Below are three examples of the misleading headlines, from The Examiner, CBS News and WorldNewsDaily:
The Examiner, Obama secession petitions: Will 50 states petition the president to secede? - As of Monday, 22 states are petitioning President Obama for peaceful secession from the United States of American. [sic]
Collectively, the petitions have currently garnered 93,166 signatures. If the goal is to amass a total of 58,783,137 signatures, one for each citizen who voted for Mitt Romney, obviously, the petitions need to circulate a little longer. Most agree these petitions are a dramatic effort to influence Obama's agenda, and reinforce the conservative mantra that Obama has "no mandate."
...The states participating in the petition drive to secede, at this time, are: Louisiana 12,964; Texas 18,346; Alabama 4,666; North Carolina 4,285; Florida 4,663; Georgia 3,710; Kentucky 3,685; Indiana 3,650; Mississippi 3,594; North Dakota 2,829; Montana 3,205; Oregon 3066; New Jersey 2801; Colorado 3526; South Carolina 2989; New York 3240; Tennessee 3188; Michigan 2884; Missouri 1869, Missouri 2569; Georgia; 2233; Arkansas 1086; South Carolina 1763.
CBS News: States petition to secede from union - They don't want to take their country back. They just want to leave it behind.
As the dust settles in the wake of President Obama's decisive reelection last Tuesday, the White House petition website has been flooded by a series of secession requests, with malcontents from New Jersey to North Dakota submitting petitions to allow their states to withdraw from the union.
Most of the petitions submitted thus far have come from solidly conservative states, including most of the Deep South and reliably separatist Texas. But a handful come from the heart of blue America - relatively progressive enclaves like Oregon and New York.
All told, petitions have been filed on behalf of 20 states: Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas.
WorldNewsDaily: Now many states want to secede from U.S.
Since WND first reported that residents in the state of Louisiana were petitioning to secede from the U.S., residents in over 20 more states have filed requests with the White House to peaceably break from the union. Furthermore, the Louisiana petition has topped 14,000 signatures, more than halfway to the threshold needed after which the White House has pledged to respond.
And for Texas, one of the new states to join the fray, the signature count now tops 25,000.
