Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

Mediocre white men think RFK Jr’s pathetic midlife crisis is inspirational. The bar is set so low for them, it’s subterranean.

Not all heroes wear capes.

GOP baffled that ‘we don’t care if you die’ is not a winning slogan.

Stamping your little feets and demanding that they see how important you are? Not working anymore.

America is going up in flames. The NYTimes fawns over MAGA celebrities. No longer a real newspaper.

I really should read my own blog.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

Sometimes the world just tells you your cat is here.

When you’re a Republican, they let you do it.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

Every decision we make has lots of baggage with it, known or unknown.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

No Kings: Americans standing in the way of bad history saying “Oh, Fuck No!”

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

Roe is not about choice. It is about freedom.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

At some point, the ability to learn is a factor of character, not IQ.

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

You are here: Home / Elections / Election 2016 / Wednesday Morning Open Thread: The Oscar People Are Nicer to Look At

Wednesday Morning Open Thread: The Oscar People Are Nicer to Look At

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And there’s not a single Republican candidate that has more than a minute’s worth of ideas — even if you include the really bad ones.

But the NH GOP (state motto: Live Free or Die Trying) is unhappy that pruning the number of “serious” candidates down to a mere ten (including, possibly, Donald Trump!) will painfully limit their quadrennial grift bonanza. Warning, Politico:

A group of prominent New Hampshire Republicans has written an open letter to Fox News and the Republican National Committee, urging them to reconsider the criteria for the Republican primary debates on the network.

The letter, signed by 56 Republicans, including former governors, members of Congress, state legislators and delegates, warns that the current criteria threaten to “undermine the very nature of our process and the valuable service that states like New Hampshire provide to voters across the country.”…

“The first televised debate of the 2016 election cycle should place all candidates on even footing and allow each to make their case directly to the voters and your viewers,” the letter states. “Anything less would prematurely suppress the candidate field, and arbitrarily elevate candidates who benefit from preliminary notoriety and fundraising.”

The group suggests a new format that would include two panels that appear back-to-back, taking the top six candidates in public polls and randomly splitting them into the two panels, with the remaining candidates randomly split evenly among the other spots…

***********
Apart from bickering & idiocy, what’s on the agenda for the day?

Reader Interactions

143Comments

  1. 1.

    Arclite

    They need to cull the field. I propose cage matches. Whoever the last 4 left standing are get to debate.

  3. 3.

    raven

    “We are told the officer’s shotguns are out with their hands near the triggers”. The fucking quote of the day already from Mika.

  5. 5.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @raven: That’s not important, was the President holding a pack of cigs? That’s the important question.

    /White House Press Corps fail

  7. 7.

    Schlemazel

    I take strongly objection to your statement that no potential candidate has a minutes worth of ideas! Why these fine gentlemen, and lady, have literally hours worth of horrific ideas for making America poorer, less safe, more angry and a bigger shithole than many third world nations. Good ideas they have could be written on the head of a pin with room left over for the obligatory Lord’s Prayer that’s true.

    “My mind is a raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of thought cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives.”
    – Hedley Lamar, GOP hopeful

  8. 8.

    Valdivia

    @BillinGlendaleCA: Even worse, this speculation has gone international and political blogs in Latin America started reporting yesterday. Because I was buried in work I had no clue what they were talking about. Now I will make sure that I don’t.

  12. 12.

    Barney

    Here’s the obvious format:

    Split the contestants into 2 random groups. They each compete in a televised semi-final, with viewers and a jury of experts awarding points between them to decide who goes through to the final. A few contestants are given a bye, because it’s obvious they should appear in the final debate. Since this is the Republicans, this is judged by the amount of money they bring to the process.

    This is obviously a perfect system. Just don’t let the Republicans know it’s the Eurovision Song Contest one, or they’ll never accept it.

  15. 15.

    Amir Khalid

    @Barney:
    I like most of this idea. But you don’t need to find a winner, do you? That’s what the primaries themselves are for; the debates are only supposed to help inform the voter about the various candidates.So you don’t need semi-final and final debate rounds. Just put ten candidates at random into Pool A and the rest into Pool B.

  16. 16.

    danielx

    How does it go, show business for ugly people, something like that?

    I’m still holding out for tossing them all in a pit of rabid wolverines. Whoever comes out alive…

  19. 19.

    Amir Khalid

    @JPL:
    Because it’s Wednesday. Duh.
    ETA: Also because Randinho put up the Germany-Norway match open thread a day early, so the cosmic balance must be redressed.

  23. 23.

    JPL

    @Amir Khalid: Wednesday was such a blah day, that now we get a do over. I like it. Personally, I have sod coming Friday morning and I could use an extra day for prep.

  24. 24.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Amir Khalid: OK… here’s some slack.

    @JPL: Personally, it sucked. No way do I want to go thru that again. In fact, can I just make it Friday and call it a week?

  27. 27.

    Gimlet

    These are not debates exploring differences between candidates but stump speeches in small chunk format.

    A waste of time.

  28. 28.

    MattF

    I propose a rotating stage. Choose between five and ten at random, have them debate for ten minutes– then rotate the stage and do the next group. Repeat until all candidates have appeared. It would be better to have the candidates enter through a playground slide, or perhaps an obstacle course of some sort.

  29. 29.

    Shakezula

    Well gee, looks like some people aren’t happy with the results of the cunning plan to shut out anyone who doesn’t have a shit ton of money or the favor of people with same. Ha ha ha ha, suck it assholes.

    @Barney: Or just split the contestants into at least three pieces.
    Repeat.

  31. 31.

    FortGeek

    I will do nothing today as a reward for finally–FINALLY!!–getting my replacement water heater working yesterday.

    Took me 4 weeks. I figured out why the seller was getting rid of the thing, too. He claimed it had been working and that he’d swapped it out for a tankless system. What he didn’t say was that it WAS working, then it broke, and that’s why he went for the new one. Ass.

    I had to wait a week for the final part I needed–the one that led the seller to sell–and all together I still paid out less than half of what I’d have paid for a new heater.

  33. 33.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    @Amir Khalid: 10 is too many if they’re actually interested in having the candidates give their positions and indicate differences among them. The network that has the “honor” of hosting these things should set aside a week for the Teabagger “debates” – 2 hours a day in the afternoon. Random draw of straws to see the pairings, no more than 4 candidates at a time. Moderated by someone from the League of Women Voters or a similar independent group (not someone from the press, not some TV talking head, not some retired political hack).

    Of course, we know these “debates” are all about fake drama and gotcha 3-second sound bites, so …

    Rachel made some good points about it in her beat-viewers-over-the-head way last night.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  34. 34.

    Betty Cracker

    RE: PBO’s ciggy photo — he’s totally holding a cigarette pack, and he’s clearly about to extract one and light up. So? He’s a grown man.

    I gave up cigarettes three years ago after smoking for 20+ years. I’d tried to quit a few times before that, and I always failed. Why? Because my prior quit attempts were at the behest of someone else who was bugging me to quit, not because I was ready.

    IIRC, during the 2008 campaign, Obama said he’d made a deal with FLOTUS that he’d give up cigs if she’d agree to his presidential run. He said it in a joking way, but it sure sounded like he quit because of pressure from others, not because he was ready.

    Maybe he’ll never be ready, and he’ll sneak around smoking the occasional butt for the rest of his life. As an adult, that is his choice. I don’t get why it’s considered some giant scandal.

  35. 35.

    Joey Maloney

    My day’s already well advanced, but it started out with a work emergency that required several hours working on the computer coupled with a long-scheduled appointment at a government agency that could not be rescheduled or postponed. So I ended up taking the laptop with me and tethering it to my phone, and splitting my attention between frantically trying to keep our largest customer from collapsing in chaos, and arguing with a particularly obstreperous Herbert.

    Oh, and I left out the part where I got halfway to the agency’s office, already late, and realized that I’d forgotten the one original document that I absolutely had to have with me, and had to turn around and go back to get it.

  43. 43.

    Snarki, child of Loki

    Folks, you’re all missing the point!

    The GOP are totally “in the bag” for the 2nd Amendment, so any GOP primary debates need to be “open carry” events.

    Audience reaction, quickdraw rebuttals, survivors (if any) go on to the next round.

    Any GOPers that refuse to participate are objectively comsymp libtard gun-grabber RINOs, amirite?

  44. 44.

    Germy Shoemangler

    LONDON — A Nobel laureate has resigned as honorary professor at University College London after saying that female scientists should be segregated from male colleagues because women cry when criticized and are a romantic distraction in the lab.

    The comments by Tim Hunt, 72, a biochemist who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2001 for groundbreaking work on cell division, unleashed a torrent of fury and added fuel to a global cultural debate about gender bias and discrimination against women in science.

  45. 45.

    MattF

    @Betty Cracker: Is this the really best the ODS crew can do? Ooooh, he claimed he was quitting but didnt’t. Bad Obama! Are we going to get a David Brooks meditation about how this is really a deeply serious matter?

  46. 46.

    Another Holocene Human

    Okay, so I’ll be OT:

    Aphids. Only solution is to spray with water hose?

    Plant doesn’t seem to be suffering (it’s a viburnum). Do I just leave the nasty things alone?

    I want to plant Camellias out there next year, about 5 foot away from the diseased hedge. Bad idea?

    I’m in zone 9-ish. It’s supposed to freeze in the winter but never does because of the urban heating effect. Never hard frosts anyway. Wet. Swampy. Too damn hot outside and getting hotter.

  47. 47.

    RSA

    If I were interested in helping Republicans… well, anyway, one possibility is to find out or ask all the declared candidates what their top three or five issues are, where they’re going to stake their claim, so to speak, with their candidacy. Then have a half-dozen or dozen reasonably sized debates, each on a specific issue, involving those candidates who care most about it. A single candidate might not come out on top, but I’ll bet that just one or two views would emerge per issue, and the best-performing candidates would probably adopt those views even if they hadn’t taken part in specific debates.

  50. 50.

    Another Holocene Human

    @Germy Shoemangler: Some say elderly scientists should be segregated from their colleagues because their intellectual decay is a distraction in the lab.

    72 is a faaaaaar cry from your mid 50s for the average adult. Sounds like he has a case of a the FOX’s–rigid thinking, paranoia, and lowered inhibition.

    You know who is the most dangerous driver on the road? 16 yo male with other teenagers in the car OR 70+.

    This guy clearly did not beat the odds.

  54. 54.

    Germy Shoemangler

    @Another Holocene Human:
    Consider using neem oil mixed with water. Or, add neem oil with OHN (garlic + ginger + molasses). Dilute the ingredients in water and spray directly below the leaves (where aphids hide). Spray repeatedly 3 times per week for a plant with serious aphid damage.

    I’ve used neem oil diluted with some water in the past. It’s not a chemical poison. The oil just provides an inhospitable environment for pests.

    72 is a faaaaaar cry from your mid 50s for the average adult. Sounds like he has a case of a the FOX’s–rigid thinking, paranoia, and lowered inhibition.

    I don’t know. I suspect a rigid, assholish 72-year-old was probably an asshole at age fifty.

  59. 59.

    Another Holocene Human

    @Snarki, child of Loki: GOP is open carry for thee, not for me.

    You can’t open carry into the Florida Legislature. They have two metal detectors, one for entrance, second for the gallery.

    But cities and towns cannot pass laws restricting where you take your gunnnnnzzzz.

  61. 61.

    Germy Shoemangler

    @MomSense: The majority of RW trolls I’ve encountered on liberal blogs or local news comments sections have lots in common: they often name themselves after their favorite firearm, they often very subtly intimidate and threaten other commenters (by suggesting they know where they live or can get IP addresses) and are stalkerish around women.

  63. 63.

    Another Holocene Human

    @Germy Shoemangler: Where should I get the spray bottle? The ones I’ve been buying have the pumps go bad and I’m fucking sick of it. Also, this hedge is huge (‘yuuuuuuge’).

    And where can I buy neem oil?

    As for “always an asshole”, I did say “lowered inhibition”. People with more frontal lobe activity keep their assy thoughts to themselves, but as that part of the brain degrades, that shit comes out again.

    People can change, too. Due to emotional or health reasons. Like they weren’t constantly having assy thoughts, they were happy and open, but now they’re having repetitive, assy thoughts. And eventually, they share them.

  65. 65.

    The Thin Black Duke

    @Betty Cracker: Yes. And unlike some many oher actors in the twilight of their careers, Lee was exremely fortunate to appear in good movies before he died. For example, however problematic The Lord of the Rings trilogy was, I will always be grateful to Peter Jackson for giving the role of Suraman to Christopher Lee.

  66. 66.

    Another Holocene Human

    @Germy Shoemangler: Some board I was on had a RW troll resident annoyance who named himself after MANDY MOORE when she was still a teenager. Ewwwwwww.

    He also would try to switch nyms to avoid the time-outs he’d earned himself.

  67. 67.

    Germy Shoemangler

    @Another Holocene Human: I found a bottle at a local garden center. The bottle had a spray top. I’ve also used dollar-store spray bottles in the past, so I don’t feel too bad when they clog and die. If you have no objections to buying neem oil through amazon, you could try them as well.

    What I like about the neem oil is that it’s not a poison.

    You’re right about the lowered inhibitions. I’ve seen that with older relatives. And the plus-70 crowd in movie theater audiences who gab through the whole film

  69. 69.

    Just One More Canuck

    @Barney: @Amir Khalid: @danielx: Mad Max- Beyond Thunderdome was on last night and could provide ideas as to how to conduct a Republican debate – I am in favour of banishing them all into the desert, although pig feces could be useful as well

  70. 70.

    Germy Shoemangler

    @Another Holocene Human: They’re always switching nyms, and then using the exact same wording, sentence structure and links and insults.

    As if there’s a crowd of them, rather than one doughy guy in his underwear.

  71. 71.

    MomSense

    @Germy Shoemangler:

    Women receive unbelievable harassment and threats especially if they write about feminism and gun violence prevention. Melissa McEwen of shakesville has written about some of the threats she has received and it is terrifying. Our own ABL has been the recipient of truly horrible harassment.

  72. 72.

    Germy Shoemangler

    @MomSense: And people are always saying how liberals should organize locally and run for office. With armed trolls on keyboards with their ugly little hate websites and showing up at town hall meetings, it’s easier said than done.

    Meanwhile, some crooked conservative used-car dealer can run for some local office, members of the rotary club will show up to applaud, and he’ll appear on the ballot unopposed.

  73. 73.

    Another Holocene Human

    @Joey Maloney: I’ve found that federal agency employees who were direct-hired out of college and never worked anywhere else are the worst.

    Different parts of government are different, though; NIH and other scientific divisions are a bit different from DOT, GSA, etc. (In sciences the academic degree is a more practical background anyway, as compared to more regulatory agencies where some fucking industry experience would really fucking help.)

  74. 74.

    MomSense

    @Germy Shoemangler:

    And people are always saying how liberals should organize locally and run for office. With armed trolls on keyboards with their ugly little hate websites and showing up at town hall meetings, it’s easy said than done.

    QFT

  75. 75.

    Another Holocene Human

    @Germy Shoemangler: They do it differently in my town. The ugly trolls do show up at public meetings but only rarely do they get much traction. What happens on the newspaper comments sections isn’t all that relevant. (Although one dumb commissioner talked themselves out of office on Facebook–not through inappropriate content, but by defending a big political disaster and becoming associated with it thereby.) The trolls actually spend more time attacking their own side. When the crooked pawn shop guy ran for mayor he got a laughable vote tally.

    What actually happens is about 100-200 rich people control who gets on the ballot. They can purchase elections for a few thousand dollars. Only a few thousand people vote in the early spring off-off cycle elections. So far more populist candidates have failed to get out the vote. There has been some D v. R action but the actual people running the deal are all in each others’ pockets so it can be quite quiet.

  76. 76.

    Morzer

    What makes me laugh is that every GOP candidate is going to have an opening statement that basically says: “I am not a kook” followed by an immediate attempt to demonstrate that no other candidate could possibly be more sympathetic and congenial to an audience made up of kooks.

    And then I reflect that there’s a non-trivial chance that whichever kook wins the Deranged Beauty Pageant For The Cognitively Challenged could end up in charge of a rather large nuclear arsenal with a howling mob of “Christian” supporters who want to see the Apocalypse as soon as possible because that’s why Jesus was born blue-eyed, blonde and riding a velociraptor through Texas.

  78. 78.

    MattF

    @Morzer: I suspect it’s turning into a competition between the denizens of the crazy-people-with-money crowd. One should bear in mind that, e.g., Donald Trump, is just the avatar for these guys– They’re all like him, they all got to where they are by being aggressively obnoxious. Wannabe politicians are a receptive, like-minded audience, but the big money is in charge.

  79. 79.

    Morzer

    @Valdivia:

    Oh I am sure that there’ll be lots of hot anti-Obama rage-stroking to be observed; I just happen to think it’ll be in the second part of the program after the opening statements devoted to apple pie, Reagan, Mom, Reagan, dangers of rock-n-roll, Reagan, hard-working,small-town, Evangelical, Midwestern/Texan/Alaskan/Onehorsedumbfuckville peasants and their supreme place in the pantheon of American virtue – oh, and, of course, Reagan.

  81. 81.

    gvg

    @Another Holocene Human: RE:Aphids, a little dawn dish detergent plus horticultural oil. Any cheap sprayer, they all clog and don’t last so buy and toss when they die. There are 2 kinds of hort. oil. The old kind can’t be used in hot weather, the newer kind can be. I am not sure of the name difference but read the instruction label. For more ideas, check with your local extension service master gardener. Which state are you in? Florida has good agricultural extension agents and master gardeners.
    I don’t care to use ladybugs because the kind that is mostly sold are non native and I am leary of releasing them into the wild. Its very hard to actually get the native type. The japanese type are easier to mass raise but they are named convergens because they get together in a mass to hibernate and that can be a bother if they pick your house to hibernate in.
    Neem oil is a poison. Its relatively nontoxic, but it is in fact poisonous and that is why it works. It has some adverse effects on aquatic life and has been used as flea control on cats in other countries where some of them died per web search. Pollinators are safe because the insects have to eat the treated plants in order to be effective.
    you can also just use soapy water without oil on aphids. Hort oil is just more effective.

  82. 82.

    SRW1

    @Amir Khalid:

    Come on, Amir. The phoning in of the points is the most entertaining part of the whole event. Especially if they also do the repeat in French:

    “Monsieur Boush: deux point.”

  85. 85.

    Morzer

    @MattF:

    I think there are two contests: one is for prime position in the idiot grifter couldashoulda been a contender stakes aka The Herman Cain Memorial Award, the other is to be the most recent edition of Mythically Moderate Hip Republican Presidenting Corporate Person Daddy Word Salad Warbucks aka Rafalca von Hobbylobby-Romney 78.23/b.

  86. 86.

    rikyrah

    Yeah, she thought it was love, but then something in her mind snapped…the watching of too many Lifetime Movies…

    After she delivered them to Canada, she was gonna be a ‘loose end’, and everyone in the movies knows what criminals do wth ‘loose ends’.

    ……………………

    Officials Say Prison Worker Joyce Mitchell Planned to Be Getaway Driver
    ‘She thought it was love’: Prison worker charmed by escapee
    June 11, 2015

    Joyce Mitchell, the New York prison worker being questioned in the escape of two murderers, was charmed by one of the inmates and planned to be their getaway driver until she got cold feet, senior government officials told NBC News.

    One of the inmates, Richard Matt, established a relationship with Mitchell over a couple of months, the officials said.

    “She thought it was love,” one of the officials said.

    Instead of being the getaway driver, Mitchell went to the hospital and checked herself in, the officials said. As NBC News has previously reported, Mitchell checked in on Saturday, the day the inmates were reported missing, with “a case of nerves.”

    http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/new-york-prison-escape/she-thought-it-was-love-officials-say-prison-worker-joyce-n373571?cid=sm_tw&hootPostID=a4d571f7fd9c4a8b5c2993b3417a69a8

  87. 87.

    Morzer

    @MattF:

    A man mentioned Reagan. A man thinks that tax cuts and Reagan are the same thing for the broad-assed masses. A man has watched too much sub-par Game of Thrones recently.

  88. 88.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Gimlet: Which sensible people will avoid like the plague. There is nothing that any GOP candidate could say that I would find remotely interesting. I don’t recall electioneering starting so dang early.

  89. 89.

    Morzer

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Believe me, nothing would give me greater pleasure than to be able to forget Reagan.

    Mind you, a really good bacon sandwich and coffee…

  90. 90.

    cahuenga

    Maybe cull the field with a couple rounds of cow plop bingo. Nobody would likely notice.

  93. 93.

    Morzer

    @cahuenga:

    If you want to really cull the GOP field, start with counting up to 3. That’ll winnow the ignorant fuckers down to something approaching Paul Ryan’s intellect and Rick Santorum’s decency.

  94. 94.

    Elizabelle

    From a beautiful partial NYT obit on Ornette Coleman; they note there will be more to come.

    Though his early work, a kind of personal answer to Charlie Parker, lay right within jazz — and generated a handful of standards among jazz musicians of the last half-century, he later challenged assumptions about jazz from top to bottom, bringing in his own ideas about instrumentation, process and technical expertise. He was also more voluble and theoretical than John Coltrane, the other great pathbreaker of that era in jazz, and became known as a kind of musician-philosopher, with interests much wider than jazz alone; he was seen as a native avant-gardist, and symbolized the American independent will as effectively as any artist of the last century.

    Slight, southern, soft-spoken, Mr. Coleman eventually became a visible part of New York cultural life, attending parties in bright-colored satin suits; even when frail, he attracted attention. He could talk in nonspecific and sometimes baffling language about harmony and ontology; he became famous for utterances that were sometimes disarming in their freshness and clarity, or that began to make sense about the 10th time you read them.

    Have to read what they put up about Christopher Lee, too.

  95. 95.

    cahuenga

    @Morzer:

    I’m only interested in seeing cow plop bingo televised nationally, which I see as the next logical step in reality TV.

    I have a feeling it would be a lot like dropping acid.

  97. 97.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Elizabelle: That’s a real shame.

    There was a guy who could put out an album entitled “The Shape of Jazz to Come,” and who had the chops to make that look like a factual statement, and not hubris.

  98. 98.

    rikyrah

    The Rise and Fall of Two Florida Stoners Who Made It Big as Gunrunners

    ByGuy Lawson | June 10, 2015
    9182 views

    In the summer of 2006, the war in Afghanistan was going badly. The Bush Administration’s surge of troops to Iraq had left few resources to deploy to Kabul, as a long shot Presidential candidate named Barack Obama said on the campaign trail. Desperate to turn the tide, the Pentagon decided to try to “stand up” Afghan security forces. Hundreds of millions rounds of various Soviet Bloc ammunition were required, rounds that could only be obtained by doing business with Eastern European arms dealers. Like all defense contracts, the solicitation was posted online, on the website fedbizopps.gov, to be open to competition from qualified bidders.

    One such company was AEY, an outfit run by 21-year-old 9th grade dropout named Efraim Diveroli and his 25 year old part-time masseuse friend David Packouz. The two best buddy gunrunners—the two dudes—had entered a bid of $300M, hoping that they might beat Fortune 500 companies and win the geopolitically vital Afghan ammo contract. Until they received an email that would change their lives.

    On January 26, 2007, David Packouz was parking his Mazda Protégé in the lot of his dive apartment building when his cell phone rang.

    “Dude, I have good news and I have bad news,” Efraim Diveroli said. “What do you want first?”

    “What’s the bad news?”

    “Our first order is only for $680,000.”

    http://talkingpointsmemo.com/theslice/florida-gun-runners-afghanistan

  99. 99.

    SectionH

    @Another Holocene Human: You might try syrphid fly larvae for the aphids. They demolished the aphids we had in our zone 7 garden. And seemed to stick around to reproduce, not in such large numbers as we bought, but definitely there.

    Camellias need protection from hot summer sun, esp. when they’re young. And they’re subject to scale – horrible things, practically make aphids look nice. But camellias are such gorgeous things – good luck with them!

  106. 106.

    Germy Shoemangler

    @SectionH: A few years ago we had an infestation of japanese beetles. Big fat ones, and it was one big orgy with them. They’d copulate two three four on top of each other. Ate our flowers and vegetables.

    One of our neighbors hung up one of those beetle bags; supposed to attract and trap them. I think all it did was double the amount of japanese beetles.

  107. 107.

    samiam

    “the current criteria threaten to “undermine the very nature of our process…””

    So kind of like voter suppression fraud rules which are just fine with the GOP.

  109. 109.

    piratedan

    Geez… just hold it on Fox, take all the time you need. Let them all have their say in all of their glorious nuance. Then just capture the most telling bits for campaign ads against whomever is the battle royale winner in the fall. It’s not as if Fox News isn’t the GOP party channel already, might as well have some “original” programming where they all get in line to tongue bathe each other and bash the current President and talk about how they’re either rich (through shipping jobs over seas or inheriting the family money) or pious or both and how their plan is to restore America to its former greatness thru stricter abortion laws and how their trickle up economic policy just has to work this time through the efforts of baby jeebus and all gawd fearing Americans giving them a mandate.

  110. 110.

    ranchandsyrup

    Gonna start un-burying myself at work after a week off and making some jokes about that hilarious “women don’t understand goodfellas” piece in the NY Post

  112. 112.

    Germy Shoemangler

    Imagine if there was a liberal news network (in an alternative universe). Instead of Fox News we had Dove News. 24 hour a day liberal commentary, talking points, etc. And imagine if there was a huge bench of democratic candidates for POTUS. And the debates were only being held on Dove News.

    Dove News being run by Bill Ayers. Commentary by Rachel Maddow. Amy Goodman moderating the debates.

    We live in a bizarro distopian universe. A place where Roger Ailes (who helped elect Richard Fucking Nixon of all people) and Karl Rove and the Kochs run things.

    And yet there is nothing but OUTRAGE from the RW internet trolls. What else do they want?

  113. 113.

    Mark B.

    The Oscars are three and a half hours, but deciding on the leader of the free world needs to clock in at CSI length.

    It’s OK, none of those people have a shot at the job. It’s really an entertainment show. For dumb people.

  114. 114.

    Kropadope

    @Germy Shoemangler:

    Imagine if there was a liberal news network (in an alternative universe). Instead of Fox News we had Dove News. 24 hour a day liberal commentary, talking points, etc. And imagine if there was a huge bench of democratic candidates for POTUS. And the debates were only being held on Dove News.

    It seems to me that in this fictional universe, the Democrats would have a lot of insularity-based problems.

  116. 116.

    Germy Shoemangler

    Is Mara Liasson a republican mole? Every time I hear her on public radio, she has a way of framing things so negatively about the democrats.

  118. 118.

    Germy Shoemangler

    @Kropadope: And all the Sunday morning talks shows featured Betty Cracker, Amir Khalid and Rikyrah instead of McCain and Paul Ryan.

  119. 119.

    Brachiator

    I feel a disturbance in the Force.

    Rupert Murdoch plans to step down as 21st Century Fox CEO

    Murdoch, 84, is expected to hand over day-to-day responsibility for the media empire to his son James, but he will remain executive chairman. One of the sources described the transition as a “title change,” with the elder Murdoch still having the final say….One of Murdoch’s other sons, Lachlan, will be co-executive chairman along with his father.

    http://money.cnn.com/2015/06/11/media/rupert-murdoch-stepping-down/

  120. 120.

    Brachiator

    @Germy Shoemangler:

    A few years ago we had an infestation of japanese beetles. Big fat ones, and it was one big orgy with them. They’d copulate two three four on top of each other. Ate our flowers and vegetables.

    Wait. Is this another proposed Republican debate format?

  122. 122.

    Germy Shoemangler

    And all the Sunday morning talks shows featured Betty Cracker, Amir Khalid and Rikyrah instead of McCain and Paul Ryan.

    And Anne Laurie

  123. 123.

    SectionH

    @Germy Shoemangler: Ugh, Japanese beetles. We fought them for years. Tried various things, including nematodes, milky spore, and Bt, all of which attack the beetle grubs while they’re still in the soil. We did NOT use traps for the reason you mention. About the only thing that helped with adult beetles was both of us picking them off the plants by hand. It’s amazing how un-squeamish I got, how quickly, when I had roses to save.

  124. 124.

    Germy Shoemangler

    @Brachiator:

    Wait. Is this another proposed Republican debate format?

    My eyes!!

    @Belafon:

    Just because they can solve cell division doesn’t mean they’re socially intelligent.

    One of the things we loved about the latest version of Cosmos was how women in science were given credit.

  125. 125.

    srv

    And imagine if there was a huge bench of democratic candidates for POTUS.

    Clearly, it’s Murdoch’s fault the only viable candidate you have is Hillary.

    People want ideas, not broken records.

  126. 126.

    Germy Shoemangler

    @SectionH: That’s pretty much how we ended up dealing with them. We’d go out to the garden about 6am and squeeze the japanese beetles to death between our thumbs and forefingers, cursing them all the time.

  127. 127.

    Germy Shoemangler

    @srv: Citizens united might have something to do with that.

    Sanders isn’t a viable candidate? Maybe according to Roger Ailes.

  130. 130.

    SectionH

    @Germy Shoemangler:

    Is Mara Liasson a republican mole? Every time I hear her on public radio, she has a way of framing things so negatively about the democrats.

    Not so sure about mole. “Tool” might be the word. I basically realised NPR was in the bag for the Republicans when I heard her commentary on commercial for their Nat. Convention in 2000.

  133. 133.

    japa21

    @srv: So you’re saying people have no interest in the Republican candidates. That’s good to know.

  135. 135.

    Elizabelle

    @SectionH: I agree re Mara Liasson being a tool.

    Check out an NPR ombudsman column defending her, and look at the language he highlights. Think about how she frames her reports.

    A Fair and Balanced Look at Mara Liasson

    Have not read the comments; might be some good insights in there. Along with the usual trolls, calling themselves “rational thinkers” and whatnot.

  136. 136.

    Brachiator

    @rikyrah:

    Joyce Mitchell, the New York prison worker being questioned in the escape of two murderers, was charmed by one of the inmates and planned to be their getaway driver until she got cold feet, senior government officials told NBC News.

    Does anyone know her opinion of the movie “Goodfellas?”

  137. 137.

    Germy Shoemangler

    I find that her NPR stories were straightforward and based on solid reporting. Her Fox contributions were the same. She was smartly analytical, but did not take a position on issues or veer into opinion. Just as important, she did not tilt or load her characterizations of political figures such as President Barack Obama or Republican leaders.

    But that’s bullshit. I listen to her, and whenever she reports on Obama or Clinton or any other democrat, she uses very subtle negative language. And whenever she talks about whatever GOP nutbag is out there, she uses positive language.

    She’s Jon Karl.

  139. 139.

    Morzer

    @srv:

    Clearly, it’s Murdoch’s fault you have no viable candidate.

    People want sanity, not incontinent theocratic fascists.

  140. 140.

    bcinaz

    Citizens United opened this Wingnut Welfare branch of the GOP. That ruling is like the Main Chance for every fringe yahoo who wants a years paid leave. If elections were publicly financed and every dollar account for, the field would shrink down to the few or one who truly believes they should be President. Riding in the Big Clown Bus is a way to pad your CV and get bigger fees on the lecture circuit, plus maybe a book deal.

  142. 142.

    Zinsky

    @Arclite: I’m afraid a cage match format would heavily (pun intended) favor Kris KrispyKreme of New Jersey. One flying drop by the butterball would break every bone in poor little sensitive Lindsey Graham’s body!

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