CNN: Repuke States Seeking Sovereignty??

[DemocracyInaction]

I saw this on the ticker and went to CNN website. States like OK and SC are passing laws that say they don't have to obey any Federal law THEY deem unconstitutional and overstepping boundaries (umm, like all the shit Bush did?). Here's the real knee-slapper: these same asswipes deem the "stimulus" just such legislation that does not need to be "obeyed", BUT are going to accept the stimulus money anyhow!!! Time to pull all their federal monies and tell them to stick their sovereignty up their butts and TOTALLY finance their own states--including natural disaster emergency funds. If you don't want to play on the playground with the rest of the kids, then shut your mouth, go away and don't expect to make off with a handful of lollipops on your way out. Maybe they could elect "Rush the Fat" as their king! I'm so sick of the hypocracy of these people (as they lick their lips waiting for the pork in the budget to come slathering their way drenched in BBQ sauce)!

[Xipe Totec]

1. They should seek sobriety first n/t

[Jackpine Radical]

2. I kinda hope they fucken secede.

The only problem with that is all our military bases are in red states, so they'd end up with one whoppin' bunch of warmaking capability and absolutely no judgment about using it.

[DemocracyInaction]

3. Jackpine - these assholes...

..are going to try to get Obama in a "send troops" into the states position. They want violence. They want bloodshed. They want it to be "the evil Black Man"...oh, and they want their goddamn money, to boot. Big mouths and shallow pockets.

[woolldog]

4. I actually wouldn't mind if the South seceeded from the US.

Those are net takers from the federal government, while states like CA and NY are net contributors.

[BlueJazz]

5. Then they can pay for all the Military Bases (salaries included) but by that time..

...90 percent of their populace will be eating out of garbage cans. :)

[Cha]

10. Exactly..they'd have

a mess of whup ass on their plate. They're prolly just following limbaughs orders.

[jwirr]

21. And since we paid for the equipment - it is ours before we leave. They

can buy their own. Oh also southern Dems - we would welcome you here.

[zbdent]

30. um ... didn't the "military" personnel swear an oath

to defend and protect THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA?

Not the Constitution of the state they are in at the time ...

[Jackpine Radical]

33. They're all Bushies, I spose.

The Consti-whatchamacallit is just a piece of paper.

[BuyingThyme]

6. Many other states have apparently done this.

[DemocracyInaction]

8. Yup--and all of the red

There was mention of several others. In Montana they are going to make sure that no one can do anything about their guns. Glad they have the important things on their minds.........

[Abq_Sarah]

35. California did this back in the 90's.

[eShirl]

7. Kind of reminds me of a war between the states we once fought.

I guess they forgot who lost.

[DemocracyInaction]

9. eshirl--a Civil War point

Do you now that for decades before the Civil War, the south kept whinning in Congress that if each and every bill wasn't done "their way" they would succeed. Lincoln said that shit was not the definition of democracy and was making a mockery of democracy. So he called their bluff and told them to "bring it on". Oh, and a guy named Floyd who was SEc. of War prior to Lincoln's administration, made sure that a whole shit pile of military stuff got sent to the south (he was pro-south)so that the pending war would see a pile of USA military equipment in their hands.

[lakeguy]

11. fine.

let them take their share of the US debt too. most of those states get more from the federal gov. then they pay in anyway.

[ProSense]

12. They could be surprised by the outcome

All of this is probably just political grandstanding, and eventually the governors will probably accept almost all of the money offered to them. Nevertheless, what is interesting about this story from the standpoint of constitutional law is that, ironically, the governors' threats to refuse federal money actually help establish the constitutionality of the stimulus bill, and its proposed bargain of federal funding in return for state regulatory obligations.

During the 1990s the Rehnquist Court flirted with the idea of rolling back certain aspects of the New Deal and increasing state immunity from federal control. But it never seriously considered rolling back the most powerful tool for regulating state governments in the federal arsenal-- the use of conditional federal spending. To do that it would have to rethink spending clause doctrines which date back to the New Deal and which were used, among other things, to uphold the Social Security system.

This is one reason why the Rehnquist Court's federalism revolution was largely symbolic: Pretty much all of the protections the Rehnquist Court offered state governments become irrelevant if the federal government uses conditional spending rather than direct regulation to get its way. For example, in exchange for federal funding the federal government can require state officials to enforce federal mandates and it can even require state legislatures to pass laws that the feds write. (To give only one example, in 2000, in U.S. v. Morrison, the Rehnquist Court struck down the civil rights remedy in the federal Violence Against Women Act. But Congress could have required each state to pass its own violence against women act in return for the considerable federal funding that accompanied the original act.)

The Supreme Court's jurisprudence on conditional funding to the states under the spending or General Welfare clause is premised on the idea that conditions on federal grants to the states do not violate the reserved powers of the states under the Tenth Amendment because states always have the right to turn down the funding. For some, this doctrine is little more than a legal fiction: because states in the modern era are so dependent on federal largess, the offer of funding with strings attached is one that the states cannot refuse. Hence no matter what the courts say, the states are really being coerced into accepting federal regulation, which, critics of modern spending clause doctrine would contend, violates the Tenth Amendment.

<...>

Ironically, then, if one or more states seriously suggests that they may refuse some or all of the stimulus money because of the federal strings attached, this tends to demonstrate that the stimulus bill is a constitutional exercise of the spending power: it is evidence that pressure to accept federal monies has not turned into compulsion, that a genuine offer is being made and that each state can still freely decide whether or not to accept the money.

link

[AllentownJake]

13. Fine if a state secedes from the union

We surround you with troops and let nothing in or out. We aren't going in. When they are done with their little statement the leaders are tried for treason and face the appropriate penalty for treason.

Refugees will be taken but background checked and humanely isolated till the end of the little revolution.

[MasonJar]

14. There are a lot of good dems in those states. We just need to keep

exposing the loser GOPers. We got NC and Va. We can get SC and OK too, eventually. ETCS.

[NYC Liberal]

15. Nullification Crisis. SC tried it before; Jackson threatened to send the army in.

We already settled this in 1828.

[Arkana]

20. Damn you--you beat me to it.

[billyoc]

16. Try for solvency first, you fucking redbeats.

[Turbineguy]

17. One Civil War

was more tragedy than I need.

[Bobcat]

18. Nullification

NYC Liberal nailed it. The resulting Civil War confirmed the supremacy of the national government. How ignorant are these people? Go back to school and pay attention in history class!!!

[Arkana]

19. South Carolina tried this during Andrew Jackson's administration.

It was called the Nullification Crisis.

Know what Jackson did? He said "Either obey the fucking law or I will hang each and every one of you for treason."

EDIT: This was President Zachary Taylor's response to the secessionists in 1850 as well. "I'll hang 'em--and I might start with my son-in-law, Jefferson Davis."

[placton]

31. Taylor was a Whig - Lincoln too

a few years later, with Grant's election, the GOP began a long long rule of terror.

[MzShellG]

22. Noooo! Dont turn your back on the south.

I'm from S.C. and have always voted democrat. I live in a blue city/county but unfortunately we're being held hostage by the state gov and their minions.

[soccermomforobama]

23. I think you can add Texas to that list. The law has not passed yet

but a similar bill was proposed this legislature.

[PBS Poll-435]

24. Supremacy Clause

Game. Set. Match

[President Decider]

25. Perhaps we can give the Repubs Alaska to move to. They can live happily ever after under Palin rule

[Catch22Dem]

26. OK has a Dem governor who'd never sign it into law (n/t)

[msongs]

27. fear of a BLACK PRESIDENT runs amok nt

[annabanana]

28. Hey!. . The could re-segregate all the water fountains!

The good old boys would just love that. .

[Onlooker]

29. WHERE IS THE LINK?

You said you went to the CNN site and found something about this. I could not find anything. Please, if possible, post a link. Thanks.

[DemocracyInaction]

37. Onlooker

I don't know how to do the "link" thing. I just went to cnn.com and kept going down the front page until I got to either this story or a general topic that took me to it. Like I said, I saw it on their ticker and investigated it yesterday (Sat.). It's not one of their major headlines but it's there.

[Peace Patriot]

32. If you subscribe to the theory that Pukes try things out in South America before

they try them here--for which there is a lot evidence (for instance, "shock and awe" economics hit Latin America first; those countries were totally trashed; now us)--then you might want to know that secession of the oil provinces, by fascist groups in Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia, was a Bushwhack strategy for regaining global corporate predator control of the oil. The president of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, spoke publicly of this plot and said it was coordinated among the Bushwhacks and fascist groups in all three countries. And they tried it in Bolivia in September. White supremicist groups who wanted to split off Bolivia's eastern provinces (where all the gas and oil are) from the central government of Evo Morales--the first indigenous president of Bolivia (a largely indigenous country)--were funded and organized right out of the U.S. embassy, and by the DEA. They rioted in September of last year, to try to prevent a vote on Bolivia's new Constitution, trashed government and NGO buildings, went around beating up the indigenous, blew up a gas pipeline and machine-gunned some 30 unarmed peasants.

Morales threw the U.S. ambassador and the DEA out of Bolivia, and South America's new Common Market--UNASUR--went into action, gave Morales unanimous backing, and succeeded--where others had failed--to broker a peace with the saner fascist factions, so that Bolivia's vote went forward peacefully. The new Constitution actually grants some autonomy to provences and indigenous tribes who want it, but they can't split Bolivia up, nor deny the national government use of the gas/oil profits.

The Bushwhack coup failed in Bolivia--but there is the possibility that it was only a rehearsal for the bigger prizes of Venezuela's and Ecuador's oil fields. Bolivia is land-locked--not a very viable strategic situation for coupsters--and, right in the middle of things, neighboring Paraguay elected its first leftist president, ever, thus cutting off one possible route for U.S. military support. Venezuela is in a much more vulnerable strategic position. Its chief oil state, Zulia, sits right on the Caribbean--where the Bushwhacks reconstituted the U.S. 4th Fleet last year--and adjacent to Colombia, a Bush Cartel client state ($6 BILLION in U.S.-Bushwhack military aid; rife with rightwing death squads, and high level cocaine trafficking; its next potential 'president' is the Defense Minister, who hates Chavez). Zulia has a fascist governor, and there is evidence of fascist secessionist plotting between the Zulia fascists and Colombia's military.

Lula da Silva, president of Brazil, said that the 4th Fleet also constitutes a threat to Brazil's oil fields, and proposed a "common defense" in the context of UNASUR. (They all know that the 4th Fleet is aimed at Venezuela.)

Ecuador's northern oil region is also vulnerable. The U.S. military base at Manta, Ecuador, on the Pacific, is located here--it is also adjacent to Colombia (to the south of it). And it is also dominated by a fascist cabal. Earlier in 2008, the U.S. (Bushwhacks)/Colombia tried to provoke Ecuador into a hot war, by using ten U.S. "smart bombs" to blow away a leftist guerrilla (FARC) temporary camp just inside Ecuador's border, and raided over the border, killing 25 people in their sleep, on the eve of FARC's release of hostage Ingrid Betancourt (in March). French, Spanish and Swiss envoys were in Ecuador to receive her, under Correa's auspices. Correa rushed military battalions to his border with Colombia, as did Chavez in Venezuela, and the region seemed poised for war. Apparently, Chavez talked Correa out of retaliating--smelling a war trap--for which Lulu de Silva called Chavez "the great peacemaker". But the guantlet was down, and the situation remains volatile. Also, Correa has pledged to throw the U.S. military out of Ecuador, when the base lease is up, this year.

If the Bushwhacks are still seeking control of Venezuela's and Ecuador's oil reserves--a possibility, considering the amount of money they stole from us, and the private armies they created at our expense, and the allies they've bought in Colombia and elsewhere, they could wage a private war, on Exxon Mobil's behalf, and try to draw Obama into it (--a sort of "Bay of Pigs" situation for Obama--a war not of his making, but with the military/CIA pressuring him to support the "freedom fighters" in these secessionist states who will declare their "independence").

One more thing: Venezuela and Ecuador are both strong democracies. For instance, they have elections that are far, far more transparent than our own; they are progressive, inclusive and encourage participation by the vast poor majority; while Colombia is a fascist narco-state, where thousands of union leaders and other dissenters have been murdered by rightwing death squads. Secessionist states, in control of the oil, and in cahoots with Colombia and with our global corporate predators, would be ruinous to these target countries. When the Bushwhacks couldn't provoke Ecuador into a war, they took to calling both President Chavez and President Correa "dictators" and "terrorist-lovers." It is not true, of course, but it sure smells like the kind of psyops that are the preliminary to war. The attacks on Chavez are relentless, and continue to this day, in the corpo/fascist press, with even Obama chiming in on the disinformation campaign, in what is still an unformed U.S. policy of the new White House, I think. (Lula da Silva is meeting with Obama on March 14 to try to inform him about the real situation in South America. I hope Obama listens.)

The reason I have laid all this out, in this thread about possible secessionist movements in U.S. states, in that it seems to be a Bushwhack M.O. The rightwing in both of these target countries has been encouraged by the Bushwhacks to behave like traitors. They don't care if they detabilize their countries and destroy their own democracies--they are seethingly power hungry minorities. Sound familiar?

[Synicus Maximus]

34. Are you sure they are not talking about 10 th amendment

resolutions?
For those who have forgotten what it says:
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

So for Washington, New Hampshire, Arizona, Montana, Michigan, Missouri, Oklahoma, California, and Georgia have all introduced bills and resolutions declaring sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment. Colorado, Hawaii, Pennsylvania, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Alaska, Kansas, Alabama, Nevada, Maine, and Illinois are considering such measures.

[Abq_Sarah]

36. I believe that is what they're talking about

California did this back around 1996 I believe. I can't recall the circumstances but it might have had something to do with their medical marijuana legislation.