Tag Archives: secession

local news

Join another state? Huh?

BURNS, Ore. — I have just breezed through a portion of my home state that appears to rival Texas — my new “home” state — as a hotbed for right-wing lunatics.

Granted, I only have read bits and pieces about this so-called “movement” in Oregon, so I don’t know many of the details.

It goes like this: Some residents of Oregon’s eastern counties want to detach themselves from Oregon and join the neighboring state to east, Idaho. I have no clue how they would accomplish such a thing, whether a statewide referendum — which is legal in Oregon — ever would pass. Do they do it legislatively?

It seems the folks in places like Malheur, Harney and Lake counties feel more akin to politicians in Boise than those who work in Salem. It seems the folks in places like Malheur, Harney and Lake counties feel more akin to politicians in Boise than those who work in Salem. Oregon is strongly blue; Idaho is just as strongly red. Oregon favors Democratic candidates for president; Idaho favors Republicans. Get it?

I saw only one outright political demonstration while breezing through Burns; it was a “Trump 2020” sign on the side of someone’s house, with the subtitle “Keep America Great.” I guess the folks didn’t get the memo, which is that Trump lost that election and that America is still the greatest nation on Earth.

There’s a tiny bit of similarity to those in the Texas Panhandle who want that part of the state to break off from the rest of it, believing that Austin doesn’t listen to the needs of those who live so far away. Well, they have chosen to ignore all the highway work that the Texas Department of Transportation is doing to improve rights-of-way in Amarillo and elsewhere.

And, of course, we have the secessionist cabal that wants Texas to become — once again — an independent nation. Umm, can’t do it. It’s illegal, you know?

The Oregon “rebellion” never will see the light of day. For that, I am glad. I like the state being the ninth-largest geographically in the nation. Besides, the wackos in eastern Oregon do a good job of reminding those who live in the rest of the state of their presence.

It’s best to keep everyone in plain sight.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

Texas cannot secede, period!

Bryan Slaton has lost his mind. I mean, how else can one explain why the second-term Republican Texas state representative wants to give Texans a chance to decide whether to secede from the United States of America?

Slaton represents a portion of Northeast Texas and has authored a bill that calls for a referendum to determine whether Texans want to leave the nation.

Earth to Slaton: The Civil War settled that issue. The Texas Tribune reports: ā€œThe legality of seceding is problematic,ā€ Eric McDaniel, associate professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin, told The Texas Tribune in 2016. ā€œThe Civil War played a very big role in establishing the power of the federal government and cementing that the federal government has the final say in these issues.ā€

Slaton, a Royse City Republican, apparently doesn’t accept that notion.

Good grief, man! May we stop this idiocy from taking root in the Legislature?

Texas canā€™t secede from the U.S. Hereā€™s why. | The Texas Tribune

This is the kind of craziness that infects any notion of good government coming from Austin.

The first secession in 1861 was declared illegal, too, by the Supreme Court. Yet, Texas joined the Confederate States of America and went to war against the Union. Any effort to do so again would be deemed not just illegal, but insane.

As for Slaton, someone needs to determine this young man’s fitness for public office. From my perch in Collin County, he is sounding like a certifiable nut case.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

State news

All together now: No secession for Texas!

Let’s all say this together, shall we? Texas cannot — under the law — secede from the United States of America!

Texas tried that once. It didn’t work out. We joined several other southern states to go to war with the United States because slave owners wanted to maintain the right to own fellow human beings as property. The Civil War came to an end in April 1865 and Congress wrote a law that prohibited secession. Period, man!

That didn’t dissuade the Texas Republican Party, though, from delivering a resolution at the end of its conference in Houston this past weekend that calls for a statewide referendum aimed at “achieving Texas independence.”

I have declared already that the Texas GOP has gone ’round the bend. This resolution only strengthens my argument.

The secession argument keeps rearing its disgusting head whenever right-wingers get pi**ed off about something, or anything! They want to remove the state from the clutches of federal control, believing foolishly that the state can solve its own problems.

ā€œIt is now time that the People of Texas are allowed the right to decide their own future,ā€ state Rep. Kyle Biedermann, R-Fredericksburg, said in a statement announcing the resolution at the GOP conference.

The Texas Tribune reports: ā€œThe legality of seceding is problematic,ā€ Eric McDaniel, associate professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin, told The Texas Tribune in 2016. ā€œThe Civil War played a very big role in establishing the power of the federal government and cementing that the federal government has the final say in these issues.ā€

Texas canā€™t secede from the U.S. Hereā€™s why. | The Texas Tribune

Yeah, a “very big role,” indeed.

The Confederacy committed the ultimate act of treason in declaring war on the U.S. government. The Civil War cost the nation more than 600,000 lives in the bloodiest conflict in its history.

President Lincoln’s second inaugural speech in March 1865 — a month before he would be assassinated — declared his intention to heal the wounds that ripped the nation apart. “With malice toward none and charity for all,” he said, the nation must move forward together.

Now we hear from the lunatics of Abraham Lincoln’s own Republican Party wanting to secede once again. Why? Because they don’t want the feds setting the rules all Americans must follow.

Do you see what I mean, therefore, about how nuts today’s Republican Party has become?

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Why do they think like this?

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By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

TWIN FALLS, Idaho — Traveling through the state of my birth I am astounded as I ponder an item I saw on the news the other day.

Residents of seven counties in rural eastern and southern Oregon, where I was born a million years ago, want to separate from the state to which they have belonged since 1859 and join — gulp! — Idaho.

Why? I guess those folks feel more akin to the thoughts, policies and political mores of their neighbors to the east. I had heard about petitions that are asking for the separation.

I was visiting with a high school friend who now lives near Walla Walla, Wash., and he and I agreed on two points: The folks in rural Oregon are fanatical about Donald Trump and — this is the more important element — a separation and joining with another state ain’t gonna happen.

I reminded my friend that we have this discussion in Texas now and then. Some nimrods talk openly about Texas seceding from the Union, which of course is illegal. Other nimrods insist that there is some language in the Texas Constitution that allows the state to partition itself into multiple mini-states. This kind of malarkey is heard occasionally in the Texas Panhandle, where we lived for 23 years before moving to the Dallas/Forth Worth Metroplex.

It’s also been a subject of coffee shop banter in the Oklahoma Panhandle, aka No Man’s Land, where folks feel next to zero connection with the policies handed down from the state capital way down yonder in Oklahoma City.

Back to my point about the seven Oregon counties.

The argument we hear in truth is not unique to Oregon. These seven counties all voted significantly for Donald Trump in the two elections for president in which he ran. They have no affinity for the politics of Portland, Salem or Eugene — those liberal bastions where the bulk of the population lives and which voted overwhelmingly for President Biden in 2020 and for Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2016.

I am not going to lose any sleep, expend any emotional capital or worry one little bit about it all. Other than to lament that this kind of nonsense is bound to pick up some steam for as long as Donald Trump is alive and willing to fan the flames of such idiocy.

State news

Secession? Are they serious?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

It’s close being declared official, that the Texas Republican Party has lost what passes for its mind.Ā Hey, maybe it already is an official declaration!

Get a load of this: the Texas GOP has signed on to a proposal to allow Texans to vote on whether the state should secede from the Union and form an independent nation.

The Guardian reports:Ā In a talk show interview, the party chair, Allen West, argued that: ā€œTexans have a right to voice their opinions on [this] critical issue.

ā€œI donā€™t understand why anyone would feel that they need to prevent people from having a voice in something that is part of the Texas constitution,ā€ the former Florida congressmanĀ said of the TexasĀ Referendum Independence Act. ā€œYou cannot prevent the people from having a voice.ā€

Texas Republicans endorse legislation to allow vote on secession from US | Texas | The Guardian

Allen West is out of his mind. He has gone around the bend. His butter has slipped off his noodle.

What are we to expect from a one-term Florida congressman who moved to Texas specifically to hijack the state GOP. Oh, I should also mention that he resigned from the Army after being accused of mistreating Iraqi prisoners of war during the Iraq War.

Now he is lending his voice to the craziest notion since, oh, the last time Texas seceded from the U.S. of A., in 1861, when it joined the Confederate States of America, which then lost the Civil War, the bloodiest armed conflict in our nation’s history!

This secession issue has been around ever since. It keeps cropping up during Texas legislative sessions. Kinda like the way fire ant mounds pop up after a spring thunderstorm.

The Texas Tribune reported in January that secession is illegal.

Texas canā€™t secede from the U.S. Hereā€™s why. | The Texas Tribune

You don’t have to take my word for it; a lot of brainiacs have said that any notion that Texas can secede is the stuff of lunatics.

When in the name of political sanity is the Texas Republican Party going to pull its head out of its a**? Ever?

local news, State news

Listen up: Texas cannot secede!

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Is it OK to presume that every state legislative body has a wacky caucus in its ranks? If so, then Texas isn’t alone in the legislative wackiness that presents itself from time to time.

Consider this from a Republican state representative, Kyle Biedermann of Fredericksburg, who has pitched a resolution calling for a statewide election to determine whether Texas can secede from the Union.

Yes, the secessionists have returned! Oh, my. When does the madness stop? Don’t answer that. I know that it will never stop. It will never end.

The Texas Tribune reports what many of us know already, that the state cannot secede legally. The Civil War took care of that, right?

Texas seceded once already, joining the Confederacy in trying to break apart the United States of America. It went to war against the government, against fellow Americans. The issue? Slavery. The Civil War ended correctly, with the Union prevailing.

The Tribune wrote this about Biedermann’s idea:

ā€œIt is now time that the People of Texas are allowed the right to decide their own future,ā€ he said in a statement announcing the legislation.

The bill d oesnā€™t appear to have much of a chance. And even if it did, experts say, Texas canā€™t just secede.

ā€œThe legality of seceding is problematic,ā€ Eric McDaniel, associate professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin, told The Texas Tribune in 2016. ā€œThe Civil War played a very big role in establishing the power of the federal government and cementing that the federal government has the final say in these issues.ā€

Texas canā€™t secede from the U.S. Hereā€™s why. | The Texas Tribune

Texas declared independence from Mexico in 1836. We joined the Union in 1845, adopting a resolution that contained language that said the state could partition itself into four parts if it wanted. Indeed, a former Texas Panhandle legislator, David Swinford of Dumas, once pitched the notion as recently as 1991. I asked Rep. Swinford whether he meant it as a serious proposal … and he did not say he was joking.Ā 

Secession, though, is a non-starter. The Tribune cites a bit of wisdom offered by the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia: ā€œThe answer is clear,ā€ Scalia wrote. ā€œIf there was any constitutional issue resolved by the Civil War, it is that there is no right to secede. (Hence, in the Pledge of Allegiance, ā€˜one Nation, indivisible.ā€™)ā€

local news, political news, State news

‘SECEDE’ has been replaced with …

I once had this neighbor who had plastered on the rear bumper of his pickup a stickerĀ I found a bit amusing.

It said “SECEDE.” Yes, the letters were in all caps.

He also had another sticker on the bumper that said he had served “proudly” in the U.S. armed forces.

Do you see the dichotomy here? I wrote about it once before, just before Christmas in 2012.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2012/12/love-it-or-secede-from-it/

The “SECEDE” bumper sticker has been replaced by another one.

It says “God Bless Texas.” I noticed it right after the 2016 presidential election. My strongest hunch is that the election turned out the way he wanted it.

There’s another bit of irony, though. The fellow who coined the “God Bless Texas” slogan was a proud Democrat. He was crusty ol’ Bob Bullock, a former Texas lieutenant governor and state comptrollerĀ who died some years ago.

I cannot help but wonder if Bullock would be as glad as my neighbor is with the election outcome.

International news, national news

Texas is not alone in its secessionist fervor

secession

Texas is far from the only state where nut jobs think it’s OK for their state to secedeĀ from the United States of America.

Others from Vermont to Hawaii think that since Great Britain has voted to withdraw from the European Union that Americans think they have license to do the same thing with Washington, D.C.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/07/5-us-independence-movements-inspired-by-brexit-214010

Am I missing something here?

The Brits remain part of a sovereign nation. The EU is a confederation of other sovereign European nations that sets certain rules for those nations to follow. They involve trade, currency and travel.

Every nation within the EU is free to self-govern according to their political framework.

Now we hear this goofy trans-Atlantic talk about states pulling out of the United States. Secessionists are tired of what they say is a government that’s too big, too intrusive and too out of touch.

Huh? What?

The federal government is responsible for the protection and well-being of 320-plus million Americans, all of whom live in states that are governed by that document called the U.S. Constitution. You remember it, yes? It grants us all rights and liberties. It sets forth the governing framework.

Oh, and then we have Congress, which appropriates money to pay for things like national defense, highways, Social Security and Medicare … and quite a number of other things we’ve come to cherish as American citizens.

This secession talk is crazy in the extreme. I need not remind everyone that some states tried that once. We went to war and the battles that ensued killed about 600,000 Americans.

Britain’s exit from the EU should be settled over there.

Such nuttiness needs to stay on that side of the ocean.

International news, State news

First it was ‘Brexit,’ now it’s ‘Texit’ … sheesh!

b103f2bb-1d23-4286-97f3-093b0008c283-large16x9_0624TEXIT

Many of us in Texas knew this might happen.

A fringe outfit called the Texas Nationalist Movement has hailed the British referendum that endorses Great Britain’s exit from the European Union.

Now these yahoos want Texas to follow suit. They want a referendum to decide whether Texas can exit the United States of America.

Sigh …

http://kfdm.com/news/local/texas-nationalists-call-on-gov-abbott-to-support-texit-vote

“It is past time that the people of Texas had their say on our continued relationship with the Union and its sprawling federal bureaucracy,” said Daniel Miller, president of the TNM.

Really, dude?

He’s asking Gov. Greg Abbott to support the idea of referring this idea to Texas voters. Keep asking. Abbott ain’t going to do it.

The “sprawling federal bureaucracy” is responsible for providing a lot of services that even Texas nationalists would support. Medicare health insurance? Social Security retirement income? National defense?

I feel the need to remind Daniel Miller that we did this once already. We joined several other states that went to war with the Union. Texas and the rest of the Confederate States of America lost that fight.

The parallel with what has transpired in Great Britain just doesn’t exist.

This is a free country where people are guaranteed the right to speak out, even when they spout idiocy in the public forum.

I am reminded of President Abraham Lincoln’s pearl of wisdom that “It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.”

This “Texit” talk is the stuff of fools.

political news, State news

Secession talk resurfaces in Texas

1 Comment

o-TEXAS-SECESSION-PETITION-facebook

We moved from one corner of Texas to another cornerĀ more thanĀ 20 years ago.

It turns out our former home, in the Golden Triangle, is home to as much political wackiness as our new home in the Panhandle.

A group based in Nederland wants a non-binding referendum placed on the state ballot next year that supports the idea of Texas seceding from the United States of America.

This is wrong on more levels than I can count, but in a strange way I almost hope that the Texas Nationalist Movement gets enough signatures to put the issue on the ballot.

It won’t pass. Indeed, if voters get a chance to decide this issue at the ballot box, then perhaps this nutty talk can cease forever.

Texas cannot secede legally, despite what the nutty notion’s proponents say.

The movement wants to put the ballot on the Republican Party primary ballot next spring. State GOP leaders aren’t too happy with the idea, but mostly it appears because the party dislikes the idea of an independent group trying to muscle its way onto the GOP ballot.

Texas Republican Party Chairman Tom Mechler, who hails from the Panhandle, ought to go ahead and bless this kooky idea. I know Mechler — but I do not know whether he actually supports secession; he and I have never had that discussion.

Let’s settle this nonsense once and for all. Go ahead and vote on secession.

My hunch is that it’ll go down on flames.