I find it very interesting

(and a little depressing) that people are so uncomfortable with the idea of a male First Spouse being just a First Spouse. It's pretty outrageous to suggest that the position of First Spouse be upgraded to Second-Vice-President when the First Spouse happens to be male.

For some reason, when the First Spouse is female, regardless of her level of education, career background and accomplishments, people assume that she has zero say in what happens and no influence whatsoever on her husband. People seem to think that the President doesn't even talk to his wife about the things he's working on and thinking about. (I wonder if this says something about how some men still treat their wives in the twenty-first century.)

Well, to those people, I can only say that Bill Clinton, when he is First Spouse, will be a traditional First Spouse. Hillary will listen to Bill as much as Barack listens to Michelle. Bill will have as much influence on the governing of the country as Michelle does now. To think anything else is not only sexist but also dangerous: the First Spouse is not an elected office and must therefore be a position that comes with very limited power. Fortunately, Bill is smart enough to understand this, and feminist enough to respect that his wife, not he, will be the one who is President.

What other minority group's concerns have "gotten old and dull"?

Pray tell. LGBT people's concerns: have they "gotten old and dull"? How about Jewish people's concerns about antisemitism? Or Black people's, or Asian people's concerns about racism? Is that "old and dull"? After how much time do we decide that a group has complained about unequal treatment long enough and should just shut up?

Let me guess: every other group that is and has been discriminated against has the right to speak out and deserves to be listened to, except women. Women should know our place and shut up. Right? Because no one wants to hear women talk about our desire for equal and fair treatment. No one wants to hear about women's perspective on the way we're treated in this society. The status quo, in which women know our place, suits everyone just fine, as long as women just accept it and avoid complaining about it.

It is so offensive that so many people think that women's concerns are irrelevant, old, or annoying. It is incredibly insulting. Sadly, all it shows is that women still are not considered the equal of men in our society. We're supposed to sit quietly, look beautiful and smile while we're young, and sit quietly, serve men, and disappear into the background when we're old. I'm sick of it.

This is great!

I've thought for a long time that Democrats should not have abandoned Howard Dean's idea of fighting in all 50 states. It's not right to ignore certain states because they've been red for a long time. People change, and their beliefs change. The Republican Party's ideas are weak and unrepresentative of people's interests. There is no reason we should not be able to turn several red states blue with sustained effort over several election cycles.

Seriously?

You're telling someone who has told you that she used to be suicidal and would have committed suicide if she had a gun, that she is doing a "disservice" to those who choose to commit suicide?

The insensitivity in your post is breathtaking. We're talking about people who are suffering so much that they are considering ending their lives. What they need is easy access to mental health services, not easy access to guns.

When you're considering killing yourself, moments count. If a friend shows up and talks to you, you can get out of the mental state you're in, at least temporarily. If you had a gun in your house at the time, your friend might show up only to find you dead.

This is not a theoretical argument. This is real. People -- sensitive, loving, beautiful people -- die every day because they get suicidal and are able to immediately act on that impulse. We need to do all we can to make life worth living for those people, not give them the tools to let them take their lives more easily.

This whole sub-discussion started with a poster claiming that suicides should not "count" in deaths by gun. If anything is disrespectful of suicidal people, it is that.

That's what they said about GWB.

That four years of GWB wouldn't be so bad, and that staying home on election day would teach the Democratic Party a lesson.

Of course, 9/11 happened, and for the next six years, the Democratic Party, along with the media, moved so far right that it almost became indistinguishable from the Republican Party.

If progressives had not convinced so many of us that Gore was just as bad as Bush, there would have been no Iraq War; hundreds of thousands of innocent people would be alive; the environment would be in much better shape; and ISIS would probably not exist today.

She is not against abortion in the third trimester.

She has said restrictions can be placed, which is not the same as saying she is in favor of restrictions.

To win the country, a presidential candidate has to be a politician. Being a politician means being very careful about how one answers questions. Bernie supporters seem to have a problem with that. They seem to prefer blanket statements that make them feel good but would sink the candidate in the general election.

If you actually listen to what Hillary says, instead of taking it out of context and twisting it into a pretzel, you will see that her positions are very progressive. That's why so many of us die-hard liberals support her.

ETA: Have you even read Planned Parenthood's endorsement of Hillary?

https://www.plannedparenthoodaction.org/elections/candidates/president/hillary-clinton

Trump is not as stupid as he looks.

I'm sure Trump is a fine person to have a drink with.

In fact, he often reminds me of people I've met at bars.

That doesn't mean he should be anywhere near the presidency. Quite the opposite, in fact. Who would want some drunk guy at the local bar to run the country?

I wish we could, once and for all, get rid of this idea that whether someone would be fun to have a drink with has anything whatsoever to do with whether they should be elected president.

People vote for men because of their gender all the time.

Check the list of this country's first 44 presidents, in case you thought otherwise.

If you think that all those men were elected president purely because of their abilities and qualifications and not because of their gender, you must have a very low opinion of women indeed. You must think we're intrinsically inferior -- that the chance that a woman is as capable as a man is less than one in forty four.

For some reason, it's perfectly OK for people to vote for men because they're men, but not OK for women to vote for a woman because she's a woman. Even as women, we are supposed to root for men, and join them in denigrating women. What a sick world this is.

Please don't feel bad about your weight.

Your weight is just a physical feature, just like your height and your eye color. I firmly believe that you cannot change your weight, just as you cannot change your height or your real eye color.

I am not overweight myself, but my spouse is "obese". So I know about the guilt and self-loathing that overweight people feel on a daily basis. I have found, personally, that I can't really control my weight. Years ago, I had to go on some medication that caused me to lose about 20 pounds. I wasn't eating any differently or exercising any more than before. Some people congratulated me; others expressed concern. When I got off the medication, I gradually gained the weight back. Later, I had to have a shot of Depo Provera for a medical procedure, and that caused me to put on about 10 pounds, which also came off after six months or so. Again, I had not changed my behavior.

I once read about how Ella Fitzgerald used to wish she were thin. How sad that someone with such a beautiful voice, who continues to brighten people's lives to this day, couldn't be completely happy with herself. We need to love ourselves and each other for who we are, not for what we look like.

Please just focus on loving yourself. You are so much more than your weight. Some of us out there know that.