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[Powder Miner]

Well, right now I am, seeing as that's a hell of a lot bigger a deal than a missile strike. I don't think the usual rally around the flag effect would apply. I might worry more if there was an incident big enough to seize upon for a war justification.

[Frumple]

Eh, yeah, that'd make it worse. I'd just really prefer we didn't test GOP spine and trump mettle when it comes to military action, ha.

[EnigmaticHat]

Its just sabre rattling IMO, but its stupid sabre rattling that I don't trust Trump to handle.  We've been down the proxy war route before.  What makes this stupid is that while we do have a conflict in that Russia supports the Syrian government and we oppose it, we both want ISIS to be stopped and neither want to do it ourselves.  The situation is complicated and delicate, but on paper there are things to be gained here for relatively little cost.  Or at least the spiraling situation could be contained with relatively few Americans dying.  Its a callous view but its not like having another Iraq would be good for the locals so I think hawks and doves should both agree with the more cautious view here.

Yet here Trump is smashing the war map with a hammer.  Its not like the State department is in a position to explain the various actors to him, and he doesn't listen to the IC in the first place.  He's just doing this shit because of the Russia investigation.  Its good that the man with his finger on the button has cable access...

Ninjaedit: also, sending in troops ourselves at this point would be a very bad idea.  If Russia wanted to they would face no real diplomatic consequences for funneling training and support to whatever group they want.  It would be another Vietnam/Afghanistan/Iraq all over again but probably worse than those last two.  The circumstances of the Iraq War were more favorable than this: no greater power supporting Saddam Hussein (IIRC?), nowhere near the insurgent and terrorist presence that Syria has, and no Gulf War memories to drum up easy support in the opening stages.

[RedKing]

I do think you have a more valid concern, sluissa, but the reason I'm not 100% concerned myself is that sending in troops to Syria would be very unpopular, something Trump has to realize as he's criticized Obama for many of the same things he's doing now, and because trump has actually shown knowledge in a couple of his tweets (can't remember which; we went over it in my IR class last quarter) of the effect war would have on his popularity.

Yes, and after saying that he'd work with Assad to defeat ISIS, he had the Navy fire a shit-ton of Tomahawks at a Syrian airbase because some pictures of dead kids interferred with his enjoyment of the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake. You really can't predict what the fuck he's going to do.

And in addition to his own Nyarlathotep style of leadership, he's decentralized control at a strategic level. Commanders appear to be authorized to do whatever they want, within loose rules of engagement.

[nenjin]

Plausible deniability. If they succeed and take no flak, why, it was your open command style that let them make such brilliant, unrestricted decisions. Take the credit.

And if it's a total clusterfuck? Well *I* certainly didn't tell him to do that. Issue the blame.

[PTTG??]

90% of registered US voters just had their name, address, phone number, and political orientation among a great deal of other personal information leaked in the largest data breach full stop.

The party responsible is a republican strategy organization that worked with the Trump campaign, Deep Root Analytics.

So yeah, someone working for the Republicans just annoyed pretty much every single voter. Someone's getting fired!

[martinuzz]

All your base administration are belong to Rus

EDIT: in other news, Otto Warmbier just died

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

So yeah, someone working for the Republicans just annoyed pretty much every single voter. Someone's getting fired!

Maybe not.  Mentioned it to a few people around here and they don't seem to care (in fact were more concerned with me making a slight stumble in my speech), with one brushing it off with the logic of all their information is probably already leaked before anyway.

[Flying Dice]

90% of registered US voters just had their name, address, phone number, and political orientation among a great deal of other personal information leaked in the largest data breach full stop.

The party responsible is a republican strategy organization that worked with the Trump campaign, Deep Root Analytics.

So yeah, someone working for the Republicans just annoyed pretty much every single voter. Someone's getting fired!

Any bets on demographic trends for the ~2 million whose data wasn't leaked?

[nenjin]

So yeah, someone working for the Republicans just annoyed pretty much every single voter. Someone's getting fired!

Maybe not.  Mentioned it to a few people around here and they don't seem to care (in fact were more concerned with me making a slight stumble in my speech), with one brushing it off with the logic of all their information is probably already leaked before anyway.

I wouldn't take the average voters' apathy as a sign of how important this is. If they admit they don't give a shit, they're not qualified to say whether or not it matters.

[misko27]

90% of registered US voters just had their name, address, phone number, and political orientation among a great deal of other personal information leaked in the largest data breach full stop.

The party responsible is a republican strategy organization that worked with the Trump campaign, Deep Root Analytics.

So yeah, someone working for the Republicans just annoyed pretty much every single voter. Someone's getting fired!

Any bets on demographic trends for the ~2 million whose data wasn't leaked?

The temptation to shout "Lizards" and/or "Jews", is almost overwhelming

[Lord Shonus]

90% of registered US voters just had their name, address, phone number, and political orientation among a great deal of other personal information leaked in the largest data breach full stop.

The party responsible is a republican strategy organization that worked with the Trump campaign, Deep Root Analytics.

So yeah, someone working for the Republicans just annoyed pretty much every single voter. Someone's getting fired!

Any bets on demographic trends for the ~2 million whose data wasn't leaked?

The temptation to shout "Lizards" and/or "Jews", is almost overwhelming

Having just finished Turtledove's alien invasion saga, this statement threw me quite a bit until I caught the conspiracy theory reference you were going for.

[Draignean]

90% of registered US voters just had their name, address, phone number, and political orientation among a great deal of other personal information leaked in the largest data breach full stop.

The party responsible is a republican strategy organization that worked with the Trump campaign, Deep Root Analytics.

So yeah, someone working for the Republicans just annoyed pretty much every single voter. Someone's getting fired!

Any bets on demographic trends for the ~2 million whose data wasn't leaked?

The temptation to shout "Lizards" and/or "Jews", is almost overwhelming

Mexican Nazi Terrorist SJW ICP LGBTQ ROFLMAO Demoncrats.

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

I wouldn't take the average voters' apathy as a sign of how important this is. If they admit they don't give a shit, they're not qualified to say whether or not it matters.

I recognize that.  My statement was directed towards the 'annoying every single voter' part.

[sluissa]

I was under the impression that all that voter info was more or less public data anyway. And I don't even mean "already leaked" but "generally accessible for anyone if you can maneuver the various systems local governments hold them under." I'd not be surprised if that 10% that didn't get affected were from areas where that info isn't publicly available and thus not easily included in a massive database.