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^{Welcome.
Please visit this January 1st daily thread for the rules of the road,
which are few but important.}

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Do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore,
and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. — Galatians 5:1

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We got our miracle.
America is back.

Let us dedicate ourselves to the cleansing, healing, and rebuilding of our beautiful nation.

God will guide us.
Prayers & thanks to God for President Donald J. Trump.

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Rogue States.

Picking up from last week’s presentation, United Sovereign Americans (USA) states that they have the evidence for declaring 5 states as having “gone rogue,” as being out of compliance with the U.S. Constitution, as provably illegitimate:

18/ Illinois, New York, California, Pennsylvania and Michigan are rogue states. No one in those governments knows if their congressional representatives are legitimate. I don’t know, you don’t know, and neither do they. Certifying elections for Congress with millions of fictitious voters and votes is an act of defiance against the United States Constitution, and USA has gathered the proof, from the states’ own official records, that this is exactly what happened. – @UnitedSAmerican

Not only is all of the above true, but there are many other ways in which many of the states are failed. Bankrupt. Corrupt. And worse. The levels of dissatisfaction of the people in all of the states are sky high.

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Secessionists.

At this point in the conversation, it’s important to note that any discussions of states leaving the Union will need to overcome this ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court. “Texas v. White, 74 U.S. 700 (1868)” which is summarized here:

The secession of the Southern states in 1861 sparked the Civil War. The Confederacy was defeated on the battlefield rather than in the courts. However, subsequent legal issues created by attempts at independence led the courts to express an opinion on the legality of secession. In Texas v. White, a dispute over a bond sale by the Confederate States, the Supreme Court ruled in 1869 that Texas’ secession had not been legal. According to the majority opinion, entry into the Union formed “an indissoluble relation”; it was “final,” “perpetual,” and left “no place for reconsideration or revocation, except through revolution or through the consent of the States.”

As of this writing there are groups in Texas, California, Louisiana, Alaska, and New Hampshire that have as their stated goal to get their state to secede from the Union. However, it seems, without armed conflict, the only path for success involves a Constitutional amendment (which would require getting approval by two-thirds of both houses of Congress and being ratified by 38 states). This doesn’t seem very likely.

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A New State.

What does the U.S. Constitution say about creating a new state? Article IV Section 3 of the United States Constitution says: “New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new States shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.”

Reading this in the context of those groups wanting to form a new state from territory currently part of another state it would require: (1) consent of the old state, (2) consent of the new state, and (3) consent of Congress.

The history of the creation of West Virginia’s statehood should be instructive (ref: National Archives, WVencyclopedia.org). I’m going to try and create the “Cliff Notes” version of the difficult and contentious history of the creation of the new state of West Virginia.*

1. Virginia joins confederacy, seceding from Union.
2. Western part of Virginia doesn’t agree with leaving the Union, but there is no longer a legitimate old state government to get consent from.
3. Western Virginia deliberates and develops a “reorganized” government of Virginia made up of representatives from non-secessionist areas in the state of Virginia (from June of 1861 to May of 1862).
4. On May 13, 1862, the state legislature of the reorganized government approves the formation of the new state from the non-secessionist areas of Virginia and a government of the new state of West Virginia is formed. (This new state of West Virginia obviously “consents” to the formation of the new state.)
5. An application for admission to the Union is then made to Congress. On July 14, 1862, the US Congress adopts a statehood bill for West Virginia, which includes the condition of gradually freeing all blacks under the age of 21 on July 4, 1863. 
6. President Lincoln signs the enabling act on December 31, 1862. 
7. The revised constitution for West Virginia, which meets the demand for gradual emancipation, is adopted on March 26, 1863. 
8. On April 20, 1863, President Lincoln issues a proclamation admitting West Virginia to the Union at the end of 60 days, on June 20, 1863.

• *Please respond in the comments if there are errors in the above summary, I make no claims to know much at all of what I am writing about here.
• Dear Wolf and kind readers: some of the above was built from text given to me from Brave AI’s summarizer. I have now gone to the referenced sources to check Brave’s work and updated the text where necessary for clarity and to give credit to sources.

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Separatist Movements.

Time will not permit going into much detail on the various separatist movements active today (for creating new states or redrawing of state lines), but a pretty detailed article “Splitsville: separatist movements are gaining steam in blue states” written by Dave Seminara (published in “The Spectator” in January of this year) covers some of it (reprint here). Dave muddies up some of the details, but it’s still a great place to start reading. From the article:

According to Grant Dahl, co-host of the Secession Speakeasy podcast, there are separatist … movements in Oregon, Illinois, Texas, Colorado, New Mexico, New Hampshire, Louisiana, California, Washington, Minnesota, New York and Pennsylvania.

The goals aren’t the same in each place — and some movements are far more serious than others. Dozens of counties in Illinois and Oregon, for example, have already voted in favor of some form of separation from their current states.

Apparently there are also movements in Michigan and Maryland, which are not in Dahl’s list.

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Interesting Times.

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Our Turn.

We can’t leave this to others. We can get informed on what has been found, what is being done about it, and what more needs to be done.

We can make a difference.
And we must make a difference.

May God bless and guide you
as you pray and take action for our nation.

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Twitterati, etc.

And now for something completely different. @BretWeinstein might be an outlier in terms of your usual “trapline” on X (to borrow a term from another denizen of our tree, MarieUrsula), but he brings good insights to the table from time to time.

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Prayer.

God Bless America,
Land that I love.
Stand beside her, and guide her
Thru the night with a light from above.
From the mountains, to the prairies,
To the oceans, white with foam
God bless America, My home sweet home.

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