Trump and Putin Helsinki Meeting

[szechuan]

it's called the popular vote.

America should switch to Alternative Voting for President or maybe switch to something that is similar to Australia's Optional Preferential Voting IMO.

[Felya]

America should switch to Alternative Voting for President or maybe switch to something that is similar to Australia's Optional Preferential Voting IMO.

I favor the bold as well, but compulsory voting must be included.

[Edge-]

Whoa wait...Trump is apparently "considering" extraditing a former US ambassador to Russia for interrogation at the request of Russia?

Yeah, that 2 hour meeting would probably be way too nasty of a "cucking" even for Pornhub.

[Fugus]

Although not perfect I still prefer Alternative Voting for POTUS and Mixed-Member Proportional Representation for congressional seats over First Past the Post and EC.

For them, I would like to get rid of the electoral college and all elections be based on a ranked voting method where the person ranks the candidates they want in order. If no candidate wins over 50% of the votes, the lowest ranked person is removed and their votes allocated to their number 2 pick and repeat till a winner is decided.

I would also throw an extra choice on all ballots "None of the Above", if it wins the majority, a new election must be held with all previous candidates disqualified.

This would allow for 3rd parties to be viable while also removing the benefit of having primaries as it would be in their best interests to have more people running to for a better chance of them or another like them winning. Would also make it harder for donors to pour money into it buying the candidates when you have 15+ running rather than just 2.

Would have this be the case for all elected positions.

Would also move to public financing of elections and banning all donations to them including from Unions, Companies, PACs, and so on and this would include paid advertising for them and any discounts given to one side and not offered to the others. Not even the political parties could donate to their campaigns. As well as a return to the fairness doctrine and force the media companies to given time to all sides of the issues with serious punishments for lying or giving half truths. This would include to talk shows and such so they can't claim they aren't news while pretending to be news.

[Resurgo]

The point is: If one state can make that huge a difference, I don't think popular vote is as great a method of picking a president for the USA... considering you can just court the hell outta voters in California since, iirc, LA County alone supposedly has more people than several other states and win that way. Only issue is the Electoral college as is also sucks. So, what do ya really do about that?

I believe someone else here has more eloquently stated that it doesn't matter if LA County alone has more people than several other states. NY, Texas, CA, etc. is where the majority of the population lives. So why (in the case of the electoral college) would you give someone in Wyoming a greater voice in the direction of the country than those where the majority of the people live anyways?

[Edge-]

https://apnews.com/4c087f7cdc2b43978...rview-proposal

The White House and the State Department are at odds over Russian President Vladimir Putin’s offer to allow the U.S. access to Russians accused of election meddling in return for interviews of Americans accused by the Kremlin of unspecified crimes.

Even as the White House said the offer, made by Putin to President Donald Trump at their summit in Helsinki on Monday, was under consideration, the State Department called Russia’s allegations against the Americans “absurd,” suggesting that any questioning of them would not be countenanced by the U.S. The Russian claims against the Americans, including former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, relate to allegations of fraud and corruption.

Emphasis added. Remember when an administration wouldn't routinely be arguing with itself because it was run and staffed by intelligent, stable professionals who were competent at their jobs and knew what they were doing?

Those were good times.

[Lahis]

https://apnews.com/4c087f7cdc2b43978...rview-proposal



Emphasis added. Remember when an administration wouldn't routinely be arguing with itself because it was run and staffed by intelligent, stable professionals who were competent at their jobs and knew what they were doing?

Those were good times.

And you guys have still 6 more years of this ahead of you

[Macaquerie]

The thing that still sticks in my craw is, why the hell did Trump go out of his way to emphasize that Putin gave a strong and powerful denial? I get that Putin demands to be portrayed as a macho alpha boss at all times, but even Trump has to know that giving a forceful denial usually means you're lying. Though I suppose this is Putin's schtick nowadays, he's not trying to hide anything anymore, he is just waving it right in our face and daring us to do something about it.

[tyrlaan]

No, voting for Trump is voting for Trump. Voting against Trump is voting against Trump.

Going by your logic, every person not voting or voting 3rd party was also essentially a vote for Clinton as well.

And if voting for Trump was against my best interests and voting for Clinton was also against my best interests, then there was no voting FOR my best interests in that election. Sorry, but "None of the Above" was not on the ballot or I would have filled in that bubble without hesitation.

Unless you literally think Trump winning was an acceptable risk (I'm assuming this isn't the case for you), then your line of thinking is incorrect.

Assuming you don't think Trump=Hillary, our election process and the currently entrenched 2 party system needs to be reformed (and you provided some good thoughts on this later in the thread) before voting for neither of them produces anything aligned with your self interest.

No third party candidate stood a chance against Trump or Clinton, so voting for either in 2016 was no better than a "none of the above"/not voting at all. And you can't reform the voting system by casting your vote for a 3rd party candidate or not voting. All that does is let a Repub or Dem win with even less a percentage of the American population behind them.

And while I get the distaste of voting for the lesser of two evils, there's a certain point when you need to make the tactical call and vote for the moldy bread over the vat of flesh-eating acid. That's still very much voting in your self interest, even if all that self interest equates to is damage control.

[Fugus]

Unless you literally think Trump winning was an acceptable risk (I'm assuming this isn't the case for you), then your line of thinking is incorrect.

Assuming you don't think Trump=Hillary, our election process and the currently entrenched 2 party system needs to be reformed (and you provided some good thoughts on this later in the thread) before voting for neither of them produces anything aligned with your self interest.

No third party candidate stood a chance against Trump or Clinton, so voting for either in 2016 was no better than a "none of the above"/not voting at all. And you can't reform the voting system by casting your vote for a 3rd party candidate or not voting. All that does is let a Repub or Dem win with even less a percentage of the American population behind them.

And while I get the distaste of voting for the lesser of two evils, there's a certain point when you need to make the tactical call and vote for the moldy bread over the vat of flesh-eating acid. That's still very much voting in your self interest, even if all that self interest equates to is damage control.

I understand where you are going with this and mostly agree with your logic.

For me, I saw them both as crap choices and, if things had gone differently, I would have been willing to vote for Clinton even as bad as she was.

The final straw for me was when Debbie had to step down in disgrace for all she had done trying to screw the people and skew stuff in her favor.

Now, the typical suspects can come in and chime in about how she didn't do it and how the primary was completely legit regardless of if it was or wasn't. The fact of the matter is, that to the public, Debbie was screwing us in favor of her and had to step down because of it.

The same day, Clinton decided to snatch her up and put her in Clinton's campaign rewarding her for her actions. She knew how the voters saw her, she knew Debbie was trying to screw the process and on top of already telling the voters she didn't care what they wanted because "I'm winning" but knowing all that, she turned around and rewarded her and gave her a roll in her campaign.

She slapped her voting base in the face with those actions and I could not reward that. Even with a gun to my head with Trump on the other side, I could not hold my nose and reward someone who so blatantly screwed her own voting base and snubbed them for it thinking they had no choice.

As sad as it sounds, if we all voted for her and Clinton had won, they would have been emboldened to repeat it again in the future. At least with this events, hopefully they will learn their lesson and not try and gamble with their voters again.

[Puupi]

https://www.hs.fi/politiikka/art-200...3dd3a71d1d24fe


Heh

[Draco-Onis]

The thing that still sticks in my craw is, why the hell did Trump go out of his way to emphasize that Putin gave a strong and powerful denial? I get that Putin demands to be portrayed as a macho alpha boss at all times, but even Trump has to know that giving a forceful denial usually means you're lying. Though I suppose this is Putin's schtick nowadays, he's not trying to hide anything anymore, he is just waving it right in our face and daring us to do something about it.

The entire thing started just like the press conference Mr. I will walk away if they don't give me the red carpet waiting for over an hour for Putin and was a good lap dog the entire meeting.

[Shalcker]

Whoa wait...Trump is apparently "considering" extraditing a former US ambassador to Russia for interrogation at the request of Russia?

Noone ever said anything about extradition. Only about questioning (on US soil).

[tyrlaan]

She slapped her voting base in the face with those actions and I could not reward that. Even with a gun to my head with Trump on the other side, I could not hold my nose and reward someone who so blatantly screwed her own voting base and snubbed them for it thinking they had no choice.

As sad as it sounds, if we all voted for her and Clinton had won, they would have been emboldened to repeat it again in the future. At least with this events, hopefully they will learn their lesson and not try and gamble with their voters again.

I can't agree with that. Sure, I wanted to punish Clinton. I didn't want to see her win or validate whatever shenanigans was pulled during the primaries. But I couldn't remotely rationalize improving the chance of a Trump presidency just so I could teach the DNC a lesson. Way too much was at stake, as Trump has demonstrated since being in office.

[Draco-Onis]

Noone ever said anything about extradition. Only about questioning (on US soil).

Perhaps you are not familiar with how this process works, you provide solid proof of your assertion then the government considers your request. Oh what am I saying we don't hand over our citizens especially people who serve this country to Russian thugs.

[Shalcker]

Perhaps you are not familiar with how this process works, you provide solid proof of your assertion then the government considers your request. Oh what am I saying we don't hand over our citizens especially people who serve this country to Russian thugs.

Who asks you to "hand them over"? Noone.

Russia is also unlikely to hand over Russian citisens (like those GRU guys).

Questioning is possible, however.

As for "solid proof", Russia isn't exactly hiding those proofs... don't you remember Veselnitskaya? She had those at hand on that Trump Jr meeting.

From what i've seen from various articles over years, those proof were never given consideration for political reasons, not because they weren't solid enough.

[Breccia]

Putin accuses U.S. forces of trying to ruin Trump summit outcome

Blamed nonspecific partisan politicians -- none of whom were there, of course, and none of whom made Trump say a damn thing.

Putin also said continued worsening relations would cause Russia to drop out of the STrategit Arms Reduction Treaty (START) which their latest missile probably violates anyhow. @Skroe can assist when he returns.

So, yep, somehow this is the Democrats' fault and will start WW3.

[Felya]

Putin accuses U.S. forces of trying to ruin Trump summit outcome

Blamed nonspecific partisan politicians -- none of whom were there, of course, and none of whom made Trump say a damn thing.

Putin also said continued worsening relations would cause Russia to drop out of the STrategit Arms Reduction Treaty (START) which their latest missile probably violates anyhow. @Skroe can assist when he returns.

So, yep, somehow this is the Democrats' fault and will start WW3.

That fucking WW3 fearmongering... Hillary was supposed to start it with a no fly zone, but then Putin was smart enough to successfully install a no fly zone without starting WW3. If US shoots a Russian by accident in Syria, it’s WW3, but Russian mercenaries attack US troops and no WW3... or even rebuke from US.

I don’t know how... but, Trump supporters need to figure out, what it is about America starting WW3, when Russia attacking US troops doesn’t start one. What is it about America, that causes WW3?

[Shalcker]

Here is link to that actual USA-Russia Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) Putin mentioned

https://www.state.gov/documents/organization/123676.pdf

ARTICLE 1
GENERAL PROVISIONS
1. The Parties shall provide to each other, in accordance with this Treaty, comprehensive mutual legal assistance in criminal matters.
2. For the purposes of this Treaty, legal assistance in criminal matters shall mean any assistance provided by the Parties in connection with: prevention, suppression, and investigation of crimes; criminal prosecutions; and other proceedings related to such criminal matters.
3. Legal assistance shall be provided in accordance with the provisions of this Treaty where the conduct that is the subject of the request constitutes a crime under the laws of both Parties. The Requested Party may, in its discretion, also provide legal assistance where the conduct that is the subject of the request would not constitute a crime under the laws of the Requested Party.
4. This Treaty is intended solely for cooperation and legal assistance between the Parties. The provisions of this Treaty shall not give rise to a right on the part of any other persons to obtain evidence, to have evidence excluded, or to impede the execution of a request.
5. For purposes of this Treaty, the term "person" shall mean both individuals and legal entities in the following articles: Article 1(4), Article 2(4), Article 5(3) subparagraphs 1-5, Article 10(1), Article 14, and Article 15(2).

ARTICLE 2
SCOPE OF LEGAL ASSISTANCE
Legal assistance under this Treaty shall include:
(1) obtaining testimony and statements;
(2) providing documents, records, and other items;
(3) serving documents;
(4) locating and identifying persons and items;
(5) executing requests for searches and seizures;
(6) transferring persons in custody for testimony or other purposes under this Treaty;
(7) locating and immobilizing assets for purposes of forfeiture, restitution, or collection of fines; and
(8) providing any other legal assistance not prohibited by the laws of the Requested Party.

ARTICLE 3
CENTRAL AUTHORITIES AND PROCEDURES
FOR COMMUNICATIONS
1. Each Party shall implement the provisions of this Treaty, including the making and receiving of requests, through its Central Authority.
2. For the United States of America, the Central Authority shall be the Attorney General or persons designated by the Attorney General. For the Russian Federation, the Central Authority shall be the Office of the Procurator General of the Russian Federation or persons designated by the Procurator General.
3. The Central Authorities shall communicate directly with one another for the purposes of this Treaty and may agree upon such practical measures as may be necessary to facilitate the implementation of this Treaty.

ARTICLE 4
DENIAL OF LEGAL ASSISTANCE
The Central Authority of the Requested Party may deny legal assistance if:
(1) the request relates to a crime under military law that is not a crime under general criminal law;
(2) the execution of the request would prejudice the security or other essential interests of the Requested Party; or
(3) the request does not conform to the requirements of this Treaty.
2. The Requested Party shall not decline execution of a request on the ground of bank secrecy.
3. Before denying legal assistance pursuant to paragraph 1 of this Article, the Central Authority of the Requested Party shall consult with the Central Authority of the Requesting Party to consider whether legal assistance can be given subject to such conditions as it deems necessary. If the Requesting Party accepts legal assistance subject to these conditions, it shall comply with the conditions.
4. If the Central Authority of the Requested Party denies legal assistance, it shall inform the Central Authority of the Requesting Party of the reasons for the denial.

and so on.

Nowhere it has wild claims of what such request entails your media seems to be making; even transfer of people in custody requires consent of the one being transferred.

[Edge-]

https://qz.com/1332159/microsofts-to...rm-candidates/

A Microsoft executive today swiftly contradicted Donald Trump’s claim that Russia is not trying to disrupt the 2018 midterms: The company has already worked with the US government to foil Russian hacking attempts on three candidates.

While refusing to disclose their names for privacy reasons, Tom Burt, Microsoft’s vice president for customer security, told the Aspen Security Forum that the three candidates “were all people who, because of their positions, might have been interesting targets from an espionage standpoint, as well as an election disruption standpoint.”

Burt said that the hackers targeted the candidates’ staffers with the kind of phishing tactics used to inveigle their way into the Democratic National Committee servers in 2016: They set up a fake Microsoft domain and attempted to direct staffers towards it. The government and Microsoft “were able to avoid anyone being infected by that particular attack,” he said.

So not only are "his" own "intelligence people" telling him Russia is still actively trying to hack US candidates and influence the election, but Microsoft is confirming as well.

Russia is not our friend. Russia has no interest in being our friend. Russia is a hostile adversary that should be treated as such until they decide to stop behaving this way. Sanction them to hell and back again, and if that hurts the Russian people than they can decide to change leadership to someone who doesn't engage in this behavior.

- - - Updated - - -

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...ng-u-s-n892766

"I haven't seen any evidence that the attempts to interfere in our election infrastructure was to favor a particular political party," Nielsen told NBC News National Correspondent Peter Alexander at the Aspen Security Forum, in an interview that focused heavily on Russian meddling and the controversy of separating migrant children from their parents.

When pressed to say explicitly whether Russia favored Trump and Republicans in its influence campaign and in its hacking of Democratic Party emails, Nielsen only said that she agreed with the assessment of the intelligence community.

The assessment found that Russian efforts favored Trump and the Republican Party, but Nielsen would not definitively comment on that piece of the report.

Seriously, fuck Nielsen so much. She's a complete and total piece of shit, and has taken the a-political DHS and turned it into nothing more than a political arm of the Trump administration. She's a disgrace and should be removed now.