Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

He really is that stupid.

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

Oh FFS you might as well trust a 6-year-old with a flamethrower.

Not all heroes wear capes.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Quote tweet friends, screenshot enemies.

If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

We know you aren’t a Democrat but since you seem confused let me help you.

President Biden is doing good where he can, and getting it done.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

It’s a good piece. click on over. but then come back!!

“That’s what the insurrection act is for!”

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

Republicans firmly believe having an abortion is a very personal, very private decision between a woman and J.D. Vance.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires Republicans to act in good faith.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls 2 years from now.

The republican ‘Pastor’ of the House is an odious authoritarian little creep.

We will not go quietly into the night; we will not vanish without a fight.

with the Kraken taking a plea, the Cheese stands alone.

You are here: Home / Elections / Election 2016 / Open Thread: Interesting Times

Open Thread: Interesting Times

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Springtime for Donald! If this were a movie script, it’d be rejected as “too blatant — just clownishly over the top.”

Reader Interactions

277Comments

  1. 1.

    Adam L Silverman

    AL: The scheduling function fritzed again. So when I noticed this had missed it scheduled time to post I went in and manually fixed it. Unless you wanted it on hold. In which case: whooopsie!

  4. 4.

    Mandalay

    @Baud:

    It’s clearly unfinished. There are only four tweets.

    Indeed. What happened to the nineteen other tweets, the five articles, and the cartoon?

  8. 8.

    dmsilev

    I think one could reasonably describe Jeff Sessions as emblematic of the soul of the modern-day GOP.

    No, that’s not a compliment.

  13. 13.

    Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)

    @Mandalay:
    Well that certainly explains why she is doing so poorly in the primaries. She is not winning them by finishing 3rd or 4th like Rubio does.

  20. 20.

    SteveinSC

    I heard, correctly, I believe,that the Hillary “speeches” were just the usual bull-shit..”You wall street guys do soooo much for the economy buying and selling …” und so weiter, to justify the exorbitant fees So why not release them? The real possible, and likely, incrimination value is in the post “speech” Q&A, which will only dribble out via leaks.

  21. 21.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Mandalay: “I don’t know why Harvard bothered to show up, Smithers. They barely won!”

    ETA: Have the Oscars started? I forgot I wanted to watch Rock’s opening monologue

  22. 22.

    James E Powell

    If memory serves, there was a time not that long ago, but pre-campaign, where Clinton’s favorability numbers were pretty good, if not stellar. Did that change because she is now running for president?

  23. 23.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Anne Laurie: You’re welcome. I’ve followed up with Alain. When I first told him about the problem he replied that he wasn’t sure what was causing it, but he was going to 1) drill down and see if he could suss it out and 2) confab with MisterMix because he wants to make sure that whatever he fixes doesn’t make something worse happen.

  25. 25.

    Davis X. Machina

    @James E Powell: There was a Sady Doyle article about precisely this — re HRC, and Sen. Warren inter alia, recently in Quartz

    How can we reconcile the “unlikable” Democratic presidential candidate of today with the adored politician of recent history? It’s simple: Public opinion of Clinton has followed a fixed pattern throughout her career. Her public approval plummets whenever she applies for a new position. Then it soars when she gets the job.

  26. 26.

    Feathers

    WTF?!? The Downton Abbey finale is not tonight? I admit I am basically hate-watching at this point, but I was hoping for the thing to be over.

  27. 27.

    Anne Laurie

    @Adam L Silverman: Eh, it’s a thing that seems to happen whenever WP “updates”. Definitely a less-than-top priority, as far as I’m concerned — well below fixing the jump-to-past page problem, for instance.

  28. 28.

    JMG

    @James E Powell: Absolutely. Secretaries of State are seen as working for the entire country. Run for President, you’re another pol, one Republicans have been trained to hate for almost a quarter-century, and whom the mainstream media has loathed for almost as long. They blame her for the country not turning on her husband in the Lewinsky matter. We didn’t do as we were told — can’t be the fault of the tellers.

  29. 29.

    BBA

    “Really unpopular with the country as a whole” doesn’t mean shit to a fascist. None of the great fascist leaders of the 20th century ever won a free election – yes, the Nazis came in first in a fractured field in 1932, but the Social Democrats and Communists together outnumbered them.

  31. 31.

    Mike J

    @BBA:

    but the Social Democrats and Communists together outnumbered them.

    And hated each other more than they hated the nazis.

  33. 33.

    ThresherK

    @Feathers: No, PBS figured The Oscars has cornered the market for any TV viewers looking to watch “a bunch of fancy-dressed very-white folk hewing to traditions on the way out”.

  39. 39.

    Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)

    @Mandalay:
    Yeah, really poorly, only taking second place once.

    Give it a rest, nobody is convinced.

    EDIT: and for the record I would be laying the same cheese down if you tossed this sludge about Bernie.

  40. 40.

    Feathers

    @ThresherK: Best description of Downton I’ve heard is “a telenovela for white people.”

    I must confess that shows, books and movies which present an overly rosy view of the past bother me. I also find Miss Fisher’s Mysteries hard to watch for that reason.

  41. 41.

    Mike in NC

    After sweeping the GOP primaries on Super Tuesday, Der Trumpenfurher will celebrate by staging a cross burning. It’ll be a yooouge and very classy cross, too.

  43. 43.

    mike in dc

    The Trump election strategy would appear to be doubling down on the Romney strategy…maxing out the white vote. I’m not sure how many more points can be squeezed out of it…if you maximized white voter turnout and won a nearly unprecedented 2/3 of it, you could win with, say, 20% of the non-white vote. On the other hand, if he doesn’t pump white voter turnout, gets a more likely 60% of the white vote and only 20% of the non-white vote, it’s a blowout win for Democrats.

  45. 45.

    Ultraviolet Thunder

    @Mandalay:

    Well, I feel favorably toward Bernie too. But I want a full time permanent Democrat as the Democratic Party nominee.
    Among other objections.

  49. 49.

    delk

    Tapper on CNN asking Trump about David Duke.

    Please. Tony Perkins bought David Duke’s mailing list to start the Family Research Center and CNN has that lying homophobe on spewing his hate on a regular basis.

    Why don’t they ask him?

  51. 51.

    Larime

    Trump HAS to know who the fucking KKK is.

    Also, what happened to the Revolution? Bernie was going to win by bringing in masses of new voters, but primary turnout is DOWN. The only demo to turn out in bigger numbers this year is Black voters, who overwhelmingly went for Clinton.

    If the revolution can’t even work in the primaries, how the fuck does it win the general?

  52. 52.

    Anya

    @James E Powell: I remember when she was the most popular member of Obama’s cabinet. She was the cool Secretary of State who even the republicans complimented. Then she decided to run, and the republicans started attacking her.

    I am so old I remember when the media and the whole republican party were in love with the Clintons, specially Bill. Remember how cool he was during the 2012 election and how every republican talked about how much they liked working with Bill Clinton, unlike the uppity usurper who was running for re-election.

  53. 53.

    boatboy_srq

    If this were a movie script, it’d be rejected as “too blatant — just clownishly over the top.”

    Trouble is that so much of the Reichwing’s moves over the last decade-plus have defied humor, satire and virtually any other mocking by exceeding even what the comedians and satirists could invent. See: wingnut, peak thereof.

  54. 54.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Larime: Are you sure about this? Because my FB feed is all about the 10,000+ Berners who showed up on a short notice to a rally in Austin.

  55. 55.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Anya:

    unlike the uppity usurper who was running for re-election.

    I think in private they used a different word than usurper.

  57. 57.

    boatboy_srq

    @delk: D’you ever get the idea that Dobson’s and Perkins’ chief complaint against LGBT society is that ([gay people] = [fewer white people])? Because the combination of anti-LGBT animus and white supremacy is very thinly veiled with those two.

    It would be sad on several levels, not least the added invisibility of LGBTQPOCs.

  59. 59.

    gene108

    @Larime:

    Trump HAS to know who the fucking KKK is.

    If you are too ignorant to know who the KKK is, shouldn’t that disqualify you from holding office in the U.S.A.?

  60. 60.

    Another Holocene Human

    @James E Powell: Probably. But, they’re not that bad. Trump, OTOH, I saw his favorability figures compared to post Iraq GWB today. Trump’s in the toilet. McConnell is right to be freaking about holding the Senate. Just saying.

  61. 61.

    scav

    With all the explicit brand management and brave new digital avatar world, I think I’m going to assume the added static generally drowns out any signal.

  62. 62.

    oldgold

    @Anya:

    Do not have to be old to remember 2012!

    Do need at least some age to remember when they tried to impeach Bill and claimed HC murdered Vince Foster among other felonies.

  63. 63.

    Another Holocene Human

    @Mike J:

    but the Social Democrats and Communists together outnumbered them.
    And hated each other more than they hated the nazis.

    Not really.

  64. 64.

    Shana

    @BillinGlendaleCA: Yeah. I watched multiple episodes of Eyes on the Prize this afternoon. Great series in case you haven’t seen it. Anyway, they had a film clip of some southern official talking to the press before Selma and he actually said “Martin Luther Coon” caught himself too late, glanced at the camera and corrected himself. Nothing much has changed on that front (I mean what racists say behind closed doors.).

  65. 65.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    Anyone watching the Oscar’s red carpet shows?

    My Gawd, some of these gowns are incredible. Real works of art.

  68. 68.

    boatboy_srq

    @Anya: The progression seems to have gone like this:

    1992: Bill who?
    1993: BLEEP that upstart. Healthcare? Who needs it? Can’t we nail him with Whitewater?
    1994: YAY! Gingrich’ll fix him.
    1995: Can’t we nail him for anything? Not even Paula Jones or Gennifer Flowers?
    1996: Nothing?
    1997: VINCENT STARR!!! …. no?
    1998: AT LAST AT LAST MONICA LEWINSKY!
    1999: WHAT!?!?! Impeachment FAILED? Unpossible.
    2000: Praise Gun-Totin’ Capitalist Jeebus, he’s outta there. And we’re not letting that simpering intellectual Gore anywhere NEAR the WH (that’s Real Man tuhrrrrtory, that is)
    2001: DUBYA!… oh… wait…

    And from 2001 through 2008 it’s been some flavor of damage control, at which point the Great Kenyan IslamoFascoSoshulist Usurper became the primary target.

    ETA: 1992-2001 were primarily about Bill. HRC was along for the ride (like any good Republican wife, except she had uppity ideers for herself).

  69. 69.

    Elizabelle

    Good evening all.

    Eating leftover Singapore noodes; swilling red wine; watching the Oscar arrivals, sound off as much as possible.

    Shall we have an Oscars thread? Something non-Trump. So we can discuss Chris Rock and all that follows.

    Saw The Good Dinosaur yesterday. No idea if it’s up for any Oscars, but it was charming. Dinosaur in the kid role; human (Neanderthal) answers to “Spot”.

  73. 73.

    Mandalay

    @Schlemazel (parmesan rancor):

    for the record I would be laying the same cheese down if you tossed this sludge about Bernie

    Sludge? You’re the one having a meltdown because I simply cited factual numbers about favorability ratings, which was raised in the OP. Your anger is….interesting.

  74. 74.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    So far I think Olivia Wilde is hands down winner of Best Gown (photo)

    But Rachel McAdams, Brie Lawson, Naomi Watts, Saoirse Ronan are all running a close second with their own stunning outfits and colors.

  75. 75.

    Elizabelle

    @David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: I thought Naomi Watt looked spectacular. Very elegant. As was Lady Gaga.

    Re the Downton Abbey telenovela: I see there is a new dog on the set. Another Labrador Retriever. Name of “Theo”, I think. Given to Lord Grantham by his mom, possibly to up the intelligence quotient. He was in a basket, and adorbs.

  77. 77.

    Mike J

    Throat forcing has a long history with Republicans.

    At Sessions’ confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee, four Department of Justice lawyers who had worked with Sessions testified that he had made several racist statements. One of those lawyers, J. Gerald Hebert, testified that Sessions had referred to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) as “un-American” and “Communist-inspired” because they “forced civil rights down the throats of people.

  79. 79.

    Another Holocene Human

    @boatboy_srq: It could be. There’s a definite tie between the anti-choice movement and white supremacy (hence the Rovian move to constantly attempt to tie pro-choice to eugenics). Note for one thing they obsess over clinics in white areas and don’t give a damn about clinics in majority minority areas, just as Mother Teresa nagged Americans annually about abortion but couldn’t give a flip about her anti-choice principles when it was brown people getting abortions.

    OTOH with the anti-gay crowd it started as a very successful grift and ended up being the domain of people with a very personal reason to be anti-GLBT rights.

  80. 80.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Larime:

    Trump HAS to know who the fucking KKK is.

    What makes it even worse/funnier is that apparently he had denounced Duke and the KKK earlier in the campaign, but today he was all “How can I denounce them if I don’t know anything about them?.” I can (almost) give someone a pass on not recognizing the name “David Duke” (although it’s a stretch for a presidential candidate) but how can you NOT know about the Ku Klux Klan? How can he NOT know the meaning of “white supremacist group”? And if he denounced them earlier, how can he, or his campaign advisors, NOT remember that in the interests of consistency at the very least?

    Too fuckin’ cute by half.

  81. 81.

    Elizabelle

    @boatboy_srq: Is it wingnut bait?

    Watched a matinee in a vintage theatre. Wondering if some of the animated villains were a bit strong for young kids.

    There’s a dinosaur in the Jack Palance role, voiced by Sam Elliott, and some mean pterodactyls who eat something cute, and some hillbilly dinosaurs too. But it was fun to see it.

    I never ever read a movie review before I see the film. After is good.

  84. 84.

    ruemara

    @Steve in the ATL: That rally in Austin is worthless if your ass cannot show up at the polling place. Seriously, do progressives not get the difference between art theatre and actual action? This election has me disappointed in more than the candidates.

  87. 87.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    @SiubhanDuinne: Then apparently he clarified by saying he’d already denounced them.

    1) I’ve never heard of them. How can I denounce a group or a person I don’t know anything about?

    2) Of course I denounce them, I denounced them years ago.

    This word, “clarify”, I do not think it means what you think it means.

  88. 88.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    @Elizabelle:

    #YASQUEEN. Naomi’s blue sequin with the low cut is so creative.

    Tonight is a real bumper crop of art and color (emerald green). It head and shoulders above prior years that for some reason insisted in wearing black, antebellum gowns, and mermaid tails.

  89. 89.

    Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)

    @Mandalay:
    I’m not angry, I am tired. Tired of people pissing on BJ threads with irrelevant data in an attempt to start a fight or or tp prove some inconsequential point. I’m tired of Bernie people doing it, I am tired of Hilary people doing it. If you want to discuss policy fine but if you just want to drop turds I’d be very happy to have you all do it someplace else.

  92. 92.

    gene108

    @boatboy_srq:

    HRC was along for the ride (like any good Republican wife

    1992 was the first year I could vote.

    I remember how Hillary got skewered because she had a job, all by her own self, and did things that did not rotate around being a prop for Bill’s political career.

    She was not a typical Republican wife.

    It’s kind of scary, looking back, how radical it was that Hillary was not a typical political wife because it really should not have been that big of a deal, but it was.

  93. 93.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @raven: The store and Richfield station that Tricky Dick’s dad ran was at Whittier and Santa Gertrudes Ave.

    ETA: We also had a Nixon’s Five and Dime store in TO, though I don’t think they were closely related to Tricky Dick.

  96. 96.

    Tissue Thin Pseudonym

    @Another Holocene Human: I agree that it’s more complicated, but the KPD did act as the functional ally of the Nazis during the latter stages of the Weimar Republic. Their refusal to participate in coalition politics doomed the Hermann Müller government of 1928-30 to cooperating with the Centre Party to remain in office, and thus making some really ugly compromises that discredited the SPD and brought about the end of the Weimar era.

    They sort of like the worst of the berniebros, except actually violent.

  99. 99.

    lamh36

    No Oscars for me tonight. I’m watching Bobs Burgers instead! Love this show I watched the Oscar fashion on E!News. But, I rarely watched the telecast anyway. I used to DVR it and then go back and watch whatever viral stuff happens, but no this year. I’ll have to catch Chris Rock’s monologue afterwards in clip form.

  100. 100.

    Elizabelle

    We can haz Oscars thread?

    Chris Rock!

    I guess Ammon Bundy etc are watching this from jail.

    White People’s Choice Award. If they nominated hosts, I wouldn’t even get this job. [It would be] Neil Patrick Harris.

  101. 101.

    boatboy_srq

    @Elizabelle: Homo neanderthalensis alongside dinosaurs. Playing to the “young Earth” crowd. But doing it in a cutesy way so nobody says “hey – that couldn’t have happened; they were millions of years apart!” Dinosaurs being recreated (Jurassic Park) is science fiction; dinosaurs living under the earth (Journey To The Center Of The Earth) is science-fiction-cum-space-opera; dinosaurs just naturally coexisting with humans (of any subvariety) is too close to dogwhistle undertone not to make mention.

    I have no doubt the film is cute. Just please don’t expect me to watch.

  102. 102.

    Steve from Antioch

    @Mandalay:

    Exactly.

    What’s more – 3 months ago the republican establishment laughed at Trump and was certain their voters would wise up. The same denial is now rampant among the democrats who think that Trump is certain to be crushed by Clinton.

  103. 103.

    Elizabelle

    Black ppl did not [care] because they had real stuff to protest.

    When your grandmother is swinging from a tree, it’s real hard to care about Best Documentary Short.

  104. 104.

    Steve in the ATL

    @ruemara:

    That rally in Austin is worthless if your ass cannot show up at the polling place. Seriously, do progressives not get the difference between art theatre and actual action? This election has me disappointed in more than the candidates.

    Most of my Bernie bro contact happens either here or on FB. Most of them of FB are primarily internet ragers who might go to a rally and will probably vote in the primary but can’t be arsed to make calls or hit the pavement.

    For instance, Viva, whom you may remember from Andy Warhol’s factory, posts all day about Bernie’s greatness and Hillary’s Hitlery. Her daughter, actress Gaby Hoffman, on the other hand, has actually made calls for Bernie and made public pronouncements about him.

    I mention them because of all the people who have friended me on FB, they still owe me money for legal work I performed in 1994. Not that I’m bitter. And still calculating interest.

  105. 105.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    He overstates the case, but I predict there will be cringing.

    Matthew Yglesias ‏ mattyglesias 9m9 minutes ago
    How many Oscar speeches will feature well-intentioned but counterproductive political interventions that end up helping Trump?

  106. 106.

    Elizabelle

    In memoriam package: is this gonna be black ppl that was shot by the cops, or ppl who went to the movies?

  110. 110.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @raven:

    We lived on Mulberry. My old man was the first Basketball Coach at Cal-Hi.

    And that is a story that no one can beat,
    And to think that I saw it on Mulberry Street.

  111. 111.

    ruemara

    Rock is hitting them in the chest with the jokes. Painful, you can laugh, but it’s too damned painful. Back to trying to earn some grant money for the next round of episodes.

  114. 114.

    eemom

    Can someone please explain to me why any intelligent person would give a shit about the Oscars? Bonus points for any intelligent person who cares about film making as an art form.

  122. 122.

    Elizabelle

    Don’t vote for candidates who take money from … weirdo billionaires.

    Good advice. From Oscar winners, yet.

  124. 124.

    boatboy_srq

    @gene108:

    I remember how Hillary got skewered because she had a job, all by her own self, and did things that did not rotate around being a prop for Bill’s political career.

    Not a typical successful, 1%er Republican wife at least. I remember that too. One reason Laura Bush was so easily accepted was because she was a primary school librarian: that kind of “work” falls so much closer to wingnuts’ idea of what women should do when they’re not in the house looking after the menvolk.

    @Another Holocene Human: “The anti-gay crowd” has deep roots, going back centuries. The most recent iteration, though, seems very, VERY,… um… pale. Gallagher, Staver, Perkins, Dobson, Robertson, Lively, Delgaudio, all very very Caucasian… practically the only major non-Caucasian faces in that parade are Eddie Long (now disgraced), James Manning (whose church was foreclosed and now there’s a LGBT community center bidding at the property auction) and leaders in Indonesia, Uganda, Mali, and other distant places, and not a few of them make the noise they do because people like Perkins and Lively fund their nastiness and “consult” on their anti-LGBT legislation and misconceptions.

  126. 126.

    Zinsky

    I hope the American people are smarter than I think they are. Trump really could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and it wouldn’t matter. KKK sympathizer? No problem. We are so fucked, if this asshole wins. Kiss your Social Security goodbye…

  128. 128.

    PsiFighter37

    Chris Rock crushing it. I take it as a good sign that he is making my non-political dinner guests awkward.

  130. 130.

    JPL

    @Zinsky: The bigger danger to me is the influence of the Koch brothers.
    This is a time line of Jane Mayer’s important book… link These are the folks who are buying up local and state elections.
    Public schools are what allowed our democracy to flourish and these assholes, think they should be abolished.

  132. 132.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    Wow.

    Oscar winner for screenplay just gave a big shout out to Baud!

    “If you don’t want big money to control government, don’t vote for candidates who take money from big banks and oil and weirdo billionaires”

    I didn’t know our own Baud! was so popular with big Hollywood.

  134. 134.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    Uh, man.. Sarah Silverman is so pretty, why is she wearing such a concealing gown.

  135. 135.

    Steve in the ATL

    @JPL:

    The bigger danger to me is the influence of the Koch brothers.
    This is a time line of Jane Mayer’s important book… link These are the folks who are buying up local and state elections.

    Fred Koch and Prescott Bush, the two Nazi-aiding and abetting fathers of today’s GOP. Lovely.

  136. 136.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Zinsky:

    We are so fucked, if this asshole wins. Kiss your Social Security goodbye…

    You commies don’t understand, Social Security is totally old and yucky and will be replaced by yuuugly better and classier Trump Security. He’ll also get rid of the yucky ObummerCare and replace it with TrumpCare which is nothing like the normal Republican plan but is just like it but Classier.

  137. 137.

    PaulW

    @Mandalay:

    Hillary’s unfavorable numbers are slightly inflated because of the intense negative attacks the Far Right have been hitting her for three decades. When it comes to choosing between Hillary or Trump, most centrist/moderate voters are going to have to make a choice between Hillary’s competency and Trump’s viciousness, and I’m guaranteeing the moderate voters are going to go with competency 100 percent.

  147. 147.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    woooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooah!

    UPSET!

    eta: everyone had Winslet winning for her hammy, scene chewing performance.

  148. 148.

    msdc

    @ruemara:

    Seriously, do progressives not get the difference between art theatre and actual action?

    I could have answered that for you before the primaries even started.

  149. 149.

    magurakurin

    @Schlemazel (parmesan rancor): this. Two or three months ago, maybe. But the writing is not only on the wall, it has jumped off the wall and is now doing a whirling dervish dance in the middle of the floor. Suffolk this morning, Clinton +8 in Mass, and that is before South Carolina. Sanders isn’t going to be the nominee. It really is time to move on.

    Trump won’t be easy to beat. Maybe Sanders would have been the better candidate, but we will never know. Spending a month with a round of “she’s doomed we should have picked him” isn’t going to be helpful.

  150. 150.

    PurpleGirl

    @Feathers: I complained to one friend that I had a hard time reading Jane Austen because I kept thinking about how the rich people or even middle-rich had their money from exploitation of the colonies. She told me to think of the novels as science fiction! Still haven’t been able to read Jane Austen.

  153. 153.

    Kay

    @PaulW:

    It’s kind of fascinating to watch the two factions take shape. Rubio represents the group who wanted to expand the Party (make it more inclusive) after the 2012 loss and Trump represents the group who believe they lost in 2012 because of “missing” white working class voters:

    Dennis Lennox, a Michigan-based GOP operative who spent several weeks organizing the U.S. territories for Cruz said he is supporting Trump because he sees him as more electable.
    “I respect Sen. Cruz immensely, I just believe at this point, Mr. Trump is better-positioned, because of his stance on trade, to put Democrats on the defensive in states like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, and ensure that Republicans win again,” he said.

    If Rubio loses in Florida they’ll go with “missing white voters” theory – the Trump route- and maybe if Rubio loses Florida that really is their best (well, only) shot.

  156. 156.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    @raven: there was an upset in the best supporting actress category. heavy favorite Kate Winslet lost to underdog Alicia Vikander

  158. 158.

    Redshift

    @Zinsky:

    I hope the American people are smarter than I think they are. Trump really could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and it wouldn’t matter. KKK sympathizer? No problem.

    No problem for Republican primary voters. This just tells us they really are who we knew they were, not who the political media wanted to believe the were. It doesn’t tell us anything about the general electorate.

  159. 159.

    The Dangerman

    Trump won’t be easy to beat.

    I disagree; if people come out normally, Trump won’t win a single swing state and might lose a couple normally reliable reds….

    …but I can see the ugliness of the upcoming general – and it will be ugly on steroids – might turn enough people off from coming out to to make it interesting.

    FWIW, I’m also going contrarian on Chris Rock; now, he was given an impossible task, but it mostly flatlined for me (note, I’m a white male that really isn’t into the Oscars, so I’m not really his target audience).

  163. 163.

    eemom

    k, I know I should just STFU, but I’ll give it one more go.

    This is 100% Hollywood bullshit, complete with Hollywood “politics.” Of course, anyone is happy to win a prize, and anyone is happy when someone or something they like wins a prize……but come the fuck ON. It has NOTHING to do with merit of any kind. And I am not a film expert of any kind, but it seems to me that if I were I would hate this shit.

    /whathefuckever

  164. 164.

    magurakurin

    @The Dangerman:

    I disagree; if people come out normally, Trump won’t win a single swing state and might lose a couple normally reliable reds….

    I’d be happy for you to be right. Fingers crossed.

  166. 166.

    ThresherK (GPad)

    Guilty pleasure addenda: Hey, how could I forget “Madam Satan”, a pre-Code 1930 musical directed by Cecil B. deMille?

    It is nobody’s idea of Oscar-winning, but an incredible example of how Hollywood didn’t quite have every weird thing tamped out yet. It is based vaguely on “Die Fledermaus”.

  168. 168.

    magurakurin

    @eemom: I can see my father saying exactly the same thing…in 1972. It has always been so, I think. Not worth worrying about.

  172. 172.

    lamh36

    this is what the race for the Presidency has come to on the GOP side…dick jokes…smh

    @ajjaffe
    Rubio says Trump has small hands for how tall he is “and you know what they say about men with small hands…you can’t trust em!”

  173. 173.

    raven

    @eemom: Well, the Illlini-Minn game will be over in 10 minutes and then I’m going to bed. That’s pretty good huh?

    Also, the Revanent is no Jeremiah Johnson.

  175. 175.

    Steve in the ATL

    @eemom:

    A forlorn hope that somebody will agree this is all bullshit.

    I’m with you. Not watching, skipping the posts that talk about it. But it’s kind of like gay marriage–not for me, but doesn’t hurt me at all if other people are into it.

  176. 176.

    lamh36

    @ajjaffe
    It’s Rubio unleashed again. Says Trump doesn’t sweat “cause his pores are clogged from the spray tan…Make America Tan again!

  178. 178.

    magurakurin

    @Omnes Omnibus: pretty much. It’s not worth getting upset about. It’s like getting upset about the result of a WWE match. Everybody knows the Oscar’s is all about Hollywood politics and that it is bullshit. So what. Look at the gowns, watch the stars or watch hoops like Raven or read a book. But bitching about the Oscars is a long standing American tradition, so, if it is something one enjoys…hell, have at it. My father did, every year.

  181. 181.

    Anya

    Rubio makes fun of Donald Trump’s small hands: “You know what they say about a man with small hands.. You can’t trust them”

    Very soon he’s going to just say it.

  184. 184.

    gogol's wife

    @lamh36:

    He is just out of control. He doesn’t realize that Trump can (kind of) get away with it, because he’s a reality-TV personality, but Rubio is supposed to be a U. S. Senator, for God’s sake.

  189. 189.

    jl

    @SteveinSC: I think very little of any interest is said at industry BS conferences with high profile speakers. All boilerplate. And Q and A almost as trivial.

    Now, at private political fundraisers, as Romney showed, more interesting things happen.
    Would be interesting to see HRC and GOPer transcripts for those. But release of those is one thing that will never happen, probably simply cannot happen on GOP side.

    edit: to be cynical, speakers fees at industry confab is money for doing essentially nothing but showing up and eating boring conference food and wasting a few hours of your life. It is like a deposit. The services some later.

  190. 190.

    Steve from Antioch

    @geg6: Nah, Garner is from South Hills in WV and went to the snootiest high school in WV: George Washington.

  194. 194.

    gogol's wife

    @debbie:

    It is such a weird sensation. I’ve been a Democrat for almost as long as I can remember (I did have a crush on Henry Cabot Lodge), so I have many years of rooting against the Republicans behind me. But I am just sad and depressed that there is NO serious Republican Party at this point. We can’t have a democracy this way.

  195. 195.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    The very beautiful Kerry Washington in leather (photo)

    Incidentally, 9 of the top 10 treading topix on Twitter are on the Oscars. People have spoken/texted

  196. 196.

    jl

    @lamh36: If that real or are you joshing us?

    I hope that next the GOP presidential contestants show up for pressers with eccentric managers who will introduce them and translate the GOPers’ insane promo ramblings, threats, taunts and insults into English.

    “What Lil’ Marco is saying, is that Trump CHEATED at the last match, and there will be PAYBACK. Tee-Rump will regret the DAY HE WAS BORN!”

    The last debate was close to a WWE exhibition with one guy holding off a tag team. I have no clue whether WWE does that. If not, then the GOP pres context has outdone the WWE!

  197. 197.

    ThresherK (GPad)

    @gogol’s wife: Truly a movie of its time, the climax takes place at a fancy dress ball held on a dirigible.The future ain’t what it used to be.

    Plus there’s plenty of deMille’s patented looks at not-very-covered skin, like all those Bible epics in the 50s.

  198. 198.

    debbie

    @gogol’s wife:

    It can only get worse. This afternoon in an interview, Haley Barbour insisted that all the anger was due to the failed policies of the past four years. They’re still dragging out that sorry old talking point. I can’t imagine Haley really still believes it.

  200. 200.

    magurakurin

    @jl:

    The last debate was close to a WWE exhibition with one guy holding off a tag team. I have no clue whether WWE does that.

    They have been doing that since the WWE was Championship Wrestling in Philadelphia and Vince’s dad was the boss many many moons ago.

  201. 201.

    Jeffro

    @Anya:

    Rubio makes fun of Donald Trump’s small hands: “You know what they say about a man with small hands.. You can’t trust them”

    Very soon he’s going to just say it.

    If Rubio should somehow manage to draw to an inside straight and win the nomination…the past few days’ worth of his Trump insults are going to come back to haunt him. It just makes him look even more juvenile than he already did.

  203. 203.

    Jeffro

    @gogol’s wife:

    It is such a weird sensation. I’ve been a Democrat for almost as long as I can remember (I did have a crush on Henry Cabot Lodge), so I have many years of rooting against the Republicans behind me. But I am just sad and depressed that there is NO serious Republican Party at this point. We can’t have a democracy this way.

    Disagree. Let the far right go over the cliff, the Dems are already the centrist party, and before too long we’ll have elections where it is Socialist vs. Dem. It’ll still be a democracy…one that serves the country a heck of a lot better, that’s for sure.

  204. 204.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Jeffro: Yeah… the Democrats at this point are a loose coalition of everyone who is not a Republican. Given the field to themselves without risk of spoilage and loss of elections, they’d split.

  207. 207.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    Chris Rock interviewing moviegoers in Oakland was everything. That was some revolutionary shit right there.

  208. 208.

    Anya

    @Jeffro: He’s so animated and on fire. This is the real him. The Perez Hilton of smarmy College Republican types. But he’s no match for a carnival barker like Trump. And he holds grudges.

  217. 217.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    @debbie:

    The setup for the interviews was amazing – “I went as far away from Hollywood as I could get”. To Oakland.

  221. 221.

    debbie

    @Anya:

    I’ll have to find it on youtube tomorrow and watch again. I was assuming that was all that would be said about the matter. I’m wondering if the Stacy Dash flop was intentional?

  222. 222.

    Mary G

    @cckids: I thought he was robbed for “Wolf Hall”, it’s good he won tonight.

    No, I don’t like the comma outside the quotation marks.

  225. 225.

    jl

    @magurakurin:

    ” a WWE exhibition with one guy holding off a tag team. I have no clue whether WWE does that.”

    ‘ They have been doing that since the WWE was Championship Wrestling ‘

    Aw shit. I thought I had a scoop on new ground broken by the 2016 GOP presidential Star Search.
    But, thanks for the info.

  226. 226.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Josh Barro ‏@ jbarro 5m5 minutes ago
    The Rubio campaign thought the bit about Trump having a small penis was so good they put it on Youtube.

  229. 229.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Mandalay: Bernie’s numbers are high until Republicans get through with him. Not sure how he will stand up under vicious Republican scrutiny. Hillary will do fine since she’s been dealing with Republican nonsense for the last twenty plus years. Her supporters know who she is and won’t be swayed by Republican campaign ads. I’m not sure if this is true for Bernie.

  232. 232.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    The Girl Scouts fundraising from the rich white captive audience was great – empowering young black girls is a revolutionary act in this racist as fuck country. Chris Rock is killing the #Oscars.

  233. 233.

    Anya

    @debbie: It was intentional. He was mocking her but she’s too stupid to notice. She actually thought she was there to speak for diversity.

    This is how he introduced her:

    It’s hard to get a job, and that’s the truth out there for black actors. But let me tell you some good news: the Academy has taken steps to fix this problem, and that is why it is my honor to introduce the director of our minority outreach program. Please welcome Miss Stacey Dash!

  235. 235.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    @Anya:

    Chris Rock was trolling her. I have no idea what she thinks she was doing, but Chris Rock knew what he was doing. Troll Grade: A+

  236. 236.

    Mnemosyne

    @Anya:

    Honestly, I wasn’t sure that was the real Stacey Dash. If so, she has a better sense of humor than I thought.

    In some of the audience shots, you could see people with open boxes of Girl Scout cookies.

    Who’s the guy playing Suge Knight? He looks familiar, but I’m blanking on his name?

  244. 244.

    Elizabelle

    Genuinely moving to see Ennio Morricone win his Oscar. And it was was great soundtrack, full of foreboding.

  245. 245.

    Redshift

    @Mnemosyne: As my friend who works in the industry pointed out, most of those people up front were probably too nervous to eat before the awards, and then to throw them girl scout cookies…

  247. 247.

    Redshift

    @debbie: I was appalled that they didn’t even ask Barbour about Trump’s capitalizing on the GOP’s decades of race-baiting and dogwhistle. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was.

  248. 248.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    @Redshift: yeah, but the mint GS cookies are really addictive. you can’t just eat one. they’re worse than Doritos.

  251. 251.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    Chris Rock ‏@chrisrock 49m49 minutes ago

    #Oscars
    Oscars drinking game: Take a shot every time Chris Rocks makes the audience feel uncomfortable.

  252. 252.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    Chris Rock Verified account
    ‏@chrisrock

    Biden gave me $20 for cookies… #Oscars

  253. 253.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    Plus they’re really good people.

    The White House announced today that President Obama posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to the founder of Girl Scouts, Juliette Gordon Low.

  254. 254.

    Mnemosyne

    @the Conster, la Citoyenne:

    G saw one on Twitter that was something like, “Not only did Chris Rock acknowledge the elephant in the room, he jumped on its back and rode it around the stage.”

    Also, Innaratu’s speech was unexpectedly good, and acknowledged the elephant as well.

  255. 255.

    Kropadope

    @Larime:

    Also, what happened to the Revolution? Bernie was going to win by bringing in masses of new voters, but primary turnout is DOWN. The only demo to turn out in bigger numbers this year is Black voters, who overwhelmingly went for Clinton

    No, there’s one other demographic that’s been up, voters under the age of 30. They’re just not up enough to make up for lower turnout among those over thirty.

    If the revolution can’t even work in the primaries, how the fuck does it win the general?

    ETA: Hillary is almost universally popular with partisan Democrats, that’s a big advantage in the primary. It won’t help her much in the general, since she has very low support among independents.

  257. 257.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    @Mnemosyne:

    As it turns out, the true revolutionary act is acknowledging the elephant in the room, and then naming it. Innaritu gets it, which is why the “get off the stage” music seemed insistent.

  258. 258.

    Mnemosyne

    @Elizabelle:

    They’re required to, but notice they didn’t increase the volume like they usually do — they realized what he was saying and kept it low so he could still be heard.

  259. 259.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    I thought Sacha Cohen (Ali G) did a good job puncturing the venality of tokenism.

  260. 260.

    SoupCatcher

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Nah, the peanut butter patties are the real crack.

    Not sure if they have the same names in your region, but the peanut butter used in the Tagalongs and Do-si-dos is the same that Reese’s uses.

  263. 263.

    Elizabelle

    Pitch perfect acceptance by Leo. How not a surprise.

    He must have started relaxing after Ennio Morricone won his.

  266. 266.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    J is something like 5 for 5 for seeing the Best Picture around Christmastime the last few years. Wacky. Especially since we usually only see 1-2 movies a year.

    :-)

    Night all.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  268. 268.

    NR

    @Joel: Trump has gone from -37 to -21 on favorability in the last eight months. In that same time period, Hillary has gone from even to -13.

    But keep on whistling past the graveyard.

  269. 269.

    NR

    @Patricia Kayden: At the last Republican debate, the candidates all agreed that the Clinton Foundation would be Hillary’s biggest weakness. And the Republicans have barely even mentioned it so far.

    The idea that since Hillary has already been damaged by attacks, she cannot be further damaged by more attacks, is so insanely stupid that it’s frankly insane how many of you seem to believe it.

  271. 271.

    prob50

    @BillinGlendaleCA: unlike the uppity usurper who was running for re-election.
    I think in private they used a different word than usurper.
    Yeah, but I’m pretty sure the word also ended with

    “er”

  272. 272.

    prob50

    @gene108

    Trump HAS to know who the fucking KKK is.

    If you are too ignorant to know who the KKK is, shouldn’t that disqualify you from holding office in the U.S.A.?

    Not if you’re a Republican.

  273. 273.

    prob50

    @BillinGlendaleCA:

    He’ll also get rid of the yucky ObummerCare and replace it with TrumpCare which is nothing like the normal Republican plan but is just like it but Classier.

    – and also “Fantastic”, too.

    BTW, I just saw Trump on a rebroadcast of this morning’s “Meet The Press”. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone as totally full of shit in my whole life.

  277. 277.

    No One You Know

    @JPL: Loved Spotlight, as did the spouse, who had been a reporter. Walked a little taller leaving the theatre that night. I was astounded that they’d made investigative journalism interesting without romanticizing it. Or getting distracted by the story itself.

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