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Democracy cannot function without a free press.

When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty. ~Thomas Jefferson

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

Giving in to doom is how we fail to fight for ourselves & one another.

If rights aren’t universal, they are privilege, not rights.

Quote tweet friends, screenshot enemies.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

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

Bad people in a position to do bad things will do bad things because they are bad people. End of story.

With all due respect and assumptions of good faith, please fuck off into the sun.

In after Baud. Damn.

Oppose, oppose, oppose. do not congratulate. this is not business as usual.

People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

When they say they are pro-life, they do not mean yours.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

If ‘weird’ was the finish line, they ran through the tape and kept running.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

You are here: Home / Elections / Election 2016 / Late Night Open Thread: Encouraging the Two-Bit Racists

Late Night Open Thread: Encouraging the Two-Bit Racists

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One can only hope Bill Bratton is correct about Ted Cruz. And that Donald Trump similarly fails.

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128Comments

  3. 3.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    In one breath they complain about Castro and human rights and then in the next they call for a secret police against mooslims and medieval torture.

  4. 4.

    lamh36

    Got allergies acting up…likely Hay Fever…so I’m taking cold meds and off to bed soon

    Just wanted to share, I saw a screening of Batman be Superman…no spoilers but I will say I walked away going…shrugh…

    One word review…underwhelming. It wasn’t that it was “bad” but it wasn’t “great” grading on a curve I’d give it a B-/C. Pros Ben Afleck was better as Batman than expected, but I’ve always thought he’d surprise folks. Cons…a number of them, but they may be spoilery…so I won’t mention them.

    Short review: It’s a setup for the Justice League movies…no more, no less.

  6. 6.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    Hard to believe Hillary won Arizona by 25 pts. considering everyone in the blogosphere keeps telling me her campaign is collapsing.

  7. 7.

    Dog Dawg

    @David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: Kind of like how Obama is WORST PREZNIT EVER!!%t! for meeting with Castro, but Trump fellating Putin = Strong & Serious.

    Makes no sense whatsoever.

    Also, if they don’t want Presidents posing with images of dead Mass Murderers, they really ought to clear the capital of all images of Andrew Jackson. Just sayin’.

  8. 8.

    Steeplejack

    Reposted from downstairs:

    DVR Alert!

    Some good Kurosawa movies on TCM tomorrow—mostly “modern,” wrapped around Seven Samurai (1954) at 10:30 a.m. EDT.

    No Regrets for Our Youth (1946), 6:15 a.m. EDT. Political/domestic drama spanning the years before and during World War II.

    Stray Dog (1949), 8:15 a.m. EDT. My pick for the day. Toshiro Mifune as a cop looking for his stolen gun. The gritty location visuals of postwar Tokyo are stunning.

    The Bad Sleep Well (1960), 2:15 p.m. EDT. Corporate corruption.

    High and Low (1963), 5:15 p.m. EDT. Business tycoon involved in a kidnapping gone wrong.

    The last two are wide-screen, so watch on TCM-HD if you get that channel. Letterboxing otherwise.

  9. 9.

    lamh36

    Alright, I’m off to bed…anyone else think Bernie won’t be winning any other primary states (caucus, maybe) but not primaries and I see even the caucus states going HRC way, if only cause folks seem to want to get this Dem nomination process over with already…I know a number of my peeps are just ready for this nomination process to be over…

    Anyway…good night

  15. 15.

    BBA

    On another blog (which I won’t link here for the sake of sanity) I’m reading a commenter who thinks poor Southern whites supported the Confederacy just because those Northern abolitionists were so smug and superior about the whole slave thing, and the failure of Reconstruction proves their antipathy against yankees was totally justified.

    This is so absurd that even a capital-O Objectivist is pushing back on it.

  16. 16.

    Dog Dawg

    Reading V for Vendetta now and was just struck by the Slogan of the Fascists during the campaign:

    “Make Britain Great Again!” Verbatim.

  18. 18.

    Mnemosyne

    @lamh36:

    Zach Snyder is not a very good director. He has more razzle-dazzle than Michael Bay, but equal amounts of insight into how actual humans interact with each other. So, no, I’m not surprised the movie wasn’t that great.

    Say what you will about the Marvel movies, but they’ve had a slew of really good directors (and writers!) behind them: Jon Favreau, Joss Whedon, etc. The DC movies are saddled with Snyder.

  22. 22.

    redshirt

    @efgoldman:

    But: If he, or anyone else who thinks rapprochement is a bad idea, owns a single piece of consumer electronics – a phone, a flat screen, a computer, a GPS – or pretty much any piece of electrical gear from an extension cord to a refrigerator or washing machine, or any Apple product, chances are he (or you, or me….) is helping to finance the largest oppressive regime in history in China.
    You take your choice of bad guys. It’s easy to hate the rotten people who run an island ninety miles off Florida with a couple of million people. A large country halfway around the world, with multiple billions of people, which produces a major proportion of our consumer goods? Not so much.

    Brilliant.

    Do you all hate immigrant labor if it only effects your chosen ethnicity?

  23. 23.

    Mnemosyne

    I’ll damn Zach Snyder with one more bit of praise — he’s good at casting. Watchmen was really well-cast. Henry Cavill is a good Superman, and I think Ben Affleck will be a really interesting Batman. But he doesn’t know what to do with the actors once he’s got them.

  24. 24.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    In 2008 Hillary won Arizona by 8 pts (50% to 42%). She’s far exceeding that tonight.

    Obama won Utah by 18 pts (57% – 39%) and Idaho by 63 pts (80% – 17%)

  28. 28.

    Mnemosyne

    @redshirt:

    Affleck is a good writer and director. He’s not a very good actor, so it’s better that he concentrate on what he’s good at. I’d be very interested to see his take on Batman.

  29. 29.

    Steeplejack

    @efgoldman:

    I heard a little of Le Batard’s rant this morning when I accidentally hit Mike and Mike in the Morning on ESPN-2 while shooting for SportsCenter on ESPN. You nailed it: his complete inability (or unwillingness) to put Cuba’s oppression or “evilness” into any kind of perspective was ridiculous.

  32. 32.

    Lamh36

    @Mnemosyne: Afleck as Batman was better than expected for sure…there’s not much acting to be dine there, but to be honest, this new Superman doesn’t involve much acting either…Unlike with Chris Reeves the special effects here have some to mean more than actually acting…Cavil essentially have to look good in profile shots, of enrich there is a lot and look good in the glasses.

    Anyway, I’ve really got to get to bed, but again…underwhelming

  33. 33.

    Brachiator

    @Mnemosyne: I don’t think that Snyder is up to the level of Michael Bay, and I don’t think that much of Bay. It really makes no sense that DC has let Snyder chart the direction of many of the upcoming films.

    Marvel’s successes have let them relax a bit and take modest risks. They’ve had some good directors, but frustrated some and lost others because of their tight leash and commitment to rolling out the films based on a rigid adherence to their Phase 1,2,3 nonsense.

    DC may end up having to turn to the folks doing good TV work for them to save their cinematic butts.

  35. 35.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    Harry Enten ‏@ForecasterEnten

    Let’s just say it for what it is: by any measure Clinton is winning this primary. Save maybe among Reddit users.

    91 retweets 197 likes

    But doesn’t he become President of the Blogosphere, succeeding Blog President Edwards (photo).

  37. 37.

    NotMax

    @Amir Khalid

    The secret to playing the current Batman is to strongly stub one’s toe right before the camera rolls to get the mandatory clenched teeth, curt delivery.

  38. 38.

    Thoroughly Pizzled

    @Lamh36: I can’t think of a single decision that Superman made in Man of Steel. The only thing I liked about that movie was that it depicted the scale of his power pretty well.

  40. 40.

    Lamh36

    @redshirt: shoot was it the bit about WW? if so I took it out…but I figured everyone who gonna see it saw the trailer and the WW cameo

  41. 41.

    Mnemosyne

    @NotMax:

    There’s actually a whole documentary about it — I think it’s called The Death of Superman Lives. If Tim Burton had managed to pull it off, it might have been really interesting, because Cage can be good if the director knows exactly what he wants from him.

  42. 42.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    Nate Cohn ‏@Nate_Cohn

    Clinton leads in the national popular vote by a 58-40 margin so far.

    269 retweets 274 likes

    58-40: In other words a virtual tie!

  44. 44.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    @Brachiator: For the good of the nation, Clinton should throw in the towel. It’s hopeless – there’s no way she can stop Sanders’s coronation.

  45. 45.

    Lamh36

    @NotMax: I love me some Nix Cage…but him as Superman…nope.

    Alls I need him to do is get right into making the 3rd National Treasure movie…I admit I love those

  47. 47.

    Mnemosyne

    @NotMax:

    I bought the Adam West series on Blu-Ray and it’s surprising to me as an adult how carefully constructed they are. And Batman is a total goody two-shoes, which is played for comedy that still holds up. Plus I can now appreciate even more of the cameos, like Francis X. Bushman as a crooked silent film exhibitor.

  48. 48.

    NotMax

    @Amir Khalid

    They’re getting a tad long in the tooth now, but felt that Hollywood missed a bet in not casting Affleck and Damon while they were newly hot commodities as the leads in a Hawk & Dove flick.

    (They’re DC characters for those unfamiliar with that comic book universe.)

  49. 49.

    Lamh36

    @Brachiator: Sorry bout that I really didn’t mention anything about plots lines and the WW cameo was a big part of the trailer push for the movie…still I took that bit out of my comment, so nothing is really spoiled

  51. 51.

    NotMax

    @Mnemosyne

    Sort of curious if the set keeps the original format of having episodes split into two parts. Show aired twice each week on its first run.

  52. 52.

    Mnemosyne

    @NotMax:

    It does — each episode half is about 20 minutes. They look great on Blu-Ray, too — all that 1960s Pop set design.

    In fact, the Blu-Ray is so sharp that you can see why Frank Gorshin was uncomfortable in the Riddler jumpsuit and asked them to switch him to the suit and jacket. It … outlines things, especially under bright TV lights.

  56. 56.

    Kropadope

    Is Trump going to put a wall around Florida and Puerto Rico too, so they can’t get in that way? What is he going to do about the roughly half of undocumented immigrants who overstayed visas?

  57. 57.

    Mnemosyne

    @Amir Khalid:

    Yup, poor guy. Apparently no one realized he was … outlined until after those episodes aired. They got him a second, different costume about halfway through the season and were a little more careful to shoot above the waist with the jumpsuit. At least, that’s what it looked like from the sequence of episodes.

  58. 58.

    The Republic, Blah Blah Blah...

    @Mike in NC:

    Drumpf’s new American Gestapo units will have the classiest, most elegant uniforms, complete with shiny jackboots and truncheons.

    Would they in any way look like the uniforms Nixon came up w/ for the WH guards back in 1970?

    Rather tres Gestapo, no?

  59. 59.

    Suzanne

    Finally home, after standing in line for two and a half hours to vote. Maricopa County cut the number of polling places from over 200 to 60, even as turnout almost tripled over 2012. Some of my Dem friends are reporting that they were given provisional ballots rather than real ballots, even though they are registered. Of course we embarrass ourselves AGAIN. Fuck this shithole.

  61. 61.

    Splitting Image

    @NotMax:

    Anyone is a better choice than the star name floated often to portray Superman at that time – Nicholas Cage.

    I think Cage could be believable as Clark Kent, but I have trouble picturing him as Superman. The greatness of Christopher Reeve is that he played Clark Kent really well, but could turn into Superman just by taking off his glasses and straightening his posture. That’s really hard to do.

  64. 64.

    NotMax

    @The Republic, Blah Blah Blah…

    Pictures seem to have been scrubbed from the internet, but the initial proposed uniforms for the Dept. of Homeland Security enforcement arm were a Waffen-SS officer’s wet dream.

    Even included the double lightning bolt insignia as part of the outfit.

    The Nixon uniforms so quickly were universally made mock of that they disappeared very quickly. IIRC, they were given (or maybe sold at pennies on the dollar) to marching bands.

  66. 66.

    different-church-lady

    @David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: To be serious for a moment: I’m more amused than annoyed if someone wants to delude themselves. And I can even shrug it off when they treat me like I’m stupid.

    But when they start in on the whole “Well, those kinds of voters don’t count!” routine, I find it pretty sickening. How in hell’s name can someone take that kind of attitude and still have the nerve to call themselves a “progressive”? It’s been the skunk in Sanders’ yard the whole time. I don’t hold him responsible for it, but dayum, I saw it too many times to ignore it or think it was just one or two flakes.

  69. 69.

    Mike J

    Just back from the Hillary rally. What a blast!

    The coolest part? When her mic died, the HS gym full of supporters went quiet enough that she could keep speaking until they fixed it.

  70. 70.

    Kropadope

    @different-church-lady:

    But when they start in on the whole “Well, those kinds of voters don’t count!” routine, I find it pretty sickening. How in hell’s name can someone take that kind of attitude and still have the nerve to call themselves a “progressive”? It’s been the skunk in Sanders’ yard the whole time. I don’t hold him responsible for it, but dayum, I saw it too many times to ignore it or think it was just one or two flakes.

    Who? When? Links.

  73. 73.

    Kropadope

    @srv:

    Markos Moulitsas: Sanders: Time to bow out

    Markos Moulitsas apparently doesn’t place a lot of value in being able to affect the party platform.

  74. 74.

    Prescott Cactus

    @Suzanne: Please get on the vote by mail list. We’ve had our ballots for a month and mailed them last week. Don’t think it’s to late to sign up for November.

  75. 75.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    Tweety and idiot Steve Schmidt drooling over Trump’s “strength” with Schmidt hoping a domestic terror act occurs to save gop in fall.

  81. 81.

    Kropadope

    @David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: I have, it’s been a while, but I always read the reporting. The platform will affect the contours of the coming election. Besides that, Bernie has the money and the will to keep running. Voters want to be able to express their choice and they deserve representation at the convention. Hillary partisans have been trying to call this a done deal since before Iowa. You’re like little kids, “are we there yet?”

  84. 84.

    Mike J

    @lamh36:

    Short review: It’s a setup for the Justice League movies…no more, no less.

    I expect to see the monkey and hear “Wonder Twin powers, activate!”

  85. 85.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    @Kropadope: the exact opposite happen 8 years ago. everyone who opposed Clinton called on her to drop out and scoffed at her supporters reasons. Now, they’re throwing their prior reality based logic aside.

  86. 86.

    Kropadope

    @David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: Perhaps if she weren’t pushing to have delegates seated whom she won in uncontested elections to make her math more favorable and making explicitly racist pitches for votes, people wouldn’t have been so put off by her continuing to campaign.

  87. 87.

    Mike J

    @David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:

    #FeelTheMath

    I saw a woman at the Hillary rally with that sign tonight. It was the only note of negativity I noticed, if you don’t count the Sanders supporters that drove up and down the street past the line chanting, “Bernie, Bernie!” Also too, there were doofi with a big bloody handprint, the name Clinton, and the word “Benghazi”

    An actual honest to god commie handed me a home printed flyer. He tried to give one to the woman behind me, but she said, “we’ll share.”

  88. 88.

    Cacti

    I saw over DU(mb) that Sanders partisans were outraged that his (not registered Democrat) supporters, were not permitted to vote in the (closed) Arizona primary.

    For being sure they’re always the smartest people in the room, the Bernie kids are kind of dumb.

  90. 90.

    Yutsano

    @NotMax: There’s a fairly strong Anti-Trump sentiment in Texas. It will get very interesting once Trump gets the nomination. Iowa is gonna get really interesting once he clinches the nomination. Gonna need moar popcorn.

  91. 91.

    Kropadope

    @Cacti:

    I saw over DU(mb) that Sanders partisans were outraged that his (not registered Democrat) supporters, were not permitted to vote in the (closed) Arizona primary.

    They should’ve know and re-registered accordingly, true, but I think that closing primaries to independents is bad for the party. It helps lessen the engagement of left-voting independents.

  92. 92.

    Cacti

    @Kropadope:

    They should’ve know and re-registered accordingly, true, but I think that closing primaries to independents is bad for the party. It helps lessen the engagement of left-voting independents.

    Disagree.

    If anybody can vote in anybody’s primary, what’s the point of party registration?

  93. 93.

    gwangung

    @Cacti: Yeah, gotta agree. The Party isn’t there just for presidential candidates, but for Congress, Senate, state and county positions (and PCOs and whatnot).

    But this should have been instructions from the Sanders campaign to their supporters.

  94. 94.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    @Kropadope: what’s the relevance? you tell me.

    but that aside, I can make a logical case for Sanders staying in the race, but you haven’t mentioned it yet.

  97. 97.

    Kropadope

    @Cacti:

    If anybody can vote in anybody’s primary, what’s the point of party registration?

    You would still have to be registered to the party to run for office as a member of the party. Also, not everyone would be able to vote in the primary, because members of the other party aren’t allowed to.

  98. 98.

    goblue72

    @Cacti: Because registered independents get to vote in the general election for whomever they feel like and they make up an increasingly larger and larger share of voter registration. (The largest voter registration identification – and more concentration outside the Deep South, which means in those states that lean Democratic.)

    And no, Independents are not all just closet partisans. This does not mean that they are centrists – but rather have ideological views that don’t precisely map onto one party platform vs. another.

    Better to let those voters views and preferences be part of the overall mix of choosing a Democratic nominee such that the end result choice is appealing to both registered Democrats and registered Independents – given that those registered Independents WILL be able to cast their vote for one of two candidates in the Fall.

    Next stupid question.

  99. 99.

    Cacti

    @goblue72:

    Hello 43 year old.

    Sorry your fellow youths couldn’t pry themselves away from their Xboxes and bongs long enough to register for the primary.

    But I’ll bet they’re tweeting some pretty righteous broadsides about the AZ Democratic “establishment” (hiss, boo).

  100. 100.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    Trump is in 3rd place in Utah with a meager 13% of the vote.

    Odd – you’d think Mormons would consider Trump part of family considering his three marriages.

  103. 103.

    amk

    @goblue72:

    “those registered Independents WILL be able to cast their vote for one of two candidates in the Fall.”

    So, it shouldn’t be a problem then for them then to make their voices count in Nov whoever is the nominee of the dem party?

  105. 105.

    Kropadope

    @amk:

    So, it shouldn’t be a problem then for them then to make their voices count in Nov whoever is the nominee of the dem party?

    Sorry, but in the GE, your vote pretty much only matters if you live in VA, OH, FL, CO, IA, or NV.

  107. 107.

    Kropadope

    @Amir Khalid: Well, there’s other offices to vote for, obviously. But when the candidates show up in my state, they’re looking for money, not votes.

  112. 112.

    OzarkHillbilly

    So I saw this yesterday and it still haunts me:

    Co Donegal pier accident: victim told rescuer to ‘save the baby’

    Speaking to RTE News last night, Walsh said: “It was terrible. I was out there. I was swimming. I didn’t know how I was going to help or what was going to happen. The baby was handed to me.

    “When it happened, the father looked at me and he had to make a decision. He could have saved himself because he was out of the car. But he went back into his family. I couldn’t do nothing else. The car went down instantly.

    “The younger child was trying to get out the back. The father knew deep down – he knew I was only going to be able to save one person. The thing he said, he handed it to me and said: ‘Save the baby.’ He went back and stayed with his family and the car just disappeared.”

  113. 113.

    Darkrose

    @Steeplejack: I keep thinking about Jose Abreu’s Tweet:

    Thank you President Obama,MLB,MLB Players Association for making a dream come true for my generation.

    This is a guy who got to see his son for the first time in two years this past summer.

  115. 115.

    Matt McIrvin

    I don’t entirely get the primary gloating here; it was actually a good night for Sanders. He crushed in the Idaho and Utah caucuses, by gigantic margins, when polling had only narrowly favored him. He also considerably overperformed his polling in Arizona; late polls had Clinton leading 50-24 (with a lot of undecideds).

    It doesn’t really get him any closer to getting the nomination, but it does indicate he has a lot of support that the Democrats are going to need to get on board in the general.

  116. 116.

    Aimai

    @Matt McIrvin: ive been to a caucus–was ward leader for robert reich-and i enjoyed it tremendously but they sre awful for normal people. If you are elderly, disabled, shy, have language issues, ate outnumbered because of their ethnicity or gender they can be frightening and isolating. Caucuses favor people who show up in gangs or very determined over voters who simply want to vote. Like i said i enjoyed mine but i think they are exclusionary and can come across as racist or hostile depending on the comportment of the voters. The anti hillary rage expressed at hillary voters would have made me think twice about wanting to be locked in a closed room with people calling her and me war criminals and corporate lackeys.

  117. 117.

    Chyron HR

    @Matt McIrvin:

    He crushed in the Idaho and Utah caucuses

    It’s too bad red states and caucuses don’t count–the Sanders campaign said so, repeatedly. Tough luck for Bernie, but keep spamming those #AZElectionFraud hashtags.

  120. 120.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Aimai: I wouldn’t argue with that–I think caucuses should probably be eliminated in favor of primaries.

    It’s the system we’ve got, though. I recall that in 2008, gaming the caucus system was key to putting Obama over the top, and Clinton’s people were constantly protesting that they’d won the popular vote.

  121. 121.

    Matt McIrvin

    (I was just looking back at records of the delegate counts from 2008, and it’s amazing how close that primary race was. Clinton hung on after she probably had no realistic chance of getting the nomination, but to be fair to her, it was a much, much closer thing than we’re seeing now, even though this is a respectably contested race.)

  122. 122.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Chyron HR: I thought it was the South that didn’t count because they’ll definitely vote Republican in the general election. But the Western states that’ll definitely vote Republican in the general election are very significant because SHUT UP

  126. 126.

    Matt McIrvin

    There was a recent head-to-head poll showing not just Bernie Sanders but Hillary Clinton beating Trump in Utah. I wouldn’t take it too seriously as a prediction, but they really hate Trump there.

    He’s maybe uniquely positioned to do poorly in Utah just because he’s this gross vulgar asshole, and over there they like their assholes priggish and self-righteous, like Ted Cruz. You’d think that would be the case in a lot of the South too, but in the South it’s really a tissue-thin veneer over racial animus.

  127. 127.

    Peale

    @FlipYrWhig: I hope we can just put a stop to that. The Republicans win about 1/2 the states and there are very few reliably Democratic states. Both candidates have won their share of states they’ll never win in the general.

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