Freedom First Society

Multiculturalism Exposed

In 2015, following deadly terrorist attacks in Paris, congressmen floated several proposals to pause and even limit refugee immigration from Syria. More than half of the state governors said they would not accept Syrian refugees.

However, President Obama, supported by fellow liberals, objected that such action “is offensive and contrary to American values.” In doing so, he was defending the politically correct agenda of multiculturalism.

Gauging by the liberal reaction, it was no surprise that when President Trump took office in January 2017 and ordered a temporary halt on immigration from certain Middle East countries, organizations such as the ACLU would oppose any such restrictions in successful court challenges.

However, the claim that an American founding principle demands an open door policy toward mass immigration from diverse cultures is a recently contrived myth. In fact, it’s a subversive rewriting of history.

Reacting to the Obama claim, conservative columnist Michelle Malkin provided an excellent summary of the opinions of America’s Founding Fathers regarding immigration. As she showed, they were opposed to importing cultural diversity and would have abhorred the goal of “multiculturalism.”

Our Founding Fathers wanted immigration to support a distinctly American culture, a culture that could be counted on to support the principles of freedom as derived from the lessons of Western history.

Indeed, as Malkin wrote: “Madison argued plainly that America should welcome the immigrant who could assimilate, but exclude the immigrant who could not readily ‘incorporate himself into our society.’”

And she recounted an even more explicit statement by George Washington: “George Washington, in a letter to John Adams, similarly emphasized that immigrants should be absorbed into American life so that ‘by an intermixture with our people, they, or their descendants, get assimilated to our customs, measures, laws: in a word soon become one people.’”

At the birth of the American experiment in freedom, our Founding Fathers knew from their study of history that cultural diversity in a nation is not a strength but a burden and often a source of major conflict.

We highly recommend reading Malkin’s entire article: “Immigration and Our Founding Fathers’ Values.” But then go a critical step further.

The Critical Lesson

Malkin offers only ideological arguments to oppose the multiculturalism assault in an ostensible battle with “No-limits liberals.” But this “safe ideological approach,” the norm with most popular conservative writers, conceals an immense driving danger, thus failing to sound the clear trumpet called for in 1 Corinthians 14:8.

Indeed, further research shows that Internationalist Insiders and their foundations are the drivers of both “the open borders movement” and “multiculturalism.” Their clear objective with these programs is to gain unaccountable power. And the pathway to their ultimate success requires the destruction of the culture necessary to support republican (rule of law) government and the associated undermining of America’s ability to resist totalitarian world government.

We summarize the “open borders” part of that story in Chapter 7 “Immigration Reform” of our Media-Controlled Delusion booklet. As visitors will see, even the front-line drivers are not limited to liberals.

For example, the above Chapter 7 recounts the support given by the Wall Street Journal. The late Robert L. Bartley served as its editorial page editor for 30 years. While adopting the image of a conservative free-market Republican, in 1979 Bartley was invited to join the Establishment’s Council on Foreign Relations. In a 2001 editorial, entitled “Open NAFTA Borders? Why Not?” Bartley wrote:

Reformist Mexican President Vicente Fox raises eyebrows with his suggestion that over a decade or two NAFTA should evolve into something like the European Union, with open borders for not only goods and investment but also people. He can rest assured that there is one voice north of the Rio Grande that supports his vision. To wit, this newspaper….

Indeed, during the immigration debate of 1984 we suggested an ultimate goal to guide passing policies — a constitutional amendment: “There shall be open borders.

Origins of Multiculturalism

The public advocates of revolutionary change often wear the liberal cloak and offer ideological arguments to support their agenda. However, if we “follow the money” we can recognize the real drivers and their goals.

Historian Oswald Spengler in his classic Decline of the West astutely concluded:

There is no proletarian, not even a Communist, movement, that has not operated in the interest of money, in the directions indicated by money, and for the time permitted by money — and that, without the idealist amongst its leaders having the slightest suspicion of the fact.

In a 1992 article, Father James Thornton observed: “Though wild-eyed it definitely is, multiculturalism has Establishment support through the lavishly financed programs of the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and other tax-supported and tax-exempt organizations.”

And multiculturalism also follows the strategy advocated by Italian Communist theorist Antonio Gramsci for achieving “cultural hegemony” over a nation. The first phase in his strategy is to undermine all elements of traditional culture.

Gramsci’s thinking, perpetuated by his disciples, has had significant impact on revolutionary organizations in America today, as well as on their big-money sponsors. Rudi Dutschke, one of Gramsci’s disciples, described the strategy of culture war as conducting “the long march through the institutions.”

In short, our point is that one cannot oppose revolutionary programs effectively by getting caught up in merely debating their public proposals. Ignoring the driving conspiratorial agenda is simply a no-win strategy, a widespread practice that neutralizes conservatives. Instead, we need to help others recognize the pervasive cultural attack, how it’s organized, and its real totalitarian purpose.

Just One Example

A 2004 Department of Education publication, “ACHIEVING DIVERSITY: RACE-NEUTRAL ALTERNATIVES IN AMERICAN EDUCATION,” includes these introductory remarks:

The diversity question in America now is not “Whether?” but “How?” The Supreme Court’s decisions in the Michigan affirmative action litigation affirm that our shared commitment to diversity is both compelling and just when pursued within lawful parameters. In light of these decisions, President George W. Bush has challenged the education community to develop innovative ways to achieve diversity in our schools without falling back upon illegal quotas. Most educational leaders, particularly at the postsecondary level, agree with the importance of this goal. [Emphasis added.]

Of course, they do. The reason why America became saddled with an unconstitutional Department of Education was to mold public education to achieve revolutionary goals, using federal money as a carrot and stick.

Among the report’s introductory remarks, we see the George W. Bush administration’s stamp of approval:

President George W. Bush has said that diversity is one of America’s greatest strengths and has encouraged the development of race-neutral alternatives to achieve diversity in educational institutions.

Using the federal hammer to promote commonsense racial opportunity no longer masks fed-gov’s primary diversity objective. Indeed, multiculturalist pressure disparages assimilation into America’s defining culture, while glorifying other cultures, including homosexuality — you name it.

But if Americans are asked to oppose such programs as merely misguided, who will prepare himself for the battle? Indeed, it is necessary to understand the big picture before there will be sufficient alarm to organize the needed resistance.

Voter-Supplied Backbone Needed!

On May 3rd, the House approved a massive $1.07 trillion appropriations bill to finish off the last 5 months of FY 2017 (which ends on September 30th). The Senate followed suit the next day, and on May 5th President Trump signed it into law.

In any omnibus spending bill, there is good mixed with the bad. That’s one reason why omnibus appropriations are so destructive — the “good” in the bill makes it easier to obtain congressional support. And proponents of this measure argued that there was something in this legislation for everyone — except, of course, for those who have to pay the bill and whose liberty is threatened by the federal monster.

It is easy to assess the 1,665-page measure, the product of a “bipartisan deal,” from the fact that only 15 House Democrats opposed it. The good news is that GOP support was split 131 in favor to 103 against. (In the Senate, the only opposition came from 18 Republican Senators.)

AP (5-3-17) reported that both President Trump and Speaker Paul Ryan “declared victory, but the opinions of top party leaders were not shared by the rank and file…. Negotiators on the bill say it looks pretty much like the measure would have looked like if it had been ironed out last year under Obama — save for Trump’s add-ons for the Pentagon and the border.”

Why did 103 House Republicans buck their party leadership to vote against this measure? Certainly, not because they are all committed constitutionalists. It’s because they know they have to face the voters back home and ward off any challenges to their reelection.

This shows that an organized effort to build a much better informed electorate can still help Americans fix the direction of the House and unleash its power to battle the other branches effectively.

Wielding the Power of the Purse

Two widely perpetuated myths provide cover for the House’s unwillingness to use its power of the purse to trim spending. The first is the notion that when pushed against deadlines the House needs to include all 12 appropriations measures in a single omnibus measure for an up-or-down vote. With an omnibus bill, the big spenders can use the specter of a government-wide shutdown to scare a public increasingly dependent on federal spending in order to obtain congressional support.

In reality, the House could easily schedule several independent votes and play hardball with one or more of the areas. In fact, in the case of the just completed FY 2017 appropriations, the least controversial of the 12 regular measures — Military Construction, the Department of Veteran Affairs — was passed and became law last September.

In the new 115th Congress, the House passed appropriations for the Department of Defense on March 8. There was no need for the House to include that measure again in an omnibus measure: A tough House would demand that the Senate deal with the House bill already before it. The bottom line is that we need to insist that our representatives refuse to support omnibus appropriations measures.

The Compromise Myth

The other destructive myth is an ostensible need for compromise. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell repeated it recently when he stated that spending bills “cannot be done by one party alone.” The idea that appropriation legislation has to be a compromise with socialists, as happened here, is a sure road to our destruction.

The Founding Fathers gave the House the power of the purse so that an informed public could use its leverage with their elected representatives to give government its marching orders.

Separate votes on the 12 appropriations measures would help restore the House’s leverage. Unfortunately, that is not the program of the House leadership. House Speaker Paul Ryan speaks often of returning to regular order (12 independent votes), but Ryan and his GOP predecessors are always willing to kick this can down the road to the following year.

The Usual Charade

Once the FY2017 appropriations were completed, the White House sent Congress a proposed budget for FY2018. Although presidential budgets are merely an administration’s statement of priorities, in no way binding on Congress, the Trump budget is instructive.

The plan proposes to balance the budget in 10 years, while allowing next year’s deficit to increase. We’ve heard such promises many times before. Moreover, as along as the notion persists that federal spending must be a compromise with socialists, such a projection is certainly nonsense. And it’s certainly nonsense with the current Congress and media-controlled voter understanding.

Of course, Democratic leaders immediately railed against the plan’s proposed cuts, thereby helping to create the illusion that the budget is fiscally conservative.

Our real leverage is in helping others understand the issues and the voting record of their congressman. Building informed constituent pressure is the key to obtaining a Congress responsive to the Constitution. And sharing our online scorecard for an individual congressman or printed copies is a great way to start.

[Note: Once there are enough significant votes for us to update our scorecard for the current session of Congress, the House and Senate votes on the above $1.07 trillion “Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2017” will certainly be included. In the meantime, please use these links to the official voting records for each chamber: House Roll Call 249 (5-3-17) and Senate Vote 121 (5-4-17). (Both are still misleadingly titled as the HIRE Vets Act, the vehicle used by the House).]

Renegotiate NAFTA? No Way! — Get US out!

“Making good on a campaign promise, the Trump administration formally told Congress Thursday that it intends to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico….

“Last month, White House aides spread word that Trump was ready to pull out of NAFTA. Within hours, the president reversed course and said that he’d seek a better deal first.”
— “Trump administration announces plans to renegotiate NAFTA,” AP, 5-18-17

NAFTA has unquestionably exacerbated U.S. manufacturing and capital flight, with a corresponding decline in quality jobs and middle class opportunity.

However, “trade pacts” such as NAFTA involve much more than lowering tariff barriers to regional trade. They set up governing institutions, contrary to our Constitution. And improving prosperity through increased trade is never the objective.

Indeed, the discussion of NAFTA as a mere trade agreement acts as a smokescreen, obscuring the fact that NAFTA is an Internationalist-designed trap targeting our national independence and freedom.

The national press omits any mention of the real reason that Internationalists worked so hard to have the U.S. accept NAFTA. Although NAFTA was sold as a conservative “free trade” agreement, its real purpose was to erode the sovereignty of independent nations with an ultimate goal of capturing them under a totalitarian world government ruled by elites. Recall that the precursor stages to the European Union (e.g., the Common Market) were misleading sold as just an economic arrangement.

Progressive Regionalization

Rather than trying to deceive the public into submitting to a world authority in one step, the Internationalists have promoted a “regionalism” strategy, modeled on the successful tactic use to ensnare nations in the European Union. The Fall 1991 issue of the CFR’s [Council on Foreign Relations] Foreign Affairs confirmed that the Internationalists saw NAFTA as following in the EU’s footsteps:

The creation of trinational dispute-resolution mechanisms and rule-making bodies on border and environmental issues may also be embryonic forms of more comprehensive structures. After all, international organizations and agreements like GATT and NAFTA by definition minimize assertions of sovereignty in favor of a joint rule-making authority.

Both David Rockefeller (former CFR chairman) and CFR heavyweight Henry Kissinger lobbied in the nation’s press for NAFTA, candidly claiming that NAFTA was a steppingstone to something larger. In a 1993 column that appeared in the July 18 Los Angeles Times, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger declared:

It [NAFTA] will represent the most creative step toward a new world order taken by any group of countries since the end of the Cold War, and the first step toward an even larger vision of a free-trade zone for the entire Western Hemisphere…. [NAFTA] is not a conventional trade agreement, but the architecture of a new international system.

A few months later, David Rockefeller championed the agreement in the Wall Street Journal: “Everything is in place — after 500 years — to build a true ‘new world’ in the Western Hemisphere,” Rockefeller enthused, adding “I don’t think that ‘criminal’ would be too strong a word to describe … rejecting NAFTA.”

Submitting to WTO “Authority”

The World Trade Organization is another element of the elitist architecture for ruling the world. A recent news report illustrates how U.S. decision-making has been delegated to a body over which Americans have no control:

Mexico can impose annual trade sanctions worth $163.23 million against the United States after winning a dispute over trade in tuna fish, a World Trade Organization arbitrator ruled on Tuesday….

However, the ruling could be overturned later this year if a subsequent WTO decision finds the United States has stopped discriminating against tuna caught by its southern neighbor. — “WTO lets Mexico slap trade sanctions on U.S. in tuna dispute,” Reuters, 4-25-17

The “Just Promoting Trade” Deception Continues

The Peterson Institute, a “think tank” named after Peter G. Peterson, Chairman Emeritus of the Internationalists’ Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) has long been a driver of “progressive regionalization” under the cover of promoting trade. Indeed, the opening AP report cites comments from Gary Hufbauer, member of the CFR and former VP of the CFR, 1997-98, lending credence to the pretext that NAFTA is just an orderly way to promote regional trade:

Gary Hufbauer, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute, said the United States could seek modest “technocratic” changes, including provisions to update NAFTA to reflect technologies that have emerged since the original agreement was negotiated.

In 1994, Hufbauer had co-authored a study for the Institute, entitled “Western Hemisphere Economic Integration.”

For further explanation of the deceptive Internationalist strategy of “progressive regionalism,” of which NAFTA is a part, please see Chapter 6, “Free Trade Pacts” in our booklet Media-Controlled Delusion. Chapter 6 concludes:

[T]he so-called national debate over trade totally ignores the real purpose of post-World War II regional trade pacts — to create unaccountable regional authorities at the expense of the sovereignty of the nation-state. Our national survival requires that this agenda be exposed, understood, and defeated.

Renegotiating NAFTA is not the road to prosperity. Instead, validating NAFTA through renegotiation strengthens the Internationalist power grab targeting our survival as a free nation.

Ryan-TrumpCare

“[M]y plan … unapologetically seeks to apply our nation’s timeless principles … to today’s challenges. It does so in a way that honors our historic commitment to strengthening the social safety net for those who need it most…. It fixes what is broken in our health-care system without breaking what is working.” [Emphasis added.]
— Paul Ryan, Young Guns: A New Generation of Conservative Leaders, 2011

“Scott Pelley: Universal health care? Donald Trump: I am going to take care of everybody. I don’t care if it costs me votes or not. Everybody’s going to be taken care of much better than they’re taken care of now.” [Emphasis added.]
— 60 Minutes, 9-27-15

The claim that the federal government should provide welfare has no basis in the design of America’s Founders. However, socialists rely on precisely that notion to create an ever-larger federal monster.

Unfortunately, hardly anyone in politics today acknowledges that to make America great again (and safeguard our liberties) we must get the federal government entirely out of the health care and health insurance businesses.

Ravages of Obamacare

Obamacare took federal welfare and control of the health insurance market a giant step forward:

“The Affordable Care Act expanded coverage to about 20 million more Americans by setting up state exchanges, where people could buy insurance with subsidies based on their income, and by giving states federal money to expand Medicaid to more of their populations.” — Yahoo News, 3-10-17

Since the law’s inception, Republicans have campaigned on the need to repeal Obamacare. Unfortunately, many have also embraced the goal of replacing it, thereby affirming that Obamacare addressed a legitimate need. More than a year ago, Rep. Raul Labrador (R-Idaho) correctly emphasized: “Replacing Obamacare is just actually replacing it with another government-run program and I think some of us as conservatives don’t want the government to be running that.” — Roll Call, 1-7-16

Bipartisan Treason

For decades, both parties have supported unconstitutional federal expansion.

One astute analyst recently assailed the Republicans for regularly following a ratchet pattern. On the campaign trail, they rail against Democrat-supported big-government. But once they gain the majority, their leadership simply adopts the previous socialist inroads as the baseline, makes a few tweaks, and calls it progress.

Opposition limited to defending against further expansion of federal authority can only lead to disaster. Major rollbacks must be the goal.

The American Health Care Act (AHCA)

So now that the Republicans control the White House as well as the House and the Senate, what about their proposal, the American Health Care Act?

Presented as part of a GOP plan to repeal and replace Obamacare, the AHCA would do neither. More than a dozen congressmen protested the betrayal:

“[M]embers of the House Freedom Caucus, backed by conservative Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Mike Lee of Utah, have said that it doesn’t keep faith with the GOP’s promise to unravel Obamacare.” — Roll Call, 3-10-17

“‘It’s Obamacare in a different format,’ Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio … said in a phone interview.” — The Atlantic.com, 3-6-17

“The House Republican leadership plan — quite frankly it is the largest welfare program that Republicans have sponsored in the history of the Republican Party.” — Rep. Mo Brooks (Ala.), “Rep. Mo Brooks: AHCA ‘Largest Welfare Program’ Sponsored By GOP,” MSNBC interview, 3-16-17, on YouTube

Conservative Review Senior Editor Daniel Horowitz makes a strong case that the AHCA is actually worse politics and policy than Obamacare. In a March 7th article, “RINO-Care: A more insolvent version of Obamacare … except this time GOP owns it,” Horowitz points out that the Ryan plan, with strong support from President Trump, would leave most of the regulatory structure and the exchanges in place.

And once the Republicans take ownership of this massive entitlement expansion, the challenge to undo the damage increases dramatically.

See No Evil

Yet the betrayal is even worse. Socialism is not a misguided humanitarian plan promoted by do-gooders. It is an evil deception. The humanitarian pretext cleverly serves to advance and cloak a totalitarian power grab.

Such is especially the case with socialized medicine. The socialist breakthrough came in 1965 with the enactment of King-Anderson (Medicare), but only after decades of infiltration and preparation by Fabian Socialist organizers, their Americans for Democratic Action front, and radical union organizer Walter Reuther. (See Media-Controlled Delusion, Chapter 1 Socialized Medicine and Code Blue, by Edward R. Annis, M.D., past president of the A.M.A.)

In a February 19 post, “Repeal and Replace (Big Brother!),” before the details of the Ryan plan became known, we predicted: “[T]hose expecting real progress will be deceived, because the media reports and political claims carefully avoid what is essential for the public to understand.” And what are those omissions? We identified three, quoted from our from Media-Controlled Delusion booklet:

“First, almost no one dares mention that the Constitution does not permit any federal involvement in health care (other than to provide for the military and its own employees).”

“Next, federal involvement locks in the third-party payer system (where someone other than the patient pays for even routine costs). The third-party payer system bears a good share of the responsibility for ballooning costs. Another primary source of rising costs is the immense federal bureaucracy created to manage the system.”

“By far the most serious omission in the health care ‘debate,’ however, is its failure to address the revolutionary organization, the deceptions, and the ulterior motive driving the steady expansion of federal authority…. The revolutionary socialist network extends back more than a century. The goal of this network is central control of virtually every human activity (socialism) and world government.” [Emphasis added.]

What to Do?

Currently, there is nowhere near a majority in Congress with the will to do the right thing — get the government out. Many Republicans will seek compromise with liberals in violation of the Constitution, claiming they are negotiating the best deal possible.

But that is a betrayal, too. The deal may appear to slow down our enslavement, but it deceives the public. The only responsible course for a principled congressman is to vote against the continuation of unconstitutional programs.

Despite lobbying by President Trump, Vice President Pence, and House Speaker Ryan, a number of conservative congressmen steadfastly refused to support the Ryan plan. As we go to press, House leaders twice abandoned a scheduled vote due to insufficient support.

Achieving a majority of principled congressmen in Washington cannot occur until there is more understanding created back home. Former Congressman Lawrence P. McDonald (D-Georgia) showed that he could vote on principle and get re-elected, despite Establishment attacks, because his district had a strong base of informed voters.

As the patriot Robert Welch emphasized, “All we must find and build and use, to win, is sufficient understanding.” And that takes strong organization that is committed to correct principles and understands the forces working to enslave us.

The Betrayal Known as ‘Immigration Reform’

“If the president chooses to embrace an overhaul that lets [illegal] immigrants live and work in the country, it would represent a remarkable betrayal of many of his core supporters that comes just days after he ordered a crackdown aimed at deporting all undocumented [i.e. illegal] immigrants….

“It is unclear why Mr. Trump chose to suddenly contemplate changing direction. Nor is it clear whether the shift will be a lasting one that results in real efforts to build a coalition in Congress behind a comprehensive immigration overhaul that provides what conservatives have long derided as amnesty.”
— “Trump Seesaws on Legal Status for Undocumented Immigrants,”— New York Times, March 1, 2017

The American people have long wanted our federal immigration laws enforced. But somehow that seems too difficult for our government to handle.

Is that because enforcing immigration law is really difficult? Is it like rocket science? Have we still not figured out how to do it?

No, that is not the problem. We know very well how to do it. For example, over 20 years ago the official, bipartisan U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform (widely referred to as the “Jordan Commission”, after its chairwoman, the former Rep. Barbara Jordan) produced some very sound recommendations on how to control illegal immigration. Since then, technology to implement suggestions such as workplace verification of employability has only improved.

The fact that we’ve not really been following these suggestions or enforcing our immigration law shows therefore a lack of political will. Or, to be more accurate, an overabundance of political betrayal.

Semantic Confusion — a Crucial Weapon

A crucial weapon in this betrayal has been the phrase “immigration reform.” It is a time-honored tactic of revolutionaries — including those in Congress and in the media — to manipulate language so as to confuse relevant and important distinctions. For example, “undocumented worker” confuses the surface issue of not having certain valid papers, with the more basic and important issue of being in the country illegally.

The term “immigration reform” has been used, quite cleverly, to confuse very different problems: illegal immigration, and excessive legal immigration. The latter has increasingly been a problem ever since the 1965 amendments to our immigration law.

Most notably, the “chain migration” problem got a foothold through those amendments; and it has grown worse through later changes to the law. It is that problem, in fact, to which President Trump was referring, in his Feb. 28 speech to Congress, when he said that our immigration system needs to become (or more correctly, to get back to being) a “merit-based” system, that screens potential immigrants for merit.

Now, what both sides in the debate mean basically by “immigration reform” is a change to the law regarding who is allowed to reside here: The conservatives want to strengthen this law, in such problem areas as chain migration and visa lotteries; in contrast, the radical left want to see it emasculated, by adding an “amnesty” for illegals currently here.

This being the case, it is only this problem of excessive legal immigration that can, with logic and reason, be a target of “immigration reform.” Whereas the problem of illegal immigration is, and always has been, not a question of better law, but rather, essentially the need to enforce the law.

OK, but why would it be a clever move for the open borders revolutionaries to confuse these two issues together, under the one term “immigration reform”? That is because they want to convince us of what they have been chanting for years and years, that “immigration reform” cannot be truly “comprehensive”, cannot really fix “our immigration problem” (notice the singular), unless it “deals also” with the large number of illegal immigrants we have — by which, of course, they mean what conservatives call an “amnesty.”

Of course, that makes no intelligible sense: The way you deal with a problem of people breaking the law with impunity, is to do away with the impunity! To blame the law for the fact that it is not being enforced, is exactly parallel to, and as illogical as, blaming the Constitution for the fact that Congress is too morally challenged to observe it.

The pertinent question is therefore, “Do you really WANT immigration law, or not?” For to move to put something in the law that fundamentally neuters the law, such as an “amnesty,” is to imply you don’t really want the law. And that is not “reform”; on the contrary, it is demolition.

Buying Into the Deception

OK, but is this catastrophic confusion of enforcement-issue and law-issue something relevant to today’s news? Unfortunately, very much so.

Donald Trump campaigned on the need for immigration-law enforcement, and not the need for immigration-law change. Yet in his first speech to Congress (Feb. 28) — and even more so in comments he made earlier in the day — he changed tracks, indeed he changed trains completely.

Worse yet, the law-change train he jumped onto is that misdirected old train known as “immigration reform” — with all its baggage of betrayal. Earlier in the day, he spelled out more clearly what he had in mind:

Like his predecessors on the day of a State of the Union address, Mr. Trump hosted the journalists for what was supposed to be an unrecorded lunch to give them a sense of what he would tell Congress. But the conversation took a surprising turn when some of the anchors asked about his efforts to deport many of the estimated 11 million immigrants in the country illegally. Without being prompted, Mr. Trump then raised the idea of legislation, noting that there had not been any comprehensive law passed by Congress on the subject since Ronald Reagan’s amnesty program in the 1980s.

He told the anchors it was time for a bill that would grant legal status to many of those in the country illegally as long as both sides compromised, similar to the legislation sought but never passed by George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Mr. Trump said he recognized that it would cause him political problems with his conservative base voters, according to people in the room, but added that he thought he could keep them happy since they had stuck with him throughout last year’s Republican primaries.— “Ever a Showman, Donald Trump Keeps Washington Guessing,” New York Times, February 28, 2017

It is an interesting question, for Trump supporters, why he changed trains — and whether he can indeed “keep them happy” despite that shift. In the meantime, the urgent challenge is to keep him from dragging our nation onto that train in his wake.

In a Nutshell, the Case Against a Con-con

The proponents of an Article V constitutional convention tell us it’s necessary, to save the country. As confirmed opponents, we say that we must at all costs avoid it, to save the country — or at least, to save the Constitution. Yet, so far, it has not been the easiest thing in the world, to get a grasp of either side’s argument.

The burden of proof should surely be on the proponents of a major undertaking of this sort, which, though described in the Constitution, has yet to occur in our entire history. Instead, they lobby largely outside the public view for their unprecedented “solution” and seek no debate. All the more then, do we as opponents of an Article 5 “Con-con” need to identify and understand the principal objections, to help us carry the issue.

Alright, then, what is fundamentally wrong with the Article V Con-con push?

The Alleged Benefits

Let’s start with the alleged benefits of holding an “A5C” (Article V Con-con). The notion most successfully selling state legislatures on an A5C is the idea that THIS is the key to reigning in that out-of-control monster, our federal government. There are even claims that this part of Article V was put into the Constitution precisely as the solution that states might bring into service, like pulling a rabbit out of a hat, should the federal government ever exceed its constitutional bounds.

This recently contrived mythos is outlandishly inaccurate. What Article V says it would call a convention to do, is to propose constitutional amendments. Therefore, to suggest that Article V was put into the Constitution in case the federal government needs reigning in is to suggest that amending the Constitution was considered the key to controlling the federal government.

Yet, almost everything the A5C proponents consider a transgression on the part of the federal government (e.g., spending to bust the budget), and that they claim an amendment would fix, is something the Constitution already outlaws! If the government were obeying NOW the clear mandates of the Constitution, none of these problems would be plaguing us!

Changing the Constitution is the wrong solution to an enforcement problem. The Constitution itself was designed to be, and explicitly portrays itself as, the chains for binding down the federal government.

Of course, we cannot just dismiss it as impossible, that some such amendment might have a beneficial effect. But the suggestion that legislators who disobey large swaths of the Constitution will somehow behave better when faced with an amendment, ought to have the burden of proof. Yet which of the A5C supporters has ever tried to prove this?

The “term limits” Con-con call is somewhat different: Instead of suggesting amendments are magically stronger than the Constitution itself, it suggests that Congress-persons who can run for re-election only so many times will magically behave better than those who can run any number of times. But folk who understand the meaning of “lame duck session” know that congress-people not subject to the ballot box are less likely to behave!

Not every call for an A5C claims, necessarily, that it will save us from government’s bursting of constitutional bounds. But every such call feels an obligation to downplay costs or risks that an A5C may present. And here, we shall see, is where proponents out-do themselves in making up fantastic claims.

The Danger

Proponents want to sell us the line that it is possible to put constraints, ahead of time, on an Article V constitutional convention — so that it will only consider certain topics, and perhaps only follow certain procedures. Yet, as Don Fotheringham explains so clearly and documents so tellingly, in America, the people, not legislatures, are sovereign — over constitutions as well as over governments. “We the People” wrote the Constitution; and that is who will propose amendments to it, or even total rewrites of it, if an Article V constitutional convention occurs.

Is that not what happens in every state today, when a state-constitutional convention is called? This popular-sovereignty principle is built into, not only the Preamble of our current Constitution, but also the very Declaration of Independence that brought the United States into being:

We hold these Truths to be self-evident … [t]hat to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Forms, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

The one historic example we have for a constitutional convention at the federal level, was the one that produced our current Constitution. For proponents of another federal convention, then, it is quite embarrassing that writing a new constitution was not what that first convention’s delegates were sent there to do: they were merely to discuss, debate, and possibly propose some amendments to the then-current Articles of Confederation. But, as James Madison emphasized, the delegates represented the People of the United States — not the state legislatures — and therefore they had autonomy from all legislatures, whether state or federal, in determining the scope as well as the rules of their convention.

So, as Don Fotheringham emphasizes, every state legislator needs to be aware that the same popular sovereignty that applies to any state-constitutional convention these days, would apply also if we should ever have another federal constitutional convention. And that convention would therefore be no more under the control of either Congress or the state legislatures than was that 1787 Convention, which providentially gave us a far more perfect constitution than any convention could be expected to compose today in an environment dominated by pro-Big government media.

Unreliable Protection

One objection that arises at this point sounds reasonable, until you think about it: Since around two-thirds of the state legislatures are dominated by Republicans — goes the claim — we can rest assured that no radical proposal that does away with the Second Amendment, say, or rewrites the whole Constitution, will be ratified by three fourths of the legislatures.

However, there are two false assumptions here: First, the objection overlooks that a constitutional convention has authority, not only to set its own rules, but also to rewrite the rules of how its proposals are to be ratified. The Constitutional Convention of 1787 did exactly that; if it had not, it would have been harder to get our present Constitution ratified!

But even if the A5C resists the temptation to change the ratification rules, that leaves us with the rules laid down in Article V. And there, Congress can choose either of two routes: ratification “by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States, or by conventions in three-fourths thereof.”

As an example that proves how dangerous and uncontrollable the second route is, Utah, the most pro-Prohibition state in the union, ratified the amendment that repealed Prohibition! Conventions, whether state or federal, are innately uncontrollable creatures; and thus, special interests may easily “hijack” them for purposes the People oppose.

Requested Actions:

Contact the legislators in your state and urge them to oppose ANY call for an Article V Constitutional Convention. 2. Share this post with other concerned citizens.

For more support, see our “Expose the Article V Con-con Fraud” campaign page, particularly the opinions of constitutional experts. Useful also, if confronting abusive, ad hominem arguments from the proponents, is an excellent recent piece by Wynne Coleman, of “No Convention of States NC,” on the growing use of such tactics. (Also, see the Heckler-Levin video rant linked therein.)

Repeal and Accept (Big Brother!)

“The firm precept of dialectic materialism, whether expressed as one step backward for two steps forward, or two short steps backward for one long step forward, has always made these concessions to the necessity of deception an absolute requirement and precaution in all Communist progress.”
— Robert Welch, American Opinion, January 1962

To make America truly great again, Americans must force the federal government back under the chains of the Constitution — get the government out of where it does not belong. In just one area — health care — that means completely reversing course, taking Big Brother out of the picture.

As we wrote in Chapter 1 “Socialized Medicine” of our 2015 booklet Media-Controlled Delusion: “Our health care system does need reform — the reform of getting the federal government out.” But that won’t happen until more of the public understands crucial omissions in the so-called health care debate.

GOP Control — What to Expect

With the GOP now in control of the House, the Senate, and the presidency, many voters look forward to the GOP delivering on its six-year-old promises to “repeal and replace” ObamaCare. But those expecting real progress will be deceived, because the media reports and political claims carefully avoid what is essential for the public to understand. We quote from Media-Controlled Delusion:

“First, almost no one dares mention that the Constitution does not permit any federal involvement in health care (other than to provide for the military and its own employees). The once prominent constitutional objections to this usurpation of authority have long been ignored by Republicans and Democrats alike.”

“Next, federal involvement locks in the third-party payer system (where someone other than the patient pays for even routine costs). The third-party payer system bears a good share of the responsibility for ballooning costs. Another primary source of rising costs is the immense federal bureaucracy created to manage the system.”

“By far the most serious omission in the health care ‘debate,’ however, is its failure to address the revolutionary organization, the deceptions, and the ulterior motive driving the steady expansion of federal authority….

“The revolutionary socialist network extends back more than a century. The goal of this network is central control of virtually every human activity (socialism) and world government.” [Emphasis added.]

The humanitarian socialist pretext of caring for the downtrodden is just that — a pretext, a pretext for a power grab to make Americans dependent on Washington for their most basic needs.

That huge century-long revolutionary investment in government control won’t be reversed unless there is much greater public understanding of the powerful forces and subversive agenda promoting it. Until that happens, the political hue and cry of “Repeal and Replace” will at best mean a small step backwards while accepting much of the socialist progress of the long ObamaCare step — in short, net progress toward universal government-controlled health care.

“And that points to one of the most effective ways for revolutionaries to overcome resistance to a loss of liberty — gradualism — proceed in stages so that the end result is not universally obvious.”

We strongly urge readers to check out the linked Chapter 1 of Media-Controlled Delusion, acquaint themselves with the crucial media omissions, particularly the history of the socialized medicine drive, and then share this post widely.

Terrorists Welcome!

It is doubtful whether any of us has ever seen such an audacious judicial usurpation, or one with such serious ramifications, as the decision of federal courts to interrupt President Trump’s temporary travel ban.

Settled case law for 200 years, not to mention the Constitution, says that the Congress and executive branch can regulate immigration in any way and to any extent they please; it is therefore NOT a sort of law upon which judges can bring “judicial review”!

In an article for Conservative Review, Daniel Horowitz, author of Stolen Sovereignty, provides overwhelming arguments as to why this is so.

The full case for why courts have no jurisdiction over Trump’s immigration order

If there remains ANY doubt on the settled nature of this legal point, this list of 16 quotations Daniel Horowitz has just culled from his research should settle the issue. In particular, we draw attention to quotes 10 and 11:

“The power of Congress to exclude aliens altogether from the United States, or to prescribe the terms and conditions upon which they may come to this country, and to have its declared policy in that regard enforced exclusively through executive officers, without judicial intervention, is settled by our previous adjudications.” [Lem Moon Sing v. United States, 158 U. S. 547 (1895)]

“[T]he decision to admit or to exclude an alien may be lawfully placed with the [p]resident, who may in turn delegate the carrying out of this function to a responsible executive officer … The action of the executive officer under such authority is final and conclusive. Whatever the rule may be concerning deportation of persons who have gained entry into the United States, it is not within the province of any court, unless expressly authorized by law, to review the determination of the political branch of the Government to exclude a given alien.” [Knauff v. Shaughnessy, 338 U.S. 543 (1950)]

It will be a disaster if the Trump administration and the “conservative” media accept this perversion of judicial authority. Consider, for example, this less than encouraging response by Vice President Mike Pence to a question as to whether the judge also had the authority to stay the order:

“He certainly does, and that’s why the administration is complying with that order as we speak. And we’ll go through the process in the courts to get a stay of that order, so that, again, we can implement this action that is entirely focused on the safety and security of the American people.” — “Pence Defends Trump ‘Speaking His Mind’ About Federal Judge, Promises ‘All Legal Means’ to Challenge Ruling,” — abcnews (2-14-17)

Please share this post widely!

House Leadership in 2017

In 2012, Freedom First Society reviewed a hot new book, Young Guns — A New Generation of Conservative Leaders, by the three founders of the Young Guns Program: GOP “rising stars” Eric Cantor, Kevin McCarthy, and Paul Ryan.

In our review of Young Guns, we pointed out serious deficiencies in the program championed by these three Republicans, who misleadingly claimed to support the principles of our nation’s Founders.

As the 115th Congress convenes in January of 2017, Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) has been re-elected as the Speaker of the House and Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) continues to serve as House Majority Leader, having filled that position following the upset defeat of their mutual colleague, Virginia Rep. Eric Cantor, in 2014.

To better understand those holding the reins of power in the House today, we urge visitors to read our 2012 Review and share a link to this page with friends and associates.

No Omnibus in the Lame Duck

The September 28th House “debates” over a last-minute continuing resolution to fund the federal government until December 9 (after the November election) were again misleading. They mislead Americans as to the House’s true power over the purse — IF it had the will to use it.

In The Federalist, No. 58, Father of the Constitution James Madison explained the awesome unused power of the purse, which the Constitution assigns to the House of Representatives:

“The House of Representatives can not only refuse, but they alone can propose the supplies requisite for the support of the government. They, in a word, hold the purse — that powerful instrument [for] finally reducing … all the overgrown prerogatives of the other branches of the government. This power over the purse may, in fact, be regarded as the most complete and effectual weapon with which any constitution can arm the immediate representatives of the people for obtaining a redress of every grievance, and for carrying into effect every just and salutary measure.”

Rather than asserting this power, however, the debates claimed that the House needed to work cooperatively with the Senate and the President, while perpetuating the false notion that all parties are sincerely interested in the good of the country.

House Debates (from Congressional Record)

Leading the majority (Republican) debate in the House, Rep. Tom Cole argued:

“Mr. Speaker, as a member of the Appropriations Committee, I am always disappointed when we are forced to consider continuing resolutions, especially given the work this House has done in the appropriations process this fiscal year.

“For 2 years in a row, the House Appropriations Committee was able to complete all 12 appropriations bills–and complete them before the August recess. In addition, this House passed five appropriations bills. Unfortunately, just as in years past, Senate Democrats prevented consideration of many appropriations bills on the floor of that body. This leads us to the unfortunate situation of having to put forward a short-term CR to fund the government through December 9….

“I think it is worth pointing out that you can’t have regular order in the House if you don’t have regular order in the Senate. The real reason we are here is because the Senate has refused consistently to take up appropriations bills that have been passed by this House. At some point, you simply quit passing the bills because the Senate isn’t going to deal with you.” [Emphasis added.]

We would ask, why must the House bear the blame for a government shutdown if the House has done its job? Why not insist that the Senate (and the President), as a minimum, accept the five appropriations bills as the House passed them or bear responsibility for shutting down just that portion of the government?

Actually, the CR package included one of the least controversial of the 12 regular appropriations bills, funding its programs for the entire fiscal year 2017. Appropriations Committee Chairman Harold Rogers pointed out:

“[T]he package contains the full-year Military Construction-VA bill for FY17, which was conferenced by the House and Senate and passed by the House already in June [H.R. 2577, Roll Call 342, H.R. 2577]…. It is important to note that, once the President signs this bill into law, it will be the first time since 2009 that an individual appropriations bill has been conferenced with the Senate and enacted before the September 30 fiscal year deadline.”

Lame Duck Appropriations

When the Congress resumes in the Lame Duck after the election, the leadership of both parties will lobby for either an omnibus appropriations bill, funding the government through September 30, 2017 for the other 11 areas, or for kicking the ball to the next Congress with another short-term continuing resolution. True constitutionalist should not support either option.

While the four appropriations bills passed by the House and not taken up by the Senate may not have been worthy of support individually, constitutionalists in the House should not allow a new CR or omnibus to include those areas. A House that asserts its dominance in appropriations is a necessary base from which to roll back unconstitutional government. And in a world dominated by a hostile Establishment media, that requires regular order.

So, as a minimum, constitutionalists should refuse to vote for any omnibus appropriations bill that includes those four. And best, insist on 11 separate votes.

House Debates (from Congressional Record)

Lame Duck Appropriations

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