Month: May 2018

A video of Kim Jung Un shedding tears over the backward state of North Korea’s economy is supposedly being circulated within the communist leadership.  If true, it means he’s ready to cut a deal with Trump, and eventually give up his nukes.  To me, at least, this passes the smell test.  So I think Trump gets his Peace Prize, and uses the momentum to put all his enemies on the run.

In my opinion, Kim Jung Un would only make this deal with one man.  He wouldn’t make it with a Bush, or a Clinton, or an Obama.  He didn’t trust them.  They were phonies.

He trusts Trump, because he thinks he knows Trump.  He understands Donald Trump, and believes him.

He’s right, of course.  Trump will protect Kim, as he’s promised, and a denuclearized North Korea will experience an economic boom like few others have seen.  Koreans are very industrious people.

Trump can use the momentum from this foreign policy triumph to accomplish an even more important geopolitical goal:  overthrow the ayatollahs, and abet an Iranian Revolution.

All leading up to the Monster of Elections: 2020.

It’s entirely possible that two years from now the elections of 2020 will look like a Republican blowout.  Think of the possibilities, if:

1.  The Korean peninsula is denuclearized.

2. The ayatollahs are under siege in Iran, and an Iranian political revolution is underway.

3.  Justice Kennedy’s replacement on the Supreme Court is the fifth vote to overturn Roe. V. Wade.

4.  The economy is roaring along with 3.5% growth.

5.  The Democratic Party becomes totally unhinged, and nominates another George McGovern.

6.  Trump and Putin meet, and establish a Russian/American detente.

7.  Our trade deficits with China and the rest of the world are reduced dramatically.  A revival  of American manufacturing is underway

8.  Etc.

It could be a monster of an election for the Republicans, winning them control of the New Mexico, Nevada, Maine, and  Washington state legislatures.  At that point, it’s possible to get to 34 for an Article V Balanced Budget Amendment.

It would be an alignment of the stars that is seldom seen in American history.  As currently written, that’s what’s needed for Article V.

And maybe, just maybe, that’s what we’re going to get.

 

The art of the deal depends on who you’re dealing with.  It’s the most important part of any negotiation.  So as President Trump prepares to make a deal with North Korea, he must first understand its leader.

He was born in 1982, or shortly thereafter, and as a teenager went to school in Switzerland.  He was friendly but shy, and not much of a student.  But he loved basketball, as a player and a Michael Jordan fan.

At the age of 29 he became the Supreme Leader of North Korea, a job he’s had for seven years now.  His older half-brother had been out of favor ever since he used a fake passport in 2001, trying to enter Japan in order to see Tokyo Disneyland.

When Trump looks at Kim jong-un he doesn’t see a happy camper.  He sees somebody who wants an out.  The man is a prisoner in his own country.  And Trump thinks he can see a little fear.  This guy lives a precarious existence.  He has no choice but to be a total paranoid, uncertain of who he can really trust.

Trump has offered him protection.  He won’t wind up like Ghadaffi.  That’s Trump’s promise, and if he thinks Trump can and will deliver, he’ll make the deal.

And Trump gets his Nobel Prize.  Because he read his man.

In 1974 the  national debt was $475 million, and when Ford’s 1975 budget came out it added $53 million in deficit spending.  State legislators around the country were concerned.

Two of them, Senator Jim Clark of Maryland and Representative David Halbrook of Mississippi decided to do something about it, and they began a campaign to use Article V to get a Balanced Budget Amendment.  By 1979 they had 29 states.  But even though that was more than a majority, it wasn’t enough.  Because Article V is so poorly drafted, they needed 34, or 2/3.  They got to 32 in 1983 when Alaska passed a Resolution, but that’s as far as they got.  That’s as far as anyone has ever gotten.

What might have been.

Below is the draft of model legislation for which I will be seeking sponsors in state legislatures.  Article V must be fixed before it can be used as it was intended.  The state legislatures have it within their power to fix it.  I would argue they have a responsibility to do so.  It’s self help, a self-empowerment that must be ratified by 3/4 of the States to take effect.

If we do get to 34 with this idea, I hope Congress calls for ratification by state conventions, rather than by state legislatures.  I want the people to vote for this, and educate themselves about Article V in the process.

The 2019 sessions of state legislatures are a little less than eight months away.  Plenty of time to find sponsors.

As the President likes to say, “Well see.”

 

A (JOINT ‐ CONCURRENT) RESOLUTION, Making a formal application to Congress to call a convention for the sole purpose of proposing for ratification an amendment to Article V of the Constitution which gives the States equal rights with Congress with respect to proposing amendments to the Constitution.

Application under Article V of the U.S. Constitution for an Amendment of Article V Convention

WHEREAS, Article V of the Constitution of the United States mandates that upon the “Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States” Congress shall “call a Convention for proposing Amendments”; and

WHEREAS, it was the intention of the Framers of the Constitution of the United States to provide the States equal authority to propose amendments to the Constitution as that of Congress, and

WHEREAS, the structure of Article V of the Constitution has made it impractical for the States to meet in convention to do such, thus preventing the sovereign States from exercising their role to correct the errors in the Constitution and to restrain the Federal government when necessary,

WHEREAS, as evidence of the foregoing, since the Constitution was ratified Congress has proposed 33 amendments to the Constitution, while the States have proposed none; and

WHEREAS, the legislature deems an amendment to Article V of the United States Constitution giving the States equal power with Congress to propose amendments is necessary for the good of the American people.

Therefore be it resolved by the legislature of the State of ___________:

The legislature of the State of _____________ hereby applies to Congress, under the provisions of Article V of the Constitution of the United States, for the calling of a Convention of the States limited to proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States which will require Congress to call a Convention for proposing amendments on the application of a majority of the several States, and that two-thirds of the several States in Convention shall be required to propose an amendment for ratification.

Section 2. The Secretary of State (or the proper officer for your state) is hereby directed to transmit copies of this application to the President and Secretary of the Senate and to the Speaker and Clerk of the House of Representatives of the Congress, and copies to the members of the said Senate and House of Representatives from this State; also to transmit copies hereof to the presiding officers of each of the legislative houses in the several States, requesting their cooperation.

Section 3. This application constitutes a continuing application in accordance with Article V of the Constitution of the United States until the legislatures of at least two‐ thirds of the several states have made applications on the same subject. It supersedes all previous applications by this legislature on the same subject.