Let me get this straight. Hillary intentionally subverted the democratic process by having the DNC work against Sanders. We have concrete evidence of her working with one of her PACs, which again is highly illegal and subverting our democratic process. She has shady and inappropriate meetings with people responsible for running the voting process. She's sponsored by people who own the voting machines. And not to mention that she has inarguably done highly illegal things with her private email server and got off without charges, showing the injustice of our two-tier criminal justice system.

edit: removed argument I rescind and check out this recording of Hillary that came out today: http://observer.com/2016/10/2006-audio-emerges-of-hillary-cl...

"That troubled me deeply. I do not think we should have pushed for an election in the Palestinian territories. I think that was a big mistake. And...if we were going to push for an election, then we should have made sure that we did something to determine who was going to win."

And Trump is the one threatening our democracy?

He has stated that if elected, he'll spend the first 100 days suing his accusers.

He believes the press has too much freedom of speech.

He has claimed the election is rigged against him, and has all but told his supporters to engage in vote suppression.

He has said he will attempt to force all Muslims to register into a database.

He has said he will ban all Muslims from entering the nation.

Would you like me to go? If you listen to his words at campaign rallies, they bear a striking resemblance to fascist dictators on the rise.

Clinton may fit the mold of the "crooked Washington politician", but at the least, she has a basic respect for democracy. Trump, on the other hand, would attempt to utterly plow his way through our legal system for his own gain.

We have a real problem with the press in this country... great example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVsnMuaFjhE

Additionally, all major media publications have come out in support of Trump for the simple fact he has, in no way shape or form, demonstrated any leadership capabilities. He tweeted at 3 am for days following the first campaign about the Miss USA issue. How does demonstrate a steady hand and patience?

Pathetic.

I for one hope our president isn't concerned about how much models weigh. And if they are, I hope they don't respond to criticism by slut-shaming that person, especially for something they didn't do. So, no suggesting at 3 am that people investigate the sex life of someone who attacked him isn't very presidential.

Sure, tweets are inconsequential, and I think politics would be more productive if disagreements focused on policy differences. But his words and actions show that he's a really petty and shallow person. And he would be a petty and shallow President. I don't think he really has many specific well thought out plans he could actually implement.

The fact that he never had to worry about such stuff doesn't bode well for his ability to handle such stuff.

This is so blindly obvious to me and anyone else who's capable of a rational thought. I cannot believe you are seriously try to suggest he meant that in the sense that he wants to subvert the election process.

How about his claims of voter fraud despite the fact that no evidence has been found?

>This is so blindly obvious to me and anyone else who's capable of a rational thought.

Ad hominen attack, but I suspect you support Trump.

Despite all this, I am fucking sick and tired at the outright lies, slander, and disingenuous arguments against Trump. There is plenty to attack him on without all the bullshit. And I'm sick of the Hillary reality distortion that is, from what I can tell, the absolute epitome of everything wrong with politics today.

What is so confusing here? Trump has stated repeatedly that if he loses the election was rigged. He was not joking, he was dead serious. He repeated the claim multiple times. He even refused the settle the issue during the third debate.

That statement alone is a disqualifying event for any politician.

Looking at your other posts I don't believe you about voting third party, you're an obvious Trump supporter. Why lie about it?

Also, suck it: http://i.imgur.com/DJgcABL.png

There's no easy way to for me to 100% prove that's my image or that I immediately hit the "cast ballot" button after taking it, but I promise you won't find that image anywhere else on the internet. And if it helps further drive the point home, there is at most one Republican on that entire ballot.

No he's not. I agree with most of his comments here and I'm voting for Stein too.

Does anyone REALLY think that someone who was sexually assaulted by a BILLIONAIRE wouldn't have cashed in already?

No actually, they all decided together an hour before the the email leaks were about to be released to the public about things that happened decades ago and to release a tape of him. That clearly has no political motivation what-so-ever and how dare you question it.

Just a point, this is normal with the sitting President campaigning either for themselves for their second term or their parties nominee. Both Trump and Hilary have plenty of valid points against them, so there is no need to muddy the water with points that don't really matter.

> Hillary intentionally subverted the democratic process by having the DNC work against Sanders.

Getting elected is a process of building key supporters, including within your own party.

> We have concrete evidence of her working with one of her PACs

All candidates do, and use some level of indirection to stay within the regulation. The regulation is toothless for campaign finance reform, so why get worked up about it.

> She has Obama, using tax payer money, campaigning for her

Outgoing presidents always campaign on behalf of their party's nominee.

If the election is close, I think the loser has a duty to contest the loss. Trump contesting the election would be every bit as right as Gore contesting the election.

What is so bad about this? The reaction people are having is strange. It's as if people are purposely misinterpreting Trump's words as implying that he will march on Washington D.C. with a militia. The realistic assumption is a Gore-style lawsuit, and there is nothing wrong with that.

[0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_election_recount

"Ok Donald, are you really going to claim to the nation that the elections are rigged, and that you won't accept their results?"

And his, answer was, "We'll see." Which means, yes! He's standing by the claim. So don't equivocate Trump's position. It's not media sensationalism.

This is not actually true. While he is forced to only use Airforce One when flying he is required by law to reimburse all costs related to campaigning for anyone. Typically though the president never pays for this and, instead, the candidate they are campaigning for foots the bill.

Every single president in the history of our democracy has done this. Every single one of them.

http://www.npr.org/2016/07/05/484817706/looking-back-at-a-ce...

McCain in 2008 and Gore in 2000 both sort of wanted the sitting president to stay out of the campaign. Bush was pretty unpopular and Clinton had a lot hanging over him (Bush left office with an approval rating around 30%, Clinton around 60%).

Reagan campaigned timidly for Bush I.

So in the last 40 years, it hasn't been very common for the sitting president to come out and campaign hard for their parties candidate. Of course they have generally campaigned for themselves, which has a similar issue of dealing with who pays for things.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_ele...

"Because it was considered improper for a candidate to pursue the presidency actively, neither Tilden nor Hayes actively stumped as part of the campaign, leaving that job to surrogates."

Huh? There is only one president...what's the problem with campaigning for someone else that you support? I don't see the moral issue. If you're paying for it and you're obviously not doing it in lieu of your duty what's the issue here?

>Every single president in the history of our democracy has done this. Every single one of them.

This NPR article calls it "unusual" but maybe I am missing something since I only read it at a glance: http://www.npr.org/2016/07/07/485097272/fact-check-air-force...

Sanders was basically an independent running as a Dem. Even though I would have preferred him, it's ridiculous to expect the party not to be preferential towards the inside candidate who has decades of connections. Also primaries are not subject to the same level of protections or expectations of institutional impartiality as general elections, which sucks, but is simply the political reality. Also this is all moot because Hillary won by a significant margin.

> We have concrete evidence of her working with one of her PACs, which again is highly illegal and subverting our democratic process.

Citation?

> She has Obama, using tax payer money, campaigning for her - while not illegal, is pretty morally bankrupt in my opinion.

It's completely normal for the outgoing president to campaign for his party. Only reason Bush didn't do it for McCain was because he was so unpopular at the time.

> She has shady and inappropriate meetings with people responsible for running the voting process. She's sponsored by people who own the voting machines.

Citations?? I haven't heard of any of this. Also - so what? Sounds like a Breitbart or Drudge invention.

> And not to mention that she has inarguably done highly illegal things with her private email server and got off without charges, showing the injustice of our two-tier criminal justice system.

"Inarguably"? If it was truly "inarguable" Comey would have recommended prosecution in the first place.

Trump, otoh, has expressed his desire to suppress the free press, to normalize relations with dictators, to jail his political opponents (not something the president has the authority to do, not that he understands that). He's encouraged violence at rallies and on election day. He's encouraged minority voter suppression and intimidation (which has been part of the republican platform for the past decade, so he's not exceptional in that regard, just in how nakedly he does it). The things HRC has done or been accused of are normal, if disappointing, qualities of a mainstream American politician. The things Trump has done and said he'll do are very clearly in the tradition of fascism.

Dang... a President who wants to follow the laws and not give special passes to those in power? We can't have that!

The fact that Hillary is able to get away with criminal behavior WHILE IN OFFICE is one thing, but why anyone would want her in office again is beyond me. Why would the democrats even want to risk that?

Go look at the reason he gives for not recommending prosecution. It has nothing to do with whether what she did was illegal.

Go Google the rest yourself, it's not hard to find and I'm not going to waste my time trying to convince someone who can't be convinced. My comments are targeted at people reading this who might not be aware of the bullshit going on.

Okay.

"Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information, our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case. Prosecutors necessarily weigh a number of factors before bringing charges. There are obvious considerations, like the strength of the evidence, especially regarding intent. Responsible decisions also consider the context of a person’s actions, and how similar situations have been handled in the past.

In looking back at our investigations into mishandling or removal of classified information, we cannot find a case that would support bringing criminal charges on these facts. All the cases prosecuted involved some combination of: clearly intentional and willful mishandling of classified information; or vast quantities of materials exposed in such a way as to support an inference of intentional misconduct; or indications of disloyalty to the United States; or efforts to obstruct justice. We do not see those things here."[1]

Potential violations of statues, without criminal intent ≠ "inarguably highly illegal things".

> Go Google the rest yourself, it's not hard to find and I'm not going to waste my time trying to convince someone who can't be convinced.

Okay! Lets see, sources in the first two pages of google results for "clinton voting machines": zerohedge, usapoliticstoday, thepoliticalinsider, conservativedailypost, breitbart, inforwars, wnd, libertywritersnews, quora (lol), snopes (for obvious reasons), proudcons, theconomiccollapseblog, counterpunch, thecommonsenseshow, thegatewaypundit, ajc. Not that the "MSM" is completely unbiased, but openly partisan publications don't really constitute news sources to my mind. If there were really such blatant attempts at election rigging going on, I have faith that an impartial journalist with integrity would be looking into it and/or an adjacent party would have sufficient incentive to blow the whistle. It would be huge news.

> My comments are targeted at people reading this who might not be aware of the bullshit going on.

Don't think you'll find too many of those on HN, but good luck fighting the good fight.

[1]https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/statement-b...

One does not need to intend to do something for it to be highly illegal. There is an absolute boat load of cases where people did 1/10th of what Hillary did, without any proven intent, and went to prison for it. Thousands of people are prosecuted every day by our criminal justice system without any intent.

And in the same quote: "potential violations". He completely dodged having to explicitly say that it was illegal, which anyone with a security clearance can plainly tell you. The only reason he didn't explicitly say she didn't break the law was because it would be a lie that he even couldn't pull off.

It is so blindingly obvious that this is a load of horse shit. He is being vague, misleading, and deliberately obtuse.

Is this your first election?

If you really care about things like democracy, human rights, civil liberties, and freedom of speech, handing the country to an egomaniacal authoritarian just to prove a point is the height of strategic stupidity.

Please clarify whom you're referencing here.

Enforcing immigration policy, even pausing immigration in certain cases, is not "closing" open society. It's recognizing that there's a dark side to allowing arbitrary numbers of immigrants and refugees bypassing the normal immigration process, and it's taking a step back and figuring out in advance, rationally, what policy we want to enforce, rather than not enforcing any meaningful policy and getting stuck with the results down the road.

The free speech threat from regulating big (and maybe not-so-big) media is troublesome, I agree. However, it's accepted, even more on the far left than on the far right, that pretty much all media, advertising, and entertainment is propaganda. What happens if we continue to fail to recognize this propaganda as a threat to the kind of democracy we hopefully want—a democracy built on rational inquiry, rather than one built on the crest of emotion, on propaganda-fueled mass hysteria?

You want democracy? This is what Hillary's "democracy" looks (sounds) like: http://observer.com/2016/10/2006-audio-emerges-of-hillary-cl... (direct soundcloud link https://soundcloud.com/user-30899546/hrc-determine-who-win-1 )

The flip side of that is that there are pretty close to the same number of people that think a Clinton administration could do plenty of damage that would have ripple effects on society for decades to come.

I'm uneasy about judicial activism, in either direction. I wish that conservatism, of the Chestertonian, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" variety, was a requirement for such an august long-tenured position.

Didn't we get a list of these? In order, Trump will nominate his sister, Rudy Giuliani, and Chris Christie. He won't get more than three nominations, and Rudy can't end all civil rights for criminal defendants forever all by himself.

I've wondered about this but I don't think it would happen. Every single person but 3 that I know who is voting for Hillary or Trump is doing so with the upmost conviction that the candidate completely and entirely represents their values as belonging to the respective parties. It's as if the individual parties have become a religion.

And sure I know a few people who will vote for either party that represents their values and goals the most (I am one of them) but for every 1 person I know like that I know dozens of others who are as tied to their political party as their religion.

Yes this is all anecdotal. I have nothing else to go on. But now that he's the nominee I think more people than we might expect are going to fully support him.

Incorrect, they found no one who was "willing to prosecute"

Others could also argue that, despite his statements that have shown utter contempt for and ignorance of American law, history and political norms, he doesn't actually have a track record in one direction or another and is just saying those things to elicit support from his base. We can only hope...

In one breath, you express concern about the end of democracy, and in the next you disregard one of the vanguards of American government as if it's nothing. If we are indeed "past the point of laws here," then democracy has already ended.

Democracy is not getting the leader you want, it is not getting the best leader and it isn't pretty - it is a way to guarantee legitimacy by getting the leader most people vote for, no more, no less.