There is a reason that congress is so scared of an Article 5 Constitutional convention. They know that if it were held right now, most of them wouldn't survive their next election.

I went to a tea party on the 15th. There was a lot of concern for the future of the country and ZERO racism.

The worst thing that could happen would be a constitutional convention. With the crew running the show today, and who would also be running the convention, there is no way that what comes out of it would have anything resembling a Bill of Rights as we know it today. We'd become just like Europe and Cansda, arbitrarily deciding on what constitutes "hate speech" and suppressing it. To these people, all criticism of Obama is racist, merely due to the color of his skin, and, since Obama is its object, all Tea Party protest would be considered hate speech.

Also, a convention wouldn't solve our biggest political dysfunction, the one at the root of our problems today. We'd still have the moronic, entitlement-addicted American electorate, the one that elected socialists and corporatists to begin with, and would continue to elect people who promised them unearned goodies forcibly taken from those who earned them. That is, unless such a convention could manage to limit the right to vote to those who have a net federal income tax liability, net of government benefits received (IOW, "skin in the game"). And that'll never happen.

No, we've always had the power to change things, without a new constitiution. And if we don't make the changes starting next election, after the brazen government grab of whole sectors of our economy that we've seen, we never will. And may our chains rest lightly upon us.

The likelihood of a constitutional convention is approximately equal to that of the 16th and 17th amendments being repealed.

Both of which are smaller than the likelihood of the next person to ring my doorbell will be Sandra Bullock professing her undying love for me.

The more worrying thing is riots in the cities being perpetrated and egged on by the race hustlers like Sharpton after the repudiation of the Democratic party in November.

Remember, only racists vote Republican, so if the Republicans win, it will be taken as evidence of the continuing slide towards apartheid in America.

Some good things do come out of the EU. While the US is losing freedoms, the EU may be slowly gaining them. Part of the recent (December 2009) Treaty of Lisbon is the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.

This document is written in plain language, and anchors numerous basic freedoms in EU law. Member countries will slowly be forced by European courts to recognize these laws. This will work here (where it would not in the US) because in European courts (except for England), the law is more important than court precedent.

Look, for example, at Article 11: "Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority..." Said even more clearly than in the US bill of rights!

You'll have to forgive me bradley for not believing the EU will hold up those rights. Look at how Lisbon was "passed" in various countries. Referendum votes until they got the response they wanted.

I watched the Chris Matthew Show which I usually think is not too bad. Today they all seemed so out of touch with what was happening.

I listening to the radio as I was driving and some one called in about the Tea Party rally. It was a minister worried about his church because the previous weekend a group had held rally (I believe he said it was anti-police brutality) and they had thrown rocks through several of the church's windows. He had been standing by with his video camera to report to the police what these Tea Party people would do. He said if he had not been there to see them for himself he would have never known people had gathered there.

Yes, obviously, the Republican Party deeply disagrees with the need to balance the federal budget.

The last R-Partyy president to even propose a balanced federal budget was....was....was....Eisenhower, more than 50 years ago. From 2000-2006, with R-Party control of House, Senate, Executive Branch and the Supreme Court, we ran huge deficits. Reaganesque deficits.

Yes, federal deficits are now even worse. Obama also inherited a collapsed financial system, an economy in deepening contraction, and two open-ended wars, each of which will cost $1 trillion or so (Iraqistan). The Bush train wreck. I am surprised anybody ran for job at all. I guess that's why a major party had to sink to the level of a halfwit like Sarah Palin, before finding a veep.

Does anybody take seriously the right-wing waa-waa about federal spending and powers now? Where were you 2000-2006 (in a generally growing economy)? Yes, we reduced the scope of the federal government all the way into Kabul and Baghdad, and into Terri Schiavo's coma-coffin room. What was it the R-Party wanted? Federal control over when a family could pull a plug on a member in a vegetable-state. Oh no, that's not intrusive. That's not a private matter at all.

You want to bal;ance the budget? Whack the military in half (Cato Institute say this too), wipe out the USDA and Dep't of Education, and eliminate the vast rural welfare system, known as the Red State Socialist Empire.