Month: October 2016

Somebody’s going to lose this election, but nobody is going to win it.  Whoever “wins” will be roundly detested by most Americans.  One third of the country hates Clinton, one third hates Trump, and the other third hates them both.  It will be hard to govern when 2/3 of the population can’t stand to see your face on television.  The 45th President of the United States will fail, spectacularly.

The smart money is still on a close Clinton win, and no coattails.  I really don’t think it matters much who controls the Senate.  Nothing’s going to get done, either way, as long as the R’s keep the House.  Wall Street doesn’t want anything done.  It wants gridlock, and it looks like that’s what we’ll have.

This joke of an election is just a sign, a symptom, of our real problem.  Our political system, at the national level, is broken, and beyond repair. It is so clogged with rent seekers and tit suckers it can’t function properly.  And it’s completely bipartisan.  The Republicans in Congress, with few exceptions, are almost as bad as the Democrats.  They’ve all sold out.  They’ve all bought in, or have been bought off.  The entire system is irredeemable, in the sense that it can’t fix itself.  A superior, outside force must be brought to bear.

This is what the Framers had in mind when they wrote Article V.  They didn’t design it for light or transient causes.  The normal Amendment process could handle that.  But when the existential problem is the federal government, and the Congress itself, that’s when the States must step in.   And that’s where we are today.

Bill Fruth and I have figured something out, and if we’ve got it figured right we’re going to pull this off.  I feel it in my bones.  From Florida to Alaska, and Maine to California, the word’s going to get out.  And when the word gets out, it will take on a life of its own.  It couldn’t happen at a better time, really.  Whatever happens next week, a lot of people are going to throw up their hands in despair.  We’re going to offer a way out.

Looking forward to ALEC in D.C. on Nov. 30th.   It was three years ago, exactly, when I decided to dive back in to the game.  I spent a few thousand dollars and went the ALEC meeting as an alumni legislator.  Same hotel as this year.  That’s when I met Fruth.  He didn’t make much of an impression on me.  He looked like an accountant.  Fruth’s a numbers guy, without a whole lot of political experience.  So I underestimated him.  Turns out he’s a hell of a lot more than a numbers guy.

I made a lot of friends three years ago, and hope to make some more at ALEC.

I wouldn’t bet on it, but Trump may have a shot at winning.  I doubt he’ll get there because of one particular group of women.  They’re Republicans who live in the Philadelphia suburbs, and they’re his problem in Pennsylvania.  He’s sending his wife there to give a speech.  I doubt they’ll be impressed.

Republicans around country seem to be reconciling themselves to Trump, but not these women.  He’s only getting around 75% of Pennsylvania Republicans because of them.  If he can’t turn them around he’ll lose Pennsylvania, and the Presidency.  Good luck with that, Donald, they think you’re a pig in a wig.  Their memory of the Access Hollywood tape will not be erased, and that alone disqualifies you.  I don’t think they’ll ever vote for you.  If I’m wrong about that, this whack job could be President.

So we get some decent judicial appointments.  Whoop de do.  Is Chief Justice Roberts going to use his five member majority to restore the Constitution?  Good luck with that.  If Obamacare is constitutional, what isn’t?   The importance of the Court is overblown.. They’re not the real problem, and they’re sure as hell not the solution.

And our problem for the last eight years hasn’t really been Obama.  The problem is Congress.  It’s a parliament of whores.  90% of them, Republican and Democrat, are careerists more interested in winning elections than serving their country.  If you have majorities in both Houses of Congress you run the show.  You call all the shots.  Nothing happens that you don’t want to happen.  But that’s only if you do your duty.  If you want to secure reelection, above all else, you don’t rock the boat, you pay off the special interests that fund your campaigns, and you don’t piss anyone off by actually doing anything.

That’s Congress, and it’s not going to change no matter who is President.  Trump probably doesn’t realize it, but he’s not going to get anything done if he does win.  He’ll have less power than Obama, because the Courts won’t defer to him as they did with Obama.  And the problem is not the leadership, Ryan and McConnell.  The problem is the members.  They’re worse than worthless, and they’re why nothing gets done.  The House Freedom Caucus needs to realize that getting rid of Speaker Ryan isn’t going to do any good.  The real problem is the 90% of the Republican Caucus that is not part of the Freedom Caucus.

In his final argument for the Constitution, in Federalist 85, Hamilton closed with what he thought was the clinching argument in its favor.  Our freedom was assured, he said, because “We may safely rely on the disposition of the State legislatures to erect barriers against the encroachments of the national authority.”  The States, under Article V, would always be there to ride to the rescue.

The time is ripe.

Hoover had so much dirt on John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon that he was untouchable.   If Hoover was ever taken down, he’d take some big boys with him.  The FBI was as independent as could be, because he had files on half of Congress as well.  Nobody messed with Hoover.

James Comey has put himself in the catbird seat, and restored the Bureau’s independence.  If Clinton wins he can dump enough on her to get her impeached.  She’ll leave him, and the Bureau, alone, or else.  If Trump were to stumble into an upset, he probably doesn’t want to fool with Comey either.  Trump’s dirty too, just not as filthy corrupt as Clinton.  If anybody’s going to fire Comey they’d better be clean as a whistle.  Not too many are.

I don’t know if this move was made, in part, to quell a brewing insurrection within the Bureau.  Comey’s #2 is dirty, he’s taken McAuliffe money through his wife’s State Senate campaign.  The guys he aced out for the #2 job want a piece of his ass.  A lot of FBI guys are all pissed off about a lot of things.  This latest move by Comey lets out some steam.

It’ll cost Clinton a couple points, but not the election.  It just reinforces what everybody already knows.  She’s a lying criminal.  Ho, hum.  We all knew that.  Because Comey has given Clinton something to yell about, she can try to deflect the blame on him, by demanding a release of the basis of his decision.  But because an investigation is underway he won’t say any more, and Clinton is well aware of that.  She’s just putting on a diversion.  It will work well enough.  She’s got nothing else to say.

As a political spectator sport, 2016 has been the best ever.  Now we’re all waiting to see if they’ve got some more stuff on Trump, or some other crazy thing happens.  Right now you’d have to guess Clinton wins by a couple, getting Pennsylvania.  It’s amazing Trump could get that close.  Only because he’s up against Clinton.  Against a normal Democrat, like Biden, he’d be lucky to get 150 electoral votes.

I’m glad it’s going to be closer than it looked, pre-Comey.  I was worried we might lose some State Legislative Chambers.  But as our chances of holding the Senate improve, so do our chances down ballot, where it matters for Article V.  I’m counting on winning the Kentucky House, and making it a target.  I’ve met our man there, Jim DeCesare, and know a little bit about the Minority Leader, Jeff Hoover.  We’ll do fine in Kentucky.

Not as well as we did in Tennessee, though.  We totally kicked butt in Tennessee.  Fruth worked his ass off, and we got a unanimous vote in the Senate and only two nays in the House.  Fruth had these guys sold.  I got to meet our man in Tennessee, Rep. Dennis Powers, a couple years ago.  From Jackboro, an insurance agent, and the nicest guy you’d ever want to meet.  Babbie and I were touring Nashville later that year, and I stopped by his office near the State Capitol and left him a note of appreciation.

Of all the State Capitols I’ve visited I like Nashville the best.  It’s quite a place, and reeks of history.  One of our greatest Presidents, James K. Polk, is buried on its grounds.  Under Polk, we got Texas, California and Oregon, and practically all points in between.  How many Presidents can say that?

And the House Chamber is just beautiful, all old wood, with a vault for a ceiling.  It’s big, for a House of 99 members.  It’s a perfect restoration, and probably cost a fortune.  A lot of history was made in that chamber.  It’s one place I’d like to revisit.

 

One of the new deep thinkers on the right, Ross Douthat of the NYT (natch), is in a dither about the plight of the conservative intellectual.  Populism is too much for him to handle, and he’s lost in the woods, and doesn’t know where to go.  Richard Fernandez sets him straight at PJ Media.   You don’t have to read his whole article.  His final line says it all.  Trump is leading this movement primarily because no one else is.

Trump is ignorant, but he’s not stupid.  He figured things out right away.  People were so pissed off that they’d vote for a reality TV star who was a sexist pig, as long as he told them what they wanted to hear.  Because he was telling the truth, and they knew it.  They’ve been screwed over in the new economy, and nobody really cared.  They weren’t the right type of people.   They’re collateral damage, and a declining force in our society.   To hell with them.

The first wave of populism was led by Andrew Jackson, and it succeeded.  He killed off the Second Bank of the United States and began the Age of Jackson.  Donald Trump is no Andrew Jackson.  If he was, he’d win in a landslide.  He’ll lose because of his pride, his inability to admit error, his refusal to acknowledge his past sins.  It certainly won’t be because of his populist message, which boils down to America First.

What do you think Mike Pence will say in his concession speech?  It’s all over, we’ve lost the country, we can’t ever get it back?  Or, rather, don’t give up, fight on, and never never surrender?  Which is it?

And if it’s the latter, who will lead the fight?   Trump, the loser?  I don’t think so.  The reason he’ll lose is because of who he is, and no other reason, and everyone will know it.  And he’s not going to change.  Take Trump out of Trumpism and you’ve got a winner.  And who is in a position to do that?

I wonder about guys like Douthat and Fernandez.  Have they ever worked on a campaign, or run for office, or directly helped a candidate get elected?  What have they actually done in their lives, besides scribble?

I see where the Koch brothers are scaling back.  What a couple dopes.  They’ve spent hundreds of millions of dollars, and have nothing to show for it.   Meanwhile the BBA Task Force, working on a shoestring, has got 28 States, and a clear path to 34 and the first Amendment Convention in American history.  And we’ll get it done in 2018 at the latest.   With  no help from the Kochs or any other big donor.  Everybody wants to have conferences and discussions and write policy papers  — and accomplish diddly squat.   We’ve got two guys, Loren Enns and Bill Fruth, who, at great personal cost, are out meeting State Legislators and lining up votes.   Have Douthat and Fernandez ever accomplished as much?   I guess they’re above such actual, real, work.

These guys are thinkers, not doers, so I guess that makes them intellectuals.  They have their place, just as William F. Buckley did.  People like Reagan and Pence are doers, not thinkers.  And lest you forget Reagan was no intellectual.  With him, it was America First, period.  Deep thinkers like Buckley wanted to give up the Panama Canal.  That just didn’t cut it with a common sense patriot like Reagan.  Mike Pence is cut from the same cloth.

A lot of people don’t realize yet that from the ashes of the Trump fiasco a new leader has emerged.  He’ll take Trump’s populism and ground it on constitutional principles, and the Great Republican Division will be over.  Thank God we’ve got Mike Pence.

 

It’s never been told.  Obama’s written three autobiographical books, Pence none.  If you run for President, you have to write a book, and Pence is no exception.

I believe everybody who works for Trump’s campaign has to sign a non-disclosure agreement.  But Pence doesn’t work for Trump or his campaign, so he can give us the inside story of the circus we’ve all been witnessing.  He won’t have to get into the gory details, but they’ll be enough juicy stuff to sell a lot of books.  If he doesn’t get a $5 million advance he needs a new agent.  With that money he can relax for a while, and lay low, writing his book.  As far as the chaos which will soon engulf Washington, he can stay out of it, until he’s ready for the book tour, traveling all across the country.  It’ll be like a campaign, massaging donors and selling books.  Signing your book for someone is a way to guarantee their vote.  If Pence is elected President, that book will be a family heirloom.

Of course, he’ll want an occasional  break from all that book writing.  The BBA Task Force will ask him to go to South Carolina, for sure, to lobby the State Legislators on our behalf.  I’ll bet he’d be quite effective, and would make some good friends that might come in handy down the road.  We might ask him to go to Virginia as well.  Bill Fruth is getting the lay of the land there, and it turns out the Virginia Senate is as dysfunctional as South Carolina’s, and that’s saying something.  But Mike Pence could take care of it for us, if he’d be willing.

I’ve been writing this blog, and working with the BBA Task Force, for three years now.  For the very first time, I have complete confidence we’ll get to 34.  We see a path.  New obstacles may arise, this won’t be easy.  George Soros and company are determined to stop us, and they’ve got all the money in the world.  But like a lot of foreigners, Soros doesn’t understand this country, and how strong it is.  I honestly believe that this man hates the United States of America, and all that it stands for.  Because it’s better than anything he’s got, and he knows it.  So he wants to tear us down.  He hasn’t got a chance.

Rep. Matthew Monforton broke the Bullock sex scandal in Montana on his blog, Republican Uprising, on Sept. 27th.  Ten days later I wrote about it on this blog.  One reason for coming to Bozeman was to try to convince the Gianforte campaign to make use of it.  The day after I got here I was watching the NFL when a Gianforte commercial came on, using the stuff from Monforton in a very clever way.  They just didn’t tell Monforton they were going to do it.  These guys are obviously pros, and they don’t need any help from me.  So back to the Gold Country on Friday.

If all goes to plan something special will happen this summer, right before the Eclipse.  It could happen.