Sanford Levinson

Should I Stay Or Should I Go Now? Post-Election Secession Talk

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The 2008 Secession Proposal

In the wake of last week’s election, citizens from all 50 states have signed petitions calling for secession from the United States. These petitions have been filed with the White House’s “We the People” website, an initiative of the Obama administration to encourage public involvement in government. Once a petition reaches the threshold of 25,000 signatures within 30 days, the White House forwards the petition to its policy experts to draft a formal response.

It’s kind of ironic that these neo-secessionists submitted their formal demands through a government initiative specifically created by Barack Obama. It’s ironic because, while each state’s petition varies a bit in substance, the crux of every petition is “we don’t like that crazy Kenyan socialist president.”

Just to recap: Kenyan Head of Government. Not Kenyan Head of Government. Kenyan. Not Kenyan. Kenyon. Not Kenyan.

As of this hour, only a handful of states have reached the signature threshold to trigger an official White House response. Wanna take a guess which states are ready to bail? If you guessed “states that have past experience with secession,” you’d be right. Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas have all finished their secession petitions.

Do these petitions signal a new round of secession?

(SPOILER ALERT: No)

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Morning Docket: 10.17.06

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attorney man comic attorneyman.gif* Lawyer facing 30 years gets 28 months for the terrorism equivalent of passing a note in class. [New York Times]
* This guy is talking major smack about the Constitution. Where does he get off speaking his mind in a free press? And all without the fear of having the king’s soldiers quartered in his residence! [L.A. Times]
* Coming soon to a comic-con near you: ” By becoming a more skillful listener and communicator, Attorney Man masters the art of sales and develops a healthy roster of supersatisfied clients. `Wow! Look at those learned hands!’ one client gushes admiringly.” [Boston Globe via WSJ Law Blog]
* Another stock scandal for a high ranking government official. Who’d have thought the former chairman of the F.D.A. Obesity Working Group would come up with an easy way to make money. [N.Y. Times]
* Nadine and Nino go mano-a-mano this weekend on CSPAN (Washington’s ESPN). Says the mildly-worded AP article, “Scalia… generally finds himself taking the opposite position to the ACLU.” [Law.com]

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