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Trump's Second Term

Ziggurat said:
Physical attacks are a lot harder to do than network attacks, especially without being noticed, and especially at scale.
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… and yet it happens all the time.

But don’t get me wrong: I prefer paper ballots, and have signed a petition here in Denmark against the introduction of electronic ballots.
 
One should know that this discussion of paper ballots vs electronic voting is just a distraction. The defanging of CISA is real, it is happening. They are not going to implement more security for elections. Paper ballots will not be discussed at all because they aren't interested in making elections more free and fair.
 
thaiboxerken said:
One should know that this discussion of paper ballots vs electronic voting is just a distraction. The defanging of CISA is real, it is happening.
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By suspending 17 people out of more than 3,600? :rolleyes:
thaiboxerken said:
They are not going to implement more security for elections. Paper ballots will not be discussed at all because they aren't interested in making elections more free and fair.
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You do realize that states have the power to implement paper ballots on their own, right? They don't need CISA to do that. And it's funny to hear you complain about election security, given your opposition to voter ID.
 
Ziggurat said:
Who is "you"? The US isn't getting any territory, under any conceivable outcome.

Ukraine, not the US, is the party that wants territory it may have to give up in negotiations. Despite the fact that we're mostly on their side, Ukraine's interests are not synonymous with US interests. We (the USA) aren't giving up anything. We don't gain anything by pretending impossible outcomes are not impossible.

We could. So could Europe. But should we? Or should Europe?

Can't be relied upon, or can't be mooched off of?

And refusing to make a promise is rather different than refusing to honor a promise. In fact, the unreliable party isn't the one who won't make a promise but the one that makes a promise and doesn't honor it. Did Obama honor Clinton's promise to protect Ukraine's territorial integrity? No, he did not. Did you complain about that loss of reliability?

You want to know what makes alliances reliable? Self-interest. If you want a US-Ukraine alliance to be reliable, there's got to be a benefit to the alliance for the US, and much as I enjoy doing it, the fact is that sticking it to Russia isn't actually that much of a benefit to us. You know what would give us considerable self-interest in the welfare of Ukraine? If we were getting resources from Ukraine, not just sinking money into it. Guess what Trump is trying to do? Establish a relationship where we get something from Ukraine. Why is Zelensky on board with that? Because he knows that this would provide a stable incentive for us to keep helping to protect them long term.
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Miss the point much?

First, statements of the kind Hegseth made undermine the U.S. position as a broker for a deal between the two involved parties.

Second, I'm not talking about refusing to make a promise. that's fine. I'm referring to Trump's talk suggesting we might not honor our agreements. For example, talking about not coming to assist NATO allies should Russia invade one of them. which Trump has done previously. Breaking or threatening to break trade deals. Or talking about taking territory from an ally.

That talk makes it difficult for anyone to trust an agreement they make with us. It also means that if we did decide to guarantee something as a third party, why would anyone trust us to actually do so?

Note-This is different from withdrawing from withdrawing from treaties, agreements and alliances under the procedures built into the treaties.

Third, not everything is transactional. At least not in material terms. When we assist other countries after a disaster, we don't get material benefits. If anything, we get a measure of positivity to our reputation and a bit of goodwill.

The benefit we get from keeping our allies under our nuclear umbrella is that it prevents them from feeling it necessary to have their own nuclear arsenal. Hopefully, you can see how that benefits us.

Similarly, the benefit we get from standing between Russia and our allies, is that our involvement is a deterrent to a general war in Europe which would not be to our interest.

And sometimes you stand against aggression because it's the right thing to do. After all, what material benefit do we get from the aid and support we give Israel?
 
Ziggurat said:
By suspending 17 people out of more than 3,600? :rolleyes:
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Well, CISA itself might not be in danger, but the effort against foreign threats and disinformation certainly is. Your argument that government disinformation [prevention] is a joke, seems to me to be a sign that the effort should be stepped up, not removed.

It appears that the present government wants to spread disinformation (it already does), and doesn’t mind foreign influence (at least Russian), which is why these prevention efforts hare being closed down.
 
Trump: President Putin wants to have peace now. And that's good. And he didn't want to have peace with Biden. You tell me why that is?

Reporter: Do you future in which Ukraine returns to its pre-2014 borders?

Trump: It certainly would seem to be unlikely. They took a lot of land and they fought for that land.

Reporter: The borders and the lack of NATO membership, ultimately these are both demands Russia has made. Is there not a danger of handing Russia a win?

Trump: Well I think if you look at the war, the way the war is going, you'll have to make your own determination

Reporter: Would you support Zelensky ceding territory to end the war?

Trump: He's gonna have to do what he has to do. But his poll numbers aren't particularly great to put it mildly.

Reporter: Do you view Ukraine as an equal member of this peace process?

Trump: Ummmm ... it's an interesting question. I think they have to make peace. That was not a good war to go into.

Reporter: Aren't you squeezing out President Zelensky from this process?

Trump: No, I don't think so, as long as he's there. But at some point you're gonna have to have elections too. You're gonna have to have an election.
 
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steenkh said:
Well, CISA itself might not be in danger, but the effort against foreign threats and disinformation certainly is. Your argument that government disinformation [prevention] is a joke, seems to me to be a sign that the effort should be stepped up, not removed.
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Remember that intelligence community letter signed by 51 people regarding the Hunter Biden laptop? The one that Mike Morrel encouraged people to sign in order to give Joe a talking point for the debate?

Pepperidge Farm remembers.
 
Ziggurat said:
Physical attacks are a lot harder to do than network attacks, especially without being noticed, and especially at scale. And we're really bad at securing networks, especially at scale, so we shouldn't rely on networks being secured. The idea that electronic ballots are more secure than physical ones is a delusion. No election is safe if you don't take measures to secure it, but it's a lot simpler to secure a physical ballot than an electronic one.
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All this is true enough. If there's a problem to be identified, it's just that it's omitting various relevant things.

For one, that voting is largely already back to including paper records. 98%, if the Brennan Center is to be believed. That's a good thing, though 100% would obviously be better.

Also of note is that election systems include more than just the ballots themselves. There's a lot of infrastructure related to elections that aren't the votes themselves, after all, and IIRC, multiple states' systems had been breached, which gave plenty of cause for CISA.

From the CISA link provided before, incidentally -

“Especially among state and local election officials from both parties who understand the value of this agency, understand how much the agency support has put them in a better position to run secure elections,” he said.
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Can't say that I think much of the MAGA crowd's version of secure elections, either way, with all the antics, including criminal ones, that they've pulled and been pulling. Causing and enabling breaches of security seems to be a running theme.
 
Ziggurat said:
Remember that intelligence community letter signed by 51 people regarding the Hunter Biden laptop? The one that Mike Morrel encouraged people to sign in order to give Joe a talking point for the debate?

Pepperidge Farm remembers.
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Another half-truth talking point that suggests a poor memory about what was actually said and by whom?
 
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Ziggurat said:
Remember that intelligence community letter signed by 51 people regarding the Hunter Biden laptop? The one that Mike Morrel encouraged people to sign in order to give Joe a talking point for the debate?

Pepperidge Farm remembers.
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In case you haven't heard, Biden isn't president anymore. The fat clown's in charge now, but of course, facts don't matter to a clown and his minions... bwahahahaha


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He's back on aircraft carrier catapults agin.

"Instead of using hydraulic like on tractors that can handle anything from hurricanes to lightning to anything. They use magnets. It's a new theory, magnets. They're gonna lift the planes up. And it doesn't work."

For a start they use steam.
 
Andy_Ross said:
"Instead of using hydraulic like on tractors that can handle anything from hurricanes to lightning to anything. They use magnets. It's a new theory, magnets. They're gonna lift the planes up. And it doesn't work."
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You'd think it would stop fascinating me at some point that he is literally like a small child who'll hear the adults talk about something and then misunderstand it and get laughed at when he tries to pass on this new information he's learned. We've all been there, of course, but still being at that stage at nearly 80 is an achievement.
 
The federal government announces investigations into the Minnesota State High School League and California Interscholastic Federation for not immediately banning trans students from sports

www.ed.gov

U.S. Department of Education Launches Title IX Investigations into Two Athletic Associations

Office for Civil Rights directed investigations into two athletic associations, both of which publicly announced plans to violate federal antidiscrimination laws related to girls' and women's sports.
www.ed.gov www.ed.gov
 
Ziggurat said:
Is he wrong? Does Ukraine have the manpower to push Russia out? Are we willing to enter the conflict ourselves to do that?
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Yeah go full appeasement with the Russians, that's a policy that always works so well. I would compare Trump to Chamberlain, but Chamberlain had a working knowledge of economics.
 
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