So Trump has been working hard lately to set up a preemptive excuse for his impending loss this November by claiming that the election will be rigged. His surrogates were trying to spin his comments as not literal and that he meant only that the media was biased against him. However, he doubled down and contradicted Pence and Giuliani in the following tweets.Of course there is large scale voter fraud happening on and before election day. Why do Republican leaders deny what is going on? So naive!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 17, 2016The election is absolutely being rigged by the dishonest and distorted media pushing Crooked Hillary - but also at many polling places - SAD— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 16, 2016It appears there are people dumb enough to believe him.So my question, how big of a deal is this? This is Eastern European or Middle Eastern failing democracy rhetoric. You hear about this coming from Ukraine or Afghanistan or Iraq, not America. How damaging is this self-serving rhetoric to our democratic process?

The Republican Party is imploding. Even Glenn Beck is leaving Trump for Hillary. John McCain said he might write in Lindsay Graham for president. Multiple senators have asked Trumps to drop out. Paul Ryan is telling house republicans to cut Trump loose if necessary. Trump is attacking Paul Ryan in response. Ben Carson is trying to defend Paul Ryan while continuing to support Trump. It is all so beautifully. Christmas has come early this year. Please share with me the most Trump humiliating tweets, quotes, statements, clips, what have you from the past few days. Do you think Trump is finished?

My faith in human stupidity is stronger than my faith in human morality or prudence so I expect Trump to win. How do we defend secular democracy from his presidency? I really don't want to explain to future generations why I didn't do anything. Should we pretend Islam isn't a backward, uncivilized religion (like Christianity) so that we don't embolden the bigots (mostly Christian hillbillies) to carry out the pogroms they so desire? How do we counter his support for white supremacists? How do we keep new politicians from copying his playbook of making so many gaffs and lies that the media can't coordinate their efforts to keep him accountable? When Trump inevitably uses the government to punish his dissenters, how to we react so that he won't try it again? How do we keep the mindless masses from falling in love with the idea of dictatorship? The rabble loves a strong man. They are cowards and fear their own freedom. They can't wait to give it up for security. 

“I can’t believe that this world can go on beyond our generation and on down to succeeding generations with this kind of weapon on both sides poised at each other without someday some fool or some maniac or some accident triggering the kind of war that is the end of the line for all of us. And I just think of what a sigh of relief would go up from everyone on this earth if someday–and this is what I have–my hope, way in the back of my head–is that if we start down the road to reduction, maybe one day in doing that, somebody will say, ‘Why not all the way? Let’s get rid of all these things’.”Ronald Reagan, May 16, 1983

I cannot stand these Bernie or Bust people. They are so self-righteous and ideological. They remind me of Ted Cruz. To them, everyone in government is a sellout. No matter what the Democrats do, it isn't good enough for these left-wing purists. I really hope Hillary doesn't make the mistake of making any more concessions to them. They will spit on any olive branch she holds out. They don't have any leadership anymore so they cannot come together and make a set of demands. If she gives up fracking, that may convince 2% of them, the rest will want a guarantee of her opposition of the TPP. If she does both, that will convince 4% of them, the rest will hold out for universal healthcare for polar bears. Meanwhile she will lose all the people in the middle. People who think Trump is crazy but don't support big government handout will get scared away. If their holier-than-thou attitude doesn't turn you off, the stupidity of their demands should. The TPP is a smart free trade deal. Free trade isn't a conspiracy by big business, it's smart economics. I admit that economists have found that our economy is adjusting slower than predicted to previous free trade deals but that is an argument for helping workers adapt, not to isolate ourselves. Fracking reduces carbon emissions by putting coal plants out of business. We should use it as a transitional fuel. Why should Hillary Clinton adopt bad policy positions just to satisfy a leaderless and undependable group of relatively extreme leftists?

So it turns out it's not just me who thinks Hillary is the best option we have this November; Bernie Sanders himself has endorsed Hillary Clinton. I'm glad he came to his senses. Over the next couple weeks we will have to listen to the death throes of the Bernie or Bust movement as they learn to fall in line. They are actually going over to Hillary faster than Hillary's supporters went over to Obama in '08. I guess we can thank Trump for that. What do you think of Bernie's endorsement? Revolution betrayed? A victory for pragmatism? Is this the end of white youth progressivism? How about Jill Stein? She's on the ballot in almost half the states! Maybe she could pull a Ralph Nader and give the country to another knuckle dragging idiot!

Bernie Sanders' support largely comes from groups of people with historically low voter turnout so Bernie Bros shouldn't expect any concessions from Hillary Clinton. All she needs is the traditional Democratic voter bloc combined with the groups Trump hates and she will win.

Will the establishment be able to beat Trump and get Hillary into the White House? Or will Trump be able to rile up enough rubes to win?

With all the violence and death threats perpetrated by Bernie supporters in Nevada when they didn't get their way some people are concerned that Bernie is becoming the the Trump of the Left. Of course he did write some letter condemning violence and harassment in general but denied that any of his supporters have ever done anything violent. If you are curious here is a link to his statement:https://berniesanders.com/press-release/statement-nevada/One could interpret his letter as saying: "if you don't want to see more violence, the Democratic Party should make more concessions to the far left." So my question is: Do you think Bernie is using Trump's strategy of threatening violence in order to intimidate the Democratic Party into supporting him?

If the investigation into Hillary's emails by the FBI results in an indictment and the Democratic Party decides to go with a different candidate, who should they choose?

And we have a right to free speech. Does that mean we have a right to free money?

Lets assume that every single superdelegate will leave Hillary if Bernie gets a majority of pledged delegates. There are 1120 remaining pledged delegates. Bernie needs 727 more to get a majority of pledged delegates. That is 65% of the remaining delegates. Yesterday 2,988,612 people voted, 1,744,758 voted for Hillary, 1,243,854 for Bernie. That's 58.4% for Hillary, 41.6% for Bernie. He has to go from 17 points behind to 30 points ahead. So basically unless you reject math as a corporate whore, Hillary is the nominee.

Which alive intellectual is most influential on public policy today?

If special interests were in control, why would Trump have to self fund in order to lower corporate tax rates? Why does the so-called 'establishment' politician Hillary want to keep taxes higher? Are the corporations fighting against tax breaks? 

Now that Bernie has lost another set of states today, it is time for him to drop out and get his supporters behind Hillary. It is hopeless to continue and he will only be hurting the Democratic Party by attacking the nominee. Thoughts?

I am getting sick of Bernie supporters acting like he still has a chance. Fivethiryeight and every prediction market has Hillary beating Bernie in all of the upcoming states by a large margin. All I want is one non-extremist candidate and since the republicans can't get behind Kasich I have to settle for Hillary. For the sake of the country, please give up Bernie supporters!

Since Bernie depends so heavily on the young college student demographic, will the fact that students in Michigan, Florida, and other states will be on spring break during their primaries lose Bernie those primaries and the nomination?http://youtu.be/edty7RrNI9s

So I recently hosted a crawfish boil which entails boiling hundreds of little lobster-like crustaceans alive. I don't feel the slightest bit sorry for them but I imagine someone has an argument against such practices and I would like to hear them out. Is it ok to boil animals alive if it tastes really really good?

Does anyone actually believe getting money out of politics will fix American democracy? It seems to me that vested interests will still block progress using various other means. Getting money out of politics will probably just create a new bureaucracy that will favor the establishment and in the long run serve vested interests. They will probably be happier using taxpayer money to influence elections rather than their own money.

So my sister can see demons and has recently ran away with her boyfriend. Whenever we find her my mother plans on putting her through an exorcism (our insurance doesn't cover mental health and my dads is making a quarter of what he used to (because he works in oil and prices are low) so we probably couldn't afford to institutionalize her and my mom doesn't believe in western medicine anyways, she prefers faith healing and naturopathic potions (which is how she is treating her cancer but discussing that would be for a separate debate)). My question is wtf is going on!? Am I in an awful horror movie? Apparently there are people at my church (I am only secretly an atheist) who do exorcisms. Should I be worried that they might hurt my sister? I can't believe how weird my life has become. 

Who is your favorite philosopher and why? Which of his or her works is best? How have they contributed to your worldview? I am just curious because I have been doing a lot of reading lately and need to top up my reading list.

Have they bred amphibious goats that they will ride over the pacific to invade us? Do they have donkeys of mass destruction? Just how are these people in a unique position to hurt the US?

I have been reading/watching so much liberally-biased news that I now find it difficult to make fun of and disagree with the left. I have been trying to watch Megan Kelly and Bill O'Reilly but they are too boring and they try too hard to pretend to be unbiased. Does anybody know of any other good right wing sources that would help me see things from that point of view?