Thursday 07-16-15

Texas secessionists kick off statewide speaking tour to campaign for a break from the Union

A group of Texas secessionists is hitting the road to bring their message of a Lone Star nation to more than 20 cities across the state.
Today, the Texas Nationalist Movement is kicking off their "Take Texas Back Tour," with speaking dates booked at hotels and other venues throughout North, East and Central Texas. The group says it aims to collect signatures to get Texas secession on the 2016 ballot. That isn't actually possible—only the legislature can get referendums on the ballot in Texas—but the separatists hope to court volunteers and supporters across the state.
RELATED: Feds raid Texas secessionist meeting
Sunday, the Movement created a collection of Facebook events for each of their bookings. So far the highest number of confirmed guests will turn up this evening in Tyler—88 people—and on Wednesday in Fort Worth—62 people. Most of the seminars are booked at hotels, and other cities including Marshall, New Braunfels, Austin, Corpus Christi, Conroe and Dallas.
The TNM could not be reached for comment Monday. A secretary said all officials were out on the tour. In a statement on the group's website, president Daniel Miller said, "This tour is our way of connecting with the thousands of Texans who have pledged their support to our cause and makes a statement about the direction of the Texas Nationalist Movement. The relentless march to identify, communicate with and organize TNM supporters who are seeking to work for the independence of Texas is paramount at this point."

 

RELATED: Rick Perry might not want Texas to secede, but Ron Paul believes "secession is an American principle"
Since the reelection of President Barack Obama in 2012, the movement has repeatedly vowed to get secession on a statewide November ballot. But according to Mark Jones, chair of the political science department at Rice University, they can't do it with a petition.
"Gathering signatures could be a good public relations tool but from a constitutional legal perspective it's irrelevant," he said. "There's no way for individual citizens to place any item on the statewide ballot."

 

Only the Legislature can put an item on the ballot. And there are steps to take before a statewide vote on leaving the union. A legislator would have to introduce a resolution to convene a constitutional convention at which to discuss secession, and the state House and Senate would have to approve the resolution with a two-thirds majority. Not likely, Jones said.
But, since the legislature won't meet again until January 2017, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott would have to call a special session to discuss secession. Virtually unthinkable, Jones said.
Furthermore, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1869 that states have no right to secede.
"The federal government would certainly view any attempt at secession as something unconstitutional and would move to block it," Jones said.
However, that hasn't stopped Texans from mulling the notion. Even then-Gov. Rick Perry suggested Texas would leave the Union while addressing a 2009 Tea Party rally in Austin.
RELATED: Perry says Texas can leave the union if it wants to
In January 2013, shortly after the beginning of Obama's second term, more than 100,000 people signed a petition asking for the president to kindly excuse Texas from the union of states. In September 2014, Reuters polled about 9,000 Americans on secession, and surprisingly found about a quarter of them would support their state seceding. The Southwest—Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Arizona—sported the highest approval rating for secession: 34 percent.
When KSAT TV in San Antonio reported on the TNM's push in 2013, they conducted a viewer poll, asking if Texas should have the right to secede. Of about 600 respondents, 75 percent answered "yes."

http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/texas/article/texas-secession-nationalist-movement-republic-6382225.php

NOAA: Record 117-Month Major Hurricane Drought Continues

By Kathleen Brown | July 14, 2015 | 3:45 PM EDT

Waves inundate Beach Boulevard in Bay St. Louis, Miss. on Sept. 1, 2008 during Hurricane Ike, a Category 2 storm. (AP photo)

(CNSNews.com)—It has been 117 months since a major hurricane, defined as a Category 3 or above, has made landfall in the continental United States, according to 2015 data from the Hurricane Research Division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
This is the longest span of time in which no major hurricane has struck the mainland U.S. in NOAA hurricane records going back to 1851.
The second longest time between major hurricane strikes was the eight years between 1860 and 1869—146 years ago.
A recent study published May 5 and co-authored by Tim Hall of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Goddard Institute for Space Studies entitled The Frequency and Duration of U.S. Hurricane Droughts also confirmed that the current "admittedly unusual" drought is “unprecedented in the historical record."
That study found that major hurricane droughts only occur every 177 years, and calculated that there is less than a 5 percent chance (0.39%) that the current drought will end this hurricane season, which lasts from June 1 to November 30.
Hurricane Wilma, the most recent major hurricane to strike the U.S., was a Category 3 when it made landfall in North Carolina on October 24, 2005—almost 118 months ago.
Since the end of the 2005 hurricane season, the U.S. has experienced a nine-year major hurricane “drought,” which is approaching 10 years at the end of the 2015 season this November.
Last month, Eric Blake, a hurricane specialist at NOAA’s National Hurricane Center, told CNSNews.com that this is “easily the record—with all the necessary caveats.”
Blake co-authored NOAA’s The Deadliest, Costliest, And Most Intense United States Tropical Cyclones from 1851 to 2010 report, which explains that “category assignment is based on wind speed from 1851-1930 and 1990-2010 and on a combination of wind, pressure and storm surge from 1931-1989.”
The Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale assigns categories from 1 to 5 based on sustained wind speeds and potential for damage. The scale was developed in 1969, so storms before then were assigned categories retroactively, using the historical measurements on record.

Blake told CNSNews.com that measurements for storm categorizations have improved over time.
While a Category 3 or greater storm has not struck the U.S. since Wilma in 2005, several hurricanes of lesser wind speeds have still caused considerable damage, including Ike in 2008 (Category 2), Irene in 2011 (Category 1), and Sandy in 2012 (Category 1).
According to NOAA, Category 1 storms cause “some damage” with sustained winds between 74-95 mph, and Category 2 storms cause “extensive damage” with winds between 96 and 110 mph.
Category 3, 4, and 5 hurricanes are considered “major” because of their ability to produce “devastating” and “catastrophic damage” with wind speeds of 111-129 mph, 130-156 mph, and 157 mph or higher, respectively.
"Small differences today that we could detect, you couldn’t detect a long time ago,” Blake told CNSNews.com. “Given that we just see things a little better, we‘ve got more data and better satellite data, we can give a little better estimate than we could a generation ago.”
“But nonetheless, it is a record. It’s easily the record,” he continued.
That a 117-month pause in major hurricane activity follows the most active Atlantic hurricane season in history is “an unlikely event, so ascribing the significance of it is a challenge,” Blake told CNSNews.com.
“I like to think of it as Mother Nature giving us a little bit of a break after giving us a beating in 2004 and 2005.
That’s my best guess, but I don’t know.”

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/kathleen-brown/noaa-record-117-month-major-hurricane-drought-continues