Author: Fritz Pettyjohn

One of them is the power of the purse.  Article I of the Constitution bestows that power on Congress, and, more specifically, the House of Representatives.  “All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives…”   The President, or the Senate, or the Supreme Court, does not have this power.  Our mother country, Great Britain, went through a century of war, regicide, and revolution in order to establish this principle.  The precursor to our Revolution was Britain’s Glorious Revolution of 1688.  The Framers understood all this as well as anyone.  Every word, every phrase, in the Constitution is there for a reason.

Senator Mitch McConnell, after the midterms of 2014 made him the Majority Leader, immediately announced that, on behalf of Congress, he would surrender the power of the purse to President Obama.  This was necessary, in his view, in order to avoid the political damage Republicans would suffer in the event of a government shutdown.  In essence, he emasculated himself, and the result has been two years of a neutered Congress.  When McConnell unmanned himself, and the Congress, House Speaker Boehner went along meekly.

All signs point to a continuing Republican House Majority.  The NBC News poll shows Clinton up by eleven,  but the generic Congressional ballot only gives the D’s a two point margin, well within the range of a Republican majority.  This dovetails with the fact that Republican candidates for the Senate are far outperforming Trump.  The chances are improving that we’ll hold the Senate.  People understand that the Clinton criminal family will be moving back into the White House, and they want their power diminished.

Trump should do well enough in tomorrow’s debate to avoid losing in a landslide, or so it appears.  The prospect of a Clinton Presidency has a lot of people scared, and they’re holding their noses and voting for the Sociopath.  This debate is Trump’s to lose, and I don’t expect him to.  A lot of sociopaths have political skills, and he’s one of them.  And you don’t need a great deal of skill to demonstrate that the idea of electing this woman President is absurd.  Which it is, except for who she’s running against.

Paul Ryan said recently that he wants to use a Continuing Resolution, or a budget Reconciliation bill, in order to repeal Obamacare, making it not subject to filibuster.  But what if Clinton is President, and vetoes it?  Will he cave?  Or will he fight?

I think he might fight.  If the Republicans have maintained a majority in  both House and Senate, they’ll have just as much of a mandate as Clinton.  More, really.  Clinton will only have won because of Trump, and the Congressional Republicans will have won in spite of him.  Who has the mandate to govern?  Who has the Constitutional obligation to govern?  Who has the will to fight?

If he fights, and wins, he’ll set up a midterm wave election for the Republicans.  And 2020 will  be setting up quite nicely.

To the extent that Clinton gets a political honeymoon, it’ll be over by the end of summer, say late August.  So when we all get together for the Great American Eclipse of August 21st we can all sing, “The Witch is dead.”

Like millions of normal Americans, I’ll miss Wednesday’s debate.  I’m an Oakland A’s fan, and we always trade away our good players, and I get to root for them in the playoffs.  One of our favorites is Coco Crisp, and he’s now an Indian.  I’ll be watching baseball.  Go Tribe.

“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.  It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”  —  John Adams

As we have lost our morality, we have lost our Constitution.  If Adams was right, we must recover our morality to rediscover the Constitution.  An election of a President is more than about political power.  It’s about our character as a nation, as reflected in the leader we choose.  We are not so debased as to knowingly elect a sociopath to office.  We’ve done it once before, with Clinton, but most people didn’t realize what kind of man he really was.  With Trump, the word defines him.

Trump has a disregard for the feelings of others, a lack of remorse or shame, manipulative behavior, unchecked egocentricity, and the ability to lie to achieve his goals.  Those aren’t my words.  That’s the text book definition of a sociopath.  Look it up.   If the shoe fits, wear it, and this fits Donald like a glove.

The great Italian-American Angelo Codevilla has a piece out called “After the Republic.”  Angelo’s in a panic.  He thinks the country’s going all going to hell, and Trump will look like a moderate before it’s over.  He’s wrong.  Hillary Clinton is the tide at full ebb, as low as it gets.  Her election will mark the turning of the tide, the tide against the center.  She’ll make no further progress.  The tide is running against her.

The movement begins the day after the election.  It’s a fusion of the Trump faction with the constitutional conservatives, libertarians, and religious conservatives.  A majority in this country.  In many respects, it’s Trumpism without Trump.  It’s everybody who can’t stand Clinton, because she’s corrupt and a tool of Wall Street.  That’s a lot of people.  That’s enough to take the country back.  This election was a one off, a freak.  The fire next time will be different.

I had a good talk with Loren Enns, Western Field Director of the BBA Task Force.  He was in St. George, Utah, on his way to Phoenix.  He’s been chasing down Wyoming State Legislators, trying to educate them about Article V, and the BBA.  He’s had great success, and based on his report, and his work, Wyoming looks like a slam dunk.  He’s also been in Idaho, and has lined up 22 yes votes  within the 27 member Senate Majority.  This guy’s a dervish.  Things are looking good in Arizona, and Loren will probably be there for a week, seeing the legislative leadership, and counting votes.  Then he’s got to go back to Idaho for another round up there.  He quit his job, which was a good one, to do this, and a lot of it is coming out of his own pocket.  I think of all these people, at all these think tanks, writing reports, and doing research, and having meetings, and doing whatever the hell it is they do.  And they accomplish absolutely nothing.  And one guy, Loren Enns, at great personal cost, has assured us of States 29, 30 and 31.  O. K., I’m exaggerating.  But there aren’t too many around like Loren Enns.

Co-Founder Darren set this blog up for me just about three years ago.  It was right after I decided to get back into politics, and work on the Article V BBA.  We’ve made great progress in three years, from 17 States to 28.  We just need six more.  We should get four next year, easy, and then it gets hard.  But maybe then we can get some public attention.

This election is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.  It’s not the end, or the beginning, of anything.  It’s a debasement of politics, a stain on our democratic system of government, and will be remembered as the low point in the corruption of our culture.  Both candidates are roundly despised by a majority of voters, and the winner will be the one who is loathed the least.  A hell of a way to run a country, but just what the Media Hive had planned all along.  What we’ve got is what they wanted.

So Obama gets a third term, to do what?  Clean up the messes he made in his first two?  Clinton has no mandate to do anything.  She’ll only get elected because she’s not Donald Trump.  She’ll have no political honeymoon, and, unless the Democrats win the House, no accomplishments.  She and her family are so thoroughly corrupt that, once the election is over, parts of the media will turn against her.

This is exactly what happened in 1964.  Lyndon Johnson was about to be exposed by major national media as the most corrupt member of Congress.  The research had been done, the articles written.  This is all detailed in Robert Caro’s brilliant multi-volume biography.  Then Kennedy was assassinated, and all the stories were buried.  They had wanted to force him off the Democratic ticket in 1964, but when he became the  President, and the nominee, everything was put on hold.  He had to beat the Republican, so hands off.

After he was elected, and the debacle of Vietnam unfolded, the old stories, buried in 1963, started to resurface.  The scale of Lyndon Johnson’s corruption was not surpassed until Bill Clinton took office.  In 1968 Johnson knew the press had him by the balls, and he pulled out.

If Clinton is elected she will not run for a second term, in my opinion, because once she wins this election, parts of the press will turn on her.   Nobody really likes her, and everyone knows she’s a greedy shrew.  They’ll take her out just like they took out LBJ.  They’ve got a lot to work with.

So we’ll have a fresh face to deal with in 2020, and I don’t mean the idiot Kaine.  They’ll come up with somebody else to run for Obama’s fourth term, won’t they?.  They can’t be dumb enough to go with Kaine, could they?  And 2020, so I’ve read, is the year when demographics overwhelms the Republican coalition.  Very smart people have got it all figured out.  Demographics is destiny.

These people are crazy.  What do you think is going to happen in, and to, this country in the next four years?  Will our problems be solved, or will they get worse?  What will  Clinton do that Obama couldn’t?  Her term will be a political and economic disaster.   She’ll have no agenda, no mandate to lead, and no idea of what to do.  The Fed has got to start raising interest rates, they have no choice.  They’ve put it off as long as they can, so the market crash comes after the election, and can’t be blamed on Obama..

You don’t need to be a prophet to see what’s coming, and none of it’s good.  And you’re telling me that the Democrat is going to win in 2020 because of demographics?  Go back to your algorithms and quit trying to pretend that you know anything about politics.

So in the history books the election of 2016 won’t make a footnote.  It’s the least consequential election of my lifetime.  And I can’t wait for it to be over.

It’s just a prelude.

Right before the end, in his bunker, Hitler decided the coming defeat was the fault of the German people.  They had proven to be too weak to prevail, and deserved to die.  He ordered that the subways in Berlin, crowded with civilians, be flooded, killing them all.  His orders were ignored, and shortly later he shot himself.

This isn’t Nazi Germany, and Trump’s no Hitler.  Hitler was a diabolical mad man, while Trump’s a simple narcissist whose self love is practically a mental illness.  No comparison.  But if Trump loses, it seems he wants to take the Republican Party down with him, in a kind of mindless rage.  The Republicans have proven unworthy of him, and must be punished.

I don’t think it will work.  Trump’s never really been a Republican, and the Party has an identity separate from his.  It’s not Trump’s to destroy.  It will survive, even if it loses the House.  But to restore itself to power, it will need to find a way to appeal to Trump’s constituency.  It can’t win without them.

We may get blown out like Goldwater in ’64.  Lyndon Johnson took his victory and squandered it in Vietnam, so four years later Nixon was able to bridge the gap between the Goldwater Republicans and the Party establishment.  The midterms in 1966 were a foretaste of Nixon’s victory in 1968.  This is what the Republicans need to do to win in 2020.

I don’t know who the new Nixon is, maybe Pence.  Whoever it is needs to understand what drives the Trump voter, and how to appeal to them.  What’s Trumpism without Trump?  As Joe Biden would say, three words:  America first.  American self interest in immigration, trade and foreign policy.  What’s the best for the citizens of this country, not what’s best for the world.  It’s a simple and powerful message, and it’s got nothing to do with Donald Trump, other than the fact that it largely accounts for his nomination.  Anybody can campaign on American nationalism.  And if the word “nationalism” make you uncomfortable, you’ll never get the Trump vote.

Normal Republicans are comfortable with American nationalism, but it’s not enough.  They want federalism as well.  They want to take power away from the federal government, and return it to the States, and the people.  In doing this, they can appeal to the libertarian minded millennials.  Issues like marijuana legalization, same sex marriage, education policy, LGBT rights, and abortion should all be decided on a state by state basis.  South Dakota may want to criminalize both marijuana and abortion.  The people in California want the reverse.  Every state decides what it wants.  Neither the Bible thumpers nor the extreme feminists may like that, but we’re all going to have to find a way to get along.  If you’re a radical lesbian in Rapid City, you’ll probably be more comfortable if you moved to the Bay Area, and vice versa.  I choose to live in the part of California where I do because I feel like I belong here.  I don’t really belong in the Bay Area.  Live and let live.

It’s called tolerance, and we’re living in an intolerant time, and that needs to change.  The man or woman who can figure all this out, and effectively communicate it, should be the 2020 Republican nominee.  It’s a political winner.  You go your way, and I’ll go mine.  I won’t tell you how to live your life, and don’t tell me how to live mine.  Just leave me alone, and we’ll make it mutual.

I’ll try not to make any more gratuitous insults of Trump on this blog, or on Facebook.  It’s not helpful to the cause of reuniting the Party.  And the thrill is gone.  It’s like piling on, now.  His angriest supporters will carry a grudge against everyone they think wronged him.  So I think we need a fresh face in 2020.  Pence fills the bill, but he’s not the only one.  There are outstanding people like Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin out there that no one’s heard of, and many others.

I thought 2016 would be a great year, and I was wrong.  But I was only off by four years.

As soon as this national enema is over, we can all look ahead to our next opportunity, four years from now.  Article V will hopefully be part of the political wave that, this time, we don’t screw up.   That’s the plan, at least.

Some good will be flushed down with the bad, and, barring a turn around, we’ll lose the Senate next month.  I don’t think we’ll lose the House, but that’s a guess.  I’d hate to see that happen.  It would be terrible for the country.  As useless as the Congressional Republicans are, Paul Ryan is a lot better than Nancy Pelosi.  But, on the other hand, if the D’s do get unbridled power, aided and abetted by a new liberal majority on the Supreme Court, they’ll screw things up so badly that 2018 could rival 1994 in terms of Republican success in the House.  The D’s should only have the Senate for two years, and, if they win the House, they’d lose it as well.  All setting things up nicely for the most consequential election of the century.  2020.

Even if Clinton wins big, I doubt we’d lose any state legislative chambers, at least none that matters for Article V.  And Clinton is extremely weak in Kentucky, so we should at last rid ourselves of the execrable Democratic Speaker, Greg Stumbo.  We could add Kentucky to our target list, and it might be the difference maker.

But it won’t matter until we take back the Senate.  Some on the Task Force disagree with me, but I think Majority Leader Schumer would use some pretext to refuse to aggregate our 34 Resolutions, and refuse to set a time and place for the Balanced Budget Amendment Convention.  Article V is an existential threat to the Ruling Class.  They’ll do anything to stop us.  This would cost them, politically, but I think they’d pay the price.  It’s that important to them.

But the new Republican Senate, elected in 2018, would aggregate, and at some point in 2019 the Amendment Convention will be held, an Amendment drafted and sent out for ratification.  The genie will be out of the bottle.  The people, and the State Legislators, will see with their own eyes what Article V is capable of.  It will help propel our Republican Presidential nominee to a landslide victory.

There will be a lot of discussion, between now and then, of what the Second Amendment Convention should cover.  The Convention of States has eight Resolutions in hand, and would like to go next.  But I don’t think people will be quite ready to go that far, not yet.  I think the second Article V Convention should propose one Amendment,  giving a supermajority of the States the power to overturn a Supreme Court decision.  60% sounds right to me.  This is just speculation, but I think by 2020 the liberal majority on the Supreme Court will have pissed so many people off that we’ll want to strike back at the phony bastards, parading around in their black robes, like priests.

Now if you’ve read this blog for a while you may be saying to yourself, Wait a minute.  Isn’t this the guy that swore up and down that Trump would never be nominated?   What the hell do you know about anything?  To which I respond, I underestimated them.  The Hive, and their shill, Trump, did this to our country, but it’s a temporary, and ultimately a very costly win. No President who has ever taken office in our history will be as disliked and distrusted  as she is.  She won for one, and only one, reason  — her opponent.  She’s another Carter, except some people actually liked Carter.  She’s the last of her line.  Look at the Democratic bench.  Tim Kaine, for God’s sake?

“Ah, I will vent my wrath against my foes and avenge myself on my enemies.  I will turn my hand against you; I will thoroughly purge your dross and remove all your impurities.  I will restore your leaders as in days of old, your rulers at the beginning.”  Isaiah 1.