The 2016 US Election (Part III)

[Elheru Aran]

From here: http://www.rawstory.com/2016/07/republi ... ors-signs/

[Soontir C'boath]

It is in the article itself, guys. A WSJ journalist took the photo of it if that helps credibility.

That said, I think it's a non-story unless it's just taken that any blacks must take the stairs.

[AniThyng]

I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume there are also blue elevator and red elevators and this was just incredibly thoughtless.

[Knife]

Yeah, need more context. Is there White elevators, blue elevators, and yellow elevators in some sort of geographical or organizational system? While there are some GOPers who are just blatantly racist, I'm not sure the establishment would be so blatant with reporters swarming the place.

[Elheru Aran]

Granted, it's almost certainly some kind of color-coding that goes with the ticket to get into the convention, but on its own "White Elevators" does look pretty bad. That's a couple days old, though. It should go without saying that the Republicans wouldn't be as dumb, even on Donald Trump levels of dumb, to try segregating their own convention. It would be the final goddamn nail in their coffin.

Here's some more current news just from last night:

Donald Trump's campaign manager denied allegations Tuesday that Melania Trump plagiarized a Michelle Obama speech on the first night of the Republican National Convention, calling the accusation "just really absurd."

"To think that she would do something like that knowing how scrutinized her speech was going to be last night is just really absurd," Trump's campaign chairman Paul Manafort told CNN's Chris Cuomo on "New Day."

At least one passage in Trump's speech Monday night plagiarized from Obama's address to the Democratic National Convention in 2008.
Side-by-side comparisons of the transcripts show the text in Trump's address following, nearly to the word, the would-be future first lady's own from the first night of the Democratic convention in Denver nearly eight years ago.

New Jersey governor and Donald Trump ally Chris Christie defended the speech, saying, "There's no way that Melania Trump was plagiarizing Michelle Obama's speech."

"I just don't see it," Christie told CNN's Jamie Gangel in an interview Tuesday, adding later, "If we're talking about 7% of a speech, that was really, universally considered to be a good performance by Melania. I know her. There's no way that Melania Trump was plagiarizing Michelle Obama's speech."

Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus said at a Bloomberg Politics event Tuesday morning he'd "probably" fire whoever was responsible for including plagiarized quotes, though he added, "It all kinda depends on the circumstances and how these things are written."

Manafort said on "New Day" the words Melania used were not "cribbed" but are common words.

"There's no cribbing of Michelle Obama's speech. These were common words and values. She cares about her family," Manafort said. "To think that she'd be cribbing Michelle Obama's words is crazy."

The East Wing and White House declined to comment on the plagiarism story Tuesday.

Manafort said attacks on Trump's speech are due to Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee, being "threatened" by Trump.

"This is once again an example of when a woman threatens Hillary Clinton, she seeks out to demean her and take her down. It's not going to work," he said.

The controversy quickly overshadowed the speech, which was to have been her introduction to voters. It focused on her immigration to the US and her love for her husband.

The Trump campaign released a statement on the speech after the similarities were uncovered, but the statement did not mention the plagiarism charge.

"In writing her beautiful speech, Melania's team of writers took notes on her life's inspirations, and in some instances included fragments that reflected her own thinking. Melania's immigrant experience and love for America shone through in her speech, which made it such a success," according to Jason Miller, the senior communications adviser.

Similarities between Melania Trump's #GOPConvention speech and Michelle Obama's in 2008 https://t.co/hFPAf2maXl https://t.co/tmNgFDcEtO
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) July 19, 2016

Earlier in the day, Melania Trump told NBC's Matt Lauer: "I read once over it, that's all, because I wrote it ... with (as) little help as possible."

Here is [Melania] Trump, on Monday:

"From a young age, my parents impressed on me the values that you work hard for what you want in life, that your word is your bond and you do what you say and keep your promise, that you treat people with respect. They taught and showed me values and morals in their daily lives. That is a lesson that I continue to pass along to our son.

"And we need to pass those lessons on to the many generations to follow. Because we want our children in this nation to know that the only limit to your achievements is the strength of your dreams and your willingness to work for them."

And here is [Michelle] Obama, on August 25, 2008:

"And Barack and I were raised with so many of the same values: that you work hard for what you want in life; that your word is your bond and you do what you say you're going to do; that you treat people with dignity and respect, even if you don't know them, and even if you don't agree with them.

"And Barack and I set out to build lives guided by these values, and to pass them on to the next generation. Because we want our children -- and all children in this nation -- to know that the only limit to the height of your achievements is the reach of your dreams and your willingness to work for them."

The reaction:

"(To be honest), I was more offended by just about every other speech than Melania's plagiarized paragraphs," former Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau jokingly tweeted as the accusations went viral hours after Trump's address.

Tbh, I was more offended by just about every other speech than Melania's plagiarized paragraphs.
— Jon Favreau (@jonfavs) July 19, 2016

Journalist Jarrett Hill seems to have been one of the first to notice the similarities on Twitter.

Melania must've liked Michelle Obama's 2008 Convention speech, since she plagiarized it.#GOPConvention #RNCinCLE pic.twitter.com/vGmsG9KFx3
— Jarrett Hill (@JarrettHill) July 19, 2016

He's a big fan of the Obamas, and told CNN over the phone that one particular line from Michelle Obama's 2008 speech really spoke to him: "To know that the only limit to the height of your achievements is the reach of your dreams and your willingness to work for them."

When he heard Melania Trump start saying "the only limit to your achievements," he knew something was wrong.

Hill said he then Googled Michelle Obama's speech and saw the similar lines.

"It was kind of a total recall moment," he said.

After he posted the comparison on Twitter, his tweet garnered 16,000 retweets.

CORRECTION: Melania stole a whole graph from Michelle's speech. #GOPConvention
WATCH: https://t.co/8BCOwXAHSy pic.twitter.com/zudpDznGng
— Jarrett Hill (@JarrettHill) July 19, 2016

Um. This is becoming a thing.
— Jarrett Hill (@JarrettHill) July 19, 2016

Never gonna let you down?

In an even stranger twist, some on social media posited that Trump surreptitiously Rickrolled -- a common Internet meme involving singer Rick Astley -- everyone in the middle of her speech.

"He will never give up," she said of her husband. "And most importantly, he will never, ever let you down."

The chorus of the 80s classic sounds very similar: "Never gonna give you up/ Never gonna let you down/ Never gonna run around and desert you."

A bit of background -- Rickrolling is where you get someone to unwittingly click on a link to the video of the Astley song "Never Gonna Give You Up."

So, for example, if someone were to tell you to click here, saying it's another article about Melania Trump, and you click on that link, you would be taken to an Astley video and thus have been Rickrolled.

CNN's Jamie Gangel, Jim Acosta, MJ Lee, Nia-Malika Henderson, Kevin Liptak, Josh Berlinger, Maeve Reston, Phil Mattingly and Gloria Borger contributed to this report.

(in the interest of full disclosure I edited a couple of redundant lines out because goddamn that's annoying, and added [Melania] and [Michelle] to make sure it was completely clear who said which)

[Ace Pace]

Yeah, need more context. Is there White elevators, blue elevators, and yellow elevators in some sort of geographical or organizational system? While there are some GOPers who are just blatantly racist, I'm not sure the establishment would be so blatant with reporters swarming the place.

I'm 100% sure it was an oversight and not a deliberate "Jim Crows" situation but the fact the RNC has yet to provide any sort of proof of such elevators is simply sad.

[Soontir C'boath]

Not in this article, but Hillary spent millions of dollars putting up ads against Trump which have pretty much done nothing to move the needle and the email scandal certainly has not done her any favors in regards to people's views on her.

But hey, Hillary is considered better at winning the Presidency, so what do I know.

Donald Trump is within one point of Hillary Clinton nationally, according to a NBC News/SurveyMonkey Weekly Election Tracking poll.

Clinton has 46 percent support to Trump's 45 percent, the poll found. Last week's version of the poll showed Clinton up by three points.

When Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson and Green Party candidate Jill Stein are included, Trump leads with 40 percent and Clinton takes 39 percent. Johnson has 10 percent support and Stein has 5 percent.

Only 11 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning voters think the GOP is unified now, as the Republican National Convention kicks off. Half the party thinks it is divided now but will unite by November, and nearly 40 percent think the GOP will still be divided in November.

The poll also found that Bernie Sanders' endorsement of Clinton did not have a large impact for most Democratic voters. Only about a quarter of Democratic voters said his endorsement makes them more likely to support Clinton in November, and 72 percent said his endorsement didn't make a difference.

Still, 44 percent of respondents think the Democratic Party is united now, up 13 percent from the results of last month's poll.

The NBC News/SurveyMonkey poll was conducted from July 11 to 17 among 9,436 adults who say they are registered to vote. The margin of error is 1.4 percent.

According to the RealClearPolitics average of polls, Clinton holds a 2.7-point lead over Trump, 43.8 to 41.1 percent. Several other recent polls have shown a close race between the candidates.

[Elheru Aran]

Yeah, need more context. Is there White elevators, blue elevators, and yellow elevators in some sort of geographical or organizational system? While there are some GOPers who are just blatantly racist, I'm not sure the establishment would be so blatant with reporters swarming the place.

I'm 100% sure it was an oversight and not a deliberate "Jim Crows" situation but the fact the RNC has yet to provide any sort of proof of such elevators is simply sad.

Yeah, it would have been as simple as showing the reporters a few examples of the differently coloured elevators or tickets denoting coloured sections which were served by said elevators.

The racism angle is getting a lot of play lately I suspect due to the cop shootings going on...

[Exonerate]

There's an interview of the guy who helped Trump write The Art of the Deal out and it's not a very flattering portrayal of Trump. Choice quotes include:

“I genuinely believe that if Trump wins and gets the nuclear codes there is an excellent possibility it will lead to the end of civilization.”

If he were writing “The Art of the Deal” today, Schwartz said, it would be a very different book with a very different title. Asked what he would call it, he answered, “The Sociopath.”

"This year, Schwartz has heard some argue that there must be a more thoughtful and nuanced version of Donald Trump that he is keeping in reserve for after the campaign. “There isn’t,” Schwartz insists. “There is no private Trump.”"

[maraxus2]

Not in this article, but Hillary spent millions of dollars putting up ads against Trump which have pretty much done nothing to move the needle and the email scandal certainly has not done her any favors in regards to people's views on her.

But hey, Hillary is considered better at winning the Presidency, so what do I know.

Not very much, it seems. The numbers bounce around a lot, but the polling aggregate still has her up between 3-4 points over Trump. The important thing isn't really advertisement so much as ground-game, which is difficult to pick up in polling. The point of advertising is to define your opponent before they can define themselves, then utilize voter outreach and ground-game to pick up new support based on that framing of the candidate. Donald Trump is doing literally none of those things. Will it work? Who knows.

Best,

[Gaidin]

Didn't basically the same thing happen in '12? Obama managed to define Romney without moving the needle and lo and behold?

[Flagg]

Like I've said before, 5 months out and before both conventions, I don't put much stock in polls. And national polls are pretty useless anyway considering that the popular vote means jack and shit. When they start doing swing state polling after the conventions I'll start to pay attention to them. Even then, things can easily change after the debates, which will be awesome.

[maraxus2]

Didn't basically the same thing happen in '12? Obama managed to define Romney without moving the needle and lo and behold?

Yeah, pretty much.

Hillary doesn't need to win by chipping votes off of Trump's coalition; she just needs to make him (and Johnson and Stein) unacceptable to the Obama coalition and keep them going to the polls. If members of the Obama coalition are flagging, she needs to identify who they are, why they're not supporting her, and what kinds of messages work best to persuade them to vote for her. Since she believes in data-based campaigning, while Trump very conspicuously does not, I trust her to be able to do this.

[Napoleon the Clown]

Didn't basically the same thing happen in '12? Obama managed to define Romney without moving the needle and lo and behold?

Yeah, pretty much.

Hillary doesn't need to win by chipping votes off of Trump's coalition; she just needs to make him (and Johnson and Stein) unacceptable to the Obama coalition and keep them going to the polls. If members of the Obama coalition are flagging, she needs to identify who they are, why they're not supporting her, and what kinds of messages work best to persuade them to vote for her. Since she believes in data-based campaigning, while Trump very conspicuously does not, I trust her to be able to do this.

When I saw Johnson trying to court Bernie supporters I laughed a little. Gary, buddy. There's one issue with that. You definitely wouldn't even try to support the issues important to Bernie's supporters. In fact, you'd smother most of those ideas with a pillow.

Stein's the one that could actually grab votes from disaffected Bernie voters, and enough of Bernie's supporters in the primaries are gonna vote Democrat regardless.

As to the above article regarding the nearly non-existent effect Bernie endorsing Hillary had among Democrats: Well, no shit. Bernie's biggest popularity was from independent/unaffiliated voters.

[Grumman]

When I saw Johnson trying to court Bernie supporters I laughed a little. Gary, buddy. There's one issue with that. You definitely wouldn't even try to support the issues important to Bernie's supporters.

Speak for yourself. He wouldn't vote to start an illegal war that killed a hundred thousand people, for one.

[The Romulan Republic]

Strangely enough, I have encountered a number of Bernie people sympathetic to the Libertarians. Unless they're single-issue anti-establishment people or something, I have a hard time explaining it, because other than maybe some issues with current trade deals, Bernie economics and Libertarian economics are almost opposites.

[maraxus2]

When I saw Johnson trying to court Bernie supporters I laughed a little. Gary, buddy. There's one issue with that. You definitely wouldn't even try to support the issues important to Bernie's supporters.

Speak for yourself. He wouldn't vote to start an illegal war that killed a hundred thousand people, for one.

He'd also destroy the social safety net and potentially kill hundreds of thousands of people here in the United States. I'm sure his pacifism will come as great comfort to poor kids who can't get health insurance or food when Medicaid and SNAP are both privatized. Self-righteousness cuts both ways, you know.

When I saw Johnson trying to court Bernie supporters I laughed a little. Gary, buddy. There's one issue with that. You definitely wouldn't even try to support the issues important to Bernie's supporters. In fact, you'd smother most of those ideas with a pillow.

Stein's the one that could actually grab votes from disaffected Bernie voters, and enough of Bernie's supporters in the primaries are gonna vote Democrat regardless.

As to the above article regarding the nearly non-existent effect Bernie endorsing Hillary had among Democrats: Well, no shit. Bernie's biggest popularity was from independent/unaffiliated voters.

God bless Johnson for trying. He seems to think that saying "I'll let you smoke all the weed and promise that I won't get into wars" will make up for the fact that he has literally the opposite positions from Bernie on virtually everything.

As to that non-existent bump, it's likely that it happened prior to Bernie endorsing Hillary, as his voters were already migrating towards Hillary prior to his endorsement.

[Terralthra]

Or the bump merged into a dip from the FBI-related nonsense for overall noise.

I have people on my friends list who have said "If not Sen. Sanders, Gov. Johnson". Pointing out that the first policy proposal he has is to cut 25℅ of entitlements in the first year has made no impact.

[maraxus2]

Or the bump merged into a dip from the FBI-related nonsense for overall noise.

I have people on my friends list who have said "If not Sen. Sanders, Gov. Johnson". Pointing out that the first policy proposal he has is to cut 25℅ of entitlements in the first year has made no impact.

Sounds about right. I'm becoming increasingly convinced that people who supported Sanders during the Primary, and do not currently support Clinton now, are not doing so out of any particularly strong principle or policy stance, but because they personally hate Hillary Clinton. Why that is the case is personally beyond understanding, but she does seem to engender a lot of deep-seated personal animosity among people who do not currently support her.

[Elheru Aran]

Or the bump merged into a dip from the FBI-related nonsense for overall noise.

I have people on my friends list who have said "If not Sen. Sanders, Gov. Johnson". Pointing out that the first policy proposal he has is to cut 25℅ of entitlements in the first year has made no impact.

Sounds about right. I'm becoming increasingly convinced that people who supported Sanders during the Primary, and do not currently support Clinton now, are not doing so out of any particularly strong principle or policy stance, but because they personally hate Hillary Clinton. Why that is the case is personally beyond understanding, but she does seem to engender a lot of deep-seated personal animosity among people who do not currently support her.

Various reasons come to mind:

--Treasonous/criminal (the email thing)
--Corrupt (Wall Street)
--Transferred a certain hatred of Bill Clinton over onto her (history). This includes fun stuff like Vince Foster and all that.
--Democrat. Worth a pretty decent degree of dislike if your party affliation leans towards the right.
--Straight up good ol' misogyny. Or is that misanthropy? Misandry? Whatever. "Only MEN should be President, that's what the Founding Fathers intended, blah blah".

I'm sure there's more if you want to dig into that particular black hole.

EDIT: And of course there's the whole Obama thing. Either her being semi-racist during the 2008 race, or working for him and thus being tarred with the same brush. Neither will endear her to anybody.

[The Romulan Republic]

Or the bump merged into a dip from the FBI-related nonsense for overall noise.

I have people on my friends list who have said "If not Sen. Sanders, Gov. Johnson". Pointing out that the first policy proposal he has is to cut 25℅ of entitlements in the first year has made no impact.

Sounds about right. I'm becoming increasingly convinced that people who supported Sanders during the Primary, and do not currently support Clinton now, are not doing so out of any particularly strong principle or policy stance, but because they personally hate Hillary Clinton. Why that is the case is personally beyond understanding, but she does seem to engender a lot of deep-seated personal animosity among people who do not currently support her.

Some may just hate Clinton. That's a big part of it.

Some are more general anti-establishment people, the kind who just want to break the system and don't care how or what comes after so much. Though they likely also hate Clinton insofar as they see her as embodying the establishment.

Others might be single issue voters and just really care about one of the relatively few points where the Libertarians and Bernie line up.

Or maybe the just hate the Greens and so go to the Libertarians by default out of the alternatives (such as they are) to Clinton and Trump.

[Flagg]

I hate Hillary Clinton. I'm still voting for her and anyone who doesn't is flat out voting Trump since a third party candidate has zero chance of winning and will just have the Nader effect of siphoning votes.

[Napoleon the Clown]

I'll give Johnson this: He's siphoning more right-leaning votes than left-leaning votes, which I consider to be a very beneficial thing. We may actually see if few normally red states send a handful of electoral votes to a libertarian candidate. At the detriment of the Republican party.

[The Romulan Republic]

I have a bit of a soft spot for the Libertarians I wouldn't normally, because while a lot of Libertarians are nut jobs, Johnson seems like a decent fellow from what little I know of him, and moreover, I feel that the Republican Party needs to collapse. Which leaves the Libertarians, if they can make some notable gains in this election at least, as the obvious potential successor party.

[The Romulan Republic]

Well, its happened.

Trump is now officially the Republican nominee.

God help us.