Action-Alert Email

Dear Member,

Here is a link to our August 2016 Action Report.

For convenient reference, here is a link to last month’s Report: July 2016 Action Report.

To assist you in navigating our website, we are also including here some convenient links to items mentioned in this and recent Reports.

Convenient Links to Discussed Resources:

Topic:  Brexit

“UK will not trigger Article 50 before the end of the year — PM May,” CNBC, 7-28-16

Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 (Manifesto)

Media-Controlled Delusion (64-page booklet)

The President Makers (pb)

Topic: Culture War

North Carolina House Bill 2, the Public Facilities Privacy and Security Act (NC bathroom law) 

“Pentagon ends ban on transgender troops in military,” AP, 6-30-16

Topic:  Campaign for Decency — Curb the Courts

“Culture War” Campaign Action Report

Model Resolution (downloadable PDF)

Topic:  Save our Constitution!

“Dagger in the Heart” Campaign Action Report

“The Danger of a Convention of States” by Don Fotheringham

“State Legislature Information” page (FFS)

“Top Constitution Scholars Weigh in on Article V”

Topic:  Scorecard Upgrade (Cont.)

Congressional Scorecard table (default — House GOP)

Representatives with perfect scores for 114th Congress, Session 2 (2015)

Justin Amash (MI-03)

Ken Buck (CO-04)

Walter Jones (NC-03)

Thomas Massie (KY-04)

We encourage all members to share these alerts with interested personal contacts, while adding their own comments.

Freedom First Society member,

Exciting news: Delaware just recently rescinded all of its previous Con-con calls!!

Please write (or email) your state senator and representative in opposition to any call for an Article V Convention. As Andrew Carver stressed in the July Action Report: “Most state legislatures are in recess, and all but a few will be starting brand new legislatures next year — the best time to introduce new rescission calls or to nip new Con-con calls in the bud.”

We have provided you with some talking points below to make it easier for you to formulate your letter.

Note: An effective “first” letter to a legislator on any topic should be short and contain these three elements in order:

1. State clearly your position (e.g., I oppose any Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution)

2. Provide 1 to 3 reasons to support your position. (e.g. Such an amendment would do nothing to force a Congress that regularly ignores the limits of the Constitution to do otherwise and reverse the decades of accumulation of unconstitutional programs and departments – the real problem).

3. Politely ask your legislator to do something (e.g., please assure me of your strong opposition to an Article V convention).

Regards,

Tom Gow

Talking Points

In support of your position, select 2 or 3 of the talking points below. Feel free to reword any of the talking points. In your selection, if you are a member of a Chapter, try not to duplicate the selections of other members of your Chapter (or else word your selections differently). This means working with your Chapter Leader.

1. Forcing Congress to pass a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution is a misleading solution to the wrong problem. It blames the Constitution for the unconstitutional spending regularly approved by both houses.

2. A simple majority in either chamber of Congress could demand a balanced budget whenever it had the will to do so.   What is needed is to build informed pressure from back home to force Congress to roll back and eliminate unconstitutional overreach.

3. Past constitutional conventions at the state level have proven impossible to keep out of the control of special, powerful interests (e.g., the Utah convention that ratified, ironically, the repeal of Prohibition). How can we glibly assume that this danger will not derail an Article V convention?

4. State conventions happen all the time, and they are always understood to be based on the people’s power to change their (state) constitutions and (state) governments. [You, as a state legislator, know this.] The state conventions between the time of the Declaration and our U.S. Constitutional Convention show clear signs that this was the assumption even back then. So that is the understanding, and context, behind Article V: the people can alter their Constitution any way they please, their conventions are not limited or controlled by Congress, NOR by any state legislature, which after all they created themselves.

5. Despite its promoted objectives, a modern Con-con would most assuredly play into the hands of the enemies of limited government. In 1987, Leftist Gore Vidal wrote: “I am one of the few people outside of an institution who would like to see a new constitutional convention.”

6. America’s Founders feared a second Con-con. Deputy Charles Pinkney of South Carolina insisted: “Conventions are serious things and ought not to be repeated.”  In a 1788 letter, “Father of the Constitution” James Madison wrote: “Having witnessed the difficulties and dangers experienced by the first Convention which assembled under every propitious circumstance, I should tremble for the result of a second….”

7. America is suffering from very real problems stemming largely from a failure of government to respect the limits of the Constitution. America desperately needs real leadership to solve these problems. Instead, America is receiving false leadership that is deceptively pushing for a second constitutional convention as the remedy.

8. Popularized “conservative” media personalities have falsely maintained that amending the Constitution through an Article V Convention is a last great opportunity to rein in out-of-control government. Instead, the people must force Congress to obey constitutional limits that have been widely ignored for decades.

9. Advocates of a modern Con-con have falsely assured their followers that legislatures can limit an Article V contention to single topics and that there is no danger of a runaway convention. But, as Senator Sam Irwin who researched the subject concluded in 1967: “We the People cannot be held to any single issue once we convene our convention. If we so choose, the entire Constitution could be rewritten.” Many other top legal scholars have concurred.
10. The enticing promise of a quick fix via a state-initiated Con-con relies on an entirely false premise that there is little outside stubborn Washington politics standing in the way of making sound change.  Such a convenient view ignores the massive influences that have labored for decades to push America off track and centralize more and more unconstitutional power in Washington.
11. The forces of revolution that dominate the major media and influence the thinking of millions of Americans will not be defeated by any quick fix, in particular by a modern Con-con. In fact, they would most likely dominate the environment in which a modern Con- con would do its work.
12. What America faces is an enforcement problem with the Constitution as it is written. The size and scope of our federal government has exploded precisely because most of what it now does is not permitted by the Constitution.  Passing more laws to address a failure to enforce existing laws makes no sense.
13. A federal government that fails to obey the Constitution as it is now written will not be reined in by adding restraints to the document when the politicians and media never mention existing limits that have been ignored.
14. The Constitution is not responsible for out-of-control spending and government. There is absolutely no constitutional authorization for a Department of Education or a Department of Housing and Urban Development, or for federal involvement in health care and countless other areas.
15. The demand for a Balanced Budget Amendment ignores the origins of a debt problem that did not exist for the majority of our nation’s history. Adherence to the Constitution is the original balanced budget mechanism.
16. Most of the champions of a Balanced Budget Amendment have no intention of forcing the federal government to live within the limits prescribed by the Constitution.  Merely forcing the federal government to spend no more than it takes in in taxes does not address the need to roll back federal overreach and pay down the national debt.
17. The idea that the federal government should spend “only as much as the people can afford to pay in taxes” is a dangerous argument that would lead to more taxation while obscuring the real problem — a federal government that does not respect the limits of the Constitution.
18. The Constitution gives the House of Representatives power over the purse. With this power alone a determined House could force a roll back of unconstitutional government. No Balanced Budget Amendment is needed.
19. A Balanced Budget Amendment is no cure for out-of-control government nor a serious method for imposing fiscal restraint. Most Balance Budget Amendment proposals still allow deficits in time of war, serious military conflict, or even a 3/5 vote of Congress. When in recent times has the nation not been involved in some foreign conflict?
20. State legislatures cannot rely on ratification as a protection against anything ill-advised coming out of a convention. As an example, repeal of prohibition (the 21st amendment) was approved in Utah (the non-drinking Mormon state) via public conventions that bypassed its State Legislature. Moreover, a constitutional convention can change the mode of ratification, as did the original convention.
21. The BBA amendment proposal is a deceitful ploy to placate the people with the promise of a long-term solution (ratification could take up to seven years, once a proposed amendment is delivered to the states) while the problem grows even worse.   By contrast, Congress could balance the budget in the next fiscal year, using the Constitution as the standard and its power of the purse, if it had the support of an informed public.
22. Many false statements about the purpose of Article V circulate, often with outrageous misquotes of George Mason. Mason viewed Article V, not as a means to control “an out-of-control” federal government (the Constitution was written to do this) but rather a remedy should Congress refuse to introduce amendments desired by the people.

Dear Member,

Here is a link to our July 2016 Action Report.

For convenient reference, here is a link to last month’s Report: June 2016 Action Report.

To assist you in navigating our website, we are also including here some convenient links to items mentioned in this and recent Reports.

Convenient Links to Discussed Resources:

Topic:  The Presidential Race

“The Election-Year Illusion,”Tangents & Traps

“The Great American Swindle,” August 2007

Topic: Concerted Action

“The Truth Warming Alarmists Don’t Want You To Know About The Climate Models,” Investor’s Business Daily (5-25-16)

“Three Facts Prove Climate Alarm Is a Scam,” by Larry Bell (Newsmax, 5-31-16)

Topic:  Campaign for Decency — Curb the Courts

Model Resolution (downloadable PDF)

“Culture War” Campaign Action Report

Topic:  Save our Constitution!

“Dagger in the Heart” Campaign Action Report

“The Danger of a Convention of States” by Don Fotheringham

“Top Constitution Scholars Weigh in on Article V”

Topic:  Scorecard Upgrade (Cont.)

Congressional Scorecard table (default — House GOP)

We encourage all members to share these alerts with interested personal contacts, while adding their own comments.

Dear Member,

Here is a link to our June 2016 Action Report.

For convenient reference, here is a link to last month’s Report: May 2016 Action Report.

To assist you in navigating our redesigned website, we are also including here some convenient links to items mentioned in this and recent Reports.

Convenient Links to Discussed Resources:

Topic:  The Real Reason: 

“Gender Ideology Harms Children” — American College of Pediatricians, updated 4-6-16

“Culture War” Campaign Action Report

Topic:  Save our Constitution!

“Status of Current Con-con Resolutions by State”

“Dagger in the Heart” Campaign Action Report

“The Danger of a Convention of States” by Don Fotheringham

“Top Constitution Scholars Weigh in on Article V”

Topic:  Congress: Just Vote the Constitution!

“The Power of the Purse” by Tom Gow

Topic:  Campaign for Decency — Curb the Courts

Model Resolution (downloadable PDF)

We encourage all members to share these alerts with interested personal contacts, while adding their own comments.

Dear Member,

Here is a link to our May 2016 Action Report.

For convenient reference, here is a link to last month’s Report: April 2016 Action Report.

To assist you in navigating our redesigned website, we are also including here some convenient links to items mentioned in this and recent Reports.

Convenient Links to Discussed Resources:

Topic:  Media Treason

FFS Review of The Deniers

Investor’s Business Daily (4-14-16): “Father Of Global Warming Admits: It Used To Be Hotter Than It Is Now”

Investor’s Business Daily (12-31-15): “Three More Global Warming Stories Media Don’t Want You To See”

Topic:  Save our Constitution!

“Status of Current Con-con Resolutions by State”

“Dagger in the Heart” Campaign Action Report

“The Sovereign Dynamic” by Don Fotheringham

“The Danger of a Convention of States” by Don Fotheringham (Examines the Assembly of State Legislatures)

“If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix it!” by Andrew Carver

Topic:  Congress: Just Vote the Constitution!

“The Power of the Purse” by Tom Gow 

GOP Senate Vote on Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 (Senate Vote 294, H.R. 1314, 10-30-15)

GOP House Vote on Consolidated FY2016 Appropriations Act (House Roll Call 705, H.R. 2019, 12-18-15)

GOP Senate Vote on Consolidated FY2016 Appropriations Act (Senate Vote 339, H.R. 2029, 12-18-15)

Topic:  Campaign for Decency — Curb the Courts

“Culture War” Campaign Action Report

Model Resolution (downloadable PDF)

We encourage all members to share these alerts with interested personal contacts, while adding their own comments.

Dear Member,

Here is a link to our April 2016 Action Report.

To assist you in navigating our redesigned website, we are also including here some convenient links to items mentioned in the Report.

Convenient Links to Discussed Resources:

Topic:  “Concealed” Power of the Pruse

“Celebrating 50 years of Creating Opportunity” — ugh!  (U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development video)

GOP Senate Vote on Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 (Senate Vote 294, H.R. 1314, 10-30-15)

GOP House Vote on Consolidated FY2016 Appropriations Act (House Roll Call 705, H.R. 2019, 12-18-15)

GOP Senate Vote on Consolidated FY2016 Appropriations Act (Senate Vote 339, H.R. 2029, 12-18-15)

“The Power of the Purse” by Tom Gow

Topic:  Save our Constitution!

“The Sovereign Dynamic” by Don Fotheringham

“The Danger of a Convention of States” by Don Fotheringham (Examines the Assembly of State Legislatures)

“Status of Current Con-con Resolutions by State”

“Dagger in the Heart” Campaign Action Report

“If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix it!” by Andrew Carver

Topic:  Campaign for Decency — Curb the Courts

“Culture War” Campaign Action Report

Model Resolution (downloadable PDF)

We encourage all members to share these alerts with interested personal contacts, while adding their own comments.

Dear Member,

Here is a link to our March 2016 Action Report.

To assist you in navigating our redesigned website, we are also including here some convenient links to items mentioned in the Report.

Convenient Links to Discussed Resources:

Topic:  Save our Constitution!

“Status of Current Con-con Resolutions by State”

“Dagger in the Heart” Campaign Action Report

“If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix it!” by Andrew Carver

Topic:  Campaign for Decency — Curb the Courts

“Culture War” Campaign Action Report

Model Resolution (downloadable PDF)

Topics:  FFS Congressional Scorecard/Pending Legislation

GOP House Vote on Consolidated FY2016 Appropriations Act

GOP Senate Vote on Consolidated FY2016 Appropriations Act

“The Power of the Purse” by Tom Gow

We encourage all members to share these alerts with interested personal contacts, while adding their own comments.

Dear Member,

Two states (Tennessee and Florida) have already passed Con-con resolutions this year, and resolutions have passed single chambers in other states.

The speed with which several measures have traveled through state legislatures is quite alarming.  We saw nothing like this last year.

The well funded Con-con proponents seem to have adopted a strategy of devoting extensive preparation to specific measures planned (or already introduced) in selected states.  They then “pre-set the dials” on these measures, so that when unleashed they will move with terrific speed — leaving opponents wondering what hit them.

Requested actions:

1.  Please immediately check Andrew Carver’s updated  status of con-con resolutions to see the status in your state and revisit it regularly.

(See http://freedomfirstsociety.org/status-of-current-con-con-resolutions-by-state/)

2.  Contact your state legislators in opposition to any and all Con-con resolutions.  Do this regardless of the status shown in our chart.

3.  If you would like to be on a short list of members ready and willing to take quick action in response to an alert from Andy Carver, please respond to this email accordingly.

 

Dear Member,

Here is a link to our February 2016 Action Report.

To assist you in navigating our redesigned website, we are also including here some convenient links to items mentioned in the Report.

Convenient Links to Discussed Resources:

Topic:  Save the Constitution!

“Dagger in the Heart” Campaign Action Report

“If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix it!” by Andrew Carver

“Status of Current Con-con Resolutions by State”

Topic: Campaign for Decency — Curb the Courts

 “Culture War” Campaign Action Report

Model Resolution (downloadable PDF)

Topics:  FFS Congressional Scorecard/Pending Legislation

GOP House Vote on Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015

GOP Senate Vote Analysis on Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015

“The Power of the Purse” by Tom Gow

We encourage all members to share these alerts with interested personal contacts, while adding their own comments.

Dear Member,

Here is a link to our January 2016 Action Report.

To assist you in navigating our redesigned website, we are also including here some convenient links to items mentioned in the Report.

Convenient Links to Discussed Resources:

Topic:  Gun Violence or People Violence?

“End the Gun Epidemic in America,” front-page editorial, New York Times (12-4-15)

Topic:  Climate Change

FFS online review (“A Masterful Wake-up Call”) of Steve Milloy’s Green Hell 

Topic:  Save the Constitution!

“If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix it!” by Andrew Carver

“Status of Current Con-con Resolutions by State”

“Dagger in the Heart” Campaign Action Report

RNC “RESOLUTION OPPOSING A CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION (see page 6)

Topic: Campaign for Decency — Curb the Courts

 “Culture War” Campaign Action Report

“For Whom the Court Toils” by Andrew Carver

“Time to Curb the Court” by Don Fotheringham

Model Resolution (downloadable PDF)

Topics:  FFS Congressional Scorecard/Pending Legislation

“The Power of the Purse” by Tom Gow

Topic: Our December 2015 Action Report.

We encourage all members to share these alerts with interested personal contacts, while adding their own comments.