this post was submitted on 18 Mar 2025
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[–] Irelephant@lemm.ee 10 points 2 hours ago

Karoline Leavitt is really annoying.

She tries to be snarky, but it doesn't work because she's completely wrong.

She's like an unironic version of Philomena cunk.

[–] NutWrench@lemmy.ml 16 points 4 hours ago

Some should tell that dumbass that was sarcasm to make a POINT. Besides, Donald would rather melt down the statue into Trump coins, or replace it with a gold plated statue of himself.

[–] ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world 16 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Whew! Otherwise, George Lucas was going to have to buy the rights to Planet of the Apes and digitally change the ending.

There's a theory that the Statue of Liberty shown at the end was actually the one from Las Vegas. Lucas could have changed that to the Las Vegas Sphere: "GOD DAMN U2 ALL TO HELL!"

[–] baronvonj@lemmy.world 3 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

The downfall of society started when Apple pushed U2's album onto all iPhones.

[–] cmg@infosec.pub 1 points 1 hour ago

Maybe when mtv quit having news and just the real world

[–] JeeBaiChow@lemmy.world 137 points 14 hours ago (2 children)

Did they even say ',thank you'?!?!

[–] jballs@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 hour ago

You joke, but that's basically the White House official response.

“Absolutely not. My advice to that unnamed low-level French politician would be to remind them that it’s only because of the United States of America that the French are not speaking German right now,” said White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt in a press briefing Monday, likely referencing an American-French allyship during World War II that snuffed out Nazi Germany. “They should be grateful.”

[–] InternetCitizen2@lemmy.world 33 points 14 hours ago (1 children)
[–] LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com 20 points 13 hours ago

Concepts of a plan for a thank you

[–] gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 105 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

Hey, France, from an American:

Insist on it. Every. Single. Meeting. Insist. Return it. Give it back. Fuck you, that’s not what it’s for. Put the screws in.

Our idiot fucking government wants transactional and splashy. Oblige them.

[–] ProfessorProteus@lemmy.world 9 points 3 hours ago

Conservatives love to control the narrative by forcing people to deny their ridiculous claims, so do it right back.

Force them to keep denying that they owe France the statue so the admin will never stop legitimizing the idea with their pissbaby tantrums.

[–] Hubbubbub@fedia.io 62 points 14 hours ago (6 children)

“Absolutely not. My advice to that unnamed low-level French politician would be to remind them that it’s only because of the United States of America that the French are not speaking German right now,” said White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt in a press briefing Monday, likely referencing an American-French allyship during World War II that snuffed out Nazi Germany. “They should be grateful.”

This is how we treat our allies now? What timeline are we in?

[–] GaMEChld@lemmy.world 3 points 1 hour ago

If not for the French we wouldn't have a country.

[–] VeryInterestingTable@lemm.ee 21 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 42 minutes ago) (1 children)

We know damn well she would have sided with the Nazi, had she lived during WWII.

She demands gratefulness for something she would have never endorsed in the first place.

French people can speak german if they like and what is very interesting is that France is a very close ally to Germany but no longer the USA.

If she thinks we are not grateful enough, perhaps she could visit Normandy. Pay her respect in front of the tombs of the brave soldiers who sacrificed their lives in the name of freedom. The very same thing the administration she works for is taking away from Americans.

[–] anomnom@sh.itjust.works 4 points 3 hours ago

She’s a 27 year old catholic school moron who failed to get elected in her home state, responded by marrying a rich 60 y/o and then decided that talking for Trump was more important than raising her new born after Trump ear got blood on it.

I guarantee she never learned shit about actual history and since her first job was for Fox News I suspect it’s impossible for her to learn now.

[–] jonne@infosec.pub 70 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago) (1 children)

And if the French hadn't helped the US in the revolutionary war, they'd all be speaking English and be under a despotic monarch now.

Oh wait...

[–] jballs@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 hour ago

This just proves that the 18th century French were time-travellers who ultimately proved that fate is unavoidable.

[–] Postmortal_Pop@lemmy.world 27 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

I love his these utter dips are reminding France that we fought the Nazis, while acting like Nazis and being saluted like Nazis.

[–] Damage@feddit.it 8 points 9 hours ago

Moreover they forget they own a good part of their independence to France

[–] SlopppyEngineer@lemmy.world 7 points 10 hours ago

Yes, what's up with that? Couldn't USA find a peaceful solution back then? But no, they had to invade. Its like they didn't want peace. /s

[–] Today@lemmy.world 8 points 12 hours ago (1 children)
[–] InvertedParallax@lemm.ee 8 points 9 hours ago

Come on, our strategic relations with Russia have never been better.

[–] Darkcoffee@sh.itjust.works 41 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

So did Trump reply to a onion article again?

[–] jonne@infosec.pub 52 points 14 hours ago (2 children)

One French MP said the US should return the statue of liberty, probably more to make a rhetorical point instead of an actual demand.

[–] LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago) (1 children)

I made a comment that France should demand it back a while ago. It's always good to know I don't have original thoughts

[–] jonne@infosec.pub 2 points 9 hours ago

I'm sure it's been said many times over the course of US history.

[–] Darkcoffee@sh.itjust.works 5 points 13 hours ago

Oh so like when Bill Maher made a joke and he sued him for what was promised in a joke. Got it.

[–] tal@lemmy.today 19 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago) (1 children)

“Absolutely not. My advice to that unnamed low-level French politician would be to remind them that it’s only because of the United States of America that the French are not speaking German right now,” said White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt in a press briefing Monday, likely referencing an American-French allyship during World War II that snuffed out Nazi Germany. “They should be grateful.”

Ehhh....maybe yes, maybe no. It's not clear to me that the Allies lose, even if it's just the UK and USSR as the major powers.

The US provided aid prior to, but didn't enter the war directly until after Pearl Harbor (and in Nazi Germany's case, the direct factor was the German declaration of war on the US a few days later). At that point:

  • Nazi Germany's attempt to reach the preconditions for Operation Sea Lion, the invasion of the UK, had already failed, as it had lost the Battle of Britain, the air war over the UK. Forcing the UK into a surrender would then require winning the Battle of the Atlantic, successfully blockading the UK.

  • Nazi Germany's attempt to knock out the USSR at one go, Operation Barbarossa, had also failed immediately before the attack on Pearl Harbor. Time was not on Hitler's side, as his advantage was earlier preparation. The Soviet Union had been hurt, yes, but wasn't out of the fight. An additional problem for Nazi Germany was that Operation Barbarossa had caused the Soviet Union to stop permitting supplies to Germany through; prior to that, the Soviet Union had been a route to circumvent the Blockade of Germany.

Had the Allies won, it would have been a considerably-more-unpleasant-for-them fight than was the case in our own timeline, but it's possible that the Axis had already bit off more than it could chew by mid-1941.

I'd think that a larger issue might be whether the Soviet Union winds up taking control of Western Europe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Union_(alliance)

The Western Union (WU), also referred to as the Brussels Treaty Organisation (BTO),[1] was the European military alliance established between France, the United Kingdom (UK) and the three Benelux countries in September 1948 in order to implement the Treaty of Brussels signed in March the same year.[Note 1] Under this treaty the signatories, referred to as the five powers, agreed to collaborate in the defence field as well as in the political, economic and cultural fields.

When the division of Europe into two opposing camps became unavoidable, the threat of the Soviet Union became much more important than the threat of German rearmament.[8] Western Europe, therefore, sought a new mutual defence pact involving the United States, a powerful military force for such an alliance. The United States, concerned with containing the influence of the Soviet Union, was responsive.[9] Secret meetings began by the end of March 1949 between American, Canadian and British officials to initiate the negotiations that led to the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty on 4 April 1949 in Washington, D.C.[10]

The need to back up the commitments of the North Atlantic Treaty with appropriate political and military structures led to the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). On 20 December 1950 the Consultative Council of the Brussels Treaty Powers decided to merge the military organisation of the Western Union into NATO.

[–] pimento64@sopuli.xyz 6 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Interesting thesis, however, you can't expect people not to notice that you buried the lede here:

The US provided aid

Here are thoughts on that from people who know an awful lot more about the USSR's war effort than anyone alive does. My italics:

I would like to express my candid opinion about Stalin's views on whether the Red Army and the Soviet Union could have coped with Nazi Germany and survived the war without aid from the United States and Britain. First, I would like to tell about some remarks Stalin made and repeated several times when we were "discussing freely" among ourselves. He stated bluntly that if the United States had not helped us, we would not have won the war. If we had had to fight Nazi Germany one on one, we could not have stood up against Germany's pressure, and we would have lost the war. No one ever discussed this subject officially, and I don't think Stalin left any written evidence of his opinion, but I will state here that several times in conversations with me he noted that these were the actual circumstances. He never made a special point of holding a conversation on the subject, but when we were engaged in some kind of relaxed conversation, going over international questions of the past and present, and when we would return to the subject of the path we had traveled during the war, that is what he said. When I listened to his remarks, I was fully in agreement with him, and today I am even more so.

– Nikita Khrushchev

And:

Today [1963] some say the Allies didn't really help us ... But listen, one cannot deny that the Americans shipped over to us material without which we could not have equipped our armies held in reserve or been able to continue the war.

—Georgy Zhukov

The military commissar and the Marshal of the Soviet Union are not mincing words here, they unequivocally confirm that the United States bankrolled their ability to continue to be at war and that the USSR would have been fucked without Lend-Lease. That scenario ends one way: with an Axis victory.

[–] Redex68@lemmy.world 1 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

I agree with you that most probably without the US the Allies would have lost the war, but to the press secretary's point about how they would be speaking German right now if it were not for them, I highly doubt that Germany could have held control over the entirety of Europe after the war. They would most probably collapse from revolutions/rebelions, but who knows what would have happened.

[–] pimento64@sopuli.xyz 1 points 2 hours ago

Fine, but I wasn't addressing what you refuted. Most likely the perpetual-war economies of the Axis would have turned on each other during the course of competitive colonization, and lead to a series of Balkanized fascist states fighting for control. I doubt that even Germany would have remained intact, or that non-Prussian Germans would have had civil rights even by Nazi standards. The various rogue states controlling the general area of Vichy France would undoubtedly still speak French. I was addressing your thesis:

It's not clear to me that the Allies lose, even if it's just the UK and USSR as the major powers.

If it's just the UK and USSR as the major powers, they lose.

[–] wise_pancake@lemmy.ca 9 points 13 hours ago

If they could read the New Colossus poem would convince them they don’t want it or anything it stands for.

[–] MyOpinion@lemm.ee 14 points 14 hours ago

Trump did not say thank you! What a piece of shit. He would not have a democracy to destroy without the help of the French.

[–] rc__buggy@sh.itjust.works 7 points 14 hours ago

Oh look! The White House is responding to troll comments!

Awesome!

[–] dumbass@leminal.space 7 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago) (1 children)
[–] Embargo@lemm.ee 6 points 13 hours ago

Didn't you know? We're living the joke now.

Fantastic prediction though!

[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 4 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

You know the thing about idiocracy and now is we have people now who look at the headlines and are like WTF! No need for the frozen person from the past. The inmates are in charge of the asylum.

[–] KingJalopy@lemm.ee 2 points 13 hours ago

Majority rule don't work in mental institutions

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 5 points 14 hours ago (3 children)

Did they ask for it back or something?

[–] Rivalarrival@lemmy.today 7 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago)

Yes! It wasn't an official request or anything, but some French politicians did say we should return it.

[–] tal@lemmy.today 7 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

Some left-wing French legislator did. Had a post about on !news@lemmy.world or somewhere like that, saw it recently.

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 8 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

lmao nice.

If we're not going to follow the message on her, we don't deserve her.

[–] tal@lemmy.today 1 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

The inscription was added by Americans, wasn't actually from the French. Though, yeah, Trump is probably pretty high on the list of Presidents that clash with it.

[–] CannedTuna@sh.itjust.works 3 points 14 hours ago

A French politician did, said the US isn’t upholding what it stands for.