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posted by on Tuesday March 28 2017, @11:31PM   Printer-friendly
from the five-easy-pieces dept.

This weekend comes word that two of the masterminds behind the United Kingdom’s ongoing divorce from the European Union, Nigel Farage and Arron Banks. The duo just returned from the United States, where they reportedly helped raise a million bucks for one of the Calexit campaigns floating around — a scheme that would split the state into two eastern and western regions.

Farage and Banks are known as the Bad Boys of Brexit, and for good reason. As the controversial leader of the UK Independence Party, or Ukip for short, the one-time broadcaster Farage stirred up the anti-immigration pot in England among the white British working class. Banks, who co-founded the Leave.EU group, angered many when he claimed that Britain’s UK membership is “like having a first class ticket on the Titanic.’’ He also got into hot water with his controversial move to commission a poll after the murder of British politician Jo Cox, asking respondents whether the crime would have an impact on public opinion.

Now the Bad Boys have brought their shtick to California, according to a report in the Daily Mail which says the pair are helping exit backers trying to pit the eastern, more rural side of California against the western ‘coastal elite’ liberals in Los Angeles and San Francisco. The plan would be to create a Republican stronghold in the new state cleaved off California’s eastern flank, thus giving the GOP two more senators and electoral college votes for a 2020 presidential election.

Mercury News continues:

Meanwhile, a second Calexit campaign is underway. It’s called Yes California and it would see the state seceding from America entirely. If that initiative successfully finds a place on the ballot, a Yes vote would repeal clauses in the California Constitution stating “California is an inseparable part of the United States and that the United States Constitution is the supreme law of the land, ‘’ according to a statement from California’s Secretary of State Alex Padilla’s office said.

[Ed note: corrected typo in this story's last paragraph and expanded same to include the entire paragraph from which it was extracted. --martyb]


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  • (Score: 2) by edIII on Tuesday March 28 2017, @11:40PM (12 children)

    by edIII (791) on Tuesday March 28 2017, @11:40PM (#485554)

    the pair are helping exit backers trying to pit the eastern, more rural side of California against the western ‘coastal elite’ liberals in Los Angeles and San Francisco. The plan would be to create a Republican stronghold in the new state cleaved off California’s eastern flank, thus giving the GOP two more senators and electoral college votes for a 2020 presidential election.

    "Yes California ...would see the state succeeding from America entirely."

    Which is it? California splitting into two states, which is an entirely separate matter, or California leaving the United States? The GOP could only be helped if California remained, and was split up or, gerrymandered into supporting the GOP instead the Democrats.

    The whole article is confusing as fuck. If those a-holes want to help California leave, than by all means let them. Split California in half? That's even more unlikely than California leaving.

    I do note that these are GOP toadies openly talking about gerrymandering and further rigging our elections. If it's not the Russians it's the Brits! :)

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  • (Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 29 2017, @12:00AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 29 2017, @12:00AM (#485563)

    California secession is a long-term Mexican plan to reunite Alta and Baja California, which many indigenous see as their ancestral birthplace, Aztlan. Rest assured, if California seceeds from the United States, Sacremento will fall to D.F. within a generation. Repatriation is following in the example of Americans in Texas during the 1820's. Mexicans see the American southwest as occupied territory, and their foreign policy is to take it back including all the natural resources and by proxy, riches obtained through California's booming tech sector.

    Exporting their loyal undesirables to the United States has been official Mexican economic policy for three decades now. It brings money into Mexico while keeping the 'official' unemployment rate in lower single digits and preventing those undesirables from causing regime change within the failed state. The number one export from Mexico is its Mexicans, and one out of every four Mexicans has fled to the United States under de facto policy since the 1990's.

  • (Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Wednesday March 29 2017, @12:21AM (1 child)

    by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Wednesday March 29 2017, @12:21AM (#485576) Homepage

    Spoken like somebody who has no idea just how red (as in, Republican, not filthy commie) the geographic majority of California is. Of course, the rest of the world thinks we're one big L.A. and San Francisco.

    I'm for this split, as the actual conceptual map of the proposed split is one I described independently here before, that is, carve out the coast from L.A. to San Francisco, maybe to the top of the state.

    I don't know where the previous 6-state madness came from previous ideas to carve up California, but it makes a lot more sense to divide it into 2 states.

    The only major problem with any similar idea is that 50 is a nice round number, and the petty but very dominating reason is that 50 is too good a number to ruin. 51 is just an ugly number.

    • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday March 29 2017, @02:02AM

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday March 29 2017, @02:02AM (#485615) Journal

      The only major problem with any similar idea is that 50 is a nice round number, and the petty but very dominating reason is that 50 is too good a number to ruin. 51 is just an ugly number.

      Solution: after Scotland secedes., annex UK as the 52-nd.

      (grin)

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  • (Score: 2) by butthurt on Wednesday March 29 2017, @01:04AM (4 children)

    by butthurt (6141) on Wednesday March 29 2017, @01:04AM (#485590) Journal

    Mr. Schwarzenegger, when he was governor of the state, helped bring about a non-partisan redistricting commission that seems to have lessened gerrymandering there. Some of his fellow Republican politicians opposed it. Now he's advocating similar measures elsewhere.

    http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/gop_fears_a_redistricting_backfire/ [outsidethebeltway.com]
    http://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/in-the-know/319678-schwarzenegger-rips-gerrymandering-congress-couldnt-beat-herpes [thehill.com]
    http://www.latimes.com/politics/essential/la-pol-ca-essential-politics-updates-herpes-hemorrhoids-and-nickelback-all-1487036332-htmlstory.html [latimes.com]

    • (Score: 3, Touché) by WalksOnDirt on Wednesday March 29 2017, @03:05AM

      by WalksOnDirt (5854) on Wednesday March 29 2017, @03:05AM (#485635) Journal

      The Democrats weren't too happy, either, especially since they were in the majority. In the end, only the voters liked it. But that is what matters in an initiative.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 29 2017, @03:44PM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 29 2017, @03:44PM (#485962)

      Schwarzenegger, also helped Maldenaldo get passed an initiative that completely disenfranchised all non Democrat/Republican voters by preventing their candidates from being on the final ballot unless they recieved more votes in the primary than the Dem and/or Repub. I am not convinced his support for this redistricting was not simply self serving.

      • (Score: 2) by WalksOnDirt on Wednesday March 29 2017, @09:26PM

        by WalksOnDirt (5854) on Wednesday March 29 2017, @09:26PM (#486189) Journal

        You should have noted it doesn't apply in presidential elections.

        Mostly, it makes no difference, but we do get spectacles like the two Democrats in the runoff for the Senate last time.

      • (Score: 1) by butthurt on Wednesday March 29 2017, @10:25PM

        by butthurt (6141) on Wednesday March 29 2017, @10:25PM (#486224) Journal

        From my first link, which dates to 2005:

        Schwarzenegger’s motivation here is far from pure–he’s essentially trying to create a system that will help him enact his own agenda, even if it results in diminution of his party’s influence at the national level.

        If there's something impure about his continuing advocacy on the topic, I don't know what it is.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 29 2017, @01:16AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 29 2017, @01:16AM (#485599)

    As you say, the article makes no damned sense. Turning California into a few smaller states could work (2, 3, or 4 I've heard proposed). Some of these could be reasonable red/blue neutral, and the state really is too damned big given its population and its size, and the way that ends up working out nationally. Whether Californians would actually want that, I have no idea.

    But the actual idea of "Calexit"- where California votes to become a separate country by secession- has its own backers, and enjoys effectively no real support. Less so than the idea that Texas should secede, which also enjoys effectively no real support. Much more importantly, secession is punishable by conquering and death, as determined empirically, so no such vote would have any effect or legal binding- states cannot leave the union, and the relevant citation is "the civil war".

    • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 29 2017, @01:52AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 29 2017, @01:52AM (#485610)

      the relevant citation is "the civil war".

      And the last line from Hotel California.

  • (Score: 2) by jmorris on Wednesday March 29 2017, @06:01AM (1 child)

    by jmorris (4844) on Wednesday March 29 2017, @06:01AM (#485700)

    As pure power politics, either plan should be ok by me. If CA is split Team Red picks up two Senators and half of the State has a chance of survival without the worst of the lunatics. Win, Win. If CA leaves as a unit it is still good. Somebody did a detailed breakdown of how the House would reset, remember it is fixed by law at 435 members so they would instantly rebalance the 53 strong CA delegation. The article ended with a summary infographic of the US with CA pulled off. CA painted red with Hammer and Sickle and the rest with a Confederate Stars and Bars motif. Take 55 EV from the Dem total and they could forget electing a POTUS until the party positions totally reset over time.

    But I'm an asshole. Had Rick Perry pulled Texas out in protest of Obama's lawlessness we all know the tanks would have been ordered in. If CA wants out I say we improve LA and San Fran with a new March to the Sea style urban renewal and tell em to sit down, shut up and enjoy their turn at a hundred years plus of Reconstruction. What is it with Democrats and secession? Didn't they learn their lesson in the 1860s?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 29 2017, @07:45AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 29 2017, @07:45AM (#485749)

      [begin coded message] SJW Special jmorris Monitoring Squad, interim progress report: This was intercepted from the jmorris account:

      But I'm an asshole.

      We strongly suspect that reflective self-consciousness may be imminent in the jmorris. Perhaps a complete convergence is possible. Further reports to follow. [end coded message. ]