If you're a patriotic American who's just sick over the daily unconstitutional usurpations by the federal government of the powers and rights of states, businesses, and individuals, then you must see the two-part video below in which Glenn Beck reads "An Open Letter to Our Nation's Leadership" by Janet Contreras. You can also click here to view the full-text of the letter.

You've likely already heard of "The Letter." This amazing, inspirational letter was emailed to Glenn Beck early in the week of June 15. Beck read the letter on his radio show on June 16 and on his TV show on June 17.

Here's Beck reading Part 1 of the letter. Click on image to view video:

Here's Beck reading Part 2 of the letter. Click on the image below to watch video:

If you haven't seen Beck's inspiring reading of the letter, be sure to click on the two video images above. It's remarkable just how well this letter captures what tens of millions of Americans are thinking about our increasingly out-of-control federal government. This letter will be the next mega-hit for email forwarding. Beyond that I expect it will serve as an effective rallying cry for millions of Americans as they pitch in and help build a massive grassroots movement to bring the federal government back under the control of We the People and the Constitution.

If you've watched the video and/or read this letter, I think you'll agree that Janet has really expressed just how so many of us feel every day about our nation's leadership.

Click here to send Janet's message to your representative and your two senators in the U.S. Congress.

For the constitutionalist antidote to the problems outlined by Janet in her letter, be sure to view "Overview of America:

Let's hope Janet Contreras' inspiring letter does become an effective rallying cry for patriotic Americans as they come to realize that it's now or never for rallying around the Constitution and taking a stand for freedom.
 

A new constitutional convention (Con-Con) initiative, "the Bill of Federalism Project," has been announced on a new website, http://www.federalismamendment.com, which was established by Michael Patrick Leahy on behalf of Professor Randy Barnett's Bill of Federalism proposal. Although the website has apparently been active for a couple weeks already, I just came across it today. This new website provides further evidence for the troubling trend I reported on in my earlier blog, "Constitutional Convention Backers Want to Hijack the Tea Party Movement."

As I explained in "A Con-Con Call to Action for Constitutionalists Across the USA," the high water mark of the balanced budget Con-Con movement occurred in 1983 when Missouri became the 32nd (out of the necessary 34) state to petition Congress to call a constitutional convention. Since that time members and allies of the John Birch Society have been successful in convincing state legislators to refrain from issuing any more Con-Con calls. Furthermore, these members and allies have helped convince state legislators in eleven states to rescind all of their previous constitutional convention calls with Oklahoma becoming the eleventh state earlier this month.

For those of you who have not followed the Con-Con battles of the past three decades, the basic problem with Congress calling a constitutional convention at the request of 34 or more states in accordance with Article V of the Constitution is that leading constitutional scholars and judges have pointed out that the agenda of such a constitutional convention could not be specified by the state legislatures who would have started the whole process in motion in the first place. In brief, a constitutional convention could become a "runaway" convention similar to our original Constitution Convention in 1787 and come up with a radically new constitution, not just a few specific amendments. Even Article V's additional requirement that three fourths of the states must ratify any amendments emanating from a constitutional convention is not sufficient safeguard against a runaway convention given the biased media and political elites that would be involved in the whole process.

Even James Madison, "Father of the Constitution," vigorously warned against the calling of a new constitutional convention in a letter on November 2, 1788, only one year after completing our Constitution:

If a General Convention were to take place for the avowed and sole purpose of revising the Constitution, it would naturally consider itself as having a greater latitude than the Congress.... [I]t would consequently give greater agitation to the public mind; an election into it would be courted by the most violent partisans on both sides ... [and] would no doubt contain individuals of insidious views, who, under the mask of seeking alterations popular in some parts ... might have the dangerous opportunity of sapping the very foundations of the fabric.... 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, meeting in the present temper in America....

Returning to where we started, the new Con-Con initiative on the new federalismamendment.com website, we are told:

This final document will be presented to supportive state legislators in all 50 states, with the idea that they will use it as a "template" in drawing up bills to petition Congress to convene a Constitutional Convention to pass the ten amendments that comprise "The Bill of Federalism".

This website has a page, "State by State Status," which lists all 50 states and marks ten of them as "First Ten Targeted State," namely, Alabama, Alaska, Mississippi, Montana, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming. Based on this list, they appear to be targeting those states which have passed, or have a lot of support for, Tenth Amendment resolutions.

We've already had a couple of reports of JBS members who have been asked to become part of this new Con-Con initiative. Even though this new initiative, based on Professor Randy Barnett's Bill of Federalism proposal, is only in the beginning stages, it has the benefit of support by a founding leader of the Tea Party movement, Michael Patrick Leahy, and the frequent appearances of Prof. Barnett and Judge Andrew Napolitano on the Glenn Beck TV Show speaking favorably of a constitutional convention. Thus, there's the possibility that a million or so Tea Party participants and over 600,000 Glenn Beck 9-12 Project members could be influenced to lobby state legislators on behalf of a Con-Con.

If you are concerned about this new Con-Con threat to the Constitution, you need to inform the organizers of Tea Parties and the 9-12 Project in your area. You also need to be contacting your state legislators and providing the solid reasons against calling for a constitutional convention.

Our best educational tool for preventing a constitutional convention remains our video, "Beware of Article V":

We don't need to risk our Constitution in an unpredictable Article V constitutional convention process. Instead, we need to build a big enough constitutionalist grassroots movement to force Congress to adhere to the Constitution we already have. If Congress does not respond satisfactorily, the same movement can work to get a majority of constitutionalists nominated and elected to Congress over the next couple election cycles.

Our end is freedom. Our means is the Constitution.

As most of you already know, the Tax Day Tea Parties were a huge success in terms of number of gatherings (over 850) and total numbers participating (over 1 million according to some sources). From what I observed both in person at our Appleton, Wisconsin Tax Day Tea Party and online at various websites, the Tax Day Tea Parties were, for the most part, a genuine grassroots phenomenon. Just the diversity of signs showed that no one person or organization had planned the messages on the highly individualistic signs.

This spontaneous, grassroots nature of the tea party rallies was the most encouraging aspect of them. At last a broad cross-section of America had had enough with fiscal irresponsibility and excessive, inflationary spending, not to mention exorbitantly high taxes, and felt compelled to gather together in public places to protest out-of-control state and federal governments and the legislators of both parties who brought this problem about in the first place.

Nonetheless, less than two weeks after the tax day rallies, backers of a very dangerous threat to our Constitution have surfaced, and are actively working to have their agenda adopted by the Tea Party Movement’s grassroots organizers. This dangerous threat to our Constitution is none other than that perennial temptation, the constitutional convention, also known widely as a con-con.

A con-con would be convened by Congress in accordance with Article V of the Constitution, if 34 or more state legislatures petition Congress to call such a convention “for proposing amendments.” The dangerous aspect of a con-con is that there’s no way for the state legislatures to ensure that the constitutional convention would restrict itself to consideration of the specific amendment(s) that the state legislatures have based their con-con calls on. Therefore, a constitutional convention could consider and approve a wide range of amendments, never contemplated by the state legislatures who started the whole process. Whichever amendments approved by the constitutional convention that were ratified by three-fourths of the states would become part of the Constitution. Thus, given the huge influence on public opinion exerted by the biased media and political elites, the con-con process could very well result in radical changes in our Constitution which were never intended by the state legislators who called the con-con in the first place.

Here’s “Beware of Article V,” a video the John Birch Society produced in 1999 to help state legislators to understand the high risk to our Constitution involved in petitioning Congress for a con-con. It’s also valuable for informing concerned citizens about this issue. I highly recommend readers of this article take the 36 minutes required to view it or at the very least sample it.



Now back to our story of how enthusiastic backers of a con-con are working to enlist the unsuspecting participants of the Tea Party movement in their very risky con-con project.

On April 23 the Wall Street Journal published an opinion piece by Professor Randy Barnett of Georgetown University, “The Case for a Federalism Amendment: How the Tea Partiers can make Washington pay attention.” In this article, Barnett correctly observed that the Tenth Amendment “sovereignty resolutions,” under consideration by over half the states this year, are not likely to have the slightest impact on the federal courts. From this reasonable observation, Barnett proceeded to assert that “state legislatures have a real power under the Constitution by which to resist the growth of federal power: They can petition Congress for a convention to propose amendments to the Constitution.”

Barnett then went on to admit that “An amendments convention is feared because its scope cannot be limited in advance.” However, at this point he advocated a dangerous course. He proposed that the “tea-party enthusiasts” adopt the project of getting his Federalism Amendment added to the Constitution and also adopt his strategy of getting enough state legislatures to apply to Congress to call a constitutional convention, so that Congress becomes scared of the prospect of a con-con and agrees to endorse his amendment and present it to the states for ratification.

The problem with this strategy is that there’s no way to ensure that a con-con will not actually be convened in the process of this game of “playing chicken” with Congress with the Constitution at stake.

Next, on April 27 Barnett appeared as a guest on PajamasTV (click on link to view video) with host Michael Patrick Leahy, a leader in the Tea Party Movement. During the four days between his WSJ article of April 23 and his PajamasTV appearance of April 27, Barnett changed his mind about his former strategy of scaring Congress into adopting his amendment with the threat of a con-con. Although he still acknowledges that there is widespread fear of a con-con, and he has some worries about one, he is now convinced that the risks involved with a con-con are worth taking in order to get his 10 amendments presented to the states for ratification. He puts a lot of stock in the requirement that three-fourths of the states are required to ratify whatever amendments might issue from a con-con. He believes this mechanism would surely prevent any truly bad amendment from being ratified.

Of course, this is the crux of the issue. The John Birch Society along with leading constitutional scholars have consistently maintained over the past few decades that there is no way to control what amendments would be considered and adopted by a constitutional convention, and that the requirement that three-fourths of the states must ratify an amendment is not sufficient protection for the Constitution in this age of widespread ignorance of the Constitution and its role in securing our freedoms.

During those same four days, Barnett also changed his project from proposing one amendment, the “Federalism Amendment,” with five parts to proposing ten amendments, to be known as “the Bill of Federalism.”

Michael Patrick Leahy, co-founder of TCOT (Top Conservatives on Twitter) and through his participation in http://taxdayteaparty.com/ an important national organizer of the Tax Day Tea Parties, supports Barnett’s con-con project to the hilt. In his blog for April 25, “The Bill of Federalism: 10 Amendments to be proposed to the States for Ratification,” Leahy stated that Professor Barnett was drafting “The Bill of Federalism,” consisting of ten proposed amendments to the Constitution. Leahy went on to write:

Upon completion of the final version of The Bill of Federalism, we will encourage selected state legislators to introduce a bill to petition Congress to Convene a Constitutional Convention for the purpose of passing The Bill of Federalism, thereafter sending it to the states for ratification.

If 2/3 of the states petition Congress to hold a Constitutional Convention, Congress must convene one. Alternatively, Congress may pass The Bill of Federalism on its own, and submit it to the states for ratification.
 

By the time of the PajamasTV show on April 27, Barnett and Leahy were in complete agreement on the strategy of working for a con-con to get Barnett’s new list of ten amendments submitted to the states for ratification. Here’s a chilling quote from the Nationwide Tea Party Coalition website (Leahy is a leader of this group) which is working on proposed actions for the July 4th tea parties:
 

Here's an action step worth considering: Georgetown Professor of Constitutional Law Randy Barnett points out that "Article 5 [of the Constitution] provides that on the application of the legislatures of 2/3 of the several states, Congress shall call for a convention for proposing amendments." We could hold tea parties at the capitol buildings in all 50 states while the state legislatures are in session, and demand that they apply to Congress to hold such a convention.
 

Talk about hijacking the tea party movement for a risky venture involving our Constitution!

The staff and members of the John Birch Society, as well as the large number of state legislators of both parties that our members have worked with over the past 20 years, are very familiar with how seemingly attractive the concept of a con-con can be until further study reveals the high degree of risk involved.

The “Beware of Article V” video embedded near the top of this article has been our most effective resource for convincing state legislators against petitioning Congress for a con-con. We recommend that you show and/or give the “Beware of Article V” video (free to view online; DVD available to buy online) to the organizers of tea party events in your area. It is especially important to help them understand the dangers of a con-con as they are planning for speakers and action agendas for the July 4th tea parties.

Now for some context on what’s been happening with con-con resolutions in state legislatures during the past 20 years, here’s an excerpt from an article I wrote on the topic last December:

... Back in the mid 1970s a balanced budget amendment (bba) movement sprang up and by 1983 it had led to 32 state legislatures asking Congress to call an Article V constitutional convention.

Enter the JBS. With 32 states out of the necessary 34 (two-thirds) already on record with con-con calls, our nation was only two more states away from a very risky con-con. However, since JBS members got involved in this fight in the 1980s, not one more state has approved a balanced budget amendment con-con. What's more these intrepid Birchers worked closely with their state legislators in many states which led to ten states rescinding (withdrawing) their bba con-con calls as well as all of their other con-con calls for other purposes. So, now instead of 32 states on record with bba con-con calls, there are only 22 states with "live" (unrescinded) bba con-con calls.

While subtracting ten states off the total with live calls for a bba con-con is very valuable, we do have to realize that the pro con-con forces will argue that the rescissions are not valid and should not be subtracted from the 32 states which originally made their bba con-con calls. They'll argue that the score is still 32 states with only two more needed before Congress calls a con-con. Since we can't predict the outcome of such maneuvering, it's most prudent to work very hard to ensure that no more bba calls are made.
 

The bottom line is that we don’t have any comfort margin. If Congress and/or the federal courts would decide not to count the ten state rescissions as valid, then as few as only two more states petitioning Congress for a balanced budget amendment con-con could trigger the convening of a con-con. Furthermore, there is a small minority viewpoint that all of the existing petitions to Congress by state legislatures for a con-con (no matter what the specific reason stated in the petition was) should be added together to get the 34 states required. Initiating a con-con campaign in the manner proposed by Barnett and Leahy could well serve to strengthen the concept that we already have enough con-con calls to convene a constitutional convention.

The only prudent strategy for us is to defeat con-con calls in every state where such resolutions are introduced and to advise state legislators against even introducing such resolutions in the first place. Our primary educational tool is the “Beware of Article V” video discussed above.

Our first priority is to persuade the grassroots leaders of the Tea Party Movement not to adopt Barnett and Leahy’s risky con-con strategy. Instead, we must secure our freedom by preserving our Constitution. Our strategy for lowering taxes and reducing the size and cost of government is to create enough grassroots pressure to force Congress to adhere to the Constitution as it is.

Now that the Tax Day Tea Parties are in our rear view mirror, the next big thing for constitutionalists is the End the Fed rallies on Saturday, April 25. Basically the plan is to have rallies at 40 Federal Reserve locations around the nation. Organizers hope for an average of 5000 per rally, which would amount to 200,000 total participants for all locations combined.

The hub of online organizing for the End the Fed rallies appears to be the “End the Fed” website at http://www.endthefed.us/ and its closely affiliated social networking site at http://endthefedusa.ning.com/groups. Times and places for the local End the Fed events are available at the latter site.

Educational tools (handouts, booklets, reprints, and DVDs) for use at these rallies were posted at JBS.org on Monday.

Following hard on the heels of the rallies Saturday will be a “melt-the-switchboard” grassroots activity in support of H.R. 1207 to Audit the Fed on Monday.

Although Ron Paul had already introduced a resolution in the House to abolish the Federal Reserve (H.R. 833), he added a new wrinkle in February by introducing H.R. 1207 to audit the Fed. Paul believes that the best strategy for ending the fed is to work on passing a politically more attractive bill to audit the Fed first, which would help create the pressure for ending the fed later.

Here’s an excellent video to bring you up to speed on H.R. 1207:

Even though H.R. 1207 is getting surprisingly good bipartisan support and has 71 cosponsors in the House as of today, it will still take a massive grassroots impact on Congress to get this "Audit the Fed" bill passed by both houses of Congress and signed by the President.

Click here to participate in the “melt-the-switchboard day" on Monday to help pressure Congress into passing H.R. 1207. At this webpage you’ll be able to send a pre-written, editable email in support of H.R. 1207 to your representative and both of your senators. You are also encouraged to help “melt-the-switchboard” on Monday by phoning a specific, toll-free congressional switchboard number, 1-877-851-6437, and asking to speak to the offices of the members of the House Financial Services Committee, and then, asking to speak to those representatives who have cosponsored H.R. 1207 to praise and applaud them.

The strategy appears to be to have everyone phone in through one congressional switchboard number in order to maximize the chances for overloading the phone system.

There you have it. Saturday is for rallying at the 40 Federal Reserve locations to "End the Fed." Monday is for melting the congressional switchboard by massive calling in support of H.R. 1207 to "Audit the Fed."