• @NightwingdragonOP
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    4514 hours ago

    Altermante headline, as found on CNN’s home page: Trump considers US expansion.

    The contents of the article are nothing new. I’m posting this to show a prime example of two things: The mainstream media’s painting of coverage favorable to Trump in order to avoid his wrath and the political and legal retribution that comes with it, and the media’s sanewashing and normalizing of Trump’s ramblings.

    Wanting to take Panama by force, trade Puerto Rico for Greenland in order to get rid of the brown people, and threatening to annex Canada in order to piss off Trudeau isn’t “teasing” or “considering US expansion”. It’s the inane ramblings of a dementia patient off their meds, and should be being treated by the media about as seriously as saying he’s going to use Space Force to take Jupiter back from King George Jetson. The only proper response to this should be to pat him on the head and tell him it’s OK as they quietly escort him back to his room.

    • @Maggoty
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      12 hours ago

      Teasing? Considering? He was pretty straightforward about saying they must be brought under US control.

    • @foggy
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      1214 hours ago

      You may be underestimating the value of Canada and Greenland to Putin.

    • @orclev
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      914 hours ago

      Also we all know Trump isn’t going to do shit. He constantly says crazy shit that has no hope of ever becoming a reality all the time. The only thing that should be making headlines at this point are things he’s actually done, not just rambled about one time in a brain fart.

  • @athairmor
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    913 hours ago

    I wonder what really bad stuff they are actually up to. This sounds like a blustery distraction.

    • @hypna
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      512 hours ago

      The media keeps talking about how they’ve learned their lesson about how to report on Trump; that they’re not going to get spun up about all the noise he makes; that they’re not going to let him switch the story every week; that they’re going to focus on the real, material things that are going on.

      Well here we are again, writing deeply concerned pieces about a handful of tweets (or whatever they’re called in Trump land). And here Lemmy is upvoting them.

      Trump is a troll. Don’t feed the trolls.

  • HubertManne
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    513 hours ago

    It cracks me up the way he says buy and the us should own it. Lets say it even happened the way we bought alaska. it would make it the 51st state. it would make it part of us and much like alaska it determine how resources are used and likely have its own fund to encourage people to come liver there. but he talks like it would be a possession the way the us owns florida or texas.

    • Nougat
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      613 hours ago

      Would not make anything a state. Have you seen Puerto Rico? Guam? American Samoa?

      • HubertManne
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        313 hours ago

        puerto rico is not a state because every time the opportunity arose they voted not to be one. guam and american samoa im not really sure whats going on.

          • HubertManne
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            -213 hours ago

            oh common. do you think thats a legitamate example. it was carved out of maryland and virginia for the specific purpose of being the capital with no state having authority over it.

            • @NightwingdragonOP
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              511 hours ago

              But I believe (correct me if I’m wrong, please) that it was also not meant to have a civilian population at all, and only be home to businesses, government offices, and those who were in elected office until they left and returned home. The absence of a civilian population would render the fact that DC has no representation in congress moot. But people started living there, causing the problem of having no representation in Congress.

              • HubertManne
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                411 hours ago

                yeah and the area is run by the federal government so not having federal representation is basically like not having state representation to boot.

            • Nougat
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              412 hours ago

              And the people who live there don’t have representation in Congress, but that’s not the point.

              The point is that it’s not a state. Just “being a possession of the United States” doesn’t confer statehood.

              • HubertManne
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                012 hours ago

                yes but again its not typical it was a very specific thing. The land had belonged to two different states. the guam, puerto rico, us virgin islands are similar but dc is in on way similar.

                • Nougat
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                  212 hours ago

                  Alaska was purchased by the US in 1867. It didn’t get statehood until 1959.

                  Being a possession of the United States of America does not automatically make it a state.

        • @NightwingdragonOP
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          111 hours ago

          guam and american samoa im not really sure whats going on.

          Population issues. An admittedly quick Google search (so take it for what it’s worth) says that the minimum population is 60,000 adult males. Guam has a population of 172k, so there are either not enough adult males among the 172k (which is unlikely but possible once you factor out women and children under 18), or there are other issues I’m unaware of (including maybe simply not wanting to become a state).

          The other US territories outside of Puerto Rico and Guam typically have populations of less than 50k in total per territory, which would make them way, way too small to be considered for statehood. Admitting them as states would also give them outsized voting power when compared to population size, particularly in the US Senate. But even in the HOR, you’d have one representative from each territory representing roughly the population of a small US city who’s vote would carry weight equal to others that are representing half a million to a million or more each.