America's Second Civil War

do we really need to restart the "what are Smarties" discussion?

Your culture gave the world the glory that is Poutine. You can name your candy wrong if you want to.

Also, Coffee Crisp is a thing.

Blame Quebec?

Hey, I'm not gonna judge you for preferring large format, half flavoured Pez...(much) over a better version of M&Ms.

I had no idea Coffee Crisp was ever in question?

What you really want though, is a Crispy Crunch.

We have Pez and M&Ms. We don't have Cadbury candy bars. Yep, Coffee Crisp, Crispy Crunch, hell Mr. Big and Aero are all delish.

I'm hoping that changes if we cut a deal with the UK who desperately needs trading partners after Brexit. Seems like there's a chance that will go down.

best of luck, as the UK versions tend to be better than our colonial copies.

IOW, it was an irrational response to an event that didn't directly involve the major combatants. If the border issue gets raised, it would depend upon not only who closed the border but why, and who was in Number 10.

I'm not suggesting that Britain would see the closing as a justification to go to war with the US, but, again, depending upon who closed the border and why, as justification to take some kind of action (say targeted sanctions).

I mean, we'll take a hypothetical where the border's closed by either Trump or a Trumper in the White House. (Who's most likely already invaded Mexico by this point.) Everybody on the planet is going to be particularly antsy at this point. I can see the British PM (provided it's not Boris) going to the EU and saying, "Uh, yeah, so about that whole Brexit thingie, and the Americans fucking around with Mexico and Canada. We'd like to send a strong message to them, but our economy is terribly dependent upon them at the moment. Do you think that there's any way we could rejoin the EU without it sounding like we're rejoining the EU? That way we might be able to do something about the lunatic currently pitching our civilization towards destruction?"

this is pathetically simplistic because it's stupid and I'm not going to do detail work (this time) on stupid, but if you ignore state/province boundaries, and assume some large part of Quebec seriously wants to be independent, my guess is that if you had an ideological split rather than a political boundary split and mapped north America you'd get Liberals-East and Liberals-West, each with a lot of population, and Right-Wing Utopia with a lot of acres and not so many people in between.

Very roughly like this


(and yes I'm being irrationally generous to Atlanta and Denver who, in reality, would share Miami and Austin's fate trapped deep in Trumplandia)

I wonder what country's standard of living Trumplandia would be closest to...

The Lincoln Project just did an interview with a woman who was part of a task force started by the CIA, in 2017, to see what the biggest clues that a country was on the verge of civil war were. Basically, they boiled down to two things: 1.) A government that wasn't functioning well as a democracy. 2.) Political parties that were primarily divided on religious or ethnic grounds (ie you didn't care about anything else a party stood for, so long as it espoused ideas that reflected religious beliefs you hold or if more people of your ethnic group were in that party, regardless of the parties policies). If you haven't noticed, the US has both of those issues. According to her, the US is rapidly heading into a status where a civil war is going to become more and more likely.

So, in the wake of Trump claiming that he wants to make Canada the 51st state, this all gets a bit more interesting.

that gets interesting, especially in the instances of our two provinces that are continually threatening to leave home, Alberta and Quebec, as neither is wholly part of Canada.



Anything not purple or pink is still Native lands, at least to the extent of "holding title". The settler governments can't secede any more than you could sell a rented apartment.

https://bsky.app/profile/rgoodlaw.bsky.social/post/3lr5g5j6stc2z

https://bsky.app/profile/thebulwark.com/post/3lr47pnzdjc2u

https://bsky.app/profile/matthewpate.bsky.social/post/3lr55gplxsc23

What Marines deploying to LA amid protests legally can, and cannot, do

Answer: whatever the fuck Donald Trump wants them to do.

Real answer: what they're bound by the Constitution and the UCMJ to do. Which, absent a declaration of war, is not much. One would hope the Marines would remember that.

Pentagon draws up rules on possible use of force by Marines deployed to LA protests

They're mindless automotons, they are going to do what they're told.

So Trump's gonna declare war on California?

I get that "he can't do that", but that hasn't worked thus far.

My dude, he has declared war on US democracy. He is speed running the collapse of a democratic state.

They'll likely remember that not following an order could lead to court martial, whereas they would be unlikely to face consequences for following unethical orders.

BREAKING: Texas Capitol Evacuated Over ‘Credible Threat’ Against Reps Headed to ‘No Kings’ Trump Protest

Cue the whining about "the Marines having one hand tied behind their back"

Man drives into crowd of protesters at 'No Kings' rally in Virginia

Guess we know how TLS spent his Saturday.

https://bsky.app/profile/chadloder.bsky.social/post/3lrmazo2wbc2v

Interesting.