons the Rhode Island Supreme Court to appear before a special session, and be accused of subverting legislative government.

Those are just a few highlights. And so, in one of the last few speeches reported in Madison’s Notes, Thomas Pinkney told the convention he was only signing “………apprehending the danger of a general confusion, and an ultimate decision by the sword….”  There was a sense of desperation.  They had to do something.

They really didn’t want to do it.  But things just made them do it.  But they didn’t give up their sovereignty.  It’s still right there, in Article V.

You can tell a book by its cover, and the title of Comey’s book, “A Higher Loyalty” betrays the man who wrote it.  What is it that is he loyal to, that is somehow above the Constitution?  His conscience?  The Word of the Lord, as revealed to James Comey?

This preening peacock of a man is a disgrace to the agents he led, and in his arrogance are the seeds of his destruction.

Will you please go now, James Comey?