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[Neonivek]

Twitter suing US government, apparently. There's an anonymous account criticizing Trump's immigration policy, the government want to know who it is (it is claimed to be run by current or former employees of the US Customs and Immigration Service) and Twitter say they won't do shit if it can't be proven (proved?) the account is doing/has performed a criminal or civil offense.

My thoughts on this are mainly that it is glorious.

Also the government apparently demanded they receive various identifying data (phone numbers, IP addresses, mailing addresses etc.) by March 13th. Twitter received the demands on the 14th.

You mean that the police and government shouldn't be allowed to fish for offenses?

But... the Patriot act!

[nenjin]

@Frumple: it was me so yeah of course it was an edit

[Hanslanda]

I cannot recall when it was I had heard the United States was seemingly taking a path similar to the decline of the Roman Empire, but upon recalling that, a question had come to mind.  Who would be the closest Roman approximations of our last few presidents?

Obama was probably somewhat like Marcus Aurelius, who was a fairly decent Emperor, while Trump strikes me as a Commodus. All show and vanity and incompetence. Hopefully Trump dies like Commodus did too.

[Pancakes]

So uh, things seem to be heating up a bit in Syria...

http://www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story_id=99782

The US launched cruise missiles, as ordered by the president, into Syria, and some sites are reporting up to 50 missiles launched. According to the link, the strikes are in retaliation for the chemical attacks earlier this week, and were aimed at airfields to cripple the ability of the Syrian government to deliver more chemical strikes.

[Frumple]

Yeah, been some talking about it over in the other thread. Aimed at a single airbase, 50 off-coast launched tomahawks, I think (already forgotten details, as it's half 'till midnight for me). Congress apparently got no warning, it looks like russia probably got a warning but details are kinda' muddled, the actual damage probably helped local extremists more anything. It's... something of a clusterfuck, tbh. Won't be for a day or two until we know more about what the hell happened. Going to get real interesting if russia gets pissed, or congress decides to not sanction the attack, or any number of other things.

[martinuzz]

Yeah I hope there weren't any Russian airplanes or troops on that attacked airbase, cause then the diarrhoea might hit the fan.

[Frumple]

Eh, there's conflicting reports. Some say dead russians, some say they were warned and there were few casualties even among the syrians. Way too early to really say, this happened less than a day ago.

Part of me suddenly wonders if it actually matters if any russians were killed or not, though. If there were no soldiers in ukraine, why the hell are the potential soldiers in that base going to be anything except exactly as dead as putin and co. wants them to be, regardless of whether russian military got caught in the attack?

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Honestly, doesn't matter. I do not nor have I ever bought this idea that incidental Russian blood will bring out an actual war. The freaking Turks, who are much weaker than Russia and whom Russia would love to "acquire" shot down Russian jets with active malice, and no war.

The threat of war from a few soldiers being killed is an American trend, not a Russian one. It's essentially propaganda that started as a hysterical condemnation of the Clinton campaign and is now a wild meme, actively rewriting Putin as someone who could genuinely be spurred to a geopolitical action he did not already intend by collateral deaths.

[Frumple]

Spurred, maybe not. Take advantage of a giftwrapped opportunity, well...

Gods, now my sleep deprived mind is imaging russia demands the US stop or guarantee no more economic sanctions for the affront. The optics on that, particularly if the trump administration acquiesced, would be farcically terrible.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Eh, giving giftwrapping is optics for them domestically but it's not something we need to worry about. Both American and Soviet/Russian jets were doing weekly airspace buzzing every week for 40 years, no war.

America cannot restrain itself by cowering in fear of Russia, which is ironically what the normally hawkish right has been advocating recently.

[Frumple]

Ah, dunno if I communicated it well. What I meant by bad optics... well, you have an administration that's looking like it's potentially riddled with people with russian connections. That launches an unannounced attack that does structural damage, but not necessarily much else. Who are then confronted in the UNSC to give up <insert political goal here>, the example being economic sanctions, as reparation for the unprovoked attack (nevermind if it's actually unprovoked, that doesn't matter) on russian assets. The administration then immediately (or near enough to it) folds, gives russia what they want, and the issue (maybe) dropped. So the obvious conclusion is obvious, trump intentionally used our military to create an excuse to capitulate to foreign interests.

Like, that would be possibly the clumsiest and most obvious bit of political/foreign-government-compromised shtick I've seen in my life, but... this administration is not exactly a svelte operator. If they were so compromised, them being incompetent enough to do something that blatant is something I wouldn't be surprised to see happen. All that said, that's more <it's midnight and I'm really fucking tired> speaking than anything like actual conjecture. I'm just tired enough I can conceive of such a scenario actually happening.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Oh no, I got it, I was just talking about the advantage of giftwrapping on Russia's side, as a separate thing.

Yeah, that'd be pretty bad for Trump alright, although it's still another round of edging with suspicion but no solid proof on the Russian connection. I'm not sure if bad optics alone is enough to seal the deal, it hasn't so far.

[misko27]

There's always the potential Putin might be weakened by this a lot. If Syria bleeds, Russia will be the one left looking the fool. Of course, the threat of that might well provoke Putin into doing something, if only to save face, but maybe they'll just wait and see. If this just turns out to be a one-off thing then life will continue as it was.

I think WW3 is not likely. It's certainly likelier than it was a year ago, but unlikely still. The question is how Trump would prosecute a war in Syria while also deeply unpopular at home and abroad. It's almost strange to see the old battlelines being drawn up again, with the hawks and the doves rather than the Trump-supporters and the Resistance. God that Administration civil war must be having some huge effect on this, I just know it, but I can't fathom how and who. Does this mean the McCain wing is in the ascendency? Were rumors of the establishment taking over justified? Who has Trump's ear on this?

And where do we go next? If Trump can go from calling for Assad to stay to bombing him in three days, what happens now? I mean 50 Tomahawk missiles are not enough to change the calculus in Syria, but is that his goal? Or is this just to look tough? Or is it a no-fly zone soon? Or...?

[martinuzz]

Can Trump be impeached for ordering a military strike without asking permission from Congress? He breached the Constitution there, didn't he?

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Can Trump be impeached for ordering a military strike without asking permission from Congress? He breached the Constitution there, didn't he?

It's complicated. In theory, the President engages in specific war at the pleasure of Congress, but in theory the President is also responsible for the defense of the United States in general. Since formal war declarations have become increasingly muddled in the modern era, uh...

It's pretty firmly in the category of "don't piss people off enough that they start thinking about it".

Edit: Oh look, it's already in the examples section, gg wikipedia.