I Love Yew, Texas
Okay, so you’ve heard that Texas Republicans want to secede and, best I can figure they want to elect Ted Cruz as President of the Republic of Texas so he can run a revenge war against Donald Trump for saying that stuff about his daddy and his unpleasant wife.
That’s not how this is gonna work, Buddy. First of all, Texas doesn’t have the right to secede. That’s just a another myth brought to you by Republicans. Texas does have the right to fly our state flag at the same height as the American flag but that and ten bucks will get you a frozen Margarita at any participating Bitchin’ Betty and the Sequined Backhoes at a beach along the Gulf Coast.
According to an Act of Congress in 1845, Texas would need congressional approval to divide into 5 states. But, and here’s the fun part, if we do secede we could give ourselves approval to into 5 states.
I’ve got a plan. We could have —-
1. The Republic of Houston
2. The Republic of Dallas
3. The Republic of Austin San Antonio
4. The Republic of Hildago
5. And everything else can be Texass and they can have it.
They could put their Capitol building in Waco, Odessa, or Lufkin. I don’t give a damn. The whole thing. They can have everything else but here’s the deal — no foreigners from Texass will be allowed in the Republics. They can have every damn Waffle House in the state. We’ll have the oil, the money, the culture, and hot sauce.
Yeah, they’ll get most of the armadillos but we get the baseball and football teams so it’s a wash. They can take the Baptist but we’ll get the Methodist so one point for us.
See? This is a great idea. They get pines, poverty, and Pentecostals. We get NASA.
They just ought to let me do the figuring out with stuff like this. The Righteous Army of Rightwing God and Old Bloated Bigots don’t scare me.
I wonder if we could persuade Mexico to take Texas back? Sorry–I know you live there and love Texas–or at least what Texas used to be, before its government was overrun by morons; but enough, already!
1They should just put JJ in charge of carving the state up. I’ll get the popcorn.
2This seceding is a thing with repugnanticans. As I’ve written, eastern Oregon and E. Washington want to secede from their states (and parts of red N. California) and make a mega state with Idaho. It’s coming to light now that this idea is eating the repugnanticans up. I say, let them fight amongst themselves over something that will never happen. Same will happen in Texas. Keeps them occupied. Of course that won’t help fix the power grid but that also wasn’t going to happen under them.
3I think the republic of Harris County would be great. Plus we could keep all our tax moneys. We could use the FEDERAL interstate and toll roads to hook up with alternative power supply.
4Reread the flag code: *any* state can fly its flag as high as the US flag, as long as it doesn’t fly it higher.
Steve from Beaverton, I’d be fine with all those states merging as long as they reduce the total number of red states…b/c it would reduce their impact on the electoral college. So let ’em have at it!
I moved away from Texas a little over a year ago and was back for a couple of weeks earlier this month, and I was heartsick over what I saw–which wasn’t much, but was enough to convince me I want JJ and Beto to take the place over before it implodes.
Hang in there, JJ!
5Can we figure out a way to write a way for Texas to exit?
Had we done so in the 1990s, we would have avoided Bush 43 as president — potentially by citizenship, and certainly by changing the balance of the Electoral College. 2000 election results of 271 to 266 would be a bit different with the subtraction of Texas’ 32 votes. 2004 result of 286 to 251 (35 votes) would be JUST beyond the 34 Texas votes of that decade — but the 1 vote for John Edwards would likely have been reconsidered, which would have meant a tie vote.
Unlike some Trump supporters, I’m of the opinion we cannot rewrite history or have “backsies” on previous elections. But if Texas is pushed out, we wouldn’t have to worry about Ted Cruz or Greg Abbott running for President from their current elected positions. 2 Republican Senate votes would be subtracted, providing Democrats a bit more breathing room and diminishing influence of Manchin and Sinema. In the House, there would be a loss of 24 Republicans and 12 Democrats (and 2 more seats after the 2022 election). That alone could ensure a continued Democratic majority in the House.
There are a few other benefits — MLB, the NFL, NBA, and WNBA would suddenly have an international presence they’ve been working to create. The US/Mexico border would shrink, diminishing grounds for irritation. Texas school book selection would no longer be the heavy influence it is today.
There probably would need to be minor adjustments — Texas may not want El Paso (and vice versa). A few places in New Mexico might petition to join Texas as they leave. But on the whole, Some people may want to move in or out of the current boundaries in order to express their allegiance.
At first glance, Texit looks like a winner to me.
6Way, way off topic:
About a month ago I predicted the top four vote getters in Alaska’s special congressional primary. Here are the actual results (slipstream’s predicted top four indicated by *)
Sarah Palin* 28.2% 37,741
Nick Begich* 19.2% 25,766
Al Gross 12.7% 17,037 (withdrew today)
Mary Peltola 8.9% 11,863
Tara Sweeney 5.6% 7,484
Santa Claus* 4.5% 6,070
Jeff Lowenfels 3.7% 5,006
Chris Constant* 3.6% 4,854
plus 42 others.
Unclear whether Sweeney will be on the general election ballot after Gross withdrew (the top four in the primary make the general election ballot).
While I am disappointed that Santa Claus did not make the cut, I think my prediction was reasonably good.
7Take heart in the poor fact that texastan isn’t the only state taken over by large populations of rePUKEian/evilgenitals!!!
8Let them secede BUT they will need a passport to travel out of state .
9wait, you’d give up all the Waffle Houses? Couldn’t you keep just one, and send it up here to the Northeast??
10And I Love Yew, JuanitaJean
11just curious… who will Ken Paxton sue?
12RE: “4. The Republic of Hildago”,
If you’re thinking of the Rio Grande Valley region as a sane Democratic area [And (below), you might be mistaken.], I think that you might mean to be calling it “Hidalgo”, with the “l” before the “g”.
Pronounced as ‘eedalgo’ [Spanish] or h-eye-dalgo’ [Anglo] by most locals.
The town of Hidalgo used to be a very sleepy little [pop ~1200] border town [worked there often], in the county of Hidalgo [then pop~200K]; all about 92%+ Hispanic.
Connected to Reynosa, Tamps [even then a large city] across a small bridge, with much larger McAllen 8 miles north.
Now Hidalgo town is quite large itself, with pop~17,000, and Hidalgo County pop~900K-1M; and multiple bridges to Mexico.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidalgo,_Texas
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidalgo_County,_Texas
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lower_Rio_Grande_Valley
.
Unfortunately the Valley, and all of very heavily Hispanic South Texas [my homeplaces], is sliding away from the Democrats and paradoxically becoming -Republican-, inch by inch!! See the proof below.
WTF are the Democrats going to do to reverse this catastrophic devolution???
EG:
Republicans flip U.S. House seat in South Texas, historically a Democratic stronghold:
https://www.texastribune.org/2022/06/14/texas-special-election-tx-34-mayra-flores-dan-sanchez/
Granted that this particular example was a special election for a short-term US House seat [and national Dems blew it bigly], the new Rethug holder, Mayra Flores, will have huge incumbency and personal advantages.
—-And much more importantly, the entire S TX region trendlines are rapidly moving towards the Rethuglikans!!
The smug Texas state Democrats, and all national Democrats, had better GTF off their complacent asses and do something about this.
13Or it is guaranteed that Texas will never become ‘blue’ if we totally lose the now majority Hispanic population to the Rethugs.
I see some very positive things about Texit. The Republicans will lose over 30 Congress Critters, two Senators and we will save well over $45 billion dollars, and also we would be able to put tariffs on foreign trade that would increase the federal tax intake. We also could cash in on the tourist visas that will be required for Texans to visit the United States. Texas doesn’t produce nearly enough of anything that they need to support their population, food, products and staples all would need to be bought and paid for in cash from the US.
14Many good people will suffer from this move, but these are either a very small minority, or they are apathetic about voting and their government and we can allow some sort of immigration amnesty for them to come to the USA and stay US citizens, say 90 days from secession. Perhaps even some grants to help them resettle in civilization.
US companies would have to remove themselves from Texas, or pay taxes to do business in the USA.
The oil bidness can pay import duties on all oil sold to the US and all oil would be stopped from going into Texas from the USA, unless duties are paid and fees assessed.
I see this as an opportunity to get rid of parasites and gain income from import and export duties and fees from border crossers..
Since I live in the Big Piney Woods of East Texas — full of Bible Thumpers and meth heads — I’d have to move but it would be worth it to have 4 more blue states to counter the crazies on the right.
15Steve from Beaverton: I don’t have a problem with eastern Oregon, eastern Washington and parts of red northern California seceding from their states to make a mega state with Idaho. Those are all low population areas and a drain on the resources of their respective states. They’d still only get two senators and would probably actually lose some house seats. These folks and their Texas brethren aren’t known for long range planning.
16A SCOTUS ruling in 1869 [Texas v. White, et. al] established that states cannot unilaterally secede from the Union. Some Texans calling for secession probably have no knowledge of this ruling, but they definitely should know about it.
17I don’t think I’m qualified to give’em all the waffle houses in the rest of the states, but I’ll toss in the ones in NC!
18Um, if Texas did secede (and broke into 5 states), there would be no NASA, or military bases, or anything else established and funded by the government in DC.
19I just read through part of Justice Salmon Chase’s reasoning in Texas v. White, et al., and I find his argumentation that Texas could not secede, that the state had entered into a perpetual and indissolubile union less than cogent. But someone might try to bring up Texas v. White et al., if indeed Texas gets so far as to consider secession. I doubt the sane ones of Texas will let it get that far, however rabidly irrational the GOP of Texas has become.
20RE: Sandridge @13, I wrote about how Democrats are increasingly losing the Texas Latino vote here.
So, one of the most prominent headliners [and media figure] over at Daily Kos, Egberto Willies [from Houston Woodlands iirc], seems to have been reading.
He just published an article on the topic [even echoing some of my words], mostly about the recent loss of US House District TX-34 [a spl election ‘temporary’ seat until Nov].
Mind that I spent most of my life in the Valley, Cameron County to be specific, which is the southern end of this gerrymandered ‘fajita’ district.
The Rethug winner of TX-34, Mayra Flores, is listed as from Los Indios [just south of San Benito/Harlingen. Los Indios used to be a wide spot on US Hwy-281, the river road [which I used to regularly ‘fly low’ on many 0’darkthirties between Brownsville and Hidalgo, etc].
Unfortunately Willies, and his supporting references, get it mostly wrong, with many logical fallacies and false assumptions [see commenters]. Although I think that we’re after the same goals.
The DK article :
Dems: Stop blaming Latinos for Democratic losses. Reassess before it’s too late.:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/6/23/2105720/-Dems-Stop-blaming-Latinos-for-Democratic-losses-Reassess-before-it-s-too-late
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas%27s_34th_congressional_district
To repeat myself :
“Unfortunately the Valley, and all of very heavily Hispanic South Texas [my homeplaces], is sliding away from the Democrats and paradoxically becoming -Republican-, inch by inch!! See the proof below.
WTF are the Democrats going to do to reverse this catastrophic devolution???”
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