The only part of this that I think is true is that at least you guys had only two strong candidates to choose from. The other losers drop out early enough that at least there is a clear winner. Our plethora of losers sucked so many votes away from viable candidates that our winner isn't a clear winner at all. Republicans should have had a contested convention but now it looks like we are stuck with Trump.

Sorry, didn't catch up on anything but this last page and only down to Antony's quoted post. I'm so indifferent to the campaigns at this point that I really have no desire to argue with anyone on these topics. It's actually quite a relief to be able to check out so soon.

Some random thoughts. Although I've never considered myself "Never Trump" there is no way in Hell I will vote for him in 2016. The best thing that I can come up with to say about Trump is that I don't know for sure if he will be better, as bad, or worse than Mrs. Clinton. Personally I feel that our odds of going to war under Clinton are greater and I think Justices appointed by her will be horrible. On the other hand, I really have no idea what Trump will do. None. He has taken virtually every position on any issue that can be taken.

Well, it does stand to reason that a party that hinges its success on the stupidity of the base wouldn't want anything in place to prevent the base from doing things that are irrevocably stupid.

To be fair, though, the system is in place. Everyone is saying that Trump has reached 1237 but not a single delegate has cast a ballot yet. He doesn't have 1237 until delegates vote. Now, it is unrealistic to think that delegates are not going to cast whatever legally obligated ballots they must for him but the fact remains. I remember when Kanye 2020 sounded like a joke. I seriously believe it can happen now although it might take until 2024 if he doesn't beat Mrs. Clinton in the primary.

Joe the Plumber 2020

sorry but 2020 i will be old enough to run

game over ************s

This reminds me of Karl Rove repeatedly telling Megyn Kelly that Ohio wasn't for sure going to be won by Obama in 2012 because there were still like 200,000 votes to be counted.

It doesn't matter if he hasn't "officially" been nominated or not. He's the effective nominee, and bringing up the statistically impossible ways that things could turn out otherwise is bargaining.

Among the many ludicrous things Trump kept and keeps saying this campaign cycle I loved how he complained how unfair he was being treated by the rigged system. The same system that had him winning nearly half of the delegates while only receiving about a third of the vote. I want this man to lose as big as Mondale.

If I were Trump, I would secretly finance Bernie Sanders to run as an independent.

If I were Trump I'd [removed].

[Edit: On second thought, I don't need the next PotUS sending the secret service after me]

I even have serious doubts about whether or not we will even have presidential debates this cycle. I think neither candidate has anything to gain by showing up. On the other hand it would be quite entertaining. Can't you just picture Mrs. Clinton hammering Trump over his tax returns and Trump pounding away on the speeches? Of course when she brings up his misogyny he'll bring up her enabling a sexual predator. I guess we're watching the filming of the Idiocracy prequel.

It'll be great; Trump can hammer her with Whitewater, Climton can hit back with Tuesday.

It's amazing that she's such an ideal and clean candidate they have to drudge up such old, tired "scandals" like Whitewater and Vince Foster. If only there were something more recent... But when Trump lied nobody died, am I right?

The problem is the Republicans agree with all of Hillary's mistakes.

You might actually be right. A debate between Trump and Clinton will be nothing more than a fling poo at each other contest, and as it stands, Trump can win that easily enough. Right now, all I want is for Clinton to become indicted, and someone else become the nominee. Hell, I'll even take Joe Biden, who I really don't like.

I don't have a problem with people rallying around a person. I accept that that is necessary and even good. I have a problem when that person has their head so far up their ass that they can't generate an even vaguely worthwhile implementation of any of the polices they would like to implement. There's a difference between a strong charismatic representative of a political ideology, and a person who really only brings to the table some vague ideas about expanding social programs, reinforced by angrily echoing the low effort, pretentious, popular perception of the flaws in our current political system. Bernie represents the seconds, which is why a far left politician has an overlap in supports with a far right, bombastic racist. The only things that's really being accomplished, is a growth in anti-establishment anger, and while people should be angry at the establishment, it has to be guided by something, otherwise you will end up with something even worse.

I'd rather have the ****ty amoral neoliberal than a barely coherent maniac that destroys what we have before we have a chance to find someone who can fix it.

Can you give a specific example of one of his major policies that's vague? I've heard others make this claim as well but his policies don't strike me as unusually vague. I could accept this criticism for Trump but Sanders' policies appear to me to be more often than not tied to actual detailed legislation, either put forth by himself currently or in the past, or by his colleagues.

That's really the thing about Sanders and his platform. Criticism of it reminds me of the Onion article that pops up every time there's a mass shooting: "'Nothing we can do to prevent this,' says only nation where this regularly happens."

This is a pretty vague criticism, you see that right? I just plain disagree with your assertions.

https://www.rt.com/usa/346534-wikileaks-clinton-assange-fbi/

The only team I'm cheering for right now is Wikileaks

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/crime/dnc-hacker-leaks-trump-oppo-report-647293

https://guccifer2.wordpress.com/2016/06/15/dnc/

What a fun time to be alive, when Wikileaks gets their part out, we'll have a nice view of the inner workings of the DNC

Thanks for putting us on a government list, Reid.

I cannot comprehend how they can not recommend an indictment. Comey basically admitted she was grossly negligent with the handling of sensitive information pertaining to national defense and other special programs. The "there is no precedent" doesn't matter one bit when you can prove that the law has been breached. I think they got to him. I do not want to live in the US, ever.

I do not want to live in Mexico, ever.

It's totally rational and justifiable to despise Hillary Clinton, but the email thing isn't nearly as serious as it's made out to be. Very little information really needs to be classified, and the US has a massive glut of unnecessarily classified material. I really doubt, even if a foreign entity did get access to any emails, it really did any damage to the security of the US.

Sure, it shows Hillary's technical incompetency, but we didn't need the email thing to know about that.

Really, the email thing is just a vector to attack Hillary but has little meaning in itself.

What people really should be saying is, Hillary is dangerous because she's a warmonger and is allied with a very dangerous rogue state.

You mean Saudi Arabia?

Or maybe he is being honest? Basically what Comey said is that Clinton is irresponsible and incompetent, but what she did follows a pattern of weakly punished misconduct at the State Department, and that effectively blocks prosecution. Probably because of the 14th Amendment. I mean, I'm not a lawyer or anything.

On the subject of alt universe fantasy lives, though, who exactly is "they"? The Democrats want Clinton because she plays ball, sure. But the Republicans want Clinton, too, because she is their best chance at winning; an indictment would probably send the nomination to Sanders or Biden, and both poll stronger in a general election. So I'm not really sure who is the "they" that needed to "get to him".

No I mean the US State Department.

Though her Saudi support undermines any claim she has to being a human rights supporter

Good thing for her they didn't find the name "Valerie Plame" in there.

It's also a good thing for her that they didn't find she intentionally leaked classified information to discredit a political opponent for personal benefit at the expense of the whole country. Right?

It is good for her that they didn't find that, too. Then again, maybe they did. Comey did outline a tremendous open and shut case.

According to the director, they prosecute violations of that law very sparingly because the law itself is possibly unconstitutional and there is a very real possibly of it being struck down if they took Hillary to court over it.

It's utterly bizarre how the Republicans can't accept the fact that she her actions were deemed to be extremely careless and irresponsible. They can't accept a victory; they have to keep pushing until it turns into a defeat.

Yeah. It's strange that a Republican would push for charges against Libby, but the same Republican wouldn't press for charges against Clinton. Almost like they are totally different cases and comparing them is foolish.

Libby? What on Earth does he have to do with anything? I mean, sure, that was a politically motivated prosecution but we can't even get that accomplished today. Besides, I know facts are inconvenient but are you really going to pretend that it was Libby that "outed" Plame?

I recently read a news article stating Chelsea Manning evidently attempted suicide.
It's not a fair comparison, but the treatment of Clinton's intentional disregard of the law regarding diplomatically-sensitive information is dramatically different from the treatment of Manning's intentional sharing of similar information.

I've heard that there is a correlation between suicide and transgendering. Still, although you said it's not a fair comparison, the two case are remarkably different. I don't recall all of the facts surrounding the Bradley Manning case but he was involved in the intentional release of classified information. Clinton's motive was to obscure information from the public record, a crime, and in doing so mishandled classified information in such a manner to make it highly likely to be intercepted by those not authorized access to it. Another crime.

Also, it is important to note that the State Department conducts many covert operations and information from her servers most likely contained operational information as well. Not just diplomatically sensitive documents.

Finally, it is absolutely amazing that if I were in the position to be sending Mrs. Clinton email containing classified information I would be subject to actions ranging from administrative to criminal.

The FBI says her motive was to use a Blackberry. Where's your proof? If you have any, I'm sure Fox News or another conservative media company would gladly pay you a lot of money for the story.

Fine. Since I have no proof I amend my previous statement. Clinton's alleged motive was to use a Blackberry and in doing so obscured information from the public record, a crime, and mishandled classified information in such a manner to make it highly likely to be intercepted by those not authorized access to it. Another crime.

Great. So let's talk about these points:

The definition of a record is fairly narrow, and does not include all e-mails. Clinton's use of a private server was not a secret inside the State Department, and she made an early and voluntary effort to return records to the Department when her tenure ended. Do you have specific evidence that any of the deleted or withheld e-mails meet the test for a record? If so, that kind of information would be worth a lot of money.

The State Department has a very poor history for e-mail security. Clinton's server used Exchange with encryption, later using a vendor-signed certificate, and earlier using a self-signed certificate (technically better IMO, but it doesn't work as well with locked down devices). Exchange and its crypto modules are FIPS 140-2 certified, which even the State Department email servers aren't (even though they're required to be). It was very stupid of her to assume that personal responsibility, but there's no credible evidence that the e-mails were any more or less safe than they would be on a server managed by the federal government.