The Article V Movement

"This is where America stands today: a tyrannical president who is coldly robbing millions of Americans of their healthcare; a renegade judiciary that cannot be relied upon to faithfully follow the word of the Constitution; a power hungry, goose-stepping party that works relentlessly to drag the nation down the road to serfdom; and a castrated opposition party too afraid to fight for their principals."

So writes Mark Levin, popular radio personality and president of the Landmark Legal Foundation.

Unlike so many critics, Levin does more than just identify the problem. He offers a legitimate solution. That's what his latest book, The Liberty Amendments: Restoring the American Republic, is about. The answer, he says, is to be found right in our Constitution, in Article V. In a recent Front Page Magazine article, 

"He explains [in his book] that '[Article V] provides for two methods of amending the Constitution.” In the first method, “two-thirds of Congress passes a proposed amendment and then forwards it to the state legislatures for possible ratification by three-fourths of the states[.]' The second method 'involv[es] the direct application of two-thirds of the state legislatures for a Convention for proposing Amendments, which would thereafter also require a three-fourths ratification vote by the states.' It is the second method he focuses on. 

"This process, it is important to point out, does not provide for a constitutional convention. Instead, it provides a way to offer Amendments to the Constitution over the heads of our inept political ruling class and at the same time preserves enough roadblocks to prevent a runaway caucus. Levin supplements all eleven of his proposed Amendments with the words of the Framers, showing that each of the ideas is in the tradition of their thinking, and offers examples of how these values are at risk by an ever-expanding and oppressive federal leviathan."

Hear Levin talk about this Article V process at his website.

Vince Flynn

“[He] saw communism for the sham that it was--a bunch of brutes who seized power in the name of the people, only to repress the very people they claimed to champion.”
― Vince Flynn, American Assassin

From Goodreads.

Cheney on Cheney

Cheney

In some of the most self-reflective words ever spoken by the former Vice President, here is an excerpt from Dick Cheney’s May 27, 2006 commencement address at Natrona County High School in Wyoming.

Stay focused on the job you have, not the next job you might want.  In your careers, people will give you more responsibility when they see that you take your present job seriously.  Do the work in front of you.  Try to find ways to make yourself indispensable.  And I can almost guarantee that recognition, advancement, and other good things will follow.

I think there's also a lot of truth to the old wisdom that you should choose your friends carefully.  They have a big influence on the kind of person you become.  So when you see good qualities in people--things you admire, habits you’d like to pick up, principles you respect--keep those people close at hand in your life.  In many ways, when you choose your friends you choose your future. 

Source: Stephen F. Hayes, Cheney: The Untold Story of America's Most Powerful and Controversial Vice President (New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 2007), 8-9.

Fred Thompson

Former Tennessee Senator
Fred Thompson

I have "appointed" former Republican senator and famous actor, Fred Thompson as one of my counselors.  In his latest article, he writes about his personal and legal perspective on the trial of disgraced former senator, John Edwards, Democrat from my old state of North Carolina.

My favorite Fred Thompson move role was when he played an Admiral in The Hunt for Red October.

In 2008, Fred Thompson gave a pretty good speech at the Republican National Convention.  It had its corny parts, like all of them, but he let loose with some pretty good zingers.

On his Facebook page, Thompson offers a steady stream of humor.  It's mostly political humor -- which, by the way, is not an oxymoron -- and most of it is actually funny, to me anyways.  A few of my favorites are ...

"During a campaign rally, Vice President Joe Biden said 'imagine where we'd be if the Tea Party hadn't taken control of the House.'

"Sometimes I do. Then I wake up in a cold sweat."

"Three and a half years in, President Obama has held more fundraisers than the previous 5 presidents combined.

"He needed to, because he's added more debt than the previous 43."

 "Greece tightened up on welfare abuse, cutting payments to 200,000 people because they are dead.

"Couldn't happen here. Illinois Democrats would be terrified of losing their votes."

"A new study shows that most Americans who renounce their citizenship do it "for tax reasons."

"Ironic, considering that's why this country was founded in the first place."

There's more at  http://www.facebook.com/fredthompson.

 

On Rick Santorum

Rick Santorum

Quote of the day -

After sweeping all three Republican primary contests on February 7, Senator Rick Santorum had this to say  ...

"I am not the conservative alternative to Mitt Romney.  I am the conservative alternative to Barack Obama."

People like Donald Trump can't figure this out.

Reagan vs. Obama

President Reagan was wrong about one thing.  He did not live to see the end of communism. Communism succeeded him into office four administrations later ...

Representative Allen West (R-FL), U.S. Army (Ret)

He's a target of the Republican Party establishment, too.  They are in the process of writing his district out of existence.

 

Gingrich on the Media

Said Gingrich, "The American people feel that they have elites who have been trying for a half century to force us to try to quit being American, and become some kind of other system."

What he has not yet articulated is that Barack Obama is the media's president, the media's creation. But that's coming.  But, before that comes, he has to show that Romney, too, is a media creation.

The elite media determined the outcome of the presidential election in 2008.  It was the media who chose the candidates and the media who anointed the winner.  Than must not be allowed to happen again.  To paraphrase Ronald Reagan slightly, in the present circumstances, the liberal media are not the solution to our problems.  The media are the problem.

 

Best Bumper Sticker

The best idea for a bumper sticker I've heard so far ...

"If you voted for him in '08 to show you were not a racist,
You must vote against him in '12 to prove you are not an idiot."

--  I think Bill Bennett (Morning in America) came up with that one.

Big Time

http://tonyhowardsblog.blogspot.com/

Some of my Counselors: Mark Belling

Mark Belling

Discovered Mark Belling's radio show on the web.  Mark occasionally substitutes on the Rush Limbaugh show.  That's how I heard of him.  He's my favorite Rush fill-in.  Comes across as very genuine.  Of all Rush's subs, I think Mark does the best "show prep."  He's dynamite on union issues.

My Letter to the Editor of the Augusta Chronicle

Last week, there was an Associated Press article in the Augusta Chronicle that got my attention.  It centered around complaint by the South Caroline Legislative Black Caucus (how un-MLK is that?) that newly installed governor, Nikki Haley was not showing sufficient sensitivity by failing to appoint enough (liberal) blacks to positions in her cabinet.  That prompted me to write to the editor.  However, since the editor apparently felt that my letter fell outside the general interest of the newspaper (because he elected not to publish it), I have presented here, in full.


I was going to do so anyway, in case the editor asks.


Dear Editor,

I almost fell over laughing when I read that South Carolina Governor, Nikki Haley is being criticized by members of the Legislative Black Caucus for, get this, lacking racial diversity in her cabinet picks.  That’s right, the chronic whiners in the Legislative Black Caucus find fault with Governor Haley’s lack of racial diversity in the selections she has made to fill positions in her cabinet.

Why?

Harvard University

Patrick Buchanan, whom I sometimes like and sometimes don't, writing for World Net Daily, laments the fact that the nation's elite colleges and universities discriminate against white conservative and Christians (the media's term for Catholics).  "Bias And Bigotry In Academia" blares the headline.  And, of course, all the latest research and studies are cited to substantiate these assertions as factual.

I don't disagree with Mr. Buchanan's facts; I simply ask why?  Why would conservatives, if they really are conservatives, and Christians, if they really are such, want to subject themselves and their money to four years in one of these, so called, elite institutions?  What's so conservative about that?  What's Christian about it?

Are these conservatives and Christians, so called, envious of a (name the institution) eduation?  Do they covet acceptance by the ruling class?  (I invite you to Angelo M. Codevilla's excellent piece on that subject, published in the July 2010 issues of The American Spectator).    If so, by what rights do they lay claim to the appellations of Christian and conservative?