2016 US Presidential Election Thread

[Yosarian2]

I think the whole server issue has really hurt her credibility/trustworthiness in the general public's eyes.

it hurt her integrity / intelligence in my eyes, that's for sure, and I'm about as liberal as they come

as an IT professional in state government, doing that kind of shit is basic levels of "no shit, sherlock"

It was stupid, certanly. It sounds like it's technically legal for the head of a department in the federal government to run their e-mail out of a server in their home, but it was pretty clearly a foolish thing to do.

I guess I just don't think that it's a huge deal, in the grand scheme of things. People on that level of government leak classified stuff to the press all the time and usually nobody cares. And she didn't even do that; at most you could say that she may have been careless with handling classified material.

[quadz08]

"lots of people do it" doesn't make it acceptable, and I don't know if "careless with classified material" is a good thing to have in a President

I mean, I don't think I'll be voting for any of the Republican candidates still on the table over Hillary if she wins the Dem nomination, but she's certainly not my ideal candidate

[Varian-]

What, to your republican mother, makes him a "decent candidate"? I really fail to see how Sanders can make people "cross party lines" unless they weren't remotely conservative to begin with.

She's probably technically a moderate in terms of actual views, but she calls herself a Republican and is registered Republican and usually only votes for Republican candidates. Maybe not the best example? But she said she might vote him for "at least being honest" which I think is less about him and more about frustration with the state of politics at large.

[Venmar]

Not American, so I don't really count since I won't be voting here, but if I could, I think my vote would go to Bernie Sanders, assuming he wins the nomination.

If Trump becomes president, I will hold a moment of silence for my southern brethren.

[Bella]

"lots of people do it" doesn't make it acceptable, and I don't know if "careless with classified material" is a good thing to have in a President

I mean, I don't think I'll be voting for any of the Republican candidates still on the table over Hillary if she wins the Dem nomination, but she's certainly not my ideal candidate

If you actually remember to vote this time.

[quadz08]

no worries, sammarino, I'll be voting

[Bella]

*San Marino.

[Yosarian2]

"lots of people do it" doesn't make it acceptable, and I don't know if "careless with classified material" is a good thing to have in a President

Eh. I honestly just don't see any of this as that big of a deal. Keeping an imperfectly secured e-mail address that accidentally received a couple of classified e-mails (even though those are supposed to go through diplomatic wire instead) was a screw up, both on her part and on the part of the CIA for sending that stuff by e-mail a couple of times when they weren't supposed to, but not a major screw up, especially since nothing actually got hacked or leaked as a result. It's not even on the same planet as cases where politicians actually leaked classified documents to the media for political reasons, and that happens all the time as well (and even *that* may be justifiable, depending on the details).

[quadz08]

we are clearly coming at this from different perspective - I can be fired with the snap of a fingers for deleting important emails or storing them on a non-authorized device, and that's the case for pretty much every government employee. I'm not enthused about electing someone who willfully broke that rule with

literally every email she sent or received

as one of the 5 most important people in the federal government

[Psyche]

but can you call it a non-authorized device

[Sudo_Nym]

One could also argue that an increase in transparency is an overall good.

[T-Bone]

"lots of people do it" doesn't make it acceptable, and I don't know if "careless with classified material" is a good thing to have in a President

I mean, I don't think I'll be voting for any of the Republican candidates still on the table over Hillary if she wins the Dem nomination, but she's certainly not my ideal candidate

Agreed. I am not enthusiastic with Hillary as the Democratic nomination, but other than maybe Kaistch, I don't think I'd give the GOP Nom a second glance. I think he's the least crazy of the lot. On the flip side I think Hillary is too moderate for my liking...

[quadz08]

One could also argue that an increase in transparency is an overall good.

it's not like she did it in the name of transparency, or that it even indirectly led to greater transparency - this argument holds no bearing

[hiplop]

I'm glad I'm not in the states! Your election looks like its going to be a Tea-party level conservative vs a moderate conservative in Hilary

[Yosarian2]

we are clearly coming at this from different perspective - I can be fired with the snap of a fingers for deleting important emails or storing them on a non-authorized device, and that's the case for pretty much every government employee. I'm not enthused about electing someone who willfully broke that rule with

literally every email she sent or received

as one of the 5 most important people in the federal government

It's not actually against the rules for the head of a department to use a private e-mail address for their job, and she's not the first secretary of state to do that, either.

I get that in most other govnerment positions, what she did would be against the rules, but in her case, it probably wasn't (unless, again, classified material was mishandled.)

Honestly, I think we keep far, far too many things classified, to a point where it seriously impairs the proper functioning of our government and public accountability for government actions; the massive obsession with secrecy in govenrment seems on some level to be anti-democratic, and I think we should move away from that as much as is practical and declassify the majority of currently classified documents and make it much harder to classify new documents without a really good reason. Especially since stuff like this, where someone gets documents that aren't classified at the time and then they become classified later, always causes such problems.

[Yosarian2]

I'm glad I'm not in the states! Your election looks like its going to be a Tea-party level conservative vs a moderate conservative in Hilary

Eh, her actual record in the Senate is actually reasonably progressive. She's not as far left as Sanders, but her voting record and her issues are a lot more progressive then most liberals seem willing to give her credit for.

[Venmar]

Should elect Clinton so that Bill gets to be "First Man" and then be allowed to throw crazy parties at the White House.

[MonkeyMan576]

I think Rosie O'Donnell's responding to Donald Trumps comments as being indicative that a "war on women" is going on in the country is overestimating the importance of Donald Trump.

http://news.yahoo.com/rosie-odonnell-ad ... RzZWMDc2M-

[SleepyKrew]

It's not just about Trump
and Rosie says as much in the interview
Which is in the article you linked
It's not very long

[Mina]

I

really

shouldn't have read the comments to that article. Now I hate 80% of the people on the planet.

(It also turns out that my uncle-in-law is a real live Trump supporter. I don't even.)

[zoraster]

trump isn't going to win the nomination in the end, but i think pretending like the things he's saying are unimportant is wrongheaded.

[inte]

you gotta hand it to the guy, hes charming in an arrogant kind of way.

[T S O]

I would have to admit, I really don't feel there is a war on women.

[Salamence20]

I would have to admit, I really don't feel there is a war on women.

This.

[MonkeyMan576]

I'm guessing Bush's war chest will win out in the end, and then he'll lose to Clinton, possibly with a minority vote if Trump jumps to the Tea Party. Clinton has lots of baggage and scandal is around every corner, but the Clinton's are pretty immune to scandal.