Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

“Just close your eyes and kiss the girl and go where the tilt-a-whirl takes you.” ~OzarkHillbilly

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

Compromise? There is no middle ground between a firefighter and an arsonist.

Polls are now a reliable indicator of what corporate Republicans want us to think.

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

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

The low info voters probably won’t even notice or remember by their next lap around the goldfish bowl.

Somebody needs to explain to DeSantis that nobody needs to do anything to make him look bad.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

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

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

It’s not hopeless, and we’re not helpless.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

I’m more christian than these people and i’m an atheist.

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

It is possible to do the right thing without the promise of a cookie.

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

… gradually, and then suddenly.

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89Comments

  1. 1.

    El Tiburon

    Also season finale of Eastbound and Down and premier of Girls on the HBO.

    And too also Shameless wrapped up last week on Showtime. As sporadic and uneven as it can be at times, all in all very solid television. And boobies.

  2. 2.

    BGinCHI

    I wonder how many more women Don can stuff under the bed. Someone give us an over/under.

    Haven’t watched Borgias yet. Any good? I’m sure down in hell the Medicis are really sulking….

  3. 3.

    Linda Featheringill

    The Killing:

    Is this the one where a young woman of about 17 or 18 is murdered? And everyone who ever loved her suffers from her death?

    The one I saw [maybe four episodes long] was really, really good.

  7. 7.

    BruceFromOhio

    I was looking at the Mad Men queue on NetFlix, and I’ve stumbled onto Firefly. Its… like.. cheating. Gems and nuggets buried in the past, unseen, brought to light like fresh treasure. Looking now for The Wire. I may never leave the house again. OK, sorry, O/T …

  8. 8.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    Reposting this from downstairs cause I am hoping one of the front pagers will pick it up.

    When Mitt was at Harvard (remember, he did go there for a joint MBA/JD), Ann said, “Another son came along 18 months later, although we waited four years to have the third, because Mitt was still in school and we had no income except the stock we were chipping away at. We were living on the edge, not entertaining. No, I did not work. Mitt thought it was important for me to stay home with the children, and I was delighted.”

    ‘

    Of course all students have stock that their daddy left them to sell of to pay for college and stuff Anne, everyone knows that. And “we waited four years to have the third” and how did you do that Anne? Abstinence? I don’t think so. You guys have to see the whole article it is stunning. “not entertaining” was the big thing with her, it just killed her that she couldn’t throw elaborate dinner parties. She didn’t say “going hungry, figuring out which bills to pay, which groceries to buy” she said “not entertaining”. WOW.

    http://gothamist.com/2012/04/14/ann_romney_in_1994_mitt_thought_it.php#photo-1

  9. 9.

    MikeJ

    @BruceFromOhio: Make sure you don’t have any pitchforks or torches around. You’re going to want to find the idiots who cancelled Firefly, and it won’t be pretty if you do.

  11. 11.

    General Stuck

    If you like the dystopic apocalyptic genre, you might like The Survivors, a British disaster series from pandemic flu virus that kills all but a few people. It’s got two seasons worth of episodes, and nobody does political/human disaster like the British understated way. I just watched the first episode on NF instant, and am hooked,

  13. 13.

    El Cruzado

    The original Danish version of The Killing was FAR better.

    The US one suffers from the usual Hollywood syndrome of needing to talk down to viewers as if they were 8th graders. Relatedly, also needs to EXPLAIN EVERYTHING.

  14. 14.

    Birthmarker

    Well, I was so ticked about The Kiliing, but I admit they have kept it moving along. They should still wind it up and start a new crime, though.

  15. 15.

    Schlemizel

    They did a very nice piece on Mike Wallace on 60 Minutes tonight. While it was loving they didn’t ignore his prickly side or ego.

    I didn’t know he had a son die in an accident at 19. He also was interviewed by a grandson, thought that was an interesting choice considering what his useless, living, son does for a living.

  16. 16.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    As I bitched about in an earlier thread (I think) WTF is up with either BBCAmerica or Time Warner (or both) only posting episode 1 of a a two episode series on demand? In this case “Whitechapel” they have posted Episode 3.1 of the new series and episode 3.3, leaving out the conclusion and obviously must see episode 3.2, who do I have to kill to get them to do something?

  17. 17.

    El Cid

    I just watched the intro of SNL when they had all the former Republican primary candidates meet up with Romney and Santorum in a bar. It was sort of awesome. They all kept doing greatest hits and versions of Green Day’s Good Riddance / Time of Your Life.

    Herman Cain was ‘It’s somethin’ unpredictable, but in the end you’re white…’

  18. 18.

    Mr Stagger Lee

    Since I have to wait for G.O.T on Netflix, wish it was streamed. I am going to watch The Battle Of Algiers, in honor of Ahmed Ben Bella, who passed away this week.

  19. 19.

    Friday Jones

    Yikes! Thanks for the reminder to record. Loved The Killing last season…waiting to see if I’m going to commit this season.

  21. 21.

    the Conster (f/k/a Cat Lady)

    TV is so much better than the movies now. I have all of these premium movie stations and everything they show blows goats. I look through the On Demand movies, and they all blow goats too. There’s nothing at the movie theater I want to see – all the good writers and actors are in TV shows. There are so many good ones I don’t know if I’ll ever get caught up with them – my next marathon is Breaking Bad, then the Borgias. I can’t wait for Treme to start again, too, then re-watch GOT. Stop writing such good shows people! I can’t watch TV 24/7!

  22. 22.

    liberal

    Anyone here anything about the DNC (albeit not necessarily individual campaigns) deciding not to go with the “War on Women”? I saw something about that on TPM, which isn’t the most trustworthy source. (Sorry if this was covered in a previous thread this weekend…busy with young offspring…)

  23. 23.

    BGinCHI

    @Litlebritdifrnt: Comcast “ON Demand” does that too. It pisses me off. Why can’t they just put the whole seasons up?? Do they honestly think it’s going to lead me to buy something?

    Idiots.

  32. 32.

    MeDrewNotYou

    Vague Game of Thrones spoiler if you haven’t seen tonight’s episode:

    Fuckin’ Theon. I never quite liked him. My TV sucks and I couldn’t make out his letter to Robb, what did it say?

    Also too, I had a little bit of sympathy for Sansa, but screw her. Isn’t there some saying about judging people by how they treat “the help?”

  33. 33.

    Keith

    Great ep from Thrones, but there must be a lot of Daenerys next week because there was exactly zero this week :(
    Also, while I haven’t been fond of the last two seasons of Eastbound (Season 1 was perfect), the last episode was GREAT. I foresaw almost everything that happened right before his third pitch (the doorbell/Pussy Rocket stuff was a nice surprise), but the whole thing was a great conclusion to the trilogy.

  35. 35.

    patrick II

    @BruceFromOhio:

    After you finish Firefly be sure to watch “Serenity”, the followup movie. In addition to all of the other small pleasures, it contains the greatest kick-ass chick bar fight ever.

  37. 37.

    Steeplejack

    @El Cid:

    If anyone gets the little network MHz Worldview (available on DirecTV and a number of cable systems), East West 101 is on there on Wednesday nights. Pretty good so far.

    Also Montalbano on Sunday night! (Yet another plug for that.)

  38. 38.

    MacKenna

    The American remake of The Killing is dreadful. If you want the real goods, watch the original made by Denmark and aired on the BBC with subtitles.

  41. 41.

    El Cid

    @Steeplejack: I watched it through season 3. I thought it had a lot of great moments, and overall a completely different outlook — think of it, an Aussi Muslim detective fighting against the internal establishment while battling nutballs on the street, all the while learning what’s the deal with his family… And a fantastic theme song. Australian TV has some absolute astounding GREAT shows that we’ll never see over here. We don’t even deserve Masterchef Australia. Hell, most of us couldn’t even comprehend the Good News Week, and we’d be lucky to grasp the awesome frat-boyish hijinks of Hamish & Andy’s Gap Year.

  43. 43.

    patrick II

    @MacKenna:

    I have never seen the original “Killing”, so I can’t compare, and the American version last year was very uneven. But what struck me most was how much more thoroughly and compassionately they treated the family of the young woman who was murdered. The despair was honestly rendered and painful to watch.

  45. 45.

    Boudica

    I did not care for John Slattery’s direction of Mad Men tonight. The scene changes were jarring…trying to be artistic. And the first half was boring.

  51. 51.

    suzanne

    @Litlebritdifrnt: I can’t even handle how sickening I find Rmoney. Santorum (ew) was absolutely batshit crazy, but he gave the impression that he had at least some sort of moral compass. Rmoney is so craven and self-aggrandizing that I find it infuriating, and somehow I’m never going to get to see him get the comeuppance he so richly deserves.

  53. 53.

    FridayNext

    @Friday Jones:

    I followed every episode of The Killing last season. A growing feeling of being manipulated for manipulation’s sake crept up until the final episode and they pulled a half-dozen twists out of their ass and I felt so condescended to. I suppose if it had no competition on TV I might have started up again this season, but there are too many good things to watch. (not counting the non-TV things to do. There are still some of those.)

  54. 54.

    MikeJ

    @El Cruzado: The Danes totally stole it from the Lithuanians. Honestly, don’t even watch it with the Danish subtitles on. It ruins it. If you don’t learn Lithuanian for it you might as well just kill yourself.

  55. 55.

    Mike in NC

    @efgoldman:

    The Town, maybe the best Boston crime flick of all time

    Good for sure, but don’t discount “The Friends of Eddie Coyle” with Robert Mitchum, or “Gone Baby Gone” or “Mystic River”. Good stuff. I grew up in Roxbury in the 60s.

  57. 57.

    patrick II

    @FridayNext:

    I felt the same way. I had the feeling that they were trying to add twists to the original ending when they got a second year.

  59. 59.

    Chris

    @suzanne:

    I can’t even handle how sickening I find Rmoney. Santorum (ew) was absolutely batshit crazy, but he gave the impression that he had at least some sort of moral compass. Rmoney is so craven and self-aggrandizing that I find it infuriating, and somehow I’m never going to get to see him get the comeuppance he so richly deserves.

    I’m speaking mostly for myself here, but I think a lot of us are so nauseated by Republican Candidate [insert name here] that when we see him do something(s) exceptionally ugly, we try to reassure ourselves by checking out other Republicans and looking for ways in which they, at least, are better than Republican Candidate X in certain ways.

    I realized I was doing it and at this point have pretty much concluded that all the candidates and all the sections of the Party are equally godawful, if not always for quite the same reasons. YMMV…

  60. 60.

    El Cid

    @MikeJ: Holy shit, now I’ll be obsessed with tracking down a Lithuanian show.

    I’m already entrapped in the freakishly bizarre and stereotypically weird-bleak Icelandic series Heimsendir.

    World’s End
    __
    The team behind the Shifts series, the most popular TV series ever produced in Iceland, is back. This time around they have written a series set almost entirely at a mental hospital on the outskirts of Reykjavik. Einar, a new patient, is unhappy with the way things are run and stages a revolution where he, along with the other patients, and unexpected reinforcement, take over the asylum to form a new State.

  63. 63.

    Steeplejack

    @El Cid:

    I saw Zen, which I was awaiting because I had read a handful of the novels by Michael Dibdin (recommended). Liked the series pretty well. I was hoping for more episodes, but it appears to have been axed.

    Could not bear Branagh’s Wallander, because I had seen a bunch of the Swedish originals, also on MHz Worldview, mentioned above. Also Branagh preening.

    Extended plug for MHz (directed to all, not El Cid): It’s a little network that mainly airs foreign news shows, but at 9:00 p.m. each night it shows something usually worth seeing. Currently, on Mondays it’s Australian rules football (okay, an acquired taste), on Wednesdays it’s East West 101, mentioned above. Sunday night it’s the omnibus show International Mystery, where they have run the Swedish Wallander, the excellent Italian series Montalbano (on tonight, encore at midnight EDT), the French series Maigret, the Italian Mafia series The Octopus and some others. Recently they have expanded to showing some of these shows on other nights. This Tuesday MHz is showing Maigret and the Ghost, and next Saturday they’re showing an entry in the Swedish series Beck, made from the Martin Beck novels by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö.

    Shorter plug: if MHz is available in your area or on your cable system, it’s worth checking out if you like Mystery! type stuff like Foyle’s War, Sherlock, MI-5, etc. Plus they run the Al Jazeera English news twice a day. (There’s a list of affiliate stations and cable systems here.)

    P.S. Some of these series are now available on DVD, e.g., Montalbano, Maigret and (the Swedish) Wallander.

  65. 65.

    MikeJ

    Five minutes into Emancipation Day. While the US was born in sin, we’ve occasionally done a few things right, at least temporarily.

  66. 66.

    Nicole

    @Walker: I’ve read all five of the books. That scene tonight was much more awesome than anything she’s had to do in the books so far. I like her character in the books, but the TV world allows the female characters to be a bit more direct than in the books. Which is a lot of fun.

    I can’t remember the actress’ name, but I enjoyed her as Anne Boleyn in “The Tudors.”

  67. 67.

    Viva BrisVegas

    @El Cid:

    Australian TV

    If you get the chance, look out for The Gruen Transfer.

    If your interest extends to documentaries try, Australia: The Time Travellers Guide.

    Both good, both available on Usenet.

  68. 68.

    piratedan

    well when it comes to shows that stand the test of time, I’ve always found that the Rockford Files have held up pretty well, which may have well been before the time many folks discovered nighttime TV.

    Other stuff on the/my list:

    F Troop (yes, I thought it was funny and with vets Storch and Tucker who had great comedic timing with each other…)
    Twilight Zone
    Star Trek DS9
    Outer Limits
    Petrocelli
    Barney Miller
    Perry Mason
    MacGyver
    The Adventures of Brisco County Jr
    Police Squad
    Fawlty Towers
    MI-5/Spooks
    Torchwood
    Farscape

    naturally, ymmv

  69. 69.

    SarahT

    @ gogol’s wife: Yeah, enjoyed it quite a bit, too. Almost made up for that hideous “Great Expectations” they showed recently. Jebus, what a piece of crap that was.

  71. 71.

    Chris

    @MikeJ:

    Five minutes into Emancipation Day. While the US was born in sin, we’ve occasionally done a few things right, at least temporarily.

    British cliches time:

    “Americans will always do the right thing, after exhausting every other possible alternative.”

  72. 72.

    El Cid

    @Viva BrisVegas: I’ve enjoyed the first of a Time Traveler’s Guide. Nothing on Earth is better than Masterchef Australia, though. Though I really, really love Sammy J. and Randy, the puppet.

    This is pretty fucking awesome: a pianist and puppet singing about the REM cycle of sleep.

  76. 76.

    SarahT

    @ Kristine : Thanks for the link – good to understand some of the story choices that were made

  79. 79.

    Steeplejack

    Suffering a mild bout of night-owl syndrome, and I’m about to get sucked into watching the first Underworld movie on HBO. What could go wrong?

    Seriously, what could go wrong? Someone please tell me. There must be a good reason I haven’t seen it before now.

  80. 80.

    Anne Laurie

    Putting in a good word for NYC-22, Sundays 10pm EDT on CBS. It has a sterling pedigree:

    [Show creator Richard] Price wrote for “The Wire” and is also an Oscar-nominated screenwriter (“The Color of Money”). With “NYC-22,” which begins next Sunday, he adds series creator to his résumé. (The “22” signifies the station’s precinct number.)
    __
    The show tracks a diverse group of rookie officers through their early days on the job, and its creator’s fingerprints will be evident to anyone familiar with the lyrical dialogue and richly drawn characters of his past work. On “NYC-22” the banter crackles and the stationhouse and sidewalks teem with upstarts, street sages and thwarted dreamers. Harold House Moore plays an arrogant former basketball star returning to police his old neighborhood; Leelee Sobieski is a chilly ex-Marine; Adam Goldberg a laid-off newspaper reporter now patroling the beat he covered.
    __
    “There’s this nuance and attention to detail with each character, and he starts tailoring them to your cadences,” said Terry Kinney, who plays the seen-it-all sergeant guiding the rookies through their growing pains. “You’re not aware that Richard’s watching you, but he really is.”

    Kinney and Goldberg get to reprise slightly-less-askew versions of their characters (Spt. Harvey, Det. Delahoye) from THE UNUSUALS. This new show looks to be aiming along the THIRD WATCH / SOUTHLAND / DETROIT 1-8-7 axis, so if you liked any of those series, you should give this one a try… even without Jeremy Renner in this cast.

  81. 81.

    RadioOne

    Mad Men is one of the most unusual shows I’ve ever seen. How many plot lines has this show just completely discarded over the past five years? The show just loves to be a show about people in the sixties just talking with, and meeting other people, and basically ignores the conventional idea in scripted television of characters moving in some sort of story or plot arc. And yet it’s been my favorite show on television for years.

  82. 82.

    Mike D.

    @Mike in NC:

    The Departed“s overrated then? I’d it is slightly, though I was very into it when I saw it first-run. I think it belongs on the list, though.

  83. 83.

    Mike D.

    The Killing is one of the very best things on TV right now. And I know that’s saying a lot, and I’m saying it.

  85. 85.

    keestadoll

    Into my fourth viewing of “Battlestar Gallactica” due to the hubby never having seen it. Probably bad to have me as a viewing partnber as I keep saying: “Pay attention–this is important!”

  86. 86.

    JoJo

    Anybody else see “Willian Shatner’s Gonzo Ballet”? It’s On Demand through EPIX. Choreographer Margo Sappington in Minnesota did a ballet to the album “Has Been” that Shatner did with Ben Folds. You have to see it to believe it.

    Mad Men: That Pete sure is a weasel, isn’t he?

  88. 88.

    JoJo

    Yeah, but Pete takes it to another level. I loved his despairing cry of “I have NOTHING!”, he has nothing, except for his youth, health good job, nice house, beautiful wife, kid, etc.

  89. 89.

    Greyjoy

    One series which, I thought, is radically underrated is “Flash Forward”. Stars Joseph Feinnes, John Cho, Jack Davenport (Commodore Norrington in POTC), the gynecologist chick from Lost, Dominick Monaghan, among others. Of course it was canceled after one season, but at least it goes for about 22 episodes. It’s on Netflix Streaming.

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