Author: Fritz Pettyjohn

Disparate Impact should be an issue in next year’s election.  Next week the Supreme Court is going to toss this “doctrine” in the ash heap.  No Republican in his right mind will do anything but applaud.  Hillary, on the other hand, will be outraged.  She’s got to do everything she can to gin up her black support, so she’ll go ballistic when this decision comes down.  In doing so she will kill her chances in November.  The missing white male votes in the upper Midwest, the guys who stayed home rather than vote for the rich twit, Romney, are going to vote this time, and they’ll vote Republican, based on this issue alone.  It is a perfect illustration of the government picking winners and losers, based solely on race.

The fact is that these guys, and their sons, are routinely discriminated against by the government.   It pisses them off.  They don’t like discrimination, especially when it’s directed against them.  They watch what happens in places like Ferguson, Missouri and that pisses them off as well.  All these wildings, mob violence by packs of young black hoodlums, that pisses them off too.  Race riots in Baltimore piss them off.  There’s actually a lot to be pissed off about.

Responsible politicians must tread lightly on this ground.  Stoking racial resentments is a bad idea, on all levels.  But to acknowledge reality, to say that discrimination against whites is not the road to racial harmony, is only to do justice to the truth.  If a politician is so chicken shit that he can’t do that, then those deer hunters and ice fishermen of Wisconsin will stay home again.  And the Republican  — if they are a coward  — will deserve to lose.

The people of this country want a leader with some balls.  Someone totally unlike Jeb Bush.  A guy with balls tells the truth.  When Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union an evil empire he told the truth.  And he showed some balls.  When this Supreme Court decision comes down next week it’s a balls check for every Republican.

Those guys in Wisconsin will be watching.

May no new thing arise.

People don’t like change.  Period.  We like what we know, and dislike what we don’t.  As Jefferson put it “…mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.”

So what’s insufferable?  How about, for openers, $18 trillion in debt and looming bankruptcy?   Thus the birth of the Federal Assembly.

It is a new thing, consisting of the leaders of the 50 state legislatures, meeting to discuss their responsibilities under Article V.  The Delegates to the Federal Assembly are the Presiding Officers of the 99 state legislative chambers.  They are elected by their members when their legislative chamber organizes.  They meet, voluntarily, where and when they choose, and discuss whatever they collectively agree to discuss.  Their first meeting, in San Diego on July 25th, has been called to take up the proposition that Article V Amendment Conventions should be conducted with One State, One Vote, and that topics of discussion at such Conventions shall be strictly limited by the language of the Resolutions which called them.  If the Delegates to San Diego wish, they can take up other matters as well, such as what, exactly, would qualify as germane under a call for a Balanced  Budget Amendment.

Lord willing, the San Diego meeting won’t be the last for the Federal Assembly.  Prior to the 2016 legislative season, another meeting will almost certainly be needed, probably in conjunction with the December NCSL meeting.  Ideally, the second meeting of the Federal Assembly will be held at the Capitol in Annapolis.

If there is an Amendment Convention next year there might not be a need for a 2016 meeting of the Federal Assembly.  But in any year in which an Amendment Convention is not held, the Federal Assembly should meet.  It should discuss what sorts of Article V Resolutions need to be pursued.  Even assuming a BBA has been proposed and ratified, much more will need to be done to restore constitutional government in this country.  The Federal Assembly is the perfect forum for such discussions.

What other functions could be performed by the Federal Assembly?  Here’s a possibility.  The BBA could include a provision that gives it temporary veto power over federal appropriations.  If Congress passes a budget that is in violation of the BBA, you wouldn’t go to court to challenge it.  You’d go the Federal Assembly, which would have the power to enforce the terms of the Balanced Budget Amendment.  It could supervise the transfer of federal lands to the states, if so authorized by an Amendment.  It could do whatever a Constitutional Amendment empowered it to do.

Every member of a state legislature takes an oath, and swears to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States  —   including Article V, which places the ultimate responsibility for preserving and protecting the Constitution on these same state legislators.  The Federal Assembly is a mechanism for them to exercise this power, and fulfill their responsibility.  It has always existed, inchoate and unborn, in Article V.

It comes to life in San Diego.

The tide has been with us for a year and a half.  It still strengthens.  Things are going to get even better, politically.  A lot better.  We’re going to kick ass in November of ’16, and the new President and Congress will have an historic opportunity to do some serious damage to the perversions, distortions and general lawlessness  inflicted on this country by the Progressives.  And if the new President does well he or she will be given another term, and some good could come of that.  Then the Democrats will have their shot at power.  They’ll be different than the Democrats of today.  That’s the genius of the American two party system.  Losers change  — they change as much as they have to in order to win.  Anybody who talks about extended one party rule doesn’t understand that dynamic.  There are exceptions.  That’s the rule.  If you’re smart you expect things to play out the way they usually do.

What we will have done with this tide we’ve ridden?  If it’s done in Washington, it will be a lot less than it could have been  — if it had been done by the Federal Legislature.  If the Presiding Officers (PO’s) of this country’s state legislatures chose to institutionalize their function under Article V they could create such a body.  Not by law.  The Federal Legislature would be entirely voluntary.  It would be advisory only, until such time as a Constitutional Amendment conferring actual power upon it were ratified by 38 states.  Initially the only function of the Federal Legislature would be to recommend to the state legislatures possible subjects of Article V Amendments.   26 votes would be needed for the Federal Legislature to act, in any way.  If 26 states can agree on an Amendment, and 34 identified who will pass it, the proposal can be put out for ratification.

Right now the membership of the Federal Legislature is far more conservative, and mindful of the Constitution, than any other political body or group of elected officials in the country.  It has the power to put on offer a return to Constitutional principles, including not least federalism.  If the offer is accepted by a large majority of the people, by ratification, we can turn this country around on a dime.

Call it what you will, but there is something to be created.

Seven months before the first votes are cast, pundits agree, polls are largely exercises in name recognition.  The vast majority of voters aren’t paying attention.  Nonetheless, polls are the reason Bush, Walker and Rubio are put in the top tier, and Hillary is inevitable.  Bullshit.  Bush won’t be the nominee.  Bet on it.  There are half a dozen Republicans who might win.  Bush isn’t one of them.

And Hillary is not inevitable.  If a significant portion of big media treat her like an ordinary candidate then she is ordinary, and beatable.  A new poll from New Hampshire shows Vermont’s Bernie Sanders within striking distance.  It’s sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy.  If the people of New Hampshire are open to a 73 old socialist, they’re open to anybody but Hillary.  She could lose New Hampshire, which has a long and distinguished history of smacking down inevitable candidates.  The people there take their role in our Presidential system seriously, and will not be a rubber stamp.  Hillary’s imperial style of campaigning won’t wash there.  She’ll have to mix and mingle, which she doesn’t do well.  She really has very little to say.  She’s a woman and she deserves it  — that’s the entire rationale for her candidacy.  Her supporters can’t cite any of her accomplishments, because he doesn’t have any.  LBJ won the ’68 New Hampshire primary, but he withdrew shortly afterward.  The New Hampshire McCarthy voters killed the career of a sitting President.  If Hillary loses New Hampshire she’s vulnerable to losing it all.

Germans were recently polled about their willingness to fight a war if a NATO ally is attacked.  They said no by a 3-2 margin.  If the Germans won’t fight, no one will, most definitely including Americans.  Now the Pentagon wants to deploy heavy weapons in Eastern Europe, as a deterrent to the Russkies.  It’s all bullshit.

After WW2 we decided we’d fight to keep the Russians out of Western Europe.  We weren’t willing to spend the money to match the Russians in conventional weapons, so we told them we’d nuke them to keep them out.  They believed it when Eisenhower said it.  By the time Carter got in they stopped believing, so we gave the Europeans Pershing missiles that they could fire off themselves.  The Russians believed the Europeans would nuke them if they invaded, so it worked.

That was over 30 years ago.  Things have changed.  We formed NATO not to stop the Russians, but to stop Communism, which died 25 years ago.  Ask an American millennial “Should the US fight a massive European land war to keep the Russians out of Eastern Europe?”  They’d say no by a lot bigger margin than 3-2.  All age cohorts would agree:  It’s not our war.  The Russians may or may not be a threat to Europe.  They’re damn sure no threat to us.  Why the hell would we go to war with them?

Putin knows this, which explains a lot of his behavior.  He’s acting in accordance with reality, and so should we.  The next President should sponsor a summit between ourselves, Putin and Merkel.  He or she should tell both of them that we’re there as an honest broker.  We want to help the two of them come to an understanding about the future of Europe.  A peaceful future that does not involve direct American involvement.

The only thing I like about Obama is his pacifism.  If he tells the Pentagon “no” he will have partially redeemed his Presidency.

The traditional BBA is, among other things, a demand for entitlement reform.  The Reagan Initiative adds regulatory reform.  If the Convention produces an Amendment which accomplishes both, it will be a huge success.  Both are necessary for prosperity and full employment.  Are they sufficient?

I don’t know, but it’s obvious that one critical reform is not included  — taxes.  It would fall within the scope of the call, just as much as regulatory reform or land transfers.  Should the Amendment Convention go whole hog, and abolish the IRS,, or some such?

It may be so far outside the box that people aren’t ready for it  — a bridge too far.  We won’t know for over a year.  The time to decide is when the Convention convenes in late summer or early fall of 2016.  The nominations will have been decided, and the Presidential campaign will be well underway.  If the Republican candidate wants to go for it, the Convention could do the trifecta   — entitlement reform via the traditional BBA, regulatory reform, and tax reform.  If the candidate takes no position it will be up to the delegates  — go small, or go bold.  It’s a purely political decision, which will be rendered by a gathering of some of the best politicians in the country.  Men and women largely unknown outside their home states, but with a wealth of experience and political accomplishment.  The people meeting in San Diego.

Would these people do a better job at tax reform than Congress?  A diverse, but strongly conservative,  group of largely citizen-legislators, in which California’s voice is the same as Wyoming’s?  As opposed to an entrenched  Congress composed of rent seeking agents of the special interests that finance their endless campaigns?   This is a question which should be put to the American people.

They’ll decide.