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Trump's Second Term

Safe-Keeper said:
If Zelensky chooses to gives up territory, that's his decision and his alone.
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I'm not actually sure he can even if he wants to. I think he may need agreement from the Ukrainian parliament. But your main point stands, no territory will be ceded without Ukrainian agreement. And they're probably only going to agree to that if they get something worthwhile (like security guarantees) in exchange.
 
The Nazi party wants to take all the money away from old people and disabled people to pay for Billionaires' tax cuts.
 
Ziggurat said:
I'm not actually sure he can even if he wants to. I think he may need agreement from the Ukrainian parliament. But your main point stands, no territory will be ceded without Ukrainian agreement. And they're probably only going to agree to that if they get something worthwhile (like security guarantees) in exchange.
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When negotiating, it's a bad idea to state that you aren't going to get certain specific things. Even if you know you won't get them. It changes the point you are starting from.

While the U.S. is not a deciding party in the negotiations, the Trump administration is purporting to broker a deal. Publicly stating up front that one side is not going to get certain terms colors the negotiations and kind of disqualifies you as a neutral/honest broker. It's just bad diplomacy.

As far as security guarantees, that is one thing the U.S. could contribute. But Trump is making it so that agreements with the U.S. cannot be relied on.
 
zooterkin said:
And you think it's going to stop there?
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The claim was essentially that CISA was being shut down. It's not. Will there be more suspensions? Possibly. Will CISA be shut down? There's no indication that it will be, and the suspension of a mere 17 employees isn't really a harbinger of that.
 
TomB said:
When negotiating, it's a bad idea to state that you aren't going to get certain specific things. Even if you know you won't get them. It changes the point you are starting from.
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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.
TomB said:
As far as security guarantees, that is one thing the U.S. could contribute.
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We could. So could Europe. But should we? Or should Europe?
TomB said:
But Trump is making it so that agreements with the U.S. cannot be relied on.
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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.
 
Andy_Ross said:
Today's press conference.

Reporter: Is the White House willing to share evidence of Elon Musk's fraud claims?

Leavitt: There is an X account with the DOGE handle. They are tweeting out what they are doing.

Pressed to provide evidence of fraud that Musk has discovered, Leavitt waves around "screenshots of contracts" that go "against the president's policies"

Reporter: Are all those things you just mentioned fraud? Or all they just contrary to the president's policies?

Leavitt: I would argue that all of these things are fraudulent.
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Thus we see that DOGE is fraudulent.
 
Dr.Sid said:
Perspective is this: it's 17 very specific employees .. foreign threats and disinformation.
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Government "disinformation" efforts have been a joke. And as for cyber security, it's actually pretty easy to harden elections against cyber attack. So easy, in fact, that we've been doing it for more than two hundred years. Want to know the secret? Paper ballots. We should be doing that anyways, there's no reason to be using electronic ballots.
 
Hegseth says "Arrived at NATO HQ. Our commitment is clear, NATO must be a stronger, more lethal force, not a diplomatic club. Time for allies to meet the moment."
 
TomB said:
When negotiating, it's a bad idea to state that you aren't going to get certain specific things. Even if you know you won't get them. It changes the point you are starting from.

While the U.S. is not a deciding party in the negotiations, the Trump administration is purporting to broker a deal. Publicly stating up front that one side is not going to get certain terms colors the negotiations and kind of disqualifies you as a neutral/honest broker. It's just bad diplomacy.

As far as security guarantees, that is one thing the U.S. could contribute. But Trump is making it so that agreements with the U.S. cannot be relied on.
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Of some note, it's also practically the opposite of what so many have emphasized in The Art of the Deal.

Either way, Zig's struggling hard to justify the conclusion and spin that he desires, as usual. No point in expecting things like principle or the obvious to interfere with that.
 
Ziggurat said:
And as for cyber security, it's actually pretty easy to harden elections against cyber attack. So easy, in fact, that we've been doing it for more than two hundred years. Want to know the secret? Paper ballots.
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They may be safe from cyber attacks, but they are not safe from physical attacks. Dictators have a long history of stuffing ballot boxes, and ballot boxes can be stolen or burned. This is much more difficult to do with electronic ballots that are securely connected to a network.
 
Donald spoke to the Ukraine

Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump

Just spoke with the President of Ukraine. The conversation was constructive. Like Putin, he seeks peace. The main topic is the upcoming meeting on Friday in Munich, where the US delegation will be led by Vice President Vance and Secretary Rubio. I hope for positive results. It is time to stop this senseless war that is causing massive casualties and destruction. God bless the people of Russia and Ukraine!
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steenkh said:
They may be safe from cyber attacks, but they are not safe from physical attacks.
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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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