The Last Time Texas Fought Over States Rights …
Ya know, it seems to me that Republicans in the Texas legislature would remember that Texas has not been real successful in wars against the union over states rights.
Republicans are big on States but not so much on United.
Texas Republican Representative Dan Flynn, an old rich white guy from East Texas (heavy sigh), has decided that we are going to set up a panel of 14 legislators to vote on which federal laws we will follow and which ones we won’t. It’s called nullification.
Flynn wants this committee to be bipartisan. So, only 8 of the 14 members can be Republicans. That’s fair.
As James Madison warned early in American history, nullification would “speedily put an end to the Union itself” because it would render each obligation a state’s citizens owe to the union as a whole optional. In effect, nullification is a way to secede from the union one law at a time.
Remember that part about Republicans wanting to follow the Constitution? They are having second thoughts about that. Assuming they have any thought at all.
Thanks to Frank for the heads up.
Mr. Flynn doesn’t seem to be real clear on that Supremacy Clause thing. Perhaps someone should explain it to him, in words of no more than two syllables.
1During the Nullification Crisis of 1832, when the South Carolina legislature passed legislation purporting to nullify the Tariff Act of 1832, President Jackson, who viewed both nullification and secession as treasonable acts, wrote to Sen. Henry Clay, “You may inform them (the governor and legislature of South Carolina) that should any attempt be made to enforce this law, I shall lead the Army into the state and hang the first of them upon whom I shall lay my hands”.
Those who knew Jackson well, including Sen. Clay, knew that when Jackson spoke of hanging, most people began looking for rope. Sen. Clay used his considerable influence to persuade South Carolina to repeal their nullification legislation, following passage of the Tariff Act of 1833. They did so.
2I’m glad South Carolina back in 1832 was smart enough to list to a strong president. Wonder what today’s Repulsive party would say if the black man in the White House said anything to Texas.
3Probably nobody would hear about what the President said to Texas because there’d be too much static about how bad he is/was. Part of problem in recent gubernatorial election was that absolutely no ads FOR Wendy or Leticia were posted around west Texas and probably other parts of the state. Any ads that got played were about something bad that Obama was doing. I need to not get started on that.
4Miss Juanita, don’t you understand that there is a BLACK man in the WHITE house. This goes against everything that is reasonable and goes against what GOD himself has ordained.
Pay attention, Miss Juanita.
Because of this, white Christian Americans — True Christians and True Americans — must stand up and put an end to this notion that blacks are equal to whites.
How silly of you not to understand this.
The South didn’t lose the Civil War, because it isn’t over yet. The Confederacy is playing the long, long, long game.
5So I get to decide which state and county laws I don’t feel like obeying? I can set up a panel too– my husband and me and the four cats.
Most people (including the cats) have figured out that certain standards are needed to live together in a society. Some of these asshats are still working on that.
6Sorry all you Texas lovelies, I sometimes feel that if the South
7Wants to rise again, with their trash talk about our country, the economic drain from the blue states, and general uneducated twit behavior, I for one, am ready to let them go. The deep hatred and even deeper dependency will have shocking results as soon as their individual states start running things and all the air/naval/army bases shut down and Medicare and SS checks stop showing up.
We already, although we have friends and family there, do not travel through those states. I have been blessed to travel to many of our country’s National Parks–and was wanting to see the egrets in Florida…but we could not in good faith go there.
There are places of wonder and I would miss the 48 connected states. But all of the police departments have enough artillery for a small army and I have a Californian accent, so it would be shoot on sight. When a threat is no longer a threat, but release from the unbelievable incivility and hubris–traitors still demanding to fly that flag….I say go!
@Elise Von H, I have long thought that Dems should create a talking point around the fact that the red states take in so much more in federal funds than they contribute. Give concrete examples and divide the money up by state contribution to the federal budget as a percentage and then make it clear in stark terms to voters.
Education funds: Alabama get 10% of what they get now.
Highway improvements: Georgia gets 12% of what they do now.
Military bases: 95% shut down.
Agriculture: 85% of the money gone.
Healthcare: None at all. (If you want to opt out of Obamacare, then you opt out and get no federal health care dollars.)
And so on.
I don’t know the actual numbers, but they should be fairly impressive. And I didn’t include SS because that is an insurance program that people pay into individually. And don’t you dare touch SS.
8Is Flynn a midget?
http://daflynn.com/aboutdan/
9Kirby Smithdom lives!
10Succession means giving up all Federal protections and $. Is the national guard going to protect us from foreign enemies? Really?????? The Rs are already soiling themselves over immigration…..
11Mark J: all great suggestions!
But may we tinker with SS, if we promise to do so in a progressive fashion? Raise the cap; then follow with a series of progressive raises to provide a bigger boost to the elderly receiving minimal benefits. Those ~3% raises don’t do much for the neediest with the low end stipends such as $500 or even less.
Corinne Sabo, if the south secedes, it will be Mexico building a fence to keep out Texans, especially Texans such as Rick Perry, Abbott, Gohmert and Patrick fleeing just ahead of a crowd bearing tar & feathers.
12Let’s march them at gunpoint down to the end of Florida and right into the ocean,just like rill lemmings and get in boats and follow them out to where they all drown and far enough out they don’t wash back this way.
13PKM: I’d be happy to strengthen Social Security. Raise the cap. Raise the minimum payment. Include those groups that were excluded because of racism and sexism (teachers, domestic workers, and many others).
14“Republicans are big on States but not so much on United.”
15Makes a darn fine bumper sticker.
Mark J: good ideas. It sure is amazing that anyone collecting social security or benefiting from medicare would vote for a Republican. Past time for the Democratic Party to senior-splain life to the electorate.
As millennials, my wife and I have already benefited from the ACA. For once our annual premiums didn’t rise by 10-20% with a corresponding increase in deductibles, co-pays and exclusions.
e platypus onion, can we take their guns and aerate them for improved sinking?
16PKM-yes we can. Let’s say that in solidarity.
It’s only fittin’
That they’d be gittin’
What they want for everyone else.
Let me be clear
17about the irony here
They get shot with their own shells.
While it’s true that all my academic work in Humerican history was in the late 1960s and early 1970s BUT I thought the Supremes said in Cooper v. Aaron in 1958 (and well before my Humerican history study in say 1969-1972) that “the states were bound by the Court’s decisions and had to enforce them even if the states disagreed with them.”
18PKM and maybe others,
19I am told by a relative who retired to a small place in France that the opinion of his similar aged friends was for older workers to pay a bit more for national health insurance and taxes because they could afford it in order for younger people to pay a bit less in takes and for NHI premiums because they could afford it less. No one debated there the economic benefit of everyone being covered by NHI. Of course all French jokes still apply…
oh jeeeeez “takes” = taxes. @#@%#^%#%##!!!
20Micr, maybe the key word being older “workers.” That might possibly be true in the USA, too. But for older retirees and older workers, there should be a bit of compassion for the elderly waitress or retired pizza delivery man. Easy for our Congress varmints to raise eligibility ages for social security, they’ve been sitting on their posteriors for years, when not busy vacationing on our takes. (my bad; seriously thought “takes” was a UK translation of the French) A lousy typist like me should have grabbed a clue.
Micr, may we keep the word “takes,” it really is appropriate given what we pay, while the corporate welfare queens demand more.
21@PKM
22It’s yours!
I, too, love the idea of “takes.”
Because the flip side of takes is gives. And that language makes it more understandable for people.
“Credits” and “deductions” and tax breaks” are somewhat abstract. “Gives” is obvious.
Let us start having conversations about who we want to take from and who we want to give to.
Take from the people already struggling to put food on the table or take from the people buying jumbo jetliners for personal use?
Give to corporations with billions in revenue or give to feed hungry children?
Me likey.
23This is the guy who would find the Federalist Society not at all Conservative enough for him!
Well, could be because at the annual Federalist Society meeting they decided that the President was definitely within his rights and within the law to issue an Executive Order.
Whuzzat! Did I just hear hell freeze over?
24@Mark J
25I am not an alarmist, but if you get to talking to even average man on the street GOP, not T-hadists, you will engender a massive anti reaction. IMO the garden variety GOP is selfish, self-centered and will not tolerate the idea of “give” and “take”. They have given when they were convinced to give but they will never go along with giving on say so. That’s why every GD expenditure by an executive department they see as “Social” becomes a knock down drag out. Right now, they’d prefer government spent/gave on bullets and bombs.
@Micr
I’m not sure I agree with you, but I’m not sure I don’t either. I just think it is time for the Dems to come up with some actual PROGRESSIVE talking points. What they have been doing isn’t working, obviously.
The only “bullets and bombs” libertarian crazies are not worth dealing with, because they are, well crazy. They put their Ayn Rand worship above all else.
The conservative GOP tea party types are a different kind of crazy. It is a crazy I know because it is most of my extended family. Racism plays a huge, huge role in their thinking. But there is also a softer side of their hate and when faced with hungry (white) children, they are going to put that ahead of corporate profits. Every time.
We just need to figure out how to appeal to their better natures and their own self-interest.
26Well, on the plus side, Texas would finally be totally in charge of their southern border and would no longer be able to blame others.
And Perry could be the President of Texas, where “oops” is a term of endearment.
27Just call them contributions regardless of how you have to take them from the wealthy. Everyone has to “contribute” something. Some more than others for an equal society.
28