[John Birch Society] WHAT IS A CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION?
A Constitutional Convention is an official meeting of representatives of the people of a state or nation for the purpose of writing or amending its constitution. Article V of the U.S. Constitution provides two ways to propose amendments:
1. Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments;
2. Congress, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a convention for proposing amendments.
The first method has been used 27 times; the second method has never been used. Any proposed amendments would have to be ratified by three fourths of the states before being added to the Constitution.
An Article V Constitutional Convention would threaten individual rights and our nation’s very form of government. Individual rights are secured by the Constitution, and a Con-Con would have the inherent power to become a "runaway" convention that could completely change the Constitution. How do we know such a convention could become a "runaway"?
1. There’s the precedent of the Philadelphia Convention of 1787, which completely rewrote the Articles of Confederation and changed the ratification procedure; and
2. There’s the right of the sovereign people meeting in convention to alter or abolish their form of government (as stated in the Declaration of Independence), which could include rewriting the Constitution and changing the ratification procedure.
#3
What ever the convention comes up with has still go back to the states for ratification. I doubt the Big Blue states could be 3/4th of the states to sign on for any of their mods. The many Red States have a far better chance.
[ZeroHedge] One month ago, when looking at the latest US Treasury income and spending, or as it is better known, deficit, data we found something shocking: the last months of the Biden admin were marked by spending unlike anything ever seen before, in fact, spending in the first six months of fiscal 2025 surpassed even the crisis 2020 and 2021 when the US injected trillions into the economy.
Then Elon Musk's DOGE came on the scene... and thing changed quickly.
Earlier today the Treasury published its revenue and spending report for the month of March, the first month when DOGE was fully operational, and the results were interesting. As shown in the chart below, in March total US government receipts were $368 billion, while spending totaled $528 billion.
The difference between how much money the US brought in vs how much it spent, means that in March the US budget deficit was $161 billion. Which sounds like a lot (it is) until you realize that in February the deficit was almost twice as much, or $307 billion. And compared to the $236 billion deficit a year ago, 2025 was a solid 32% lower.
How come? Well, first of all receipts rose 10.7% to $367.6BN. Which is good. But what was great is that spending, which has traditionally been the real problem, actually shrank by 7.1% to $528.2BN.
And this is where DOGE came in.
While various mandatory spending categories posted continued gradual increases - after all, these require an act of Congress to be revised - there was a huge, $45 billion drop in Income Security, from $105 billion in February to $60 billion in March, the largest one month decline since June 2021 as Elon ripped up much of the massive fraudulent fund flow network Democrats had established in recent decades and covered up simply as 'income security' (see "Elon Musk alleges $50B in fraud at Treasury after judge blocks DOGE audit", Elon Musk’s DOGE discovers millions in taxpayer dollars wasted on unemployment claims for ‘fake people’, Elon Musk Says DOGE Will Produce Savings Of $150 Billion In FY2026) when it really was a giant slush fund used for everything from graft, to corruption, to bribes, to paying leftist media for favorable coverage.
The result: the March US deficit was the lowest since 2020 before the covid crash, and down $76 billion from a year ago.
That's the good news. The bad news is that despite the sharp drop in the March deficit, the longer-term trendline in spending vs income remains unsustainable as the following chart shows.
And another way of showing it: yes, the blue line (income security), dropped but everything else continues to rise...
... and especially interest expense, which as of the end of Biden's admin, at Dec 2024, hit a new record high of $1.124 trillion LTM, which is more than double where it was when Biden walked into the White House in Q1 2021.
Bottom line: While March was the first month in which we saw the budget-busting effect of DOGE finally come to the fore, the Sisyphean challenge for the Dept of Government Efficiency is just starting, because while a $50BN drop in "Income Security" and a $76 billion decline in the deficit YoY is a terrific start, the reality is that this is a mere drop in the bucket for the unsustainable trajectory which the US is on, and if Trump, Musk, DOGE and the majority of Americans truly hope to rightsize the US balance sheet, a lot more work - and as the last few days have shown - a lot more pain is coming.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
