Free Norwich

This is important viewing for every American. Parts 2-7 are available online, for free here.

“Congress OF THE United States
begun and held at the City of New York, on Wednesday
the Fourth of March, one thousand seven hundred and eighty nine.

THE Conventions of a number of the States having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best insure the beneficent ends of its institution

RESOLVED by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, two thirds of both Houses concurring, that the following Articles be proposed to the Legislatures of the several States, as Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, all or any of which Articles, when ratified by three fourths of the said Legislatures, to be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of the said Constitution; viz.:

ARTICLES in addition to, and Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, proposed by Congress, and ratified by the Legislatures of the several States, pursuant to the fifth Article of the original Constitution.”

I need to give credit to Mr. O’Keefe for actually not commiting misprison of felony this time (he actually alerted the authorities on this one)

Basic Requirements for Office Holders

We’ve been in this business of “throwing the bums out” for quite some time. Unfortunately, we’ve been replacing Rs with Ds, the Ds with Rs, and then… you get the idea.

Something needs to be different this time around, very different. Here’s what we need (no exceptions) –

1) A sworn oath under penalty of perjury that, if elected, a candidate will read the bills he or she votes in favor of in their entirety. This business of printing the final version of 2000-page legislation at 3AM and voting at 11AM has to stop. That’s how most of the damage was done.

2) A sworn oath under penalty of perjury that, if elected, a candidate will do the things he or she promises. Given Scott Brown in Massachusetts and the Democrats in 2006 and 2008, that’s really not too much to ask. No more “trust me”.

3) A sworn oath under penalty of perjury that, if elected, a candidate will work to abolish earmarks. That’s not too much to ask considering that’s a critical way that lobbyists influence our government more than we do.

4) A sworn oath under penalty of perjury that, if elected, a candidate will field legislation and/or an amendment to repeal Obamacare as well as cap and tax. No more of this “defunding” business and other assorted excuses to back away. Set a goal and work for it. RINOs and Democrats incrementally work around the edges to the tune of three steps forward, two back. RINOs and Democrats needn’t apply – if only for the reason that what they do will bounce their paychecks in six years.

5) A detailed A-Z proposal of how to simplify the tax collection process. It could be a flat tax. It could be a sales tax. It could be apportioning taxes among the states. But $300 billion in annual compliance costs and a plethora of credits, incentives and deductions for special interests have to be wiped out.

6) A detailed A-Z proposal of how to scale our federal government back within the parameters of Article 1, Section 8. If you’re going to take an oath to defend and uphold the Constitution, explain how.

7) A detailed A-Z proposal of how to remove fraud from the financial sector. If our economy is to recover, that’s got to be one of the first things to happen.

8 ) A detailed A-Z proposal of how to reduce healthcare costs. Handing the industry to insurance or drug companies and leaving us with “have some tort reform and call me in the morning” aren’t answers.

9) A number of years/terms you’d serve in office before you went home voluntarily. There’s a point when citizen legislators become career politicians, and you should be willing to go home before that happens. That number could be two years, or six, or 12, or whatever. Any number will do. Let’s make this more like jury duty and less like living off the public trough until retirement.

If we’re to make any progress, that’s the job. There are no perfect answers, but in order to be applying at this point, you just need some answer.

FreeNorwich will be hosting a debate of the Second Congressional District Republican candidates on Wednesday June 16, 2010 at Three Rivers Community College in Norwich. The debate will be moderated by Lee Elci, morning show host on WXLM radio. The three candidates– Doug Dubitsky, Daria Novak and Janet Peckinpaugh– all agreed to the debate at the Republican convention.

The debate will focus on the issues important to voters of the Second District. There will be a brief introduction from each candidate then questions asked to each by Elci. All the candidates will be answering the same questions. There will be a short Town Hall format at the end of the debate as well as a chance to meet the candidates after the debate is over. Each candidate will be presented a list of issues a week before the debate. All questions during the moderated portion of the debate will come from this list.

We encourage that you post your questions here as it is YOUR candidate to interview and all questions will come from those posed here. That does not mean every question posted will be asked. The editors will chose from the field of questions to select those that are most appropriate. This is YOUR forum and this is YOUR debate. There will be NO personal attacks on the candidates allowed. This debate is about issues not personalities. We want to be able to provide a platform to enable the voters to be more informed about each candidates stance.

There has been no official word from the  campaign yet but last night WFSB and today’s  Norwich Bulletin are reporting former congressman Rob Simmons will be dropping out of the race for senate. Simmons garnered 85% of the votes from the second district delegates in last weekends Republican State Convention.

America sits on an ideological precipice. In 2008 the voters realized the status quo was not good enough and they selected change. The most recent elections have shown we are not happy with what we were promised. Exponential growth in grass roots movements has further heightened this sense of dissatisfaction. The people are no longer dreaming of change, they are demanding it.

The old saying, “There is more that unites us than divides us” is very close to the tipping point. We have a country mired in debt, yet our leaders continue to spend. Some will say this is needed others will say it is not. There is no common ground between these two view points. There are also no easy solutions. That is why it is so imperative to select true leaders. Those who know the issues and have the courage to risk all for the betterment of our country.

I urge all fellow delegates to use one simple criteria for selecting our candidates. Look deep into your hearts and ask, who our founding fathers would elect? Our situation is becoming perilously close to the dire circumstances our founders faced. They were faced with a government that took from them the fruits of their labor with out the benefit of representation. Sound familiar?

Can you imagine Thomas Jefferson saying George Washington, “We need to nominate John Adams because the people recognize him and think he’s good looking?”

On Tuesday night the Canterbury convention delegation attended a meet and greet for Janet Peckinaugh at Gus’ Pub in Plainfield. There were thirty people gathered and she fielded questions for an hour and a half. She is a good speaker. But she has serious lack of knowledge on the issues, which was the overriding concern of those in the room.  Being one of those concerned yet seeing the potential of her candidacy, I asked at the end if she would be willing to debate what ever other candidate emerges from the convention. The debate to be held sometime during the middle of June.  She said “definitely”.

FreeNorwich will be hosting the debate and we will be working out the details in the coming days.  I applaud Peckinpaugh’s courage to engage in a debate so early. She does need to get up to speed so soon this will be a good venue to see her progress.