Daniel Miller opens this Late Night Coffee Talk admitting it has been a week, and the reason lands fast. He woke up to an email from Stripe, the payment processor behind a huge share of online commerce, telling him his account is in violation and will be closed. The stated grounds: accepting charitable or political donations. The problem, as he walks through line by line on screen, is that he does neither. The accounts handle his technology consulting and a trickle of merchandise from his personal site, coffee mugs and books, not contributions of any kind. He pulls up Stripe’s own restricted business list and shows the category they cite is not even on it. He appeals, gets a near instant rejection, escalates, and is told the restrictions are firm. Firm restrictions, he notes, that appear nowhere in the documentation.
Miller reads it as financial warfare, the same tactic PayPal recently aimed at the Free Speech Union in the UK before public outrage forced a reversal. The establishment, he argues, would rather see him unable to pay his bills than see Texans exercise the right of self government. He makes the distinction sharp. They came after him, not the Texas Nationalist Movement, because they understood the firestorm that going after the organization would unleash. He calls it the coward’s move, an attempt to cut the head off the snake, and says it changes nothing. He will find another processor, lean on clients to cut checks, and keep moving. If this is the best they have, the movement has already won.
The second fight is Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick. On a quiet bus tour with no published schedule, Patrick turned up in Decatur, where TNM supporters were waiting to ask the question they have pressed at every forum since the primaries. Miller plays the clip. Asked whether Texans get a vote on independence this session, Patrick says it is not going to happen, he does not think, then adds that he wants to win the country back and claims he once chipped in ten dollars to a California secession effort. Miller dissects it. Patrick gave no hard no and left himself wiggle room, and his two stated reasons, that he cannot predict the future and that he would rather California leave, neither answer the question nor justify denying an inalienable right under Article 1, Section 2 of the Texas Constitution. The lesson, Miller argues, is that Patrick has no thought out opposition, only political calculation, which means relentless, public, on the record pressure is exactly what moves him.
Questions answered in this episode
- Should TNM start using YouTube Shorts and reels to spread the TEXIT message in short form video?
- At a recent tea party speech, a woman said this election was our last chance. What was she referring to?
- How did TNM first connect with the northern Mexico secession movement?
- Who would you want negotiating on behalf of an independent Texas, and would you want to be part of that process?
- Is a TNM membership fee legally a political contribution that shows up on public disclosure sites?
- Why bother citing party planks 33 and 225 if the lieutenant governor is just going to ignore them?
- What happens to the major U.S. military bases in Texas after independence?
- Under a mutual defense agreement with the U.S., would Texas be obligated to fight if the U.S. is the aggressor?
- Could the federal government cut off Social Security to a free Texas the way it does for North Korea and Cuba?
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