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Opposite for me actually. Though I am the only Democrat in my immediate family, they are all traditional Republicans. They've hated Trump since day 1. This is the first presidential election I can remember where no one in my immediate family wants to talk about politics. It's kind of been a relief actually, because I remember Bush vs Kerry in 2004 got pretty nuts in my family.

So anyway since they are all lifelong Republicans, they won't vote for Clinton, but two of my siblings are just not voting, one has no idea what she'll do, and my mother is going to hold her nose and vote for Trump. Of the four, my mother is the nuttiest--she watches Fox News every day for hours.

I don't get how people can vote for Hillary based on her absolute terrible judgment. She got off easy by just being called "extremely carless." She should be in prison now. She cannot be trusted.Trump will win this election.

I'm left wondering how long will it take for the nation to recover from the general election, one way or the other. I'm fully in support of Hillary but she's arguably not a grand uniter and Trump is absolutely revolting. Sanders still comes off as tone death to many in the electorate in light of the economic meltdown in Venezuela and a few other nations in our hemisphere with socialistic tendencies. BLM protesters are blocking major intersections; a well-known actor is calling the POTUS a Muslim again; Scalia's successor has not been installed, and some citizens and men (and women) in blue are now taking aim at each other, literally. All that and we're still trying to recover from the recent massacre in Orlando, FL,as well as the one a year ago in Charleston, SC. Perhaps the nation is simply no longer governable or it will take an all out global war to unite us against some nefarious force somewhere on the planet.

Instead of owning the plagiarism, and firing a low-level speechwriter, the Trump campaign is denying the allegation and blaming Hillary Clinton:

“There’s no cribbing of Michelle Obama’s speech...These were common words and values that she cares about — her family, things like that...I mean, she was speaking in front of 35 million people last night,..She knew that. To think that she would be cribbing Michelle Obama’s words is crazy...I mean, this is once again an example of when a woman threatens Hillary Clinton, how she seeks out to demean her and take her down..It’s not going to work.”

It now seems like the Trump campaign is complete disarray. Paul Manafort is now apparently throwing Melania under the bus. Really. MSNBC is now reporting that Manafort is claiming that Melania inserted the questionable text into the speech herself. They are also reporting that Melania skipped the Pence into because she opposed the selection, feeling his kids forced him into a pick he did not want.

This is likely to be an unpopular opinion but if HRC is elected POTUS and the Dems can regain the majority in the House, I think it's in the nation's best interest that Nancy Pelosi announce her retirement to coincide with Hillary's swearing in ceremony. It would give Pelosi an opportunity to exit stage on a high note and allow the House Dems to rebrand in advance of Hillary's potential reelection bid four yeas out which will be the mother of all battles. Now is the time for the Dems to start grooming the next crop of leaders. Pelosi's hardly hurting for money.

I mean, this is nothing new. Obama did it in 2008 with Deval Patrick (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/19/us/politics/19campaign.html?_r=0). Funny enough, it was the Clintons who called him out on it. The difference? He and his campaign eventually owned up to it and somehow turned it around into a positive. The Trump campaign coverup is worse than the "crime," and they should have simply followed suit. It's almost like their natural reaction to everything is deny, deny, deny!!! It's very alarming.

The hashtag #famousmelaniatrumpquotes on Twitter is a real hoot if you want a good laugh this morning.

Filed under "I kid you not!," I heard the following exchange today between the host and one of Donald's surrogates on a public radio program:

Host (reading email): How can Trump run on his record as a businessman when he's had multiple bankruptcies, leaving many people out of work and hurting many small businesses?

Surrogate: So, sometimes, you start a business and it doesn't work out. That's just how business goes. And if we're going to talk about bankruptcies, I'm sure that many people affiliated with the Clintons have declared bankruptcy, so you need to look at the Clinton bankruptcies.

I'm not defending Trump here. He's awful and his wife is, too. But I have no patience for double standards. Do any of you have thoughts on Obama doing the same exact thing in 2007 with Deval Patrick (twice) and in 2008 with John Edwards?

wonderfulwizard11 said: "Where did I defend the plagiarism of others? What I was pointing out is that Trump and his ilk have a lot of nerve to not just plagiarize, but steal from two people who have been subjected to vicious and racist attacks by Trump, other politicians in his party, and their supporters. That doesn't mean it's was right for Obama to plagiarize from Deval Patrick, but Obama also never used racial slurs towards him. My point was not that it's only bad when Republicans do it, but that it is more insulting because of the way Republicans have treated Michelle Obama for the past 8 years.



"Wow, Trump used racist terms on The President and his wife? Did not know that. WHat did he call them? That is horrible.

You know kids, just when you think you've heard it all, they just can't fess up and say "oops" or "my bad"...so now we're supposed to believe that (even though Milania told Matt Lauer she wrote her speech herself), it was farmed out to a free lance pro Matt Scully. And his completed text was turned in to the campaign before Milania got it. ...Now, none of the lifted texts were in the copy he turned in, but between the time he turned it in and Milania got her copy, all of the First Lady's quotes from her speech, mysteriously turned up, totally cohesive and making sense, in the final copy!!!!!!!!!!

So naturally, HRC was able to sneak in and make the changes and blah, blah, blah and WTF????? (And Hillary has a "trust" problem with telling the truth?)

Oh, I don't disagree with any