Texas Lawmaker Decides Muslim Americans Must Now Swear Allegiance to United States

 by Nomad

One legislator's policy discriminating against Muslim Americans raises questions about what religious liberty actually means in Texas. 

A couple of days ago The Dallas Morning News reported about Texas state Representative Molly White and a new policy she adopted.  From now on, she decided, all Muslim visitors to her government offices will be required to renounce terrorism and to swear an oath of allegiance to the United States. If not, she has stated that she would not meet with them.

"We Don't Want You Here"

White's policy came in response to the seventh annual Texas Muslim Capitol Day in which some 200 Texas Muslims attended. They were  to speak with legislators about their goals for the session. 

The events were hosted by the Texas chapter of the Council on American–Islamic Relations (CAIR). The meeting was supposed to be “an opportunity for community members to learn about the democratic political process and how to be an advocate for important issues.” 
Like any other lobbying organization,

Before the rally, Mustafaa Carroll, the executive director for the  CAIR,  explained to reporters the main problem was a lack of contact between Muslim Americans and the lawmakers  Carroll explained:

“The problem that even the lawmakers have—they don’t know Muslims. They’ve never been to a mosque, they’ve never talked to any Muslims more than likely and all they see is what they see on TV.

Instead the were greeted with an example of the democratic political process at its worst and in disarray. The Muslim Americans (which included dozens of middle and high school students) were met by roughly 30 self-identified Christian protesters. The protesters who heckled " shouting “we don’t want you here,” and holding signs that said “no Sharia.” They also held flags and signs like ”One God,” and “Remember 9/11.”

Why the Moment of Truth is Coming for Red States that Rejected Obamacare

by Nomad

As more and more reports come in about the benefits of Obamacare, governors of Red States, some analysts predict, are soon going to feel the heat from the miffed voters.

Few could call Forbes a flagship of the liberal press so when it posts a negative article against conservative policy, it must send a few night-terrors into the sleep of Republicans.

Good News and Bad Tidings
Last week, for conservatives, Forbes was the bearer of bad tidings. Obamacare isn't so bad after all. and as the article says, for the governors of red states who had once been so quick to reject the Medicare expansion, things are going to get a little worrisome.

A new report showing the continued pileup of unpaid medical bills in states that didn’t expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act is escalating criticism on these Republican-led areas of the country to expand the health insurance program for the poor.

True, the report did come from the Obama administration who- conservatives would say- would have every reason to paint a rosy picture. Yet, sooner or later, the facts will spill out one way or the other. And the Obama administration's figures were bound to come under close scrutiny. 

Moreover, the figures from other sources are all pointing in the same direction. In spite of its rocky kickoff, Obamacare hasn't been the predicted disaster. The fears of socialized medicine, promoted by the likes of Sarah Palin, Louie Gohmert, Michele Bachmann, Betsey McCaughey, and last and not least, Rush Limbaugh were unfounded, especially when compared to the benefits to Americans. (They are still peddling their malicious nonsense, unchallenged by the media.)

The fear-mongering of "death panels" was well-financed, well-promoted poppycock for the low-information, hate-driven voter or the perpetually gullible.

Nomadic Politics Exclusive: Governor Rick Perry To Release CD of Greatest Hits

by Nomad

 

In order to help cover his legal expenses following grand jury indictments, Texas Governor Rick Perry has announced plans to release a double CD of country hits. 

"What a great idea!" said Texas Republican strategist (who wished not be identified). "It's time the governor gave the people of Texas something pleasant to listen to."

Outside his close friends, most people are unaware of that Perry has been an amateur country singer and guitarist for decades. Some have even suggested this side of Perry could be the start of a whole new career. 
"I think he's going to do as well as a singer as he did as a governor" said an unnamed loyal supporter. 

According to Jackson Jihl, executive producer for GoodHare Music out of Austin, the playlist will include a mix of cover versions  of such country standards as:

• "Release Me"
• "Hello Walls"
• "You Don't Even Know Who I Am"
• "Folsom Prison Blues"
• "You Won't Ever Be Lonely"
• "It's Just a Matter of Time"
• "Suspicious Minds"
• "I Fall To Pieces"

In addition, Governor Perry plans to offer some his personal takes on familiar Country hits like

• "I Was Corrupt When Corrupt Wasn't Cool"
• (Feels like)"I've Got A Tiger On My Tail"
• "(For Two Cigs and some Hooch) I'd Love To Lay You Down"
• "Four Walls (and a few Steel Bars)"
• "You're the Reason God Made Prisons"
•  "(I'm Gonna Miss) Wide Open Spaces" 
• "My Woman, My Woman, My Cell Mate, Pablo"
• "Loathsome On'ry and Mean" 
• "If You've Got The Proof, I'll Do The Time"
• "Sleeping Double in a Single Bed"

Tea Party's Ted Cruz Is Confident He Will Be The Answer

by Nomad

Apologies for the deceptive headline. I couldn't resist the temptation. In fact, this quote by Ted Cruz is probably more accurate than he intended it to be.

Out of all the silly things that Senator Rafael Edward "Ted" Cruz has said, this is perhaps the only thing I can agree with him on. I sincerely hope that we all won't have to wait twenty years to make this forecast a reality.

I think it will be the hardest trivial pursuit question to answer because absolutely will recall who the hell Ted Cruz was. 

How Texas Gov. Rick Perry is Recruiting for Armed and Unregulated Militias

by Nomad

After an close call at the Texas border between Border Patrol guards and armed militias, isn't time we should start asking who is in charge? When it comes to leadership, Governor Rick Perry has been an excellent recruiter for armed and dangerous vigilante groups.

The Brownsville Incident
"Land's sakes, that's a good way to get your head blown off!" That's what somebody should have warned one lucky militia member with more bullets than brain matter.

According to a report from the Chicago Tribune, a US Border Patrol agent near Brownsville Texas mistook a member of an armed militia for an illegal intruder on Friday.

It was apparently a close call.    

Omar Zamora, a spokesman for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency, told the Los Angeles Times on Saturday that the agent was chasing several suspects through an area of thick brush near the Rio Grande on Friday afternoon when he came upon a militia member holding a shotgun or rifle.

After the patrol agent fired several rounds, the militia member, reportedly, threw down his weapon immediately (no doubt wetting himself about that time). Fortunately nobody on either side was injured. 

Somebody nearly learned the limits of his Second Amendment rights the hard way.

The identity of the man was not released to the public and it isn't clear whether the Cameron County Sheriff will press criminal charges.  

Zamora did not identify the patrol agent and said it was not clear what organization the militia member belonged to. He was standing on private property at the time of the incident.

Clearly  it was only a matter of time before something like this happened. And the next time state and federal border patrol encounter armed groups, things could easily be tragic.

Border Vigilantes On Call

Indeed, there were unheeded warnings.

Last July, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP)  declared that the agency does not "endorse or support any private group or organization from taking matters into their own hands as it could have disastrous personal and public safety consequences."

According to a Houston Chronicle article, armed militia groups along the Texas border have grown to more than 10 active "teams" from El Paso to the Rio Grande Valley,

These groups which included Oathkeepers, Three Percenters and Patriots, began organizing and recruiting as the hysteria began over the influx of immigrant children crossing the border.

Other groups may include

• Bolinas Border Patrol, 
• Central Valley Militia,
• Independent Citizens Militia, 
• Alpha Team, 
• Bravo Team, 
• FOB Harmony, 
• Operation Secure Our Border: 
• Laredo Sector, 
• O'Shanessy's Team, 
• the 77's and 
• Camp Geronimo

Clearly this is a problem Governor Rick Perry has not addressed. (Perhaps he is afraid to cross them?)

Barbie Rogers is the founder of the Patriots Information Hotline which has been instrumental in organizing  and finding new members for the militias. According to Rogers, many of the groups are stationed on ranch land with permission from the owners.  

She has called upon the Governor to send even more Texas National guard personnel to defend the border. She also says to Rick Perry that "if cost is an issue" to "call the militia. They will come if you call them."

As one militia leader said:

“We have patriots all across this country who are willing to sacrifice their time, money even quit their jobs to come down and fight for freedom, liberty and national sovereignty.”

Whether Perry knows it or not, he has already called up the armed gangs.

Are Gov Rick Perry's Indictments Just the Tip of the Iceberg?

by Nomad

Texas Governor Perry's indictments may be the tip of the iceberg if one investigative writer's theory is correct.

A New York Times bestselling author and Emmy winning former TV news correspondent, James Moore, offers a some important background to the Rick Perry indictments in a recent blog post.
Moore suggests there's a lot more to this story than meets the eye.

The narrative widely promoted by the mainstream media runs something like this: The Texas governor has been indicted for using some high pressure tactics to force Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg to resign. 

That move came, so the story goes, after Lehmberg was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol. The police report shows blood alcohol content at three times the legal limits.
However, as Moore observes in his article, drunk driving - for which there is absolutely no excuse- is not something that Rick Perry cared too much about in the past.

Two other Texas D.A.s were arrested for DUI during Perry’s tenure in office and he spoke not a discouraging word about their indiscretions.

When it came to Lehmberg, it was a completely different story  According to Perry, the governor eliminated the $7.5 million dollar budget that Lehmberg managed for the Public Integrity Unit (PIU) because “the person charged with ultimate responsibility of that unit has lost the public’s confidence.”  

Moore thinks it's important to look at the details a little closer.

Prohibited Person: What Happens If Texas Governor Rick Perry Becomes a Convicted Felon

by Nomad

Here's a quick peek into what Governor Perry's life might be like if he is convicted on felony charges.

It's a post title I never thought I'd write, that's for sure.

By now most people have heard the news that Texas governor Rick Perry has been indicted for abuse of power after carrying out a threat to veto funding for state public corruption prosecutors. Of course the most serious result of any conviction would be hard time in prison. A conviction on those charges carries with it a maximum punishment on the first charge is five to 99 years in prison. The second is two to 10 years.

While the charge and the possible punishments are not something about would dismiss lightly, nobody should be foolish enough to think that a conviction is a sure thing, of course.

This is, after all, Texas.

The possibility that Perry will ever walk down "Broadway" in an orange one-piece and state-issued bo-bos is fairly remote. However, supposing the judicial system can withstand the enormous political pressure that will doubtless be exerted, and Perry is actually convicted of these felonies, he might find life a little less lovely.

Even without any time in the Big House.

There are other legal limits imposed on a convicted felon For example he will no longer be allowed to serve on a federal grand or petit jury jury, according to Texas and federal laws.

Big Whoop, right? But that's the least important restriction. Let's take a look some others.

Threats and Poison Letters to the President Land Texas Actress in Prison for 18 years

by Nomad

A Texas Court threw the book at a woman for threats to the president. Politics may have had little to do with this case but threatening the president's life has become all too common.

Shouldn't the Secret Service and the courts be doing more to make this a less attractive way to get attention?

Straight from the "But.. I'm a victim too" category.

The Poison Post Plot

Shannon Guess Richardson, a 39-year-old actress from Texas, was sentenced to 18 years in prison this week for sending a trio of poison letters to politicians, including the President.

At her trial, Richardson threw out every stop to win the heart of the judge. She might have hoped to win a reduced sentence by pleading guilty to the charge of possessing and producing a biological toxin. If so,the legal ploy wasn't too successful.  

At the sentencing phase, Richardson explained that she "never intended for anybody to be hurt," and added that she was  "not a bad person; I don't have it in me to hurt anyone."

Judge Michael H. Schneider was unconvinced and gave her the maximum sentence and ordered her to pay restitution of around $367,000. He also noted that Richardson had put many lives in danger and threatened public officials.

Shannon Richardson's acting career was limited to minor roles in TV series, such as "The Walking Dead"  (Third zombie from the right.) But, due to her poorly-thought-out and very dangerous plotting,  that is all gone now. 

Tea Party Accuses Catholic Charities of Conspiracy with Obama over Immigrant Children Issue

  by Nomad

With ignorance on full display, a Tea Party Leader in Texas has accused Catholic Charities for conspiring with the Obama Administration. How? By sheltering and caring for the flood of immigrant children.

What does this say about our self-image as a nation, as a "City on the Hill"? What does the reaction by some in the Tea Party about their Christian credentials ?

Bud Kennedy, columnist for the Ft.Worth Star-Telegram, has recently called out an East Texas Tea Party leader for jumping on the  bandwagon and promoting nationwide yet another baseless conspiracy.  Their suspicions have targeted  Catholic Charities for trying to help with the influx of immigrant children.

Misguided Suspicions

One right-wing website, LibertyNews.com, broke the story that the Obama administration had advanced knowledge of, as its writer put it, the planned invasion. This conspiracy, it seems, was based solely on what Kennedy calls, one East Texas Republican’s "misguided suspicions."

So what is she basing this allegation on? The Longview Republican Terri Harris Hill points to federal records that show that the local Catholic Charities received $350,000 last year for immigration services.

LibertyNews also noted that:

Between Dec 2010 and Nov 2013, the Catholic Charities Diocese of Galveston received $15,549,078 in federal grants from Health & Human Services for “Unaccompanied Alien Children Project” with a program description of “Refugee and Entry Assistance.

Based solely on this information, LibertyNews has accused Catholic Charities in Texas of conspiring in “the invasion currently underway.”

Kennedy quotes Hill telling a phone interviewer:

“I think there is something suspicious because the government started awarding grants before the surge. I mean, how did they know?”

How indeed? 

The answer is remarkably easy to explain, according to the columnist.

Tens of thousands of foreign children each year come to the United States without a parent or legal permission. Under a quirk in a 2008 law, children from Mexico are returned, but Central American children stay in shelters or with families until a court rules if they are refugees or trafficking victims. 

The GOP and Reparative Therapy: Why the Tea Party in Texas Just Opened a New Can of Worms for 2016

by Nomad

Thanks to a Supreme Court's decision, the idea of Reparative or Conversion therapy- attempting to convert gay people, including young adults, to happy heterosexuals, has been dealt a devastating blow. That's not a surprise.

The medical community has largely rejected the pseudo-science and warned of its psychological hazards.

So why did the Texas GOP 2014 platform come out strongly in support of it?

When No Comment is a Relief
So is this how far the Supreme Court has sunk?

A recent headline in ThinkProgress proclaims  the Supreme Court's decision not to rule on a controversial case involving a gay rights issue as a victory- a good thing. That says a lot about how much public trust remains with the High Court when the best news of the day comes when the Supreme Court stops making decisions. 

In this case, we can all breath a sigh of relief that the Court refused to intervene in the case, challenging California’s ban on ex-gay therapy for minors. That leaves the ban in place. And some conservatives were naturally peeved.

The case stems from a conservative challenge by the Pacific Justice Institute and ex-gay group NARTH and the Liberty Counsel to a California law banning such therapy. The lower courts had dismissed the conservative groups' claim that- wait for this- a ban violated the free speech of therapists.
As the article notes:

California was the first state to pass a law protecting minors from being subjected to therapies that attempt to de-gay their sexual orientations in 2012. Conservative groups promptly sued on behalf of ex-gay therapists who felt the ban infringed on their freedom of speech with clients. After two conflicting lower court rulings, the Ninth Circuit ruled last summer that the ban is constitutional. The conservative groups appealed to the Supreme Court, but its decision not to hear it means that the cases are over and the ban remains in place.

 For example, here is an excerpt from an article on the California law

It bans a form of medical treatment for minors; it does nothing to prevent licensed therapists from discussing the pros and cons of SOCE [sexual orientation change efforts ] with their patients....

 Treatment is not a form of free speech, the court decided and, therefore, deserves no protection.  

Because SB 1172 regulates only treatment, while leaving mental health providers free to discuss and recommend, or recommend against, SOCE, we conclude that any effect it may have on free speech interests is merely incidental.

What a relief: No therapist's free speech was injured in the making of that ruling. 

Gov. Rick Perry, Obamacare and The Morality of Rejecting Medicaid Expansion

by Nomad

Texas Governor Rick Perry's decision not to expand Medicaid, a provision of Obamacare that each state can accept or reject, will have serious consequences for the uninsured and the poor of that state. 

Here's a moral question for you:

Suppose you found that you possessed the power to save the lives of three thousand strangers, without doing anything except changing your mind, would you do it? Would you do it even if it required you to reverse a strong personal viewpoint or a core philosophy? Could any one of your personal beliefs really be so strong that you would allow the deaths of thousands and the suffering of many more? 

Those are the questions that the citizens of Texas should be asking their governor, Rick Perry.

The Cost of Perry's Resistance

In a recent article for the Dallas Observer, Eric Nicholson points out:

Governor Rick Perry's decision to opt out of Obamacare's Medicaid expansion has been well-documented. Billions in federal funds are off the table. More than a million poor adults won't have access to health coverage. Texas businesses will wind up paying an estimated $400 million in tax penalties.

Useful numbers, but none really captures the human toll of Perry's decision. A better figure for that purpose is 3,035, as in the number of people who will die as a result of Texas' refusal to expand Medicaid.

Nicholson cites a study by researchers at Harvard Medical School and CUNY School of Public Health. Admittedly this is a worst case scenario but even the best case scenario puts the number of people who will die at 1,840. That's not all.

Even for those who don't die, the outcome won't be good. The researchers predict that 184,192 Texans suffering from depression will go undiagnosed, 109,307 diabetics won't get medication, 40,562 women won't get mammograms and 62,610 uninsured individuals will have catastrophic medical expenditures.

Critics of the study say the study cannot be taken to prove a causal relationship between Medicaid expansion and lower mortality rates.

When the ACA was passed back in 2010, a requirement in the law required states to expand Medicaid for all households whose incomes fell below a certain level. A fairly generous level too. However in June 2012, the Supreme Court decided that states should be given an option to decide whether they wish to expand the Medicaid rolls. It could not be forced on the states by the federal government.

The Lone Star legislators in their wisdom then decided that expanding Medicaid was in the the great state of Texas was simply not going to happen. No way, Jose.

New Rules on Textbooks: The Age of Reason Approved by Texas Board of Education

by Nomad

A recent decision by the Texas Board of Education will attempt to roll back the effect of religious and political groups' influence over public school textbooks. 
Despite this good news, the question remains whether the experts which the board will consult for accuracy can actually be trusted. 

Here's another sign that what was once blood red can just as easily become sky blue. AP is reporting news that civil libertarians will see as a victory of science and established facts over religious dogma and the influence of politics.

The Texas Board of Education imposed tighter rules Friday on the citizen review panels that scrutinize proposed textbooks, potentially softening fights over evolution, religion's role in U.S. history and other ideological matters that have long seeped into what students learn in school.

How The Minority Used its Majority
This issue has been brewing for awhile. One reason for this is that Texas is the nation's largest state with more more than 5 million public school students. Also, it is because many of the textbooks printed there are accepted in other states as well. Thus all it takes is for a few activists with a religious or political agenda to have a vast influence over what is being taught to our children.

The 15-member education board approves textbooks for school districts to use, but objections raised by reviewers can influence its decisions. The volunteer review panels are often dominated by social conservatives who want more skepticism about evolution included in science textbooks, arguing that a higher power helped create the universe.

The article pointed out that social conservatives used their majority on the board to affect these changes to the textbook selection process. 

The board also had long been controlled by social conservatives before election defeats weakened their voting bloc in recent years — but not before its culture war clashes drew national headlines. 

It was clear that certain issues were on the hit list.

Those members pushed for de-emphasizing climate change in science classes, and requiring social studies students to learn about the Christian values of America's founding fathers and evaluate whether the United Nations undermined U.S. sovereignty.

In an effort to reverse the influence of narrow interest groups, the new rules mandated that teachers or professors be given priority for serving on the textbook review panels for subjects in their areas of expertise. Furthermore, the rules enable the board to appoint outside experts to check objections raised by review panels and ensure they are based on fact, not ideology.

"It won't eliminate politics, but it will make it where it's a more informed process," said Thomas Ratliff, a Republican board member who pushed for the changes, which he said "force us to find qualified people, leave them alone, and let them do their jobs."

The new rules were unanimously approved.

HuffPo: House Republicans Attempt to De-Fund Defunct ACORN.. Again

by Nomad

Trying to decide the "dumbest" thing that the House of Representatives has done lately is a real challenge, But that mission appears to have certainly gotten a whole lot easier. Recently House Republicans decided to include a provision in spending bills which would forbid all requested government aid from being used for an organization that ceased to exist over three years ago.

Zach Carter, writing for Huffington Post, supplies the details of this legislative lunacy brought to you by the ever- impressive Texas Republicans. Rep. John Culberson (R-Texas) and Rep. John Carter (R-Texas) both sponsored bills which included a provision that not one cent of these government funds would go to the activist group known as the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) "or its subsidiaries or successors."

Rep. John Culberson	Rep. John Carter

The bills, which have nothing to do with ACORN were introduced on May 28/29 and will be voted on this week.

 

The Culberson bill makes budget appropriations of $73.3 billion for military construction and for veteran affairs "to support the military and their families and to provide for the benefits and medical care for our nation’s veterans."

 

Similarly, the Carter bill which makes $38.9 billion in discretionary spending for the Department of Homeland Security, carries the same prohibitions against ACORN.

If you happen to be a Tea Party person and are mathematically challenged you might want to know that between those bills, (whatever their merits), the requests total over $113 billion from the budget.

Call it a budget sequestration backtracking.

 

In any case, as Huffington Post noted, similar provisions in both bill declare that:

None of the funds made available in this Act may be distributed to the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) or its subsidiaries or successors.

Has nobody informed either of them that Congress had already banned federal funding for ACORN back in the fall of 2009?

 

West, Texas Explosion: The Price of Poor Regulation and Rick Perry's Budget Cuts?

Even though the first responders are even now searching through the devastation left after the West, Texas fertilizer plant explosion yesterday, some factors that led to the disaster are beginning to become clear.

The plant had already been investigated by The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) for its failure to obtain an air quality permit as a fertilizer mixing and storage facility. The company had, in fact, earlier been fined by the Environmental Protection Agency for failing to have a risk management plan that met federal standards. That $2,300 penalty was issued on August 14, 2006, according to EPA records.

In November, West Fertilizer Co. vowed to meet all standards expected for anhydrous ammonia storage tanks. The odorless gas would be stored in two 12,000 gallon permanent storage tanks.

In addition the company would conduct daily in-house inspections during normal business hours to ensure there are no" leaks of ammonia.

Despite previous complaints from neighbors of ammonia smells from the plant, West Fertilizer Company officials assured the TCEQ that “emissions from the tanks would not pose a danger.” However:

That assertion was based on expected routine emissions, not the possibility of a catastrophic failure.

As a permit condition, the TCEQ required the company to build a wall between the tanks and a public road to prevent passing vehicles from striking the tanks. The company complied and on Dec. 12, 2006, the agency’s executive director issued an operating permit for the tanks, which already existed.

Between Texas and Nebraska: Two Cases of Sex Abuse and Justice Denied

by Nomad

Lone Star State Justice

I saw this news from deep in the heart of Texas about Stanley Marsh III of Amarillo, Texas. It's a pathetic story of the public disgrace of a millionaire and the warping of the justice system. 

The New York Times reports:

Stanley Marsh III, an eccentric millionaire artist best known for his Cadillac Ranch art display along an interstate highway in the Texas Panhandle, has settled lawsuits from 10 teenagers who said he paid them for sex acts, lawyers for both sides announced Saturday.

(Photo: AP Photo/
Michael Schumache, 

Amarillo Globe-News)

In 2011, Marsh suffered a massive stroke, which left him legally incapacitated. His wife, Gwendolyn, his family and legal team have rallied to his defense. 
If one didn't look too closely at the charges, the images of the besieged family might arouse some sympathy. 

There's no question that the once- flamboyant Marsh presently makes a pathetic figure, and certainly, it's not the kind of happy ending any family would wish for. 

His online supporters- and there will be some- would argue that what Marsh did was a comparatively minor crime. It wasn't, they'd say, rape, or sadistic murder or abuse. 
The so-called victims weren't actually children, they could say. And, worst of all, you might hear somebody say, it wasn't such a big deal. At least, the victims were rewarded. (I actually read similar things about female teachers who sexually abused their under-aged male students.)    

According to the lawsuits, Mr. Marsh is accused "of giving the teenagers cash, alcohol, drugs  [Viagra] and, in one case, two BMWs [he crashed the first one], to perform sex acts with him at his office. One of the teenagers said he had more than 100 sexual encounters with Mr. Marsh in his office and at his home in Amarillo."

Not quite as horrendous as the Sandusky case, but pretty dreadful nevertheless.

A Warning to Texas Secessionists: Alexander H. Stephens’ 1861 Speech to the Georgia Convention

by Nomad

As regular followers of this blog know, I often like to delve into history to find new perspectives. In an investigation into the Texas secessionist movement, I uncovered the words of man whose warning about such dangerous nonsense were ignored and because of this, events quickly spun out of control and nearly destroyed a nation.

His name was Alexander Stephens.

But first a little background information.

Sedition Framed as Patriotism

In a recent article in the American Spectator, a conservative magazine, Doug Bandow, a senior fellow at the Koch-founded Cato Institute, recently wrote about the secessionist movement. 

The article is provocatively titled The Great Secession: Would it really be the highest form of patriotism? and, by discussing these notions seriously givens them at least superficial form of legitimacy. He asks:

Is America too big? Is it time to break up the U.S.?

A week after the November election nearly 700,000 Americans from all 50 states had signed 69 secession petitions as part of the White House “We the People” online petition system. The missives requested the administration to peacefully allow states to leave the union. One petition advocated permitting states which seceded to form their own nation. A formal White House review is triggered by just 25,000 signatures.

Lest he become a laughingstock, Bandow is coy about his true feelings on the subject. On one hand, instead of condemning the movement, he would prefer to go after those on the left who have warned about the secessionists, like Huffington Post Bob Cesca.

Unable to help himself from cheapening the discussion, Bandow writes:

Indeed, one wonders if Cesca became a bit excited at the thought of visiting death and devastation upon Red States and all others who disagreed with him. Or perhaps he was smoking funny cigarettes or suffering from an overeager imagination when he wrote his column. 

Eventually, Bandow tires of making fun of liberals and his position becomes more clear.

Why shouldn’t people be able to re-order their political arrangements if they wish? Must whatever has been put together be forever kept together?...

There’s no inherent reason why any particular group of people should be in community with any other. Slavery will always stain the cause of the southern Confederacy, but what principle justified slaughtering thousands to hold the country together?

What a contorted view of American history. Bandow seems to forget that it was the South that seceded and launched an attack on the North. The slaughter came about as a result of the South defending its principle of maintaining slaves. 

And that came after the US government made repeated attempts to compromise on the issue of slavery. (The Missouri Compromise of 1820, The Fugitive Slave Act, The Compromise of 1850, The Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854 were all attempts to prevent the issue of slavery from tearing the nation apart. Despite this, the South still embarked on its secession )

Bandow writes:

In many ways we are a badly divided people. Noted Patrick Buchanan: “While no one takes this movement as seriously as men took secession in 1861, the sentiments behind it ought not to be minimized. For they bespeak a bristling hostility to the federal government and a dislike bordering on detestation of some Americans for other Americans, as deep as it was on the day Beauregard’s guns fired on Fort Sumter.”

Note to Mr. Bandow. Beauregard was a Confederate and the attack on Fort Sumter was unprovoked. That attack- which was the opening salvo of the Civil War- came only months after Southern states voted for secession. 

Note to Buchanan: "Detestation" of your fellow citizen and “bristling hostility” to the freely-elected government is not an excuse to launch an armed attack. 

Is the Buchanan actually attempting to justify an attack on a US military base by domestic insurgents? There’s a word for what he is rationalizing. It is called treason.

But nobody can deny that Americans are a divided people at the moment. How did they come to be so divided? Could the Cato Institute, the Koch brothers, and their well-documented financial support of the Tea Party have anything to with it? Could Fox News have anything to do with dividing the nation?

This kind of behavior is called sedition- that is, (as defined by Wikipedia) the “overt conduct, such as speech and organization, that is deemed by the legal authority to tend toward insurrection against the established order. Sedition often includes subversion of a constitution and incitement of discontent (or resistance) to lawful authority. Sedition may include any commotion, though not aimed at direct and open violence against the laws.”

*    *    *    *

All this talk of secession didn’t impress Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia too much. Despite what conservatives and secessionists might say, according to the Supreme Court, the question is clear. Scalia wrote:

If there was any constitutional issue resolved by the Civil War, it is that there is no right to secede.

With all due respect, since when do wars solve Constitutional issues? Absurdly, Scalia even cited the Pledge of Allegiance as proof! So much the expert reasoning of the judicial hero of the conservatives. 

The American Conservative, like the American Spectator, plays the same games with the reader. While offering plenty of proof against the very idea of secession in principle:

Three Supreme Court justices, one famous president, a bloody war, and the language of a modern pledge of allegiance offer conclusive proof that secession, while an entertaining philosophical exercise, has no legal basis.

(Add to this list a Supreme Court case which declared no state has the right to secede.) But then the writer brushes aside the small mountain of evidence with:

Their various opinions and conclusions, however, all have gaping holes.

While the article may make a good case that (all things considered) succession could be legally defensible, the question isn’t, of course, only whether it is legal. The question is whether it is wise path to take. 

And experience tells us that secession, no matter how valid the reason, is dangerous and stupid thing to do.

Lone Star Secessionist Blues

This talk of secession really went into high gear when Obama won re-election, which clearly shook neo-conservatives to the core. But according to the president of the Texas Nationalist Movement (TNM), Daniel Miller, that’s only a coincidence.
He is quoted in the article as claiming:

“This is not a reaction to a person but to policy and what we see as a federal government that is so disconnected from its constituents and absolute no regard for what its purpose was.” 

He added that:

“self-determination is kind of the underpinning to all of this — the ability to provide Texas solutions to Texas problems.”

Fox News recently gave Cary Wise, TNM’s Executive Director, free air-time in order to promote his secessionist views (challenge- and fact-free). He told the interviewer:

“The state of Texas has a constitution.And our constitution said that all political power is inherent in the people.”

Wise wisely neglects to mention that while the source of that political power may derive from the people, our Founding Fathers decided in order to prevent mob-rule, our political system would be representative and the people are free and encouraged to vote in free elections for those politicians that best represent them.

*        *        *       *

As ABCNews pointed out, self-determination is a lovely thing but that privilege goes hand in hand with economic independence. For the six states advocating independence from the “tyranny” of the federal government, taking the federal handouts has been fairly easy.

All the states petitioning to secede from the United States that obtained enough signatures to elicit a response from the White House — with the exception of Alabama — were some of the largest recipients of federal funding in 2010.

Census records show that six of the seven states that amassed more than 25,000 signatures on their petitions to form independent nations in the past week took more than $10 million in revenue from the federal government that year.

The seven states – Texas, Florida, Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee and North Carolina – took more than 23 percent of all federal revenue allotted to the states that year.

If Texans really cared about out-of control domestic spending, there is one obvious solution. Legislators would return, or at least refuse, the $294 billion in federal funds that Texas received. According to an article by CNBC.com, when it came to taking federal funds, Texas ranked third, behind Florida and Maryland. 

It’s easy to brag about how well your state economy is when each of your citizens is being given a handout of $11,452 in federal dollars.

Nevertheless, according to one Texas petition that America “continues to suffer economic difficulties stemming from the federal government’s neglect to reform domestic and foreign spending,” in contrast to Texas which “maintains a balanced budget and is the 15th largest economy in the world.”

Politifact confirmed that Texas has actually managed to balance its budget but to do so, Texas legislators had to prioritize a bit:

Lawmakers did not cover all projected state costs of Medicaid in 2013 and put off a regular payment to school districts. As before, too, portions of funds intended for special purposes were set aside to balance the budget.

Balancing the budget is easy when you refuse to cover costs. Education and Medicaid are the two biggest items in the budget.

According to Spencer Harris, a health care policy analyst at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, Medicaid in Texas will soon become Texas’s biggest budgetary line-item. Medicaid is a little over 20 percent of our state budget if you just include the state funds, but if you look at the federal money is closer to 30 percent.

With the nation's highest rate of uninsured citizens, Texas can ill-afford to skip Medicare costs. 

Governor Perry would very much like to blame Obamacare for all his state’s ’problems but Harris says that’s not quite the full picture. More and more baby-boomers are eligible for Medicaid. Texas will see Medicaid cost increases “due not just to the expanded coverage under Obama’s law but also to expected increases in enrollment among currently eligible Texans.”

The other way Texas balanced its budget was by putting off its payments on its biggest budgetary drain, education. In a state that ranks 49th in the United States in getting its people at least a high school degree and in which nearly 1 in 5 Texans don't have high school diploma, that brings Texas as a nation to third world standards. 

Despite the fact that 60% of Texans surveyed in a Rasmussen poll opposed Texas going rogue, nearly have of all Republicans in Texas in supported the idea. That was enough for the TNM to file paperwork last month with the Texas Ethics commission to form their own superPAC,,Texas Nationalist Movement Political Action Committee. According to the organization, the superPAC was formed "for the purpose of supporting and endorsing candidates at all levels that are in-line with the mission, vision and values of the Texas Nationalist Movement."

And we can assume that other organizations in other states will soon do likewise. It will be interesting to see exactly how much the Koch Brothers will be giving in this latest attempt to ruin the nation. 

A Voice from the Past

It has taken over 150 years for the subject of secession to re-surface. Texas secessionists have either chosen to ignore or were never educated on American history. They seem completely oblivious to the hard-learned lessons of the Confederate disaster. 

Before the Civil War, when many in the South were advocating breaking free from the United States, one of the cooler heads, Alexander H. Stephens, issued an eloquent and prophetic warning for them to think carefully. There was no discussion about whether these states had the right to remove themselves. The Constitution seems pretty clear about that.  Stephens, a Georgia politician, implored southern extremists to consider the wisdom (not the legality) of such a radical step.

One hundred and fifty-two years ago next week, on January 17, 1861, Georgia held a special convention to vote  whether or not to remain in the Union of States. It was a decisive moment in the history of the nation and three other states, Mississippi, Florida and Alabama, had already voted to “cut loose” from the Union. By this time, the South had worked itself into a hysteria of indignation and was in no mood for compromise. 

In his speech before the members of the Constitution before the vote, former Congressman  Stephens warned,

That this step, once taken, could never be recalled; and all the baleful and withering consequences that must follow will rest on the Convention for all coming time.

Devastation to Charleston

Secession would, he told them, would inevitably lead to war and be a sure path to destruction of the South..

When we and our posterity shall see our lovely South desolated by the demon of war (which this act of your will inevitably invite and call forth); when our green fields of waving harvest shall be trodden down by murderous soldiery and the fiery car of war sweeping over our land; our temples of justice laid in ashes, all the horror and desolation of war upon us, who but this convention will be held responsible for it? and who but he who shall have his vote for this unwise and ill-timed measure.. shall be held to strict account for this suicidal act, by the present generation and probably cursed and execrated by posterity for all coming time, for the wide and desolating ruin that will inevitably follow this act you now propose to perpetrate?

In every respect, it was an accurate portrait of what was to happen to the South. He begged the other delegates to reconsider. Stephens asked them what reasons they would give to the victims of the coming calamity or to other nations of the world. 

What “one overt act” could they name or point to which could justify deserting the United States and breaking apart the Union, he asked them.

Can any of you today name one governmental act of wrong, deliberately and purposely done by the government of Washington, of which the South has the right to complain?

On the contrary, Stephens pointed out, hadn’t the federal government been more than willing to accommodate their Southern states demands? In any case, what, he asked, had they to gain by seceding from the Union? Within the federal government, the South had always had more representation than the North.

On the other hand, the South had very much to lose. There was the problem of the cost of running an independent government.

Look at another item, one.. in which we have a great and vital interest. It is that of revenue, or means of supporting government.

According to official figures, he said, three-fourths of the revenue for the support of the government came NOT from the Southern states, but had been raised uniformly from the North.

Sound familiar?

The result of the decision to leave the Union was, even then, predictable: a costly and bloody war.

Leaving out of view, for the present, the countless million of dollars you must expend in a war with the North; with tens of thousands of your sons and brothers slain in battle, and the offered up as sacrifices upon the altar of your ambition- and for what, we ask again?

Is it for the overthrow of the American government established by our common ancestry, cemented and built up by their sweat and blood and founded on the broad principles of Right, Justice and Humanity? And I must declare here as I have often done before.. it is the best and freest government-the most equal in its rights- the most just in its decision- the most lenient in its measure and the most inspiring in its principles to elevate the race of men, that the sun of heaven ever shown upon.

Now, for you to attempt to overthrow such a government as this, under which we have lived for more than three-quarters of a century- in which we have gained our wealth, our standing as a nation, our domestic safety while the elements of peril are around us, with peace and tranquility accompanied with unbounded prosperity and rights unassailed- is the height of madness, folly and wickedness, to which I can neither lend my sanction nor my vote.

Unfortunately, for the nation, all of Stephen’s predictions and wise advice were ignored by the Convention members who voted to secede officially from the Union. Some in the South even saw Stephens as a traitor to the Confederacy. 
Despite that view, Stephens was elected to the newly-formed Confederate Congress, and later that year, as vice-president of the Confederacy. In that position, he was witness to the fulfillment of his darkest prognostications. 

If the other delegates had listened to his wise and prophetic advice, the nation might have avoided a war that proved bloodier than any other conflict in American history. 

Alexander Stephens had only his common sense to guide him when he spoke at the Georgia Convention. Today, we have common sense (presumably) and the chastising experience of our past mistakes. The deaths of 750,000 citizens should be a pretty strong deterrent, after all.

When the Texas Nationalist Movement leaders (and all of the other irresponsible rabble-rousing secessionist groups) attempt to stir the discontented into the same disastrous mistake as our ancestors, we hope the good and intelligent and loyal citizens will reject this dangerous nonsense with the contempt it deserves.

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Related articles

• Is Secession's Time Coming Again?
• For a Right of Unilateral Secession, Part Three: Design
• For a Right of Unilateral Secession: Part Two