Now for the hard part

It is complete! Today the Continental Congress passed the last of our reports and ratified a rough draft of the Articles of Freedom. Complete with a beautiful preamble page after page of documentation of violations to our Constitution, instructions to the State and Federal government and plans of action for the people to take if they choose. What I find interesting is that we were able to document and recommend actions for many violations of the Supreme Law of the land...and the rough draft is only 70 pages. I am honored to have been selected as one of the delegates to gather this information and bring it back to all of you. After sending the final documents to our style committee to put together the rough draft we had our closing ceremonies. We had a drum and fife core as well as Colonial Militia Color Guard, it was touching. I have made great connections nationwide to help continue the fight for Liberty, as well as some good friends and even a few brothers. I have an early flight back to Connecticut and will be leaving the resort at 4:15 am and I have much to do to prepare. Our work will be shared with you and the Nation in due time, but before I go I would like to share something I wrote today with you. "When in the course of human events a series of usurpations becomes evident, it is the duty of all free men to rise and challenge those advances. In measured steps and temperance of tongue a delicate course should be charted. In these times of fear and anxiety passions are prone to conquer reason. Let the fire in your heart warm your soul until provoked. Once just cause demands the flame may turn to anger and that anger to action. There is no nobility in violence and no dishonor in defense. Be cautious of those who would urge you to action without first measuring the pleadings with reason. Every man has a break point and only the individual can truly tell where that is. Let no artificial line be drawn by the will of another. Whether he be a sole provocateur or a coalition of friends. Do not mistake my words with cowardice. Once that line, which you yourself must draw, be crossed let every man within the sound of your voice hear, 'to arms...to arms. For God and Country to arms.' Let every neighbor stand for the next and let every citizen stand for Liberty."

Thank you for following along as I embarked on this journey. The ship is supplied and must now leave the safety of the harbor and set sail. Your time will come to take up the mantle of Freedom and Liberty. If you stand by me you will never stand alone.

I am, and will always be, your most humble servant,
Bradley L Waslenko

The edge of the knife

Tonight could very well prove to be the defining moment of this Congress. After the events of this evening I do not find it useful to share the one thing we actually ratified today because without the whole, the one is useless. What occurred tonight was inevitable. The passions and opinions and the patriotism that is so prevalent in this assembly demanded it. I cannot share with you the contents of this evenings discussion because I am bound to secrecy and it is a requirement of an executive session. I would like to apologize to those of you who wanted to follow along at home because we had to disable the internet feed, even removed the batteries from our cell phones and locked the doors. Tomorrow we shall return to the important work at hand I believe more energized than ever before. I will however share with you just a piece of what I shared with my fellow delegates this evening and that is first, I love you. I love each and every one of you. Secondly, a quote from Henry Longfellow, "Sail on, O ship of State; Sail on, O Union strong and great; Humanity with all its fears; with all our hopes for future years; is hanging breathless on thy fate"

Bringing it all together

Today was the last day to finish voting on the reports of the various committees. We accepted a resolution on private property. As we moved onto a report from the committee on education things began to unravel again as the emotions of the previous evening began to emerge again. With clearer heads to guide our decisions we stopped immediately and left the Congress and to discuss it as the Committee of the Whole. I prefer to refer to it as the Committee of the Grievances. We spent 45 minutes clearing the air and having a sort of catharsis. By the end we postponed the Education, Faithfully Execute and 4 other resolutions until a potential reconvening of the Congress. After this we broke into 6 separate sub-committees to begin developing our Compact, formerly known as Articles of Association...but this was dropped due to the fact that it implies an incorporation and carries with it other legal ramifications. I am a part of the committee charged with developing the preamble to our final work. I am honored to be working on such an important task. We have finished, with great pleasure in our product, a draft of the preamble that will be appearing in our completed documentation. This will be the first thing that people will read and I am eager to see what this fine group of men and women can produce. I have to say...I am so happy today was slower day with little to report. These blogs have gotten longer by the day and I almost feel as if I am doing you a disservice by not continuing the trend. But, if you will permit, my mind and fingers need a rest. Goodnight and God Bless

To call it long would be laughable

Today was easily the most trying, most stressful, most emotional and most productive day at Congress. We had an incredible presentation from a gentleman named Red Beckman. This man was inspiring. I suggest you Google him and learn as much as you can because I can only scratch the surface of what I am sure is an iceberg of knowledge...and still, I am sure, not do it justice. We are handicapped. From our public schools to the media and our churches. We are not taught what we need to know to protect Liberty and now it has gone too far. We believe that our government derives its just power from the consent of the people. A better way to put it would be that the government gets its just or unjust powers from the consent of the governed. Our election process is so corrupted by campaign contribution that the possibility of a democratic answer to the problems we face is growing slimmer as the days pass. If we had some law that would ban incumbents from raising campaign money and force them to run on their record...maybe there would be hope. In England the people were forced to resort to violence 23 times from the time of the Magna Carta to the American Constitution to bring their government within some semblance of law. Sadly, violence and the spilling of blood is merely an indication that there was failure. Our failure. Failure to restrain that most dangerous servant government. Failure to be informed. Failure to exercise our rights. For like muscles, through lack of use they will atrophy and they will die. What do we do about this? The courts are the wrong venue to seek an answer. It can only be achieved by a Grand Jury comprised of WE the people. As someone cases in the past however, how does one gain standing? So many cases are dismissed for lack of standing and I do not have the answer for you. One step that must be taken is to remind people of the power of the jury in general. Jurors are more powerful than many people realize and if they knew I promise people of our mindset would be lining up to volunteer for jury duty. Ever since 1890 judges stopped informing people about one very important fact...the jury has the right...no the duty...to judge not only the facts but the law itself. Samuel Chase, a man who actually signed the Declaration of Independence, became a Supreme Court Justice and was eventually impeached. He said to a jury, "I will tell you what the law is." Since then...we have let them. Mr. Beckman presented a flow chart to the Congress today that explained the paradigm shift that has happened. The system is intended to be: Nature's Law; Common Law (common sense); Law of Grammar (what words mean); the Individual; the Constitution; three branches of Government; House and Senate; lesser laws. We are above the Constitution...we are above the Government. As I mentioned before we are at a disadvantage because our schools teach us to follow, the media tells us we aren't in charge and the churches (not mine personally...I have an amazing pastor, but many) teach us to obey. And for those who are able to see through and resist the reversal of the natural order there is the IRS. The IRS is a weapon that can be used to pressure a person to the point of suicide. The IRS is guilty of committing thousands of "perfect murders." More people than you would ever imagine have committed that final act simply because they could no longer take the pressure. Mr. Beckman stressed to us that there are two kinds of Patriotism. First is True Patriotism where the people declare allegiance to their country. The second is False Patriotism where the people declare allegiance to their government. Many people don't know this...because you never hear anything good in the news...but Italy has had 40 different governments since WWII. We never hear about great upheaval and turmoil in Italy because for some reason it works. Or maybe, as Thomas Jefferson said, "Every generation needs a revolution." The rest of the day was intense deliberation and many great strides forward. In regards to the many reports we received today we voted as follows: FOREIGN POLICY AND GENERAL WELFARE Recommit; PRESIDENTIAL AUTHORITY TO RECONVENE Unanimously approved; SOVEREIGNTY Accepted; CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNANCE Accepted; WAR POWERS Accepted; NEW WORLD ORDER Rejected; PUBLIC DEBT Accepted; ARTICLE II ELIGIBILITY Accepted; PRIVACY Unanimously approved; POWER OF THE JURY Accepted; 14th AMENDMENT Postponed. Those are all the votes for the day. Now before I take leave, which necessity requires be soon...it is 3:48 am as I type and another long day tomorrow, I would like to briefly address the incidence at the end of this evening. It is always disappointing to see tempers and anger come to bear. The 14th Amendment is deemed by this Congress to be a piece of immense importance to the troubles we are facing and the Congress itself was divided greatly over how to best address it. There was incidence with the voting delegates of Illinois, Delaware and Ohio. The voting delegates were strongly in support of continuing to debate because they so strongly believe the 14th Amendment holds the key. I hope that none of our delegation leave due to such an argument as some of you may have witnessed...although it took place at 1 AM here...which is 2 AM there. In this Congress sleep is short, it is now 3:54 AM, tensions and stress are high and an event of this nature was inevitable. I pray to Nature's Creator that we may move beyond this and finish all the good work that hard labor by many individuals has brought forward.

I pledge allegiance, to the flags...

We are in danger of losing our sovereignty...or have we lost it already? The first thing we discussed this morning was the North American Free Trade Agreement. One of the requirements of NAFTA is that the governments involved must reform their laws to comply with NAFTA's regulations. Did you know that the NAFTA courts, yeah...for some reason they have those, are higher than even our own Supreme Court. Next we discussed Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP) which is essentially NAFTA on steroids. The SPP is one more step towards the North American Union. There is actually a facts vs myth section to their website...it's an interesting read (it can be found here: http://www.spp.gov. Is it true...what do you think, but it's there. They have deemed that there is no need for Congressional oversight of SPP because NAFTA is already considered "law of the land." The trick to all of this is putting it in place incrementally. They are beginning to piece together a NAFTA super highway known as the Trans-Texas Corridor. The TTC is a 1/4 mile wide superhighway that bisects Texas and continues up through Minnesota into Canada. To put that into perspective a 12 lane highway is roughly 300 yards across, 1/4 mile is 1,200 yards. Another step can be taken next month in Copenhagen. A great video for some more info on that is here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMe5dOgbu40. This is the groundwork to more than a regional combining of nations but a one world government. The key is to slowly put the infrastructure in place. Another step is by encouraging the development and growth of public-private partnerships. If you spend just a few minutes I could fill a full page of such partnerships that have developed here in America in the past decade. To put it simply they are seeking one currency, one set of rules, one government. Eastern nations have already begun discussing how to dump the dollar and the IMF has cried for the need of a one world currency. They have even begun a sort of one world education through the North American Students of Cooperation (NASCO). This is a program held in Ann Arbor, MI every November and is participated in by roughly 400 students. The intent is, "to share ideas, learn new skills, and look at issues affecting the cooperative movement worldwide." I lifted that from the website...they make it easy. I'm sure I don't have to express to you how the loss of sovereignty will negatively affect us here in the States. Just look at the EU. 84% of the laws in place currently in Germany come directly from the EU. Private property was our next topic. The idea of private property was used by General Gaius Marius of Rome. He offered private property to those who would serve in his army. This led to one of the strongest fighting forces ever organized. After the fall of Rome to a corrupted general around 80 BC private property disappeared from the Earth until the signing of the Magna Carta in 1215. Even then the property belonged to the Nobles and Lords alone. Private property is quit possibly the best way to reduce poverty. 70% of small businesses us the equity on their homes to start the business. No private property...no new businesses. In developing nations it can take from 10 to 20 years to register private property and many time these property rights never get legally established. To illustrate just how important private property is to an economy consider that we here in America have an average yearly income of appoximately $45,000. In socialist Europe the average income is around $34,000 and in former communist states the average income is a meager $2,000. Now you tell me what works best...Capitalism and Liberty, Socialism and Collectivism or Communism and well...gulags. There are other concerns that are rising from the environmental movement such as smart growth and the programs of Agenda 21 with sustainable development. These programs could devastate the States and we are still waiting with bated breath on cap & trade. For further info on cap & trade check out www.nocapandtrade.us. And as if we didn't have enough acronyms to worry about I was introduced today to ICLEI which is a non-governmental organization to promote environmental sustainability to local governments and has been accridted by the UN to promote their environmental policies. Pair this with the Sierra Club, Autobahn Society, Chamber of Commerce (yeah, they have them to), and even the American Bar Association being wrapped up in this dirty business of cleaning up...we have an uphill climb. I digress for just a moment to catch your breath...a poem perhaps, "The woods are lovely/ dark and deep/ But i have promises to keep/ And miles to go before I sleep/ And miles to go before I sleep. Now that my mind has stopped spinning to, I will conclude with a brief report on what was discussed in deliberation today. If you have been watching this online you are familiar with the process we have adopted. For those of you who haven't...go to www.givemeliberty.org/cc2009. Why would I tell you about it when you should be watching. But we did pass one resolution today concerning the income tax. I can't accurately report on it because I was out of the room on business but as soon as I learn the details of this resolution I will try to inform you. Two other resolutions were sent back to committee to be reworked some more. Seeing as I am on one of those committees, regarding sovereignty, I must take my leave for the night because we will be meeting at 6am to finish and boy does that come fast.

An invasion the magnitude never known in American history

The wisdom of our Founder's must never be forgotten. We had an address this morning from "President George Washington." The complete transcript can be found here http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/washing.asp An interesting fact is that this farewell address was never actually given orally but was printed in the papers among the States. We also revisited the 2nd amendment committee's civic action papers and the instructions to the States. The civic action was passed and some minor loopholes were closed in the State instruction. The 2nd amendment has now been passed and we have another complete instruction packet. After lunch we heard from two former ICE Investigators. We dove into the largest invasion of American soil in history. This invasion has been taking place for nearly 30 years and in our present state we harbor millions of illegal aliens nationwide. Supporters of amnesty, like La Raza, LULAC and MALDEF usually will try to claim that illegal immigration is not actually a crime. To the contrary. it violates many laws. Such as: 1)Unlawful entry 2)Entry without inspection 3Fraud at entry 4) Alien smuggling/transporting 5)Harboring illegal aliens 6)Encouraging illegal immigration 7)Engaging in conspiracy and many more. Also under Title 42 USC 408 it is a felony for the misuse of a social security number...and if you read my earlier blog on eligibility you know that someone very powerful is associated with 39 different social security numbers. To add to that under Title 18 USC 911 it is a felony to make a false claim of U.S. citizenship. At the present moment, along with the millions of illegal aliens, there are roughly 450,000 illegal aliens that have been given final orders to vacate the country, or what the investigators call "run papers" because once they are served they run. Don't be fooled by this talk of Comprehensive Immigration Reform either...there is no reform. It is merely a politically correct way of saying blanket amnesty. The problem is only getting worse as the drug cartels are slowly taking over Mexico and moving northward. For more information check our www.drugwarsthemovie.com. I'm not usually one for plugging merchandise, and it is a little graphic, but it opens your eyes to what's going on and our failure to do anything to stop it. Until we can effectively control our borders we will always face the threat. We don't have a border with Mexico. It is so lax that there are outfits that actually offer 100% satisfaction guarantees on successfully smuggling an immigrant into the U.S. It may not be the first try, but eventually they will get them in. Do you know the percentage of aliens who successfully enter America? 100%. That's right, every single person who wants to cross our borders illegally sooner or later gets in. Don't be fooled by the lies when they claim that "We stop x% of illegal immigrants from entering our country every year." They all get in. This will not stop because our deportation procedures are equivalent to forcing a bank robber to return the money and giving him a stern talking to. As one of my fellow delegates said, "The Native Americans had ineffective immigration laws and look what happened."

Tyranny without walls

Today was almost as informative as it was scary...and let me tell you it was very informative. Today we discussed the war powers clause. As we are all aware the power to declare war rests in the Congress. The government was designed this way, not because the men and women of Congress would be any less flawed as human beings, but because the passions that cause one to rush to war would be tempered by debate and reason. In fact the Congress has more power over foreign relations than the President, as far as the Constitution is concerned, because taking a country from peace to war requires a change in law. War power is inherently legislative in nature. Congress must authorize hostilities either by declaration or by a joint resolution then, and only then, does the power transfer to the President so that he may conduct the war as the Commander-in-Chief. It took less than one generation before these Congressional powers came under assault. In 1846, before the outbreak of hostilities in the Mexican-American War, James Polk attempted to force Congress into action. Polk ordered the deployment of troops into disputed territory, fully aware the Mexican Army would respond, so that he could go to Congress declaring that the Mexican Army had initiated hostilities. At the time our Congress was smart enough, and cared enough about our Constitution, that President Polk was censured. The censure was led by then Representative Abraham Lincoln. For all this Lincoln himself violated the war powers clause at the onset of the Civil War. He later humbled himself before Congress expressing regret for violating the Constitution and asking them to pass laws ex post factoto make his actions legal. This body is torn on their opinions of Lincoln, not surprising the opinions are divided between the north and the south...some things never change. The first President to take our country to war without the approval of Congress was Harry Truman in 1950 when he sent troops to Korea to fight against the spread of Communism. These actions Robert Taft and Richard Nixon strongly objected to...but later it seems Nixon changed his mind on the whole Constitution issue. The practice has carried on into our time and has only gotten worse. In 1998 Bill Clinton asked Congress to authorize bombings in Kosovo to end the genocide taking place. Congress denied his request. Undeterred Clinton went ahead and ordered the bombings anyway. The lesson? You can defy Congress...but don't lie about an affair. Most recently, Congress actually delegated their power to declare war to President Bush prior to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, in essence you go ahead and declare it whenever you are ready. The second part of the day we focused on the right to privacy. I would suggest picking up a copy of Shadow Government: How the Global Elite Plan to Destroy Democracy and Your Freedom a film by Grant R Jeffrey. It will be released in roughly ten days. It will shock you to see how surveilled we as a people truly are. Denial is pervasive in America. We believe that we live in the land of the free and the home of the brave yet we live in one of the most controlled and experimental societies on the planet. The tyranny that has been set up here is rather interesting because is it a tyranny without walls. As a country, and a collective consciousness, we are just beginning to become aware that something is not right. The system is corrupt. It does not work. Just because we can go about our daily lives without ever feeling the chains...does not mean they are not there. A brief take on Pastor Martin Niemoller's poem about the rise of Nazi Germany would go something like this First they came for banks, and I did not speak out...because I was not a banker;Then they came for the car manufacturers', and I did not speak out...because I was not in their union;Then they came for the media, and I did not speak out...because I was not a pundit;Then they came for me...and there was no one left to speak our for me."

Things that make you go hmmm....

What a day. Incredible speakers today. I want to start off discussing them because wow...the work these three have done. Today focused on taxation and the eligibility of B. Hussein Obama to be the President of the United States. The first speaker we heard form today was Mr. Joe Banister who joined us via webcast. Mr. Banister is a former IRS Special Agent focused on criminal investigation. He was a fan of a particular talk radio host in the San Fransisco area who invited Devvy Kidd on his show to speak on the subject of the income tax. Mr. Banister related a story to us about how he could not believe how a man he had come to admire for his integrity would have someone on his program that he, at the time, thought to be so misinformed. How could his job be illegal? After a year of researching and fact finding he realized that the IRS assesses and collects the Federal Income tax through illegal means and to cover it they portray to the media an image of victorious court case after victorious court case. All the while burying the myriad of cases that they had lost. He took the evidence he had uncovered and presented it to his superior at the IRS. After all...he's a criminal investigator, his boss has to be interested. His director refused to see or to discuss what had been uncovered and asked for Mr. Banister's resignation. In 2005 he was charged and prosecuted for attempting to defraud the United States government because he was trying to educate people on what he had discovered. Which ties in perfectly with our second speaker of the day Jeff Dickstein, because Mr. Dickstein was the attorney who was able to get Mr. Banister acquitted. Jeff Dickstein has done so much research on the 16th Amendment that I would only do his work a disservice by trying to sum it up. Instead I will recommend you all to visit his websites because they are absolutely loaded with information. Please please educate yourselves. www.JeffDickstein.com and www.fightbacknow.us...two sites that are more than worth your while. Our last speaker is actually one of our very own delegates, Dr. Orly Taitz Esq. Dr. Taitz is currently what I like to consider the last attorney standing. She is the only attorney left in America who still has a pending case concerning the eligibility of Mr. Obama to be the President of the United States. She has spoken with officials in Kenya who claim they are currently working out the details of erecting a monument to Mr. Obama in honor of his being elected President (wonder why? Of course I won't speculate...this post is very much like Fox News...I'll report-you decide). Considering how vehemently the administration has defended Obama's eligibility you would think that this is just a witch hunt. Except that John McCain's citizenship was investigated. Senator McCain was born in the territory around the Panama Canal, which at the time was a territory of the United States making him a natural born citizen. Mr. Obama however, as we all know, is not able to produce a birth certificate. The White House has posted a Certification of Live Birth from the State of Hawaii claiming that this is adequate...even though there is no hospital named, no doctor named and absolutely no signatures. What does this mean? It means that certificate is about as good as me declaring in this blog is proof that I am King George's son. When commenting on Mr. Obama's asking for privacy on the matter Orly stated that, "...if he [Obama] wants to claim privacy...he needs to leave the White House, sit at home, and claim privacy." One of her cases that was on the docket to be heard by the Supreme Court, which claims to hear the most important cases to the Country, was mysteriously deleted without explanation. The Supreme Court did however find time to decide on whether or not smoker's of light cigarettes had the right to sue the cigarette manufacturer's. Two more things to ponder. In 1980/81 Barack Obama traveled to Pakistan when it was under the control of radical Muslim's and was on the American no travel list. What passport did he use then? If it wasn't an American passport where was it from? This last piece shocked me. B. Hussein Obama has been connected to 39 different Social Security numbers throughout his life and the number he most frequently uses is actually the Social Security number of a gentleman who was born in 1890 in Connecticut...makes you go hmmmmm. Our proceedings were less aggressive today due to our extra speaker and outside of a committee report it was an open forum for the day. This did allow those of us involved in committee's to focus our attentions on our direct tasks which I sadly cannot speak on in entirety because I just don't know. What I can tell you is that our resolution on the 2nd Amendment and the revitalization of the militia is nearing completion. I have to admit though, I far more anxious to see the fruits of our Articles of Association committee at this juncture. I am confident in the works of the committee on which I sit and we have had a fairly easy time of reaching consensus on it, but the Articles of Association is historic. To sign our names to this document and send it off to the General Government...there is still more than a week before this document will be finalized and the thought of it just makes me ponder what our Founding Father's must have felt while the essentially signed away their lives when they signed the Declaration of Independence. The kinks of this are falling away and we are picking up speed. Truly history in the making.

Gaining Momentum

To begin I have been asked to clarify that these posts are from the eyes and ears of one the delegates from Connecticut. I have also adjusted the settings to allow anyone to comment, so please feel free to comment till your heart is content. Today marked the transition from posturing to progress in my eyes. We focused our energies on two of the most important issues of the Congress...money and firearms. An interesting piece of information was shared with us this morning by a speaker who had worked with the Federal Reserve, regrettably I missed his introduction and was never able to catch the young gentleman's name...but boy was he a fast talker. The three (3) months since World War II with the most transactions came at very interesting times. First was January of 1991 prior to the outbreak of the first war in Iraq. Second was in December of 1999 leading up to anticipated collapse of Y2K. The third highest number of transactions took place in August of 2001. While I believe that you are all highly proficient user's of reason I shall allow you to draw your own conclusions. As we convened in Congress we took up the challenge of drafting a resolution regarding the monetary system of the United States. It was agreed that only Constitutional methods of payments shall be permitted in these United States and that hard monies based on precious metals of gold, silver, et al. will be re-implemented pursuant to Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution. It's amazing that all the Ivy league minds controlling our present system can't seem to put together that a silver dollar is worth the same amount today as it did 50 years ago whereas the U.S. Dollar (Federal Reserve Notes) have dropped in value by 95% since 1913. We spend the afternoon diving into the second amendment. A local advocate for the right to bear arms, Ralph Conner, made what has been the most enthralling presentation of the Congress to date. He discussed how the second amendment is just as important to blacks and hispanics living in inner cities as it is to those who live in the suburbs and rural areas. To further his point we were treated to a video presentation of his "No Guns for Negros" discussing how for the longest time blacks were not permitted to possess firearms. What I particularly enjoyed about Mr. Conners position is that we share the idea that more guns = less crime. If you would like to verify this please refer the crime rate of Washington D.C. since the Heller vs. DC decision. With a suite being brought against Chicago by the same attorney who successfully argued Heller's case there is hope for Illinois yet. Before returning to deliberate on the right to bear arms, gun control and the militia we were presented with two proposals brought by the Virginia delegation on behalf of Dr. Edwin Vieira. The first dealing with reasserting the power of the purse...dealing obviously with our previous topic of money and the second entitled reasserting the power of the sword. These proposals became the crux of the resolutions that are currently being worked on in separate committee's. I was able to get myself a seat on the 2nd Amendment committee. The first issue that had to be decided was what exactly does militia mean? Two attempts to resolve this issue resulted in a sub-sub-committee(???) being assigned the duty of hashing this out. I again...found myself a seat on this committee because I had drafted one of the two proposed definitions. After meeting briefly we returned to the rest of our committee happy to report we had decided on a definition which we had agreed is as follows: A militia is a Constitutional defense force comprising all loyal citizenry capable of bearing arms, well trained and under proper authority, in defense of themselves and the State. The rest of the evening was spent debating and gently tweaking Dr. Vieira's propositions on the matter. One problem we will have in Connecticut that is unique to us, as far as those State's represented on our committee could tell, is that Sheriff's are almost essential to the successful implementation of the proposal. We do not have Sheriff's. Suggestions?

Deliberations begin

Today was an incredible learning process. We started our day with some words from the Congress President Michael Badnarik and Robert Shulz. We also covered some more technical issues. Afterward we reconvened in the meeting hall and began the suprisingly long process of deciding on the rules of our Congress. We are using Robert's Rules of Order as our guide and to say that the process of familiarizing ourselves with Parliamentary procedure is a difficult task would be a gross understatement. Regardless we soldiered on and finally decided on our final set of rules...which personally, I'm glad we still have the ability (according to Robert's Rules) to call up and revise them. With that messy business completed we dove into the first of the, I'm sure to be seemingly endless, deliberations. A motion was brought forth by a delegate from New York to present Congress with a plan to create a "Council of Revision." This Council would be tasked with reviewing all bills to determine their Constitutionality. I am off the mind that the cure for beauracracy is most certainly not more bureaucracy. Finally presenting the delegation with an idea to sink their teeth into turned into quite the feeding frenzy as ideas began to flow from every direction...regardless of relevance. The first two hours of our deliberations I pray was only the release of pent up excitement and I shall wait patiently for reason to reign. After lunch we reconvened in the auditorium to listen to Mark Lane. Mr. Lane is an attorney who has also written many books, most notably pertaining to his work on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The first amendment was the focus and how it pertains to petitions that have been filed over the years by Mr. Shulz and the We the People Foundation. To fully understand the steps that have already been taken is essential to the success of this Congress. All options for a peaceful redress of grievances must be exhausted. My favorite line from Mr. Lanes talk was as follows, "10,000 assertions in the press does not necessarily contain 1 truthful statement." We had a final session of Congress in which we decided that proposed motions would first be sent through committee's to work out a more presentably product. We will have a better idea of how this works out tomorrow. I have some very deep concerns for this delegation as we proceed, but must remind myself that this is the first day of deliberation and that the life cycle of such events demands a day of reckoning much like the one we experienced. I would caution my fellow delegates to be passionate...but be cautious not to be overzealous. Be bold...but temper it with reason. Walk softly...before you find a big stick.

CC2009 Opening 11/11/2009

Continental Congress 2009 kicked off today here in St. Charles, Illinois at Pheasant Run. After a long day of travel delegates from across the country have finally convened at the much anticipated Congress. The first order of business, aside from feeling out parliamentary procedure, was to elect our officers for this Congress. The President of Continental Congress 2009 is Michael Badnarik of Texas and the Vice President will be Dan Gonzalez of Florida. After a wonderful 4 course dinner with a dash of theatricality the opening ceremonies were held. The American, Illinois and Gadsden flags proceeded into the hall followed by the delegates of each of the States delegates bearing their respective flags. The opening ceremony included several prayers, the singing of our national anthem and several other songs and the reading of Benjamin Franklin's address to the Constitutional Convention of 1787. To be kept even more up to date...follow the proceedings live via our live webcast at http://www.givemeliberty.org/CC2009/default.htm