I have no qualms about voting for Clinton, Ask Me Anything

[Maggie and Jeff]

Neither is there any reason to think President elect Trump will cause harm to the ESRD program.

[Rerun]

Karen, you are a strong woman.  You sound Conservative to me.  Not wanting handouts, going to work and making it on your own.  The ones rioting have nothing else to do.  They voted.  That was their say.  King county gets all the votes anyway. None of us count over here.  3/4 of the state of WA is RED but we go blue.  WTF

Obama should be on social media telling the rioters to "quit whining"  like he did to Trump when he said he would wait and see how the election turned out. 

I admire Trump; the way he didn't quit but the Republicans were jumping off the boat right and left and NOW oh Trump is their best friend.  I hope he drains the swamp and replaces them all.

Obama did nothing for us either as Renal Patients.  The Affordable Care Act is NOT Affordable anymore.

[MooseMom]

Rerun, Trump will not be able to drain the swamp because most of the swamp was reelected in Congress.  Paul Ryan is still there.  McConnell is still there.  They are all still there.

[Rerun]

They may be there but President Trump can ignore them.  Not ask their opinion etc.  I'm so mad that NOW they are behind him and anxious to work with him.  Kind of like Mean Girls in school. 

I at least wanted to give Obama a chance but he did nothing in my opinion.  Nothing good anyway.  When he turned his back on police that is when he lost all my respect.  He presumed the police guilty before finding out all the facts.  Notice after the trials were complete most (not all) were acquitted. 

I'm sorry you are sad your Candidate didn't get elected.  She won the popular vote and I would be mad too EXCEPT all I heard from the Liberal media all week before the election was how the Electoral Vote is what counts and All Hillary needed was 270.  So, I guess we need to accept that.

[MooseMom]

1.  I accept the results as per the constitutionally mandated Electoral College.  I am not claiming the election was rigged; can you imagine if Clinton had won the electoral vote but not the popular vote? 

2.  Obama bent over backwards to show support for both police and for victims of police misconduct.  In this particular debate, one cannot pick a side, rather, one has to recognize the difficulties and injustices experienced by both groups.

3.  It seems to have escaped most people that Mr. Trump's lawyers are due in court on Nov 28 for a fraud trial.  The president elect faces all sorts of federal charges and legal challenges.  He will be mired down in all of this mess before he even gets to his inauguration day.  Those in Congress who opposed him during his campaign will have all sorts of legal ammunition in their arsenal, so President Trump won't be able to just "ignore" the will of Congress.  Despite the fact that Mr. Trump has told us all that only he "can fix it", he cannot without the support of Congress.  Politics is not like business; that will be his first lesson.  Can he work with Paul Ryan?

4.  On a brighter note, since the markets feel that Mr. Trump is "on the side of business", and since the markets (Big Pharma) are now happy that Hillary Clinton, who proposed regulating the pricing of prescription drugs, was not elected, my portfolio has earned me a fistful of dollars in just 24 hours.

5.  I really am not given to conspiracy theories, but I do confess to being concerned about Russian influence on this election.  Putin is becoming more authoritarian the longer he is in power, and knowing that he is pleased with the outcome of our election, well, that does give me some pause.  Did you see the video clip of him and his officials drinking to the result?  I really hope I am worrying for no good reason.

6.  I do wish Mr. Trump all the best, and I truly look forward to the billions of dollars he plans to use to rebuild our nation's infrastructure.  I was at LaGuardia recently, and it's a dump.  We are supposedly a first world country, but you'd never know it, especially if you spend time travelling abroad and marvel at others' airports and motorways.  I look forward to having our manufacturing jobs restored and having many more people employed in the rural areas of our country.  I want to see everyone prosper by having enough to eat and by having access to medical care and by having access to a good education.  I want to see everyone represented no matter where they live, what color they are or what their religious affiliation may be.  I want to see respect for each other restored.  This will all be on Trump's shoulders.  He has promised us that this is what he is going to do. 

On a personal note, I would find it much easier to accept Mr. Trump if he apologized to President Obama for the whole birther movement.  That was such a horrible, horrible thing.  President Obama didn't deserve that, and it did so much to hurt us all.  It was all a lie, such a lie.  Mr. Trump needs to show a LOT of grace.  His behavior will be closely scrutinized.  He really does need to apologize for that.

[Deanne]

Karen, you are a strong woman.  You sound Conservative to me.  Not wanting handouts, going to work and making it on your own. 

I'm not Karen, but I'm also a strong woman. I'm also VERY liberal. I don't want handouts and I go to work every day. I'm single and own a nice house with a mortgage that'll be paid off about 20 years early, I help my neighbors, am kind to strangers, ...

And I'm sorry Trump was elected. I'm also trying hard to keep this in mind:

"I hope Donald Trump is a good president. Wanting him to fail is like wanting the pilot to crash the plane that we ALL are on."

[MooseMom]

These are the Republicans who wanted President Obama to fail and did not care about the American people:

Representatives Eric Cantor (VA), Kevin McCarthy (CA), Paul Ryan (WI), Pete Sessions (TX), Jeb Hensarling (TX), Pete Hoesktra (MI), and Dan Lungren (CA).  Also, at that infamous meeting were Republican Senators Jim DeMint (SC), Jon Kyle (AZ), Tom Coburn (OK), John Ensign (NV) and Bob Corker (TN).

Among those who were not in government at the time who vowed that night to undermine every single thing that the President sought to accomplish were Newt Gingrich who is now seeking a position in Trump's cabinet.

These people wanted the plane to crash.  These people only wanted to regain political power and to hell with anyone or anything else.  These people forgot all of those people who talked so eloquently about having felt forgotten.  Those Trump voters were on that damned plane, but they didn't know that the pilot was being held hostage by these domestic terrorists.

What is even worse is these people ARE THE SWAMP, the very swamp that Trump wants to drain.  These are the people who are the very embodiment of why Washington doesn't work.  Many of them are still in power (looking at you, Paul Ryan). 

[Simon Dog]

These are the Republicans who wanted President Obama to fail and did not care about the American people:

Agreed.

Are you saying there will not be Democrats who place a higher priority on making Trump fail than the good of the country?

electoral vote but not the popular vote? 

Irrelevant, since we would have had different results (not saying a different winner, though that could happen) if the candidate campaigned knowing the popular vote counted.  Trump would not have written off CA, NY and MA and Clinton would have spent more time in fly over country, which might have changed how some people voted.

In this particular debate, one cannot pick a side

People can, and do, pick side.  Police side with their own regardless of facts, and the BLM movement picked a side in the Tayvon Martin shooting without looking at the same facts the police and prosecution did (until a politically motivated prosecution ensued).

[MooseMom]

Simon Dog, yes, I am saying that there will not be high ranking Congressional Democrats who will be plotting the demise of a Trump presidency on the very night of his inauguration.

I think you've missed my point regarding the popular vote, but it doesn't really matter enough to me to try again.

However, I should have been clearer about taking sides.  I meant to say that the President, no matter who that person is, should not take sides.  I honestly do not think that President Obama took sides.  I would have been disappointed if he had.  It was important that he recognized the anguish of the families of those people who were shot and killed by the police for no good reason while also recognizing the danger faced by the police and showing gratitude for their service. 

[Rerun]

Donald Trump just won Arizona.  11 more Electoral votes.  I wonder what this will do to the popular vote.  I still have a problem with winning 290 to 228 and not winning the popular vote.  I am going to go add them up.  I bet the liberal media is lying to us AGAIN. 

[MooseMom]

Donald Trump just won Arizona.  11 more Electoral votes.  I wonder what this will do to the popular vote.  I still have a problem with winning 290 to 228 and not winning the popular vote.  I am going to go add them up.  I bet the liberal media is lying to us AGAIN.

Well, it's not like the first time this has happened.  Al Gore won the popular vote in 2000 but the Presidency went to George Bush.  Oh, but maybe that was just all lies from the liberal media.

What should also bother you, though, is who Trump is looking to appoint to his transition team.  He is appointing old establishment figures from the Bush/Cheney administration along with lobbyists from Big Pharma and other special interests.  So much for "draining the swamp".  He's not even in office yet, and he has already broken one of his biggest campaign promises to us.

[Rerun]

That is right.  He isn't even in office yet.  Let's  wait and see.  Draining the swamp to me is all the corrupt LEFT in there.

I don't think we will ever agree on who the swamp monsters are.   

[MooseMom]

Rerun, Trump called out all of Congress, so according to him, Congress as a whole is the swamp.  He specifically targeted his ire at Paul Ryan.  You and I might not agree who the swamp monsters are, but Trump has already told us.

[Maggie and Jeff]

No matter how hard it is.....

This is the home of the Brave and the land of the Free...

United We Stand...

Divided we fall..

In 2020, God willing, there we be a new election..

If President Trump runs again you can vote against him.  (I might, I'm not sure yet)

When President elect Trump is President..

I will stand behind him.........

Just like I stand behind President Obama..

Who I did not ever vote for....

This is the United States of America ..

A republic experiment...

Americas are a blend..

We are a mixing pot of peoples.

Have Pride in your Country and be a Brave Free American................................... 

Support our President and the President elect.



















Think about it anyway....

[Michael Murphy]

When the cabal of republican senators announced that the senate would only vote on scouts nominations from republican presidents they started a split in the government.  They set the rules, in the last 8 years they road blocked Obama at every turn. Now you think it is time for every one to come together. Hell no.  There is enough demcrats in the senate to block anything trump wants to do. Filibuster still works.  In addition during the 8 years of Bush the lesser I at that time spoke of the President with the respect the office deserved then.  Now after 8'years of Republican attacks of the office and Obama Personally.  I now bestow the name I will use to refer to our President.  He is President Drumpf the idiot, court jester of Emperor Putin.

[Rerun]

It didn't matter what the house and senate said..... OBummer did it anyway in his executive orders.  That set the rules too.

The Stock Market is up again.  ding ding ding ding ding

[Athena]

Well it seems very obvious to many of us external observers that many Americans DID have very serious qualms about voting for Clinton, afterall. We were all told on the day before the election to prepare for the election victory of HC. I still can't believe how astonishing it's been to see the opposite result occur. It has caught EVERYBODY by complete surprise.

Personally, it was crystal clear to me why Trump was voted in. I have never paid any attention whatsoever to all the personal attacks and politically motivated charges made against him but always paid attention to his proposed policies & his general prescription that a serious change to the free-trade globalisation status quo needed to be made & all the inequities & injustices that come with this. The suffering silent majority that is forgotten and ignored is a very real phenomenon not just in the US but in other developed countries.

Now having said that, I have not looked at his health policies in any great detail. Obamacare is going to be scraped. I don't know if what he is proposing to introduce in its place will be better or worse, but I do know that many Americans were not necessarily better off under Obamacare (correct me if I'm wrong). DJT does not strike me as someone who's interested in making many people worse off under his health reforms compared to his predecessor. This remains to be seen of course.

[MooseMom]

Athena,

1.  More people voted for Hillary Clinton than voted for Donald Trump, so there were more people who had serious qualms about Donald Trump.  I'm not saying that to whinge, rather, I just want you to know the facts.

2.  As you have paid attention to his policy proposals, could you explain them to the rest of us?

3.  Obamacare will not be scrapped.  Donald Trump has already said that there are things he likes about it, such as the bit where you can't be denied coverage if you have a pre-existing condition.  Whether or not a person is "suffering" under the ACA depends entirely upon in which state you live.  The ACA was never meant to be run from a federal level.  You probably know that "states' rights" is a big deal here, so the idea was for each state to run its own insurance exchange.  However, governors of red states made the political decision to return the power to the federal government.  People in Kentucky like their system until they find out it is actually Obamacare but with a different name.  Also, one facet of the ACA is the expansion of Medicaid in the states, and again, people in the states that have chosen to expand Medicaid are not "suffering".   Those who now have coverage under an expanded Medicaid in their state will suffer if that coverage is now denied them.  So, repealing the ACA might have worked on the campaign trail, but now Mr. Trump is responsible for peoples' lives.  I am all for fixing the ACA so that it does work for everyone, but Mr. Trump is going to have to fight the elites in Congress.

4.  The fact that you (nor the rest of us) do not have any idea what he intended to replace the ACA with should tell you something.

5.  One can learn a lot about a president-elect from his choices for his transition team and his advisors.  Remember that Mr. Trump does not have political experience, and that is why may people voted for him (and I understand this entirely and do not necessarily disagree).  I agree with him in that DC is a "swamp" and that it should be drained.  So far, he has been choosing people from the George Bush era.  He is in danger of replacing the current swamp with the previous one.  The swamp is filled with jackals, and they sense blood, red and naïve.  They sense that Mr Trump is an empty vessel (not to mean that he is stupid, rather, he is inexperienced, which is no sin but it is fact), and I am very concerned that they will manipulate him.  Remember that Mr. Trump will be the very first president that has never held elected office and has never governed.  He does not (yet) have the skill set, which, again, is no sin but it is fact.  His supporters voted for him because they wanted an "outsider", yet Congress remains essentially unchanged.  The House and Senate leaders remain in power.

So you see, the election of Trump is only one very small piece of the puzzle.  All of the people who "forgot the forgotten" are still in place, still in power, because "the forgotten" voted them back in.

If you have any questions, let me know!

[Charlie B53]

I think the public is catching onto the idea of getting rid of the career politicians.  POTUS was elected as a NON-Politician.  This is just the beginning.  In the next 8 years elections we should see many of the 'Old Guard' Politicians replaced with more of these NON-Politicians.  New faces.  They may be running on a party ticket but they are really new, not totally indoctrinated into following strict party guidelines.

It is going to take at least the next 8 years before we see a real change in Congress.  Getting rid of the Party hardcases.  Stopping so much of the greediness, and actually beginning to forge a stronger, more responsible Government.

[Rerun]

If you would have watched Fox News just one night a week, you would KNOW that Newt Gingrich and Rudy Giulani were his, seems like, ONLY cheerleaders.  They exonerated his thinking and cheered him on to the end. Of course he will find a place for them.  They deserve it.  Same for Reience Priebus, he deserves a place in the Cabinet.  I don't have cable.  So, I would watch CBS and then Fox at dialysis and could SEE Clearly the bias of the liberal CBS.  Wow eye opener.  I do watch both.  CBS would say and even laugh about him even running for president and lift Hillary up on a pedestal. Fox would show Hillary's crooked side and tell Donald to quit the showboating and stick to the policies. 

Now CBS is saying Trump is ALREADY lying.  He is going to keep the existing condition part of Obomacare.  Like that is a bad thing?  He should scrap it and then act like he made it up.  He is also going to keep that parents can keep their kids on their insurance until they are 50 or I mean 26. 

We are talking Health Care.  So just because Trumps uses the word "Insurance" he is not plagiarizing. 

[MooseMom]

I think the public is catching onto the idea of getting rid of the career politicians.  POTUS was elected as a NON-Politician.  This is just the beginning.  In the next 8 years elections we should see many of the 'Old Guard' Politicians replaced with more of these NON-Politicians.  New faces.  They may be running on a party ticket but they are really new, not totally indoctrinated into following strict party guidelines.

It is going to take at least the next 8 years before we see a real change in Congress.  Getting rid of the Party hardcases.  Stopping so much of the greediness, and actually beginning to forge a stronger, more responsible Government.

Getting rid of "career politicians" was one of the main planks of Trump's campaign platform, but he has named the head of the RNC as his chief of staff, so....

Voters had the chance to be rid of "career politicians" this past Tuesday, but they didn't take it.  The only thing that really changed is the addition of two Democratic seats in the House and two in the Senate.  Voters will have another chance in two years' time.  Part of the problem is that our political landscape is so toxic that it would give anyone pause to enter the fray.  Many congresspeople complain that most of their time is spent raising funds for the party, so nothing much will change unless and until we do something about how any and all elections are funded.

My concern is that if you look at the numbers, our electorate is more polarized than ever.  The candidate that got the most votes did not win.  The majority of people who voted did not vote for Donald Trump.  Voter turnout was lower than it has been in 20 years.  More worryingly, in the Confederate South and in Arizona, there were 868 fewer polling places than there were in the last election.  Color mattered.  The irony here is that one could argue that Donald Trump may have been right all along when he aired suspicions that the election would be rigged.

There is no mandate.  There is less unity than ever.  I am looking to Donald Trump to address the nation on day one with a message of unity and a promise that he will be cognizant of the concerns of the majority because we are still here.

[Simon Dog]

Voters had the chance to be rid of "career politicians" this past Tuesday, but they didn't take it.

We need term limits.  Without then, voters will not say "yes, we need to get rid of career politicians so I will get rid of my current senator/rep who has finally achieved seniority and influence and replace him/her with a freshman senator/rep who will be powerless to bring much pork home for at least a term or two since other districts will have re-elected their powerful senior senators/reps."

[Maggie and Jeff]

Voters had the chance to be rid of "career politicians" this past Tuesday, but they didn't take it.

We need term limits.  Without then, voters will not say "yes, we need to get rid of career politicians so I will get rid of my current senator/rep who has finally achieved seniority and influence and replace him/her with a freshman senator/rep who will be powerless to bring much pork home for at least a term or two since other districts will have re-elected their powerful senior senators/reps."

Nah, we need to quit paying them..........................

[Simon Dog]

Nah, we need to quit paying them..........................

Excellent idea.  They would then go back to the private sector once they amasses enough influence to pedal that on the free market and make a killing.

[Athena]

I sure wish Obama & Hillary Clinton would come out to condemn all the violence that is taking place in protests against a perfectly legitimate & legal democratic election result to demand it to stop immediately! How tragic and sad.  I really think their silence on this is absolutely shameful & speaks volumes to us abroad as to who these people really are. What a sad time for Democracy.