by NTEB News Desk
Secession movement gains strength across America
Less than a week after a New Orleans suburbanite petitioned the White House to
allow Louisiana to secede from the United States, petitions from seven
states have collected enough signatures to trigger a promised review
from the Obama administration.
Are you in or out?
By
6:00 a.m. EST Wednesday, more than 675,000 digital signatures appeared
on 69 separate secession petitions covering all 50 states, according to a
Daily Caller analysis of requests lodged with the White House’s “We the People” online petition system.
A petition from Vermont, where talk of secession is a regular feature of political life, was the final entry.
Petitions from Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, Tennessee and Texas residents have accrued at least 25,000 signatures, the number the Obama administration says it will reward with a staff review of online proposals.
The
Texas petition leads all others by a wide margin. Shortly before
midnight Tuesday, it had attracted more than 92,400 signatures. But a
spokesperson for Gov. Rick Perry said Tuesday afternoon that he does not
support the idea of his state striking out on its own.
“Gov.
Perry believes in the greatness of our Union and nothing should be done
to change it. But he also shares the frustrations many Americans have
with our federal government,” according to a statement from the governor’s office.
A
backlash Monday night saw requests filed with the White House to strip
citizenship rights from Americans who signed petitions to help states
secede.
And in a similar nose-thumbing aimed at Texas’ conservative majority, progressives from the liberal state capital of Austin responded Monday with a petition to secede from their state if Texas as a whole should decide to leave the Union.
Late Tuesday a second group of Texans, this one from Houston, lodged their own White
House petition. Secession-minded Texans, they wrote, “are mentally
deficient and do not want them representing us. We would like more
education in our state to eradicate their disease.”
Houstonian
“Kimberly F” — The White House does not provide last names — submitted
the petition. She told TheDC in an email that ”[w]e need both sides
presented, or we all look like a bunch of fools.”
A
group from El Paso, too, wants no part of an independent Texas. “Allow
the city of El Paso to secede from the state of Texas,” their petition reads. “El Paso is tired of being a second class city within Texas.”
But
smaller petitions like hers are a political side show of a political
side show. One effort, aimed at Missourians, called for a nationwide
catered pizza party to celebrate when the Show Me State left the U.S.
States whose active petitions have not yet reached the 25,000 signature threshold include Alaska, Arkansas, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Ohio,Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.
