| | | WhiteHouse.gov petition seeks to give Alaska back to RussiaThe campaign currently falls about 70K signatures short but coincides with Russia's annexation of Crimea
A petition on WhiteHouse.gov seeking to give Alaska back to Russia is probably safe to file under "N" for "Never Gonna Happen."
Still, 30,000 people have lent their virtual John Hancocks to the petition. Rules dictate petitions with 100,000 or more signatures get an official response from the White House. The creator(s) of this one have until April 20 to make that happen.
And there's the timing of the petition, which coincides with Russia's annexation of Crimea, a move that was rejected by the United Nations.
The petition's language is a bit difficult to follow, but a kind of Russian patriotism seems to shine through. Below, the text from WhiteHouse.gov:
Groups Siberian russians crossed the Isthmus (now the Bering Strait) 16-10 thousand years ago.
Russian began to settle on the Arctic coast, Aleuts inhabited the Aleutian Archipelago.
First visited Alaska August 21, 1732, members of the team boat "St. Gabriel »under the surveyor Gvozdev and assistant navigator I. Fedorov during the expedition Shestakov and DI Pavlutski 1729-1735 years
Vote for secession of Alaska from the United States and joining Russia.
Not exactly " We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal," but we can't all be Thomas Jefferson.
While Alaska has been part of the United States for some time, it was, long ago, part of Russia. In 1867, Secretary of State William Seward purchased the land from Russia for about $7.2 million. It didn't become a state until 1959. It also happens to be rich with natural resources, from oil to timber to gold.
This isn't the first time someone has petitioned for a state to secede from the union, Fox News explains. In 2012, a similar petition involving Texas received enough signatures for a response, which was... wait for it... no.
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