So people are outraged by Trump not committing to accept election results? Remind me, did Al Gore accept in 2000?

Jeffy Tull wrote:

The American people should not accept any result if its clear the whole thing was rigged.

Never stop telling people this until they listen and understand. It is the most important thing right now, besides not going to war with Russia.

See Trump's problem (among other things) is he says what others think but refrain from saying.

Contrary to popular belief America actually has a long history of election problems and heated arguments over outcomes. 1876 was perhaps the best example. 1800, 1824, 1860 (Lincoln won with less than 40% of the vote), 1888, 1912, 1960, 2000 are all good examples.

Do your homework. It was Bush who filed the suit with the Supreme Court to *stop* the recount that would have awarded Gore the Presidency.

I posted this above, if the votes were counted how Gore wanted them to be counted he would have lost.

Trump likes to make up facts but so do his detractors.

Bush won the Florida vote. There was a recount. There were lots of lawsuits going on. Bush eventually sued to stop votes from being counted not by a uniform standard. 7 justices agreed there was an equal protection violation. 5 ordered to stop the recount and that mean Florida was officially won by Bush.

Ted Cruz would destroy just about anyone in a one on one debate. He was a collegiate debate champion at Harvard. Trump did OK in the Republican debates because there were 5 other guys. One on one is harder I think and favors people with experience.

It also shows what does winning a debate have to be with being a good president? They are probably not very closely correlated.

Cruz is my senator in Texas but I vowed I'd never vote for him when he went to speak at a pastor's event in Iowa AFTER he was told the pastor had advocated KILLING gay people by a CNN host. If you'll do that to get the religious vote what else will you prostitute yourself to do? Cruz is smart enough to know better. And I see a radio host called him out this year about it:

One thought.

I have no idea why Trump won't say the Russians hacked the DNC emails. He should just admit it because it lets Hillary distract people from what is in the emails. If Trump was smarter he would focus in what is in the hacked emails and the emails legitimately released by the US Government.

But my question is, is Hillary saying Putin is interfering in the election a way to delegitimize Trump, but also does it delegitimize faith in our electoral system or at least this election as being legit?

I just read this in Vox, "Trump’s attempts to cast doubt on Russian involvement in the hacks aren’t harmless. In fact, they’re helping Vladimir Putin cast doubt on the legitimacy of American democracy itself."

I'm wondering if it's the other way around. That Hillary by focusing on Trump & the Russians deligitimizes a Trump win if he somehow were to win.

How does Trump not saying it's the Russians help "Putin cast doubt on the legitimacy of American democracy itself" as Vox says?

Say Trump tomorrow admitted it was the Russians who released the emails, that doesn't change the fact that the emails are out there and all the stuff we've learned about them of the inner workings of Hillary and the DNC came from a Russian hack. People will use that info win they vote.

Yet every time the topic comes up on the DNC emails, Hillary pivots and talks Russians and specifically ties it to the election. She said this yesterday, "We've never had anything like this happen in any of our elections before."

and this "Even if you don't know for sure whether they are, do you condemn any interference by Russia in the American election?"

If Hillary were somehow to lose, don't you think some of her supporters would blame the Russians? and say Trump's win wasn't legit (not that he didn't get the most votes but that he got them because he was a puppet of the Russians or even worse in cahoots with them)

Vox article mentioned in post above is here: http://www.vox.com/world/2016/10/20/13346242/trump-russia-hacking-third-debate

Weldon, some supporters of the opponent saying a president is illegitimate is not the issue. That happens. God knows people like Wiggins have been whining such things about Obama for years. The candidate preaching to his millions of deplorables is something else entirely.

I think the reason to point out the Russian hacking is because many of us are sympathetic to fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine and don't believe that people should be allowed to benefit from stolen evidence. I also believe that the contents of Podesta's email is less concerning than the Russian meddling and Trump's clear lack of concern about it. Why would anyone think that the contents of a private email correspondence of a major politician wouldn't include cold political maneuvering? Do you think emails from the Trump campaign would be as bad or worse? He's much less transparent, after all (eg, taxes). But we aren't being fed those emails by criminal conspirators trying to alter the outcome of our election.

webby wrote:

Weldon, some supporters of the opponent saying a president is illegitimate is not the issue. That happens. God knows people like Wiggins have been whining such things about Obama for years.

You're calling me a birther? Quote me or go F yourself. Obama is a warmongering pig, but his eligibility was never an issue and I never said it was.

What I do say, and it is absolutely true, is that if you accept a rigged election, you abandon democracy. Go down that road and you are selling out your country and everyone in it. Don't be surprised by the heat you'll get from those of us who understand this!!! You have no right to expect civility from us, and you won't get it.

America. You're mostly great, but I think I speak for most of the developed, sensible world, when we say that you're making utter fools of yourselves.

I don't know why wejo is talking about felons voting as being an example of fraud. Felon voting rights are a matter if state law. In some states it is quite expansive and felons can vote even while incarcerated. In most states felons have their voting rights restored after meeting certain conditions, typically completing all parts of their sentence. In only a few localities are felons voting rights removed permanently.

Even if you are opposed to felon voting rights, this is all perfectly legitimate and in no way fraudulent. If wejo means something else he should say so.

Mr. Obvious wrote:

I don't know why wejo is talking about felons voting as being an example of fraud. Felon voting rights are a matter if state law. In some states it is quite expansive and felons can vote even while incarcerated. In most states felons have their voting rights restored after meeting certain conditions, typically completing all parts of their sentence. In only a few localities are felons voting rights removed permanently.

Even if you are opposed to felon voting rights, this is all perfectly legitimate and in no way fraudulent. If wejo means something else he should say so.

When Terry McAuliffe, a loyal Clintonian to the bitter end, tries to circumvent the law of his state and by executive fiat restore voting rights to 200,000 felons mere months before the election, and even after his state's supreme ct. shoots him down, goes back and "re-restores" voting rights to 13,000 of those felons, what does that tell you? The answer should be obvious, Mr. Obvious. You're not living up to your moniker.

Virginia is one of a handful of states that permanently disenfranchise felons. The state constitution, however, gives the governor authority to restore the right to vote, serve on a jury and run for public office.

So, McAuliffe is perfectly within his rights to restore the felons rights to vote. It is right in the state constitution. It may be nakedly political (and it is) but it is in no way fraudulent.

I suspect that if Virginia votes think this is executive overreach they will react by giving the Governor's mansion back to the Republicans next year.

LondonJ wrote:

America. You're mostly great, but I think I speak for most of the developed, sensible world, when we say that you're making utter fools of yourselves.

+1

I don't like US TV, but this election is by far the most entertaining comedy your shores has ever produced. Such a shame it will be over soon.

[quote]wejo wrote:

One thought.

I have no idea why Trump won't say the Russians hacked the DNC emails.

Probably because this is nothing more than a lie by the DNC meant to distract from the damaging content found in the emails.

Why would you believe a self serving word they say?

I am a lifelong Dem and am disgusted by what the Dem establishment has morphed into.

Tycobb wrote:

Gore wasn't going around saying it was rigged even before the election. Florida was close enough for an automatic recount. Big difference. Trump is basically working up the uneducated to hate the government even more.

The thread should have ended here. Trump is doing this before the election has even happened.

Now that's rich, the side of this election that has done NOTHING but sling mud is now complaining that it's not fair to sling mud. You have got to be fu**ing kidding me. I know people who have no clue what Hillary will do when in office because all she does is talk about trump. The MAJORITY of Hillary supporters couldn't tell you a single policy she wants to enforce because all they know is "trump is mean."

Meanwhile those that you call deplorable, even the dumb ones, could at least tell you they want to secure the borders and stop allowing corporations to go abroad without a hike in taxes.

wejo wrote:

If Hillary were somehow to lose, don't you think some of her supporters would blame the Russians? and say Trump's win wasn't legit (not that he didn't get the most votes but that he got them because he was a puppet of the Russians or even worse in cahoots with them)

I am confounded by your inability to execute any rational thought wejo. Do you really think those of us who are Democrats would blame the Russians in that situation? The frustration with the Trump vis-à-vis Russia is not that we are actually that vulnerable to Russian skulduggery in our election process--that is just NOT the case. The exasperation is that Trump had deep financial dealings with Russian and Kazakh money launderers, and that he has openly called upon the Russians to hack into his opponents e-mail. Like it or not, Russia is currently a hostile state, and Trump's attitude toward Putin and his connections with criminals there are a dangerous precedent. You miss the point when you dismiss Trump's refusal to acknowledge the essential integrity of our electoral system and claim Democrats actually think our system is quite so vulnerable. That is not the reality and it is not how Clinton or her supporters would respond in the unlikely event of a loss. (We might respond if Trump's open carry thugs hung out at the polls, or if there was nefarious stuff with vote counting--but even those scenarios are unlikely to be a problem on a major scale.) You lack an understanding of equivalency in reasoning and you lack knowledge of recent election history.

As I pointed out before - and no one has challenged since it is a fact - Gore not only won the national popular vote but a plurality of Floridians thought they had voted for him. Pat Buchanan, a third party candidate, acknowledged that his much higher than expected totals in Palm Beach county resulted from the butterfly ballots that confused many voters.

Post-election studies agreed that if all of Florida had been recounted, Gore would have won. Bush would have won only if they limited the recount to the four counties Gore initially requested.

The "uniform standard" rationale was transparently political given the incredible diversity of vote recording and counting all over the country. The Court knew it and were shameless in then asserting that their Bush v Gore decision should not be regarded as precedent for future cases.

So technically Bush won Florida and had the right to fight for his victory. But morally he was wrong. He knew he was not the people's choice either nationally or in Florida.

Weldon and Rojo, can you honestly say that if Trump were confronted with the situation that faced Gore, after the Court's decision, that he would have accepted it as Gore did. I have no doubt that he and his supporters would have been calling for pitchforks and torches and for 2nd Amendment solutions.