DRW50

Money is a factor, but it's also an ecosystem designed to believe Republicans, especially white male Republicans, are the ideal, are true thought leaders and noble warriors willing to talk tough. I remember the media being gleeful over being invited to gatherings by McCain, and by him remembering their favorite donut toppings. I remember a male reporter actually writing that even being in the same room with Mitt Romney sexually aroused him, because he was so masculine. More recently, there was endless media hype in alleged mainstream publications over the likes of Tim Pawlenty ("Sam's Club Republican"), Scott Walker, Josh Hawley (who was supposed to be the next Teddy Roosevelt), etc. Rand Paul got a glowing TIME cover story. Paul Ryan was supposed to cure poverty by...occasionally going to see poor people and looking sad (then cutting all their benefits). The vaccine situation has been so clouded and polarized, and the stimulus package will be over a year and half old by the time voting starts for the general midterm. I'm not going to downplay them, but I don't think they are going to be anywhere near enough. The only chance of breaking even in 2022 is to have decisions and leadership which I don't think we are seeing. That's nothing against people who call and volunteer and work their hardest. It's just when you have people like Kristen SInema, who seem to actively hate their base, or Joe Manchin, who would rather tell everyone how morally righteous they are than actually do anything, not to mention the other senators hiding behind these two, the power is out of their hands.

It's because the media loves Republicans. They see them as strong, funny, cool, and the fathers they need. McConnell provides lots of story for them because he can be written as a schemer, a badass who always wins. Even now he is seen as dominating the show, and I can't say people are wrong to feel that way. I think some of the criticism of Biden is unfair, and of the party as a whole, but I think some, like the backlash against Manchin and Sinema, or the confusion over the sluggish implementation and poor public selling (something the GOP and their media puppets are expert at doing, every time) on just how serious 1/6 was and how close it is to happening again, how close we are to losing our democracy for good, is warranted. The bad strategies with the ACA were the type of problem that initially people were hoping would not happen again - that we are back in that world, only with 9-10 less seats in the Senate and many less in the House, is likely another reason so many are frightened and angry. It feels like nothing is happening, and the most we get is baby steps to a little crumb here and there. Over and over we have stories like this: Once upon a time I might have believed that this made sense as a strategy - that moving on from Trump would let people heal - but Trump is still here, and so many Republicans are still making their party in his image. There's nothing to move on to. If they think voters will reward them for their charity and kindness, that won't happen.

I don't understand how this is going to work. What happens if Republicans refuse to vote for the first package and Manchin and Sinema then refuse to vote for reconciliation?

Yes, that is the main complaint I would have about Vigard's casting in that if you think about it too long, the pairing with Kelly is very questionable - I can't even remember if she was 18 when they first had sex (I know this was seen as no big deal at the time, but still...). I think the story would have worked more as a mistake on Kelly's part, with Morgan getting her heart broken and ending up together with Tim, or a new boy around her age. (with that said, I know the Morgan/Kelly/Nola story was very popular and Morgan and Kelly had a lot of fans - and I do think their wedding is lovely) I also liked Toby Poser as Amanda, I just thought they did her very dirty with the writing, especially the jabs at her hair.

I know it's common for soap writers to feel that way (some are more discreet than others), but talk about hubris. Would anyone really say that characters like Maeve or Miss Sally ended up being any less of "dead wood" than the characters they replaced?

Thanks. That makes sense, as Kathleen Cullen and Geraldine Court were let go around the same period. I always find the concept of the Richards women and their relationships more interesting than what we got onscreen. There's something very wan about the way Marland wrote for his central characters at GL - you have very serious, angst-ridden people with no real inner life, with panto baddies like Josh or Vanessa (or Nola before they made the character a heroine) on the other side. Vigard is the one who made Morgan feel more real to me. I will say that I do think Cullen was able to give Amanda more of an inner life when the Dobsons were writing the show. I've also heard some here say that Pat Falken Smith wrote well for Amanda.

90 is a long life, but still sad to hear. Seneca was such a wonderfully rich character in those first few years - the story with Nell was incredibly powerful and still stays with me. Sadly the character was one of several trashed for Kimberly, but at least he managed to have a good ending.

I see that Chris Cousins appeared in the role up to 1990, but SOC says Tonio had him killed in February 1991. The only reason I remembered is because I think it was mentioned in some of the clips where Bob confronts Tonio and is shot. Here is a summary from Tonio's SOC/Soap Opera Central page: Later, Tonio set his sights on the wealthy Sabrina Hughes. However, one complication was Sabrina's former fiancé, Colin Crawley. Another complication was attorney Blake Stevens, who was investigating some dubious dealings of Tonio's. Seeking to get rid of these obstacles, Tonio hired a hit man, Richard Tyrell, to kill both Colin and Blake. Under suspicion for the murder of Colin and Blake, Tonio decided to run off with Sabrina.

I think he may have later been killed by Tonio.

Thank you for letting us know @DaytimeFan . Jackie was one of a kind. I'm glad they are doing a documentary on her.

This is like one of those quotes you see splashed in a documentary right before the nation falls.

She was a terrible actress. I'm not even sure she was an actress, maybe she was a stunt person in that role, but she was terrible. By that point the season-long Big Bad concept (which also caused a lot of problems in season 4) wasn't needed anyway. Joylessness and pessimism is about right. What made it worse and what makes the episodes so hard to watch is the unhappiness of the actors seeps through the screen. The spark was long gone. Xander was weak and pathetic on many occasions (especially his actions at the end of season 2), but I did like Nicholas Brendan's work and his chemistry with Charisma. The character completely lost his way in season 4 and we just got constant reminders of what a loser he was, dragging on and on and on. And Brendan's many struggles since have made rewatching any of his material just about impossible.

Much as I enjoy a select few season 5 episodes, I generally just pretend Buffy ended after season 3. I did like Tara, but knowing Amber Benson is one of many actors who had a bad experience on the show has colored my memories.

Hopefully he will upload (he has not uploaded some of the other episodes he had closing credits for, but did put up a Y&R episode). I'm not holding my breath though. It truly saddens me that the sponsors and networks took so little care of their soaps and ignore such obvious ways to make revenue, meaning we're in a place where we either have to beg or make financial donations to have any hope of seeing a fragment of an episode.

This gave me a good laugh:

The main problem is most involved play a lot of very awkward word games (most recently shown with Jacky Rosen). That's likely one of the reasons it's easy to believe they are just hiding behind Manchin a nd Sinema.

I just saw the tweet about John Sacret Young. Those first two seasons of China Beach were very special.

Multiple times now I've read about how many different things have been taken out of this bill. Here we go again. By the time it does pass it's going to just be the same lip service nobody needs more of:

I'm sure she has a valid reason, but this isn't the first time Gillibrand has come across as phony and grandstanding. If Schumer is holding these votes to try to send a message about Republicans, it does no good when Democrats repeatedly miss the votes as well. There really is no coherent strategy at this point. The more time passes the more I tend to believe the people who claimed that a lot of Senate Democrats were hoping the Senate would stay Republican this year. In other wonderful news: Over and over and over the media and deadend leftists claim that Democrats are beholden to queer people and pandering to them, yet over and over and over we get the above as the true reminder of our place.