>>>Well, it happened as you say in a debate (before the election), when he uttered the words, and it was appalling.
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>Please be precise: exactly what words did he "utter" in the debate that HRC and now you call appalling? I'm not after vague truisms, just trying to understand why you vilify Trump and glorify others over the same things.

First, I am not after glorifying or vilifying anyone. I think I mentioned twice in my previous post that I don't care about HRC's reputation. However, I think it is Trump, as an elected official, who should be in the public eye. It is more of a practical issue, rather than moral.
Trump had made statements that "the system is rigged" during the campaign before that debate. At the debate, the question was about these very statements that he's been making, and when asked if he'd accept the election results he said: “I will look at it at the time, I will keep you in suspense.” In the days after, he went on campaigning making the same statements about the rigged system again. Isn't that a clear attempt to discredit any possible unfavorable results?
Now, my question to you is, why do you subject HRC to the high moral standard, and yet give Trump a free pass? Moreover, why would you imply there is a moral equivalency between his attempt to discredit the potential results before the election, and her attempt to question the actual results after?

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>What baseless statement exactly, in the presidential debate we are talking about? If you're reverting back to the accusation of "rigged election" then even if he had said that in the debate: why is it saintly to say an election was hacked but demonic to say it is rigged?

Because one statement was made before the fact (i.e. unfalsifiable) rendering it as a pure attempt to discredit, whereas the other was made questioning actual results and raising a claim that went through a judicial process. I'm pretty sure you understand. And I am not necessarily commenting to the saintly/demonic false dilemma.

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>>>Whatever her motives, the recount led to restoring confidence...
>> And the judge in PA said that the recount would have *undermined* democracy...

If it's Judge Diamond you're referring to, then I have not seen, nor do I believe that the judge made the statement about "undermining democracy" that you're quoting. From what I've read it looks like the judge made technical comments regarding the lack of standing of Jill Stein's claim, invoked "irrationality" since it was obvious that Stein (in view of her election results) could not benefit personally from any recount, and concluded that he didn't even have jurisdiction over the case to begin with, since it meant overruling a prior Commonwealth Court’s refusal to order the recount... these are all technical details. For undermining democracy see my response in the first paragraph.

>>The premise was not as simplistic... as what? Certainly I agree that Wisconsin officials might have been concerned at the baseless claims about hacking and felt compelled to restore faith in the system, but that's not a vote of confidence in the so-called evidence. Seems to me that some people are quick to rear up in horror if Trump appears to cast doubt on the process, but then they do it themselves posturing as saints saving democracy- from their own baseless accusations.

Not simplistic as you might have implied. The recount in Wisconsin proceeded after a judge deemed it as appropriate.


>>>You may call it a crock, however, I still think that if you have a consistent pattern showing a meaningful difference between paper and electronic ballots, it should be reason enough for further investigation.
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>Not after officials show there's no plausible way the machines were hacked. You might like to review the full text of the savaging dished out by Judge Diamond in PA: the accusation was that results are tallied in a central computer that could be hacked... except that there's no such computer according to PA voting officials who also produced "compelling" evidence that the process could not possibly be hacked.

>The judge said the accusation of hacking was handled in a prejudicial fashion and "borders on the irrational" based solely on "spectral fears;" I call it a crock. Since Wisconsin uses the same process, it was a crock there as well. My explanation is that people are kinder in Wisconsin and gave her her way rather than dishing out a judicial slap. The outcome was the same both ways, except PA was spared the hassle AND the risk that all PA voters could be disenfranchised if he granted the motion at such a late stage.

I take that as your opinion. Other than that, I see no reason to disagree that people are kind in Wisconsin :)

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>>>Like I said above; HRCs reputation is rather inconsequential at this point. Should I dismiss her statement that specifically Putin himself was involved because of a personal grudge against her? I'm not so sure that it is false, nor do I think it's that important in this context, so I can't comment any further. However, the accusations that foreign interference occurred are serious, especially now that both CIA and FBI are confirming them as substantive.
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>Well, you might want to go and look at the actual statements by FBI and CIA including why they blame the Russians- because according to them, only a sovereign power is capable of hacking this effectively and they recognize patterns attributed to Russian-sponsored groups. Meanwhile the Republicans deny they were hacked, which is a crucial part of the interpretation that the intent was to damage HRC by only publishing one side of the hacked material. Wikileak's explanation was simpler: they couldn't publish evidence of Republican collusion and undermining of democracy because they had none, only HRC's. If that's true then the "crime" attributed to Russia is to find and publish evidence of collusion and bad behavior, not selective publication to hurt one side over another. Unless the FBI has better evidence that the Republicans were hacked, this isn't going anywhere.

I don't follow your reasoning (sorry, it's late here)... If the intent was to damage HRC, why would WikiLeaks or whoever look for compromising documents in the RNC system, when clearly the trove they were after was at the DNC, or elsewhere?
Otherwise, I don't know how the RNC could be so certain that their system is unbreakable. Certainly, I am not questioning the competency of their IT, but I wonder (sincerely) what might have determined the FBI to make those statements. Apparently, there have been RNC emails that have been collected by hackers and posted on DCLeaks in the past. http://dcleaks.com/index.php/the-united-states-republican-party/
I have not looked any further than that... however, even though I appreciate the candor of the WikiLeaks's explanation, I would not take it as overwhelming evidence...
In my view, it is still a serious issue.
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