• ssillyssadass@lemmy.world
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    7 hours ago

    Trump being elected should have invoked the 2nd amendment, but as we all know the American citizens are the most spineless bags of hot air since the hot air balloon.

  • AA5B@lemmy.world
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    20 hours ago

    Jesus Christ that comes across as even worse than Putin deciding he needed to annex Ukraine. How is it that in a world of too many bad guys, we’re turning into the worse guy?

    • futatorius@lemm.ee
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      5 hours ago

      “We” are not turning into anything. The government has been taken over by fascists and what “we” should be turning into is a unified, organized resistance.

      • futatorius@lemm.ee
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        5 hours ago

        Don’t underestimate Vance’s capacity for evil, or Trump follower’s willingness to brainlessly follow any goose-stepping shitstain who the rightwing media glorifies.

        • xor@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          1 hour ago

          Vance doesn’t have that thing that they worship… wasn’t a reality tv star or www wrestler, wasn’t wealthy or have a brand….
          they would ditch vance as quick as they ditched pence

  • Disaffected Scorpio@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    In his deal with Putin, Trump is closing the investigations into child trafficking and kidnapping of Ukrainian children, and closing down war crimes committed by Russian military.

    I agree, Trump advocating for invading Canada and Greenland is enough for the 25th Amendment and on moral grounds I hold him accountable for absolving Putin and Russia of war crimes.

    • futatorius@lemm.ee
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      5 hours ago

      That’s not what the 25th amendment is for. The correct process for such criminality is impeachment, which isn’t a much higher bar than the 25th. It won’t happen, the system is already too corrupt.

    • kreskin@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      A lot of things in Trumps last term too. And a few things in Bidens term. The 25th doesnt really function.

      We used to talk about “constituional crisis” too, and Trump is now just ignoring judges and asking what anyone will do about it. That should also trigger the 25th, if congress lived up to their oaths, but their oaths are vastly secondary to party politics, self interest, and money making, on both sides.

      • samus12345@lemm.ee
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        2 days ago

        What did Biden do that warranted invoking the 25th? I suspect if you think it should have with him, it should have with every president.

        • kreskin@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          Our laws plainly spell out that if a state is interfering with aid distribution, aid and weapons to them must stop. Biden refused to admit that Israel was interfering with aid distribution in any way. According to Biden the gazans have food aid and aid workers have not been interfered with. I dont see how this violation can possibly be debated.

          In the face of strenuous complaints by congress, Biden refused to admit that Israel could plausibly be involved in genocide, which would have triggered automatic safeguards in the Leahy laws and other laws around shipment of weapons and giving of foreign monetary aid.

          Israel/Biden also repeatedly and consistently violated the geneva conventions, which we are a signatory of, so thats binding law in our legal system. That makes him a war criminal with blood on his hands.

          Biden swore an oath to faithfully execute our laws, which he grossly violated, doing massive amounts of grievous criminal harm. These are the very definition of “high crimes”.

          https://www.commondreams.org/news/leahy-law-israel

          https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/17/palestine-israel-leahy-lawsuit

          • futatorius@lemm.ee
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            5 hours ago

            You’re claiming that Biden broke laws while in office. There’s a strong argument to be made that he did (like every other US president since Eisenhower). That would have been a case for impeachment. It’s not like Biden was in a coma or otherwise unable to carry out his oath of office due to incapacity, which is what the 25th is for. And the threshold for invoking the 25th is far higher than having looked feeble in a debate.

            strenuous complaints by congress

            When did a Congressional majority make such a complaint? There are painfully few Congressional voices that challenge the morally bankrupt US policy in that region. In fact, huge part of the underlying problem with US policy towards Israel and the Palestinians is that Congress has never been impartial.

          • AA5B@lemmy.world
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            20 hours ago

            Oh come on, that’s ridiculous. I was with you calling Biden an enabler for Israel’s actions in Gaza, but I just don’t see the leap to war crime

            • kreskin@lemmy.world
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              16 hours ago

              Well we can google what is a war crime.

              Lets do that:

              What qualifies as a war crime?

              A war crime, a serious violation of international humanitarian law, is a breach of the laws or customs of war committed in the context of an armed conflict, whether international or non-international, and can lead to individual criminal responsibility.

              Here’s a breakdown of what qualifies as a war crime: Key Elements:

              Context: War crimes always occur within the context of an armed conflict, whether international (between states) or non-international (internal conflicts).

              Violation of International Law: They involve serious breaches of the laws and customs of war, as defined in international treaties like the Geneva Conventions and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

              Individual Responsibility: Perpetrators of war crimes incur individual criminal responsibility under international law.

              Examples of War Crimes: Attacks Against Civilians: Intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population or civilian objects.

              Torture and Cruel Treatment: Inflicting torture, cruel treatment, or inhuman treatment on prisoners of war or civilians.

              Taking Hostages: Taking hostages.

              Pillaging: Pillaging or looting property.

              Sexual Violence: Rape, sexual slavery, forced pregnancy, or any other form of sexual violence.

              Use of Prohibited Weapons: Using weapons that cause unnecessary suffering or are prohibited by international law, such as chemical weapons or cluster munitions.

              Disregard for the Wounded and Sick: Attacking medical personnel, facilities, or transports, or preventing them from carrying out their duties.

              Deportation or Transfer of Populations: Forcibly deporting or transferring populations from their homes.

              Use of Child Soldiers: Enlisting or using children under the age of 15 in armed conflict.

              Killing or Wounding Surrendered Combatants: Killing or wounding combatants who have surrendered or are hors de combat (out of action).

              Important Considerations:

              Proportionality:

              Military actions must be proportionate, meaning the harm caused to civilians and civilian objects must not be excessive in relation to the anticipated military advantage.

              Distinction: Military actions must distinguish between civilians and combatants, and between military objectives and civilian objects.

              Necessity: Military actions must be necessary to achieve a legitimate military objective and should not cause unnecessary suffering.

              Humanity: Military actions must be conducted with humanity and should avoid unnecessary suffering.

              • futatorius@lemm.ee
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                5 hours ago

                What US military action has taken place in Gaza?

                Let me help you: none. The US has supported a state that is committing war crimes. Show me where in international law that is defined as a war crime.

                • kreskin@lemmy.world
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                  15 hours ago

                  I’ll just block you instead. You clearly arent worth the time for me or anyone else to reply to.

          • samus12345@lemm.ee
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            2 days ago

            And that’s different than what any other US president would have done? Kowtowing to Israel is US government policy.

            • xor@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              23 hours ago

              that changes nothing….
              and Isreal has been acting much worse than they were before… although it was still genocidal

            • lapping6596@lemmy.world
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              2 days ago

              Nothing different. I’d argue that’s another indicator that the US’s ‘health’ has been bad for a long time.

            • JacksonLamb@lemmy.world
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              2 days ago

              The point is whether the 25th amendment should have been invoked.

              If the conditions were met, then other past presidents doing the same thing just means the 25th amendment should have been invoked in those situations as well.

              • futatorius@lemm.ee
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                5 hours ago

                None of this has anything to do with the 25th Amendment. The 25th is the process for removing a president from office in the event of physical or mental disability to severe that the President can no longer carry out the duties of office.

                Committing war crimes doesn’t trigger the 25th. Neither does breaking any other law. Those are what impeachment is for, and (ignoring the Supreme Court’s recent unlawful establishment of an elective absolute monarchy) enforcement of the law against the President, in those cases where there are criminal penalties.

          • DrFistington@lemmy.world
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            2 days ago

            Ok, so def like -100 karma points for Biden, but it’s kind of petty to focus on that when Trump was already at like -20 million before he even took office

            • kreskin@lemmy.world
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              2 days ago

              Is there some rule that we just imprison whichever one lawbreaker is worst? I dont think thats how laws work. Supposedly we are a nation of laws.

              • futatorius@lemm.ee
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                5 hours ago

                If the law were enforced to the max with no exceptions, everyone would be imprisoned.

              • DrFistington@lemmy.world
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                17 hours ago

                I mean there is, thats why if you break the law and speed you get a ticket and pay a fine, but if you break the law and commit premeditated homicide, you get life in prison.

                The issue is that laws have to be applied evenly to everyone, and penalties need to scale with income level. They need to be both punitive and prohibitive to EVERYONE.

    • sloppychops@lemmy.ca
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      11 hours ago

      It does seem like all the hoohah about how great the US Constitution is, or the genuis of the US founders may well have just been some good marketing mixed with a reliable dash of American Exceptionalism.

      • futatorius@lemm.ee
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        5 hours ago

        The problem with any constitution is that it’s not self-enforcing. Any system can be subverted and corrupted. It’s the corruption that’s the problem, not that the Constitution (like any set of laws) is not perfect.

      • nfh@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        A crazy, washed-up former reality TV host running for a new term as president while in exile on the moon sounds like the plot of a fun sci-fi political thriller, but not a reality I want to live in.

  • Franklin@lemmy.ca
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    2 days ago

    That’s the problem, the republican party captured the levers of power and now get to police themselves. This is what happens when you get a Republican clean sweep.

  • skozzii@lemmy.ca
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    2 days ago

    What should have happened in America and what is actually happening are two different things.

  • jordanlund@lemmy.worldM
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    2 days ago

    25th Amendment needs to start with the Vice President, so we know that’s not going to happen:

    Section 4

    Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.

    Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.

    • kmartburrito@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      This seems like such a short-sighted design by our founding fathers and subsequent leaders when we look at it with today’s lens. I know they likely would have assumed that people would riot with pitchforks and torches of anyone engaged in corruption during their era, including having the support of the VP. I know the 25th amendment was a more recent addition (1967), but I’m surprised there weren’t more catching points for this written into the foundation.

      I guess they hoped we would never allow things to get this shitty.

      • Limonene@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        The 25th wasn’t intended for illegal actions. It was for when the president has a stroke and goes comatose, or other forms of incapacitation.

        Impeachment is the constitution’s main way to get rid of a corrupt president.

      • ohulancutash@feddit.uk
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        2 days ago

        The corruption was a feature, not a bug. The founders of the US were not good dudes.

        • Eldritch@lemmy.world
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          By modern standards, absolutely not. By the standards of the time, they were pretty radical. Part of why France was a major ally during the revolutionary war.

          Unlike all the modern gooch sniffers who treat the founding fathers as infallible and the last word on everything. Including modern issues they could have never imagined. The founding fathers knew their constitution and laws were never perfect. And would likely need updating every 20 to 50 years. They didn’t fail us. We failed them in many ways however. We allowed those who amassed power to only amass more power. And put up roadblocks to any meaningful change in most instances. Which is why it was so hard to get things like civil rights or women’s suffrage. Nearly impossible to get anything at all today. Because it does not serve the entrenched wealthy and Powerful. And your average man is so uninformed that you really don’t know what’s going on or who the actual enemy is.

      • tomkatt@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        Bear in mind that in the early years of the USA, the vice president was generally the person who was running against the sitting President for the seat. It was another built in check to power, though unfortunately not codified. The idea of just picking a VP candidate came much later.

        • futatorius@lemm.ee
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          5 hours ago

          The 25th Amendment was ratified long after the 12th Amendment which changed how the VP got into office.

        • AbsoluteChicagoDog@lemm.ee
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          Not that much later. Jefferson was the third president, he’s the one who decided voters be damned he’s picking the VP.

          • futatorius@lemm.ee
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            Having a VP in opposition was a design flaw and a source of instability. It made sense to change it.

            Do you really want a system where, if a faction dislikes the president, all they have to do is assassinate him?

        • Hegar@fedia.io
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          On the contrary, they assumed that grossly unfit morons would have mass appeal and that’s why the constitution has so many provisions to make sure that popular will is not reflected at the ballot box.

          They hoped that the rich would not elect a grossly unfit traitor, which all of history shows is a laughably stupid assumption.

        • Keeponstalin@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          “We The People” only referred to white land owning men. Even with the expansions of reconstruction, women’s suffrage, and civil rights (all won by working class organization and opposition) our entire representative democracy has been designed to the benefit of capital owners. Neoliberalism just shifted that into overdrive.

          • futatorius@lemm.ee
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            5 hours ago

            The franchise has vastly expanded since then. There are other reasons for the current dysfunction.

      • ERROR: Earth.exe has crashed@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        1 day ago

        I mean, if the VP doesn’t want to take over, it doesn’t make sense to force the VP to take over, since if they weren’t willing to go against the president and use the 25th, it means they’d be doing the same thing as the president, so its pointless.

      • jordanlund@lemmy.worldM
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        The founders didn’t consider it at all, the 25th wasn’t added until 1967. Pre-Nixon even.

        • futatorius@lemm.ee
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          4 hours ago

          The 25th was put in to prevent the situation that occurred with Woodrow Wilson, who had a stroke and couldn’t govern but who was not removed from office.

          The remedies for grossly unfit traitors were meant to be impeachment, or revolution.

      • thevoidzero@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        The design seems to be to prevent a single person going rogue and doing whatever. Not designed for when someone has won elections and start damaging the country.

        All the nonsense of “Republic is not a democracy because democracy is mob rule and not good for minorities” seems to no longer work.

    • Serinus@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Why not? We all know Vance is pretending for the position. If he sees a real shot, he might take it.

      Nobody likes Trump as a person. They’re all just grifting.

      The trick is getting enough to turn at once, and getting them all to know that there’s enough. A dumb one might rat it out because of greed, but they should know that doesn’t work. If they’re in that position, there’s no further loyalty rewards. The best they can hope for is avoiding retribution, and that’s not even guaranteed.

      • jordanlund@lemmy.worldM
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        The reason he picked Vance is because he knew there was no resistance there, he learned from Pence.

        • futatorius@lemm.ee
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          4 hours ago

          Vance is much less of a zombie than Pence. He’s actively evil, fanatical and not stupid.

        • Serinus@lemmy.world
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          But he’s an idiot, and if Vance sees a legit opening he might jump at it.

          “I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical asshole like Nixon who wouldn’t be that bad (and might even prove useful) or that he’s America’s Hitler,” he wrote privately to an associate on Facebook in 2016.

          In another 2016 interview about his book, Vance told a reporter that, although his background would have made him a natural Trump supporter, “the reason, ultimately, that I am not … is because I think that (Trump) is the most-raw expression of a massive finger pointed at other people.”

  • DaddleDew@lemmy.world
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    It should have been done even before that when he blatantly started contributing to the Russian war effort

  • dadarobot@lemmy.sdf.org
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    2 days ago

    Trump’s Call to Annex Canada as a State Should Have Invoked the 25th Amendment

    The president was clearly irrational. Instead, there was Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick seconding the motion.

    By Charles P. PiercePublished: Mar 17, 2025 5:29 PM EDT bookmarksSave Article president trump signs executive orders in the oval office

    Chip Somodevilla//Getty Images

    What has become plain this week is that the entire administration has committed itself to the president’s pipe dream of annexing Canada as the 51st state. It wasn’t just the president’s bizarre appearance with Mark Rutte, the NATO secretary general, in which the president took a short stroll around the Izonkosphere.

    “Canada only works as a state. … This would be the most incredible country
    visually. If you look at a map, they drew an artificial line right through
    it, between Canada and the U.S., just a straight artificial line. Somebody
    did it a long time ago, many, many decades ago, and makes no sense.”
    

    It is necessary at this point to mention that the so-called “artificial line” is usually referred to as a “border.” The president seems to grasp the concept when referring to the “artificial line” separating the United States and Mexico. Strange, that. The president went on.

    “It’s so perfect as a great and cherished state. I love [O, Canada]. I
    think it’s great. Keep it, but it will be for the state, one of our
    greatest states, maybe our greatest state.”
    

    Wonderful. He’s going to let them keep their national anthem, one of the world’s most stirring, but only as a state song, like “On the Banks of the Wabash,” “Georgia on My Mind,” or “On, Wisconsin.” I suppose he’ll let them keep their hockey teams, too.

    The whole episode should have brought about an instantaneous Cabinet meeting at which the 25th Amendment was invoked. The president was clearly irrational. Instead, there was Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick seconding the motion. From the Hill:

    “The best way, the president has said it, the best way to actually merge
    the economies of Canada and the United States is for Canada to become our
    51st state. If they want to merge it, that’s how you make it the 51st
    state,” Lutnick said on Fox Business Network’s Varney & Co.
    

    It really is a cult, you know.

    On the Bluesky app, journalist and author Garrett Epps shrewdly pointed out that in Fletcher Knebel’s Night of Camp David, one of the first manifestations of President Mark Hollenbach’s mental illness was his secret desire to merge the United States and Canada—as well as all of Scandanavia—into a single entity called “Aspen.” In fact, the book was reissued during the first Trump administration, and it was referenced on TV by both Rachel Maddow and Bob Woodward. Now, though, with the president’s grand design seeming to parallel the grandiose foreign-policy proposal of the fictional President Hollenbach, the book has taken on an even greater salience.

    (By the way, the hero of the book is a young, ambitious first-term senator named James McVeagh with whom the crazy president shares his notions in the aforementioned night at Camp David. Maybe you can see J. Divan Vance in that role, but I can’t.)

    In the novel, the crazy president sounds almost rational in explaining the irrational.

    “Canada is the wealthiest nation on earth.” Hollenbach’s words raced after
    each other. …“The mineral riches under her soil are incredible in their
    immensity. Even with modern demands, they are well-nigh inexhaustible.
    Believe me, Jim, Canada will be the seat of power in the next century and,
    properly exploited and conserved, her riches can go for a thousand years.
    ...
    
    .. But the merger of know-how, power, and character, the United States,
    Canada, and Scandinavia, the new nation under one parliament and one
    president could keep the peace for centuries. The president of the union
    should be the man who dreamed the dreams of giants. ...
    
    … “I only exclude Europe at the start,” said Hollenbach, and his face
    quickly lighted again. “Right now, Europe has nothing to give us. But once
    we have built the fortress of Aspen, I predict the nations of Europe will
    pound at the door to get in. And, if they don’t, we’ll have the power to
    force them into the new nation. … There are other kinds of pressure, trade
    duties and barriers, financial measures, economic sanctions, if you will.
    But, never fear, Jim. England, France, Germany, and the Low Countries, too,
    can be brought to heel.
    

    When Knebel wrote his classic Seven Days in May, about an attempted military junta in Washington, he was drawing on inside knowledge about the turmoil in the Kennedy administration between the president, the Joint Chiefs, and the intelligence community—turmoil that would do a lot to feed suspicions after the president’s murder in 1963. JFK was a big fan of the book, so much that he allowed director John Frankenheimer to photograph the White House so he could make the sets for his film adaptation.

    In the case of Night of Camp David, Knebel was able to draw on American attempts to absorb Canada that dated back to the founding of the nation. In fact, Article XI of the original Articles of Confederation read as follows:

    Canada acceding to this confederation, and joining in the measures of the
    United States, shall be admitted into, and entitled to all the advantages
    of this Union.
    

    The American Revolution helped the new country break off those parts of British North America in and around the Great Lakes. We tried to seize the entire country in the War of 1812, but we failed, and we got Washington burned in the bargain. Through the years up to the American Civil War, there were annexation groups on both sides of the border.

    In 1860, Secretary of State William Seward came close to annexing the territory from Washington state all the way up to Alaska, which at the time was owned by Russia. For a while, it looked like Great Britain might actually swing for the deal. But,when Seward bought Alaska in 1868, the people in the region began to feel uncomfortable with the U.S. closing in from both the north and south, so popular opinion shifted. Then, of course, there were the Fenians.

    The Fenian Brotherhood was a product of one of the periodic risings in Ireland against British rule. It was the American wing of what was called in Ireland the Irish Republican Brotherhood. The American Fenians were a substantial force. They had money—upwards of $500,000—and weapons and an army made up of veterans of the American Civil War. (They were led by John O’Mahony, who’d fought with the 69th New York, part of the famed Irish Brigade.) After the war, the Fenians launched a series of raids into Canada. They came in two bursts—one in 1866 and another in 1870–71. They occurred all over Canada, from Manitoba to the Maritimes. None of them succeeded, and one of them, a raid around the Minnesota–Manitoba border, never even made it into Canada. The only real result was to strengthen Canadian nationalism; the raids were pivotal in the eventual development of the Canadian confederation in 1867, an arrangement that the current U.S. president believes would make a helluva 51st state. In the debate over forming the confederation, Sir John MacDonald said:

    If we do not take advantage of the time, if we show ourselves unequal to
    the occasion, it may never return, and we shall hereafter bitterly and
    unavailingly regret having failed to embrace the happy opportunity now
    offered of founding a great nation under the fostering care of Great
    Britain, and our Sovereign Lady, Queen Victoria.
    

    One of MacDonald’s primary concerns while forming the confederation was American meddling, especially in the rebellious western parts of Canada. He wrote to his minister of finance:

    I cannot understand the desire of the Colonial Office, or of the Company,
    to saddle the responsibility of the government on Canada just now. It would
    so completely throw the game into the hands of the insurgents and the
    Yankee wirepullers, who are to some extent influencing and directing the
    movement from St. Paul that we cannot foresee the consequences.
    

    You always have to watch out for those Yankee wirepullers. Can’t trust them worth a damn.

  • kreskin@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Except trump has something like 75% approval rating with republicans. So its wishful thinking, unfortunately.