Good morning Patriots!
I just wanted to remind you and to ask you to forward this to all
the patriots you know.
The Continental Congress 2009 is LIVE each day via internet stream
at this link:
http://www.givemeliberty.org/CC2009/default.htm or
www.freedom.tv/live.
Even if you are not going to watch you can still have the live
stream up and running to get the numbers up.
Yours In Liberty,
~Tammy Houle
CPMN Chair
WTP MN State Coordinator
Here is Mark's report for Day 3 and 4......................
Day 3:
We began the day with a couple of presentations having to do with
the Money Clauses. Tom DeWeese, founder of the American Policy Center
and delegate from the State of Virginia read three proposals written
by Edwin Vieira, Constitutional scholar and author from Virginia.
Unfortunately, Edwin Vieira was unable to attend in person.
The first two proposals were addressed to the federal and state
legislatures. Entitled "Reassertion of the Power of the Purse,"
they instructed that the legislators should establish Advisory
Commissions to study and recommend means by which Congress can
return to its legitimate authority to coin money and by which the
States can exercise their responsibility to make "gold and silver
coin a tender in payment of debts."
The third proposal by Mr. Vieira, read by Mr. DeWeese, was entitled,
"Declaration that all Unconstitutionally Incurred Alleged "Public
Debt" of the United States is Void, and Enforcement Thereof." This
proposal instructs Congress to appoint an Advisory Committee to
study the validity of the public debt of the United States. All of
these proposals include more detailed instructions for such a
committee and provide time limits within which Congress should
comply.
I probably should explain that one of the major purposes of CC2009
is to present "Remedial Instructions" to federal and state legislatures
for them to fix present violations of the Constitution. These proposals
by Mr. Vieira are written in the form of instructions for Congress
and the states to follow. The idea is that if these instructions
are not followed, the People of the country will need to decide
what must happen next. This is similar to the grievances that were
presen
ted by the First Continental Congress. The King's silence on
their petitions led to the Second Continental Congress which
declared independence.
During the morning presentations, we also heard from economist William
Bergman, who now works for Morningstar Investment Research, but used
to work for the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. He was terminated
from the Federal Reserve Bank when he noticed that there was a spike
in the currency component of the M1 aggregate in August of 2001,
immediately prior to September 11 attacks. This raised questions
of whether there was government foreknowledge of the attacks and
cost Mr. Bergman his job. One of the delegates commented that this
was probably the best thing that could happen to him, but Bergman's
expression and demeanor showed that his honesty on this issue had
cost him and his family greatly.
But Mr. Bergman was not talking about 911 today. Rather he talked
about facts of economics and touched on the costs and moral hazard
of regulation. Also, Bob Schulz presented some of the legal action
taken by We The People Foundation to oppose the AIG bailout, which
is still pending.
After the presentations, the Continental Congress convened. The
delegates voted to rescind the decision that was made yesterday
regarding committees and go back to the previously agreed schedule.
This was to facilitate the morning and afternoon presentations
and to make sure that all delegates would be free to attend every
lecture.
After debating other issues, some of which I discuss below, the
Continental Congress succeeded in passing our first resolution so
far. It was a general resolution expressing support for the
Constitution without compromise. In actuality, the resolution
doesn't do much, but it did a lot for the morale of the delegates
to actually get something passed.
Before this resolution, we had been discussing issues regarding
the Money Clauses. It
was moved that Edwin Vieira's proposals be
adopted. The proposals were sent to a committee, chaired by Kevin
Tebedo, which reported back before the end of the session. Fellow
Wisconsin delegate Rudy Eckert attended this committee meeting and
had the opportunity to address the committee. Later sent to the
committee was a Civic Action motion to encourage citizens to form
networks to voluntarily use gold and silver money instead of fiat
currency. When these items were reported back in the afternoon,
the Continental Congress adopted the committee report.
For the afternoon presentations, we watched two movies produced by
Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership on the topic of the
Second Amendment. The second movie, called "No Guns For Negroes,"
presented a look at the civil rights aspects of infringements of
the right to keep and bear arms. It presented the case that gun
laws actually leave law-abiding, inner city blacks at the mercy
of criminals and drug dealers. This video was introduced by Ralph
Conner of the Heartland Institute and the Chicago Congress of
Racial Equality (CORE).
Also presented were two more proposals by Edwin Vieira, read by
Mr. DeWeese, to instruct Congress and the states regarding the
reestablishment of Constitutional state militias.
After passing the resolutions regarding money, the afternoon session
spiraled into pointlessness. At the end of the morning session, a
motion had been passed that substantially changed the scheduled
proceedings. It specifies that a committee must be appointed for
each agenda item. This part is fine. We're going to have to work
in smaller committees to get anything done.
However, it also specifies that no motions can be entertained on
an issue until the committee has had 24 hours to work on it. It
also specifies that before the committee can begin its work, there
must be a time of "discussion." So for instance, when we convened
again Mr. Roland of Texas moved adoption of the two proposals by
Edwin Vieira. This was ruled out of order by the chair, because
the rules now call for a time of discussion during which motions
cannot be made. So rather than passing Mr. Vieira's proposals and
moving on, we heard a procession of three minute speeches.
This is a complete departure from usual parliamentary procedure.
Usually, a delegate makes a motion, it can be debated, amended
and/or sent to a committee if so desired. Without such a motion,
discussion is not generally allowed under parliamentary procedure.
Someone has to move something, and then it can be discussed.
Now the intentions of the delegates in proposing these rule changes
were pure. The belief is that if everyone gets a chance to have
their say, then a committee can propose a resolution, and there
will not be a necessity for extended debate and amendment later
on. However, what the actual effect will be is to delay debate
for a day or two, and then we will still have to go through all
of the proper procedure to debate, amend and adopt the committee
report. There is no guarantee that this process will be made more
expeditious by the prior discussion.
So to recap the day, we passed a general resolution expressing
support for the Constitution and three motions of substance
instructing Congress and the states to reinstate Constitutional
money, and recommending that citizens begin to trade in real
silver and gold money. In addition, two committees are meeting
this evening to work on the issues of the Accountability Clause
and the Second Amendment. Not a bad start, but we'll need to pick
up the pace soon if we hope to get through all of the issues.
Day 4:
Because of the passed motion that changed the scheduled proceedings,
all that happened today was open discussion about the Income Tax
and Citizenship. There were also two presentations, one on the
I
ncome Tax and the other on Barrack Obama's citizenship. The
committees that were created yesterday did not have anything to
report at this time. New committees were created to draft
resolutions about the Income Tax and Citizenship.
Hopefully some of the committees will have something to report
tomorrow.
Your friend in liberty,
Mark Johnson
