Author: Fritz Pettyjohn

We’ve wanted term limits for a very long time, even though we didn’t always hate Congress like we do today.  Here’s a link to the data.  As recently as 2000-2003 Congress had a positive approval rating.  Right now it’s 20% approve, 76% disapprove.  20% seems high to me, but that’s Gallup’s number, so be it.

So 76% of us don’t like Congress, and 75% of us support term limits.  That’s a 3/4 supermajority.  That’s what you need if you want to use Article V.  A 3/4 supermajority, just as 3/4 of the States must ratify any proposed Amendment.  The Balanced Budget Amendment has the support of a 3/4 supermajority, and that’s why it’s close to succeeding.  Bipartisan support isn’t enough for Article V.  Even the support of 2/3 of the people is not enough.   It’s got to be something that the vast majority of the public wants.

20 years ago term limits had the same 3/4 supermajority.  Today is different than back then.  Right now people don’t just dislike Congress, they disdain it.  It’s so corrupt, and full of place holders and mediocre hacks, that it’s a national joke.  Just take a look at the Democratic House leadership.  These are all very old people.  And in their case, very ineffective people.  Why would a Democratic State Legislator try to save their careers by opposing term limits?  It wouldn’t make sense.  If we were ever going to get support from Democratic Legislators for Congressional term limits, the time is now.  Most of the people who will be term limited out are Republicans.  If you’re a Democrat, what’s not to like?

2017 is a prime number.  It’s indivisible, and thus one of a kind.  It’s a great year to pass Article V term limits Resolutions.  I think there’s a real chance we can get it done in California.  That might make people realize it’s not a left/right issue.  The Bernie Sanders voters and the Trump ones agree on this one.  There’s no reason it can’t be done.  It will be something to talk about at Nashville on 7-11-2017.  Prime numbers all.

Obama is out with a lot of last minute orders and actions, all of which are an indictment of Congress.  It is Congress that enables a President, any President, this sort of unilateral power.  Congress surrendered this power to the Executive, and they don’t want it back.  It would be too much work.  They’d actually have to pass some legislation, instead of leaving all the responsibility with the Executive.  But that would interfere with their fundraising, and other reelection activity, so that won’t happen.

28 years ago my buddy Robin Taylor and I introduced House Joint Resolution 54, calling for an Article V Amendment Convention for the purpose of proposing a Congressional Term Limits Amendment.  Some things take a while before they catch on.

Back in Alaska, the shortest day of the year was a big deal.  The day was five and a half hours long in Anchorage today.  After today you could tell yourself that every day will be longer, for the next six months.  We had eight hours here in the Gold Country.  Spring isn’t that far off now.   This is going to be a year to remember.

It wasn’t that hard to figure out why Romney lost in 2012.  538.com and others saw it right away.  Blue collar whites in the Rust Belt simply refused to vote for him.   The Obama campaign had convinced them that Romney was no friend of the working man.  And maybe he wasn’t, and maybe the next Republican nominee would have to be different.

What Trump alone understood was the hatred these guys had for NAFTA and other trade deals.  The Republican Party was a free trade party, and these voters wanted nothing to do with it.  Libertarians and fancy pants constitutional conservatives, like me, believed in free trade as a matter of faith.  Adam Smith was our go to guy, and the intellectual case for free trade was clear.  Comparative advantage, and all that.  Sure, there would have to be economic dislocation for a lot of working class Americans.  But it was all for the greater good.

To his eternal credit, Trump saw the hole in this thinking.   The burden of free trade was concentrated on a fairly small number of Americans  — the ones who would lose their jobs.  The benefit was widespread, and really didn’t impact most people.  Politically, this was asking for trouble.  By attacking these trade deals Trump would win the undying, unwavering support of as much as 1/3 of the country. Not enough to win an election, but a good base to build on, and build he did.

There were three other winning issues for Trump.  He was not a politician, he wasn’t asking people for money, and he was a rogue, unscripted.  Not just politically incorrect, he was brash, irreverent, and funny.

I’ve said this before, but I think it bears repeating.  Trump would have lost the election if it had not been for the Washington Post.  I equate NBC News with the Clinton campaign.  They would do anything to stop Trump.  For years they had been in possession of the Access Hollywood tape.  This was the one that would sink Trump, but the timing of its release was critical.  It had to come out so late in the campaign that he wouldn’t have time to recover.  They wanted just enough time for saturation coverage, and no more.  If that tape had come out a week before the election, instead of a month, Trump would not have recovered, and he would have lost.  But the WaPo found out about the tape, and jumped the gun.  They broke the story, and NBC was forced to come out with the tape prematurely.  When the book is written about this campaign, this will be the section I’ll be looking for.

I think if that Access Hollywood tape had come out a year ago, Trump would not have won the nomination.  His opponents, or one of them, would have beat that over his head without mercy.  Forget low energy Jeb, or Lil’ Marco, or Lyin’ Ted.  It would have been Trump the Groper, Donald the Horn Dog, Trump the sexual deviant and criminal.  He would have been the object of ridicule.  So, as far as I’m concerned, if you want to give credit where credit is due, NBC News put Trump in the White House, by covering up for him until the very end.

But the Lord works in mysterious ways, and it is not our role to second guess Him.  Based on what I’ve seen so far, Trump could be as consequential a President as Reagan.  And Reagan won the Cold War.  Go figure.  The Good Lord looks out for drunks, sailors, and the U.S.A.  It is for us to be thankful.

A month from now, when Trump takes office, we’re going to stop playing nice.  The Bushes, being Bushes, insisted on playing nice.  To Clinton and Obama, globalists to their core, playing nice was necessary because we must not alienate the one and half billion Moslems of the world.  We don’t want them to get mad at us.  What we’re afraid they’d do, if they really got mad at us, isn’t entirely clear.  At one point we needed their oil, but those days are over.  It’s mainly that they belong to another religion, and must be respected.  In the dumbest statement ever made by a President of the United States, Bush 2 declared, “Islam is a religion of peace.”  When you start off with something that moronic as your precedent, you’re bound to fail.

Trump’s got some people around him who understand what needs to be done.  With Flynn at NSA, Mad Dog Mattis at Defense, and T.Rex at State, he has a group of men who are willing to sit down with the Israelis, and with the Russians, and come up with a game plan to wipe these people out.  Track them down and kill them, just like the Mossad did to the assassins of the Munich Olympics.  It will take a while, and it won’t be pretty.  The Israelis just do whatever they have to do, and the Russians are perfectly willing to apply massive, brute force.  With our Navy, special forces, and technical capability we can accomplish this mission,  along with our friends in the Anglosphere, the Russians, and the Israelis.  That’s all you need, although help from friendly nations like Poland is always welcome..

It’s just a question of will, and Trump has more than enough of that.  He’s going to have an opportunity to demonstrate his resolve, and I expect him to take it.  It will probably involve an altercation with the Chinese Navy.  This time they stole one of our drones.  Who knows what’s next?

I wouldn’t rule out dropping the 82nd Airborne down on some ISIS stronghold, and having them clean house.  In and out in less than a week.  No permanent boots on the ground.  Just expeditionary forces, conducting police actions.  In and out.  My military training consisted of one semester in the U. C. Berkeley Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps in 1962.  I had a uniform, and everything.  I remember one time they tried to teach us the manual of arms, how you’re supposed to handle a rifle.  It was pretty sad.  We all thought it was sort of a joke.

So I may not have had much of a military career, but I am a politician, and I know the American people don’t want any more boots on the ground, any time, any where.  Our Army is for defense of the homeland, not imperial wars.  We’re not at war with a state, so the Army should not be sent overseas.  We have no reason to go to war with anyone.

Before I built a wall I’d ask to know

What I was walling in or walling out,

And to whom I was likely to give offense.

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,

That wants it down.

“Mending Wall” by Robert Frost.

Borders are walls.  They separate one country, and people, from another.  A border is a line, from one point in the world to another.  There are borders on the sea as well as the land.  When you cross the line you leave the law of one country, and enter the rule of another.  When borders are respected, there is peace.  Where there is dispute over a border, nations will go to war.  This is the way of the world, for chimpanzees, lions and men.  A nation of men has borders, as does a pack of chimps or a pride of lions, and we will all fight to defend them.

After World War One a lot of well meaning people decided the whole idea of nations and borders and wars was obsolete.  Nationhood had led to slaughter and chaos.  A better way was needed, and the dream of one world government came to be.  First came the League of Nations, and now we have the United Nations, and the European Union.  All designed to tame the scourge of nationalism and war.  All artificial concepts, dreamed up in some faculty lounge, and forced down the throats of people for a century now.

That dream is dead.  Brexit and Trump are just for openers.  Globalism has no constituency.  Perhaps in the salons of Paris or the beer halls of Berlin it lives on, but it’s dying, and it’s happening very quickly.  This was a powerful dream, and there are people who won’t let it go, but their cause is lost, their day come, and gone.

There are borders in this country, between the sovereign States.  American progressives oppose these borders, just as they oppose international ones.  For a hundred years they have sought to submerge the States into the federal government, to make them mere local administrators of federal rule.  But just as globalism is dying, so are the forces of centralization in this country.  Power will be returned to the States, and the people.

It begins in Nashville on July 11th, 2017.

Obama has been so wrong, and his timing so off, about so many things, it boggles the mind.  Here’s his current wisdom on the Electoral College, “The Electoral College is a vestige, a carry over from an earlier vision of how our federal government was going to work that put a lot of premium on States.”

Yes, Barack, that earlier version included the provisions of Article V, which give the States the power to exercise control over the federal government.  And Article V is about to be used, for the first time in our history.  I wonder, Barry, back when you were teaching Constitutional Law, did you spend much time on Article V?

If Trump called up Sen. Mike Lee and asked him if he’d mind being replaced by Ted Cruz on the list of potential Supreme Court appointments, he’d probably say yes, for sure.  Lee is a gentleman, and is not a pushy guy.  He may actually like Cruz.  I’d wager every other person on that list would concur.  None of them are more qualified than Cruz, and they all know it.

I liked Scalia well enough, but Cruz would be better, a more reliable conservative.  Scalia went off the rails occasionally.  Clarence Thomas is my ideal Justice, and he and Cruz would be quite a team.  The fools who denigrate Justice Thomas haven’t read his opinions.  He’s a brilliant man, and solid as a rock.  If you want to read a wonderful book, get My Grandfather’s Son, by Thomas.  I love this guy.

Trump seriously considered Romney for State, and for good reason.  Hell, he looks exactly like a Secretary of State should look like.  His problem was that Rex Tillerson looked just as good, and was a complete bad ass to boot.  I’m betting T. Rex is going to be wonderful at State.  He exudes strength and competence.

So if Trump could let bygones be bygones with Romney, why not Cruz?  They both had harsh words for Trump, but they were returning fire, in Cruz’s case.  What did Trump expect him to do?  Cringe like a baby while he defamed his father, a great American?  The thing is, even the people who can’t stand Cruz would love to see him on the Supreme Court.  He’s got no business in Congress.  For that matter, he’s got no business in politics.  He’s like a fish out of water.  But on the Court?   That’s where he really belongs, and I think he’s beginning to realize that.

Cruz will be 46 next week.  He could be a conservative star on the Court for 40 years.  Ginsburg is 83, and will stay on as long as she can.  She’s a tough old bird, and she’ll last a while longer.  She’s perfect for my purposes.

Because what I want to do is promote a Constitutional Amendment limiting the terms of Supreme Court Justices to fifteen years.  And if Cruz is on the Court he’ll be my main argument to the left.  Vote to limit Justices’ terms, and you can get rid of Cruz.  My argument to the right is the person of Ruth Ginsburg.  She’s been on the Court for 23 years.  That’s enough.  Her health is failing, and a younger Justice is clearly called for.  But she won’t let go, for political reasons. It’s crazy.  Justice William Douglas was totally senile, but he refused to quit.  His mind was gone, but he was physically well, so he just wouldn’t leave.  The whole thing is ridiculous.

Why wouldn’t Congress propose this Amendment?  Beats me.  I think it could be totally bipartisan.  Trump and Pence may be in power for a while, and they may get three or four appointments between them.  The Court is going to be conservative for a generation.  Why wouldn’t a Democrat want to limit the terms of all these Trump/Pence appointments?  And Republicans will vote for it because it makes complete sense.

Now, to me, this is the kind of thing all men and women of good will can agree on.  It’s not conservative or liberal, it’s just common sense.  I’m betting that if you got 50 Presiding Officers from the 50 State Legislatures in a room together, a Federal Assembly, and had a discussion on the subject of term limits for Supreme Court Justices, that 85% of them would agree with you.  And if they all thought it was worth doing they could all agree to pass Article V Resolutions and amend the Constitution themselves.  Why wait for Congress to do it?  It’s easier for the Federal Assembly.

Once the Nashville Convention of States is over, either July 13th or 14th, there should be a meeting of Presiding Officers of the State Legislatures.  They should establish a Committee of Correspondence in order to stay in touch with one another on anything related to Article V, such as suggestions for what the second Article V Convention should be about.  They may find that they have a lot in common.  If they can develop a consensus on a few things, things could get interesting.