THE PLAN TO SAVE AMERICA- GOES PUBLIC TODAY.

Saving America is an audacious goal- but never more critical than it is today.
It's something everyone knows we desperately need, but nobody knows how to do. Nobody has a plan- let alone a plan that will work.

Today, I will present such a plan to you, summarized in this post, and then send you to the website to see the entire project.

To work, such a plan would have to be totally non-partisan- and it is.
It would have to be equally beneficial to members of Congress, and all the American people- and it is.
It would have to use the existing system to get different results- and it does.

It's taken many years, many people, and many dollars to reach this point, but it's been achieved. Now- the next step is to reach the people. We must create a super-majority of public support which is the only way to put the plan in place. We have found the root causes and developed the plan, but only the people have the power to make it happen. It can be done, and this plan can do it- with the support of the people. We're asking for help, because no plan can work if it's not used. The plan is a tool- the people are the power that can put in place. It's up all of us.

Yesterday, we mailed 535 letters; personal letters to every member of Congress, announcing it and inviting them to join us and support it. Many major news names will get personally invited to review the plan and project as well. Today, no later than tomorrow- a national press release will go out announcing it to hundreds of news agencies.

The plan is called “ The Honorable Congress Act”. Our group is a non-profit corporation whose sole purpose is to present and promote the plan- we are the Honorable Congress Project, inc. The people who have developed this and operate the project get zero compensation; it is all volunteer donation of time, expertise and money.

THE PLAN- Is simple. Here's the basics.
Congress is America's navigation system. The people decide what they want for America; the job of Congress is to get us there safely- to choose the path, and to keep the American house in order along the way. To do that, Congress must have its own house in order first. When it is not, problems aren't being solved by Congress- they are being created. The absence of order creates chaos, and nothing good comes from that condition.

Chaos in Congress creates chaos everywhere. Likewise, the restoration of order in Congress can restore order in the nation. Everything depends on Congress having an environment where Honor and Order are constant, and required. It is not, chaos rules.
That is what we will change.

Votes select people, but they cannot control conduct. What we can do is apply control over the environment of Congress; and make Honor and Order the only acceptable kind of conduct in that institution. This is as simple as cleaning house- you simply remove the things that make it unclean. But, you must have the power to do so.

What the Honorable Congress Act does, is to say that if members of Congress won't do their job by the rules they are sworn to uphold- they lose that job. Not at the next election, but quickly.

Imagine a baseball game without umpires, and the chaos that would create. The Umpires call the plays, keep order- and have the authority to remove any player who refuses to play by the rules. That makes the game, the leagues, and the sport- successful. Congress does not have any umpires.

The Honorable Congress Act creates a kind of umpire for Congress. It is a panel of Citizens, called in the same way as a jury, and empowered to enforce just two rules that already exist, that all members of Congress are already sworn to uphold- and using a Congressional power that already exists to enforce them.

It cannot make law, has no political interest or power or influence on legislation. It deals only with two critical rules of ethics, and it has multiple safeties to keep it's own house clean.

Restore the power of America's Congress to do it's real job- and everybody wins, including Congress.

You can learn more at: https://honorablecongress.org/

 

Comes across as a touch vapid and ephemeral, but you're probably on the right track.

 

The reason so few people excel is that most can't keep the core principles that make things work in sight; they seek complicated answers and reject simple solutions. Human nature.
The challenge is getting past the vast amounts of distractions that prevent reaching root cause. We know that a certain portion of the public will reject this concept simply because they think it's an impossible problem or it can't be that easy. This is the product of many very wise minds working on the same issue, over many years. The problem is not easy to understand. Finding the solution has not been easy. If it was- it would have been done long ago; the nation wouldn't be in trouble and there wouldn't be a need for this today. This isn't just an idea on track, it's a complete concept and a legislative proposal whose time is now.

 

Interesting thought. I think the forces of chaos first move would be to try and gain control of the citizen panel and then define the ethics. This might be the outline of something that could head us in the right direction.
If there were enough citizen votes that reinforced the expectations to make a difference in the next election that might put some teeth in it.

 

The board has looked at possible avenues from every angle, including public response. We fully expect a lot more people to tell us what we should have thought of instead of asking "How can I help".
That's human nature, but also promotes procrastination; endless variables trying to please the complainers at the expense of the viabilty of the project.

Our group has included a lot of talent, including a PhD professor of Political Science with 50 years experience, who gave us a big window into the mechanics and tricks of Washington politics.
Many years, thousands of hours exploring all the possibilities, factoring them into the process of creating a working plan. It's not an accident; it's a carefully engineered plan.
So it's not a step in the right direction- it's a viable solution, ready to go. You might ask how much longer America can wait to find one.

The first objective IS to make this part of the next election. It should be a key campaign issue, right now- and will be a very powerful one, IF we can get people behind it now.

If a reporter asks a candidate if they support an Honorable, orderly Congress- what will the candidate say? "Hell no, I prefer chaos?"
If an incumbent candidate objects to the idea of honoring the rules they are already sworn to uphold- how do you think they will be able to justify that?
Think on that. This is like a deal you can't refuse; all it asks of members of Congress is to do their jobs, by the rules Congress itself created.
The rules exist now, but a means of enforcement does not. Rules not enforced become ineffective cosmetics. This plan puts effective, fully independent enforcement in place- that is all.

The panel is not a part of Congress; not funded from the congressional budget- it's independent. The process of qualifying and screening the citizens called to serve excludes anyone in or closely connected to politics. Service is voluntary too. People can decline if called, but can't volunteer otherwise. There are strict controls over their conduct. The terms of panel members rotates in a way that all are experienced, but none serve more than one year- fresh members start the apprentice phase every 4 months, thus it does not develop a cadre of entrenched power.

Every bill enters congress as written, but then goes to committees- who often revise it; sometimes gut it or kill it. We are well aware of that process too; we know that it will have to be sheperded through that process and it's integrity protected at every step until it's passed. Again, that can only be done with public pressure- and we will focus it to reach the goal, IF we have it.
We have done our homework many times over. The plan has teeth- what it needs is the public to give it the power to use them.

 

Who appoints the citizens on the panel?

In any case, just like the SC is getting more and more poiticized and filled with political hacks, there is no reason to believe it would be different for this proposed panel. And, even if the panel members were truly non-political, they would be smeared by the typical media pundits anyway.

I don't see this as improving the current unbearable situation. What WOULD change the situation is to get rid of gerrymandering, and change the current primary system, which favors extremist nuts over honorable people.

 

Let me first say, I am enthusiastic about this project, and I truly hope it gains traction and takes off. It is the best non-violent solution to the deep state corruption I have seen proposed yet. I have already sent my representatives an email urging them to support this project.

However, its weakness is presupposing that The People actually want honor in Congress. When you have a system of government that is predicated upon "robbing Peter to pay Paul", they can always count on Paul's enthusiastic and unwavering support. Being the hopeless cynic I am, I suspect that "Paul", collectively being the majority of American citizens and coupled with the flood of illegal aliens, will have no interest in a more honorable congress. They want more robbers, not fewer. Joe Biden effectively said so just yesterday.

 

Reading would help "It is a panel of Citizens, called in the same way as a jury".

We already know that a substantial number of people will tell us what's wrong before they know what the plan is. Human nature.
If you are happy with the status quo- that's your choice. If you have a better idea, get it on the table.

 

Honor here means only following the rules of your job, of your office. We can enforce that, and in so doing-
The people in office who want an effective Congress will have the environment to work that way. The people who don't want to follow the rules will soon cross the line and be removed.
People with self-respect generally will have good values. These are self-regulated people- but they need a good working environment to be good people.
The right environment promotes and attracts a good team.... a bad one, the opposite.

You can't dictate how people think, that is not in our power. We can't control who gets elected. You must turn to what IS in your control.
This plan makes it possible to remove people who disregard the rules that keep Honor and Order.

Lack of Order is chaos. Chaos hides corruption; corrupt people like it. Order exposes it.
The environment of Congress will change with this act in place, and that will change everything about it.
It will attract better candidates for example. We have members leaving Congress now that say they are disgusted and have just had enough.

It's true that human weakness is a huge social problem. But honorable leadership, people who actually care about the future of the country, would tighten the strings and change things.
In the right environment, that will grow- in the wrong one, it degrades. Work in progress- a journey of sorts, and we must start where we are.

I'm old. I'm not in this for me, I'm in it for my great-grandchildren to come, and yours. I believe every generation owes a debt to the future- and if we fail to teach that, fail to act on it, we cheat them.
We have to stop saying that's ok- and the place to start is Congress, because the precedents of their behavior set the bar for the rest of the nation.
This actually has no losers, other than those who might want to destroy the nation.

Leadership has to care, and has to be trustworthy. This isn't a one-step cure, that is impossible. It's an ongoing commitment to the integrity of our Congress- and the ability of the people to trust in our nation.
We appreciate your support, it is what we need- people telling their representatives they want a better, honorable congress. I think you!

 

And? In the case of a jury, a judge and attorney will be able to challenge the jury selection and throw people off. Who would be the people doing this in case of the citizen panel? There is no reason to belive that this process would not become highly politicized, just like people call judges a "Soros judge", if they don't like a ruling.

 

Well then- the thing to do is take your ball and go to the house, because you are done.
See if doing nothing works better than trying.

 

So if a Congress member isn't "doing the job" they get bounced right now.

Good.

Um, you realize you're just making up another level of bureaucracy that won't actually fix anything, right?
And it will quickly become so politicized that it won't be effective.

 

The media lies
constantly.

How can anyone vote wisely
when all the information is
wrong?

 

If a plan cannot stand up to criticism, it is doomed to fail. Objections are opportunities for further explanation.

 

You're free to surrender to the chaos if you choose. We know going in that many people will. Most of those who do will not even read the details of this plan before they throw in the towel.
It's taken us years to figure out how to do it, a few minutes for you to figure out it's a waste of time.
We will not apologize for trying to do better. If we succeed, you will benefit anyway.

 

We are presenting a plan, an opportunity. Support it, or ignore it.

 

I joined their email list.

It sounds like a good plan, the main problem we have as I see
it is money from lobbyists bribing Congress, and the worst part
of that is the 'defense' lobby (when do they ever defend?) because
they both run up the National Debt and make enemies.

Bringing honor to Congress could fix all those problems.

Except the big bad businesses that own the media and lie to
the public constantly.

 

It's virtually impossible to grasp the entire picture of what affects government conduct. Believe me, we tried every way we could think of. But in fact, it's not a thousand things wrong- it's more like one thing causing or allowing a thousand to go wrong. Until one is able to see that, they think they must fight a thousand battles.

What the Honorable Congress plan is designed to do- is fix the instrument whose very purpose is to keep everything else in order. Like a computer whose operating system has a virus corrupting it, the malfunctions show up in all the programs the computer controls. The problems you see in the programs are actually sysmtoms of the virus, not the programs. Remove the virus and multiple things begin working right again. Congress is well designed, it does have sound rules- but no way of making them work. Because Congress controls so many other things, functional breakdown in Congress has a similar effect on all the things it manages. This is the target issue the plan addresses.

Congress makes the laws, creates the taxes, spends the money, and oversees every other agency of government. Congress itself however- has no viable oversight except the public. They are not transparent to the public, which is required by the rules the plan will enforce. They sell and trade influence, also prohibited by those same rules. Most of the poor practices in Congress exist only because the ethics rules aren't enforced, and allow it.

The constitution gave Congress- and only Congress- the responsibility of overseeing and cleaning it's own house. It has the authority, but it's a peer to peer situation, so self-oversight isn't independent at all.
You may have heard the saying- "We have carefully investigated ourselves, and find we have done nothing wrong." Because the defacto rules have everyone doing the same things as normal process- anyone who would accuse his peer of impropriety is usually guilty of the same thing, and therefore... can't. Because- there is little choice, it's the way things are done in the existing environment.
The bill is not retroactive. Everyone starts clean and square; a new deal.

It's not enough to recognize a problem, not enough to know how to fix it. You must also find a way to do so without doing greater damage, have a way to get the plan in place-
with the approval of the very people the plan will apply to. Nobody else has ever managed to do that. Time to put it in place, and for that- we will need the help of everyone.

 

I'll wait to hear more. I think it's a good idea to remove people who are not doing their jobs and just use their positions to play politics. But it needs a LOT of precision. I can see, for example, many people in congress being held accountable for putting us constantly on the verge of a shutdown, not because of policy differences (which is understandable), but due to purely political electoral interest. Some have gone as far as to even justify their votes about certain issues even PUBLICLY based purely on electoral calculations. Which means they don't even CARE about doing their jobs. They just want their party to get more people elected. If this project addresses things like that, it will be of value.

 

Can you give an example of how it would work in practice?

 

A citizens panel is created in the same way as a Grand Jury. 100 members, 50 observing and learning, 50 with voting positions. Carefully screened and qualified, and term limited.
The panel has the means to observe and investigate. (grand juries do the same) limited to two rules of ethics
Upon finding an intentional violation of those rules, it documents and details, and presents that to the entire panel, by video conference.
The panel examines, and if it finds the violation has happened and warrants action, a call goes to the Congress member involved.
The member appears at a panel conference to explain their action.
The panel considers the violation and the explanation of the member.
The panel votes, which may be- no action, warning or removal from office. (Under the existing congressional power via a definition for the rule and delegation of its enforcement).
No other consequences.

This is not a criminal proceeding- it's primarily a kind of employee review, which may result in your termination.
This is why only citizens, not politicians, will control the process; they ARE the people writing the checks- the real employers.
While everyone has political preferences and biases, those cannot run the nation, and they cannot influence this panel. We have considered that and eliminated the risk of it.
That is why the scope here is so limited, applying only to two rules that already exist. Those two are enough to do the job. Kiss formula.

Those two rules are-
The Oath of Office and the Fiduciary Duty of Office. The Oath is commitment; the duty it commits them to includes the Fiduciary Duty, which is also common law that's been part of law in history worldwide going back to Roman times. No new standards; only the power to enforce standards that already exist.

The question is not if this will work or not; it's the same process that applies in everything from good parenting to corporate success to military command; the simple fact that rules not enforced have no power.
The question is if we can convince the public to give them power, or if they will prefer to continue to do nothing but complain- and rely on the hope that doing the same things over and over will change the results someday.

The challenge of convincing the people to help themselves may prove greater than the challenge of finding a way to do this in the first place, and that has taken us well over a decade, closer to two.
Several of the people who have dedicated so much to this project are gone. It's been mostly seniors, people with great experience as well as great knowledge. One of our most valuable, a PhD professor of political science who has been with us since the beginning, passed away last fall at 92. We have nothing to gain, no deception- just the hope that we can leave a better world to those who come after us- And, the hope that people are still strong enough to take responsibility for themselves and get back in control of their own government. It's not a question if they can, but of if they will. If they don't- everybody loses. Everybody.

Personally, Mike- There is a window in time here, a limit to our opportunity to reverse a trend of decline- and it's closing.
If we fail to act on it soon, that opportunity will be gone, and the nation will become another democracy that fits the formula penned long ago by Alexander Tytler.
You can see how we fit the pattern, and that we are already at the next to the last stage.


“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to selfishness; From selfishness to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage.”
― Alexander Fraser Tytler

 

I quite understand and appreciate that. But a plan must stand up to criticism. And you should regard each criticism as an opportunity to clarify.

 

So if I understand correctly, the only two criteria you are using to review are the oath of office and the "fiduciary oath of office." What is that? Is that a real thing or is it something your group has come up with? I suspect there will be a wide open door to interpret both of those.

 

You will have do anything with 95% + of the Democrats. They vote as a block and will not buck their leadership.

Some Republicans are just as bad. Guys like Romney never listen, but at least he will be gone soon.

 

Wrong. Nobody owes you crap. You do have the right to be critical.
Nobody has the right to demand others fix their perceptions. Refusing to convince you or overcome your criticism does not invalidate the work.
.
There are a million people ready to tell everybody what's wrong, about anything; everything- without the slightest clue as to what's right, or how to fix anything. Human nature- sad but true.

We have considered this, expect it, and tried to be complete enough in the presentation to address this without making it larger than most people can deal with.
We have no expectation of being able to convince such people to do anything other than continue to criticize and complain about the world.

Ask a realistic question or make a valid point, we will try and help you understand.