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  • 19 Feb 2019 5:37 PM | Carroll D McHenry (Administrator)

    I just edited and updated the post below from last September to reflect the growing 'REAL NATIONAL EMERGENCY' which may soon be upon us. I hope you will read this post, carefully consider it and decide to act on your conclusions. Our American republican values are at risk if we don't take collective action.

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  • 12 Sep 2018 2:38 PM | Carroll D McHenry (Administrator)

    In this writer's opinion Trumpism represents the gravest threat to our republic and our liberties since the end of the Civil War! Quite a statement I know. But consider this.

    The creation of our republic subsequent to the Revolutionary War was in large part to establish the rule of law, bind the states into a permanent union, prevent the return of autocratic rule and provide the means of common defense of the American republic.  The Civil War was fought to right the wrong of slavery ensconced in the Constitution and to assure that America would remain one united nation under the rule of law with liberty and justice for all Americans. 

    Yet today, maybe more than at any time since, America's very existence, indeed of all nations, is at risk by inadvertent nuclear war which emanates from ill-advised, ignorant, impulsive, self- serving and reckless actions by America's Commander-in-Chief, President Trump. And America is threatened from within by Trump. Our liberties are being threatened, our Congress is being by-passed, our elections have been interfered with, Americans are being divided rather than united, and the rule of law is being steadily undermined by Trump. 

    Trump, and those in Congress who continue to enable his actions, are responsible for this cancer on our democratic republican institutions and the risks to our republic.

    Trump endangers national security regularly by reckless decisions and actions when he:

         -risks greater proliferation of nuclear weapons

         -engages in ill-advised, self aggrandizing 'pr' negotiations

         -takes the word of leaders of our adversaries over that of the best information from all our intelligence agencies

         -damages relations with allies needed to help protect the world's free and democratic nations and institutions

         -wages war in many areas without Congressional authority         

    Trump endangers the institutions that unite and defend our union. He does this by undermining:

         - the rule of law

         -our department of justice and its agencies

         -our intelligence and counterintelligence agencies

         -our free press 

    Trump first invites and then acquiesces in foreign intervention in our elections......maybe even aiding and abetting those foreigners.

    Trump divides rather than unites Americans by:

         -insulting, attacking and attempting to destroy any who dare oppose his autocratic actions

         -encouraging the most radical and divisive groups in our body politic and their attacks on anyone different than them

    And he wraps all of this in lies, lies,lies............and threats of autocratic actions.

    YET MANY LEADERS OF CONGRESS ACQUIESCE IN TRUMPISM.  They seem to do this to insure their own political power and to achieve temporary rewards for their political donors. It seems to this writer that their concern for our country, its security and its values takes second place to their lust for regular re-election. They seem to think that if they 'appease the beast' we can all win in the end. How many times must politicians learn that this isn't so? History from the fall of the Roman Republic into autocracy until the 20th century has proven that appeasement of autocrats destroys republics

    We, the people of America, must act and act soon to stop Trumpism and its corroding effects on our republic. If Trumpism and its enablers win this struggle for the soul of America, there will be precious little time to constrain him or to stop him before his re-election campaign in 2020.

    Let's oppose all those complicit in Trumpism and encourage all those who will stand up to him. We can set about immediately thereafter undoing the damage done so far. This is our best chance. Let's stop him now in 2019 and DUMP TRUMP and all that he stands for in 2020.  

    LET'S UNITE NOW AND ACT NOW TO STOP AND REVERSE TRUMPISM!!!

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  • 31 Aug 2018 3:18 PM | Carroll D McHenry (Administrator)

    Let's celebrate the opportunity America has given each of us to.......... labor at whatever we choose........ be that bookkeeper, chemist, designer, editor, flight attendant, graphic artist, home health aide, interpreter, janitor, librarian, mason, neurologist, pr specialist, receptionist, secretary, teacher, union organizer, veterinarian, writer, youth counselor, architect, bartender, claims adjuster, dental hygienist, electrician, LPN, manager, mechanic, occupational therapist, plumber, social media manager, bank teller, waiter, court reporter, engineer, RN, systems engineer, paramedic, accountant, doctor, lawyer or any one of dozens of other pursuits. 

    I believe this is truer in America than any other place on earth. But I also believe this personal economic freedom is at risk as the result of governance by elected officials who put the interests of themselves, their next election and their financial supporters ahead of the interests of 'we the people' and ahead of their committment to their oaths of office.

    So, this Labor Day Weekend, let's all also ask ourselves: What are we prepared to give back to America right now, this election season, when so much of what we have worked for, this democratic republican America, and what we value most...... liberty, justice and the pursuit of happiness for All, is on the line. 

    I hope you'll consider joining us here at c-farar and work with us this election season. But more than anything else, I urge you to 'labor hard' during this election to see that we have better representation in Washington for the values we all hold close to our political hearts.

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  • 28 Aug 2018 10:39 AM | Carroll D McHenry (Administrator)

    Coming of age in the 50's and early 60's as a son of a white sharecropper in the deep Old South, I became aware of the civil rights and human rights revolution being led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and other great leaders of that era. This revolution helped educate me to the unfulfilled promises of the American democratic republic, and to me the movement was capped by Dr. King's 'I Have A Dream' speech on this day in 1963. I watched, learned and was inspired by the results produced by the generation before mine when the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Social Welfare legislation of 1965-1967 became law. Over time I came to regard these results as nothing less than the evolution of America to a new version of our republic, and I call it the Sixth American Republic. The crowning achievement of that revolution was the 1964 Civil Rights Act. For that we owe many but none so much as Dr. King. Today I honor his dream, his movement, his sacrifices and his tremendous service to our country and the results it led to.   

  • 17 Aug 2018 5:22 PM | Carroll D McHenry (Administrator)

    This post is to celebrate the full citizenship won for my wife, two sisters, five sisters-in-law, three daughters, two daughters-in-law, four granddaughters and many millions of other women......won by hundreds of thousands of women (and men) who WORKED tirelessly for decades to achieve passage of the 19th Amendment 98 years ago. An achievement so important that I call it establishment of the 5th American Republic. Here's one 'OLD WHITE GUY' who encourages the women in my life and indeed all women to vote every time you get a chance and vote only for politicians who will COMMIT to finally granting you EQUAL CIVIL RIGHTS such as EQUAL PAY and nondiscrimination in every component of your life such as religion, healthcare and childcare. Yes, Lady Liberty, opened in 1886 some 34 years before passage of the 19th, is a woman. But her promise of liberty for all remains incomplete for many. I hope you will go out and WIN a new Equal Rights-Civil Rights Amendment to the Constitution and guarantee for yourself and future generations fairer treatment in our system than many of you have experienced. And there's no time like right now.....this election cycle..... to do just that. Let's get going!   

  • 12 Aug 2018 8:29 PM | Carroll D McHenry (Administrator)

    We have seemingly endless war in Afghanistan...now almost 17 years! Continuing acts of war in Iraq. And Syria. And Yemen. Et al. Yet Congress dawdles!

    Threats of war against North Korea are followed by a 'Public Relations' agreement which is already being flaunted by North Korea leaving our President's bluff effectively called. Then he undoes the best peaceful solution to the nuclear threat posed by Iran. This is followed by more threats of war against Iran. Congress continues to dawdle!

    Are all these wars truly necessary? Are they justified? Are they worth the loss of life, limb and treasure? Is it truly in our national security interest to continue to fight these wars?

    We the people don't really know because our Congress refuses to even debate these acts of war. Congress won't even bring these wars up for consideration. Perhaps all these acts of war are indeed truly necessary. But are you willing to let the most dangerous, impulsive and self aggrandizing President in our history make these decisions solely on his own?

    In the last 70 years since the Truman administration, Congress has risen to the occasion only a few times to do its constitutional duty regarding war making. Once in 1973 it actually passed legislation to constrain 'imperial' Presidents who go beyond their Article 2 powers and engage in warfare without the declaration of Congress to do so. But shortly thereafter it appears that Congress backed away. Do we believe the current Congress will act to reinvigorate the War Powers Act of 1973? There is no evidence that we can see that this Congress will.

    The world is too dangerous for us to allow this to continue! We must rise up at the ballot box in November and elect a Congress who will act as a co-equal to the President and demand a national strategy to use our economic strength alongside that of our allies to negotiate reasonable ends to these conflicts.

    We implore readers of this commentary to do all you can to hold your Congressional representatives accountable to their oaths of office and demand that they act to constrain this dangerous President and Commander in Chief.

    We invite you to consider joining us in our plans to do the same. We will be more successful together than apart.     

  • 02 Aug 2018 7:03 PM | Carroll D McHenry (Administrator)

    Our Second American Republic, established upon ratification of our current Constitution in June, 1788 left many issues to be resolved by future amendments, which we have now done 27 times. But clarification of actual 'war making' powers has never been fully achieved, as current events are now making obvious.

    In the face of overwhelming evidence of 'acts of cyber warfare' against our country by a foreign adversary, our current President and our current Congress have not yet taken firm action to respond to these acts and defend our country against these attacks. The responsibility for this inaction lies primarily with the President and Leadership of Congress, but every elected representative in Washington bears responsibility for not speaking up and demanding defense of our country. What is your Congressional Representative and Senator doing about these attacks against you and yours?

    We the people must ACT. We must demand that our leaders defend us. And if they don't, then we need to replace them with representatives who will. And we must do this at our earliest opportunity. Oh, say can you see(say) November? Our two political parties are failing us by becoming polarized into inaction except against each other. So, we the voters must yank them together and into action to adequately defend our democratic republican systems against those who seek to destroy them.

    Please read our Position Paper No. 1 presented elsewhere in this website; then join us so as to bring all the public and voting pressure we can to bear on electing new, more responsive representatives and to start the process of long term reform which can come by amending the War Powers Act of 1973 and ultimately amending our Constiturion to make it a Constitutional Duty and requirement that Congress act in the face of clear and present dangers.

  • 04 Jul 2018 9:38 PM | Carroll D McHenry (Administrator)

    Happy Birthday America and congratulations to us....the American nation born 242 years ago, July 4, 1776. That date marks the birth of our nation, though not of our republic. That had to wait until March 1, 1781 and final ratification of the Articles of Confederation establishing the First American Republic.

    But the nation, America, established in the hearts and minds of the people on the 4th of July 1776 has endured as the real American dream for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness so artfully declared by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence. We celebrate the birth of that nation and the journey the American people began that day to realize the 'republic' our nation's founders envisioned.

    I am proud to be a citizen of the American nation and proud of the history of our people's struggle to establish and evolve a more perfect union. We've come such a long way and should be proud of 242 years of mostly progress towards those lofty goals espoused in the Declaration of Independence. 

    Yet today, I find my pride diminished by some things we as a nation have done. And there are times, as in very recent days, when I am ashamed and embarrassed by many things we have allowed ourselves to do. And I am ashamed and embarrassed at how little I have personally done to prevent or limit some of these things.

    Some of the things which have occurred in my lifetime which I believe were grievous mistakes made by our country are the death and destruction wreaked in an unnecessary and ill-advised war in Vietnam, failure to provide basic human and civil rights to too many Americans, failure to accord women full equality with men, hundreds of thousands of deaths and maimings in ill-advised and unjustified wars in the Middle East, failure to provide basic services such as adequate healthcare to thousands of Americans and failure to provide full justice and equal protection to all under the law as provided in our Constitution.

    And recently, I am ashamed of and embarrassed by the 'do-little' Congress we continue to elect. More than than, I am astonished, ashamed and embarrassed by the morally corrupt, self aggrandizing and power drunk President we have elected, and at how little I have done to help prevent this from happening.  

    I have begun a journey to try to change some of these failings of our democratic republic. This journey begins with doing all I can to help organize and assist ordinary citizens like you and me to change and reform Congress, constrain and then un-elect our current President and to work for really needed reforms in our systems of governance which can improve our collective performance in living up to the dreams espoused in our Declaration of Independence.

    So, I pledge allegiance to America and to the republic it is and that which it can evolve to: i.e., one united, indivisible nation which truly provides liberty and justice for all.

    I invite you to join me, and let's reform our democratic republic together from the bottom up.

  • 15 Jun 2018 5:43 PM | Carroll D McHenry (Administrator)

    Today, June 15, 2018, we are announcing the formal launch of our CLUB FOR A REFORMED AMERICAN REPUBLIC (C-FARAR). We are a nonpartisan Political Action Club dedicating ourselves to:

    1. Reformation and restoration of our U.S. Congress, one Representative and one Senator at a time, to its fully equal status with that of the Presidency.

    2. Reigning in the Imperial Presidency to one more closely aligned with the intent of the founders of this great republic.

    3. Reforming our republic in ways which will bring our systems of governance to a more democratic, balanced and unified system for the 21st century.

    On this date in 1215, the Imperial King of England was persuaded to sign the Magna Carta, thus giving birth to a system of governance which began the empowerment of the people and ultimately leading to establishment of democratic republicanism in Britain. It was in large part the principles embodied therein which led some 550 years later to the establishment of the democratic republic of the United States of America.

    When formed, The United States of America became the world's greatest experiment in democratic republicanism. And we Americans have been evolving our great but imperfect republic ever since via extension of human, civil and voting rights to most of our citizens. It remains the greatest system on earth, yet it still requires work to fully implement the vision of our founders to secure the full benefits of liberty and justice for all Americans. 

    It is to the effort to further evolve our systems that we are dedicating ourselves. While our efforts to reform and improve our republic pale in comparison to those others before us, we believe now is the time for our generation to fully dedicate ourselves to the effort.

    We invite you to join us. More to come. Watch this space.   

        

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