KerleyQ

My biggest hope for this story is that Brooke turns him down flat now. Then, when Douglas's paternity reveal eventually happens, and Ridge is back and happy with Caroline, Brooke can point out to him that she knew they were both meant to be somewhere else now, and that she's glad he sees that and is happy again. But, you know, that would be adult and all. Can't have that.

It's amazing that they don't get the disconnect between introducing themselves as a same sex couple planning to marry while while talking about voting for a man who has said that he'll appoint SC justices who will take away their right to marry.

I don't think that someone who puts a Trump sign out in their front yard is going to be afraid to admit to a pollster that they're voting for him. I think what the deal is is that while his fans call themselves the "silent majority," what they really are is the "vocal minority." They're just so loud and proud that they make it seem like they're a larger group. Ditto. I considered putting one in my yard, but I'm in an area of Illinois that's kind of dicey on that front. We're a suburb that seems mostly liberal (and our local elected officials are liberal), but, we're sandwiched in between a pretty wealthy suburb and a rural town. So you don't have to venture too far away from our front door to see Trump signs and homemade "Killary for Prison" signs. So I feel safer not inviting their interest in my home or my car (which is like 6 months old, so I'd like to not find it keyed when I come out of the grocery store). I don't know if they'd do anything now, but I do think that, on election night, they might be out for some kind of vengeance. Yep. His attorney flat out said that you can't rape your spouse. That point in time was when it was just becoming known that date rape is a real thing. Spousal rape wasn't really on a lot of people's radar. (Even today, there are a decent number of people who would still say that you can't rape your spouse.) If he isn't providing insurance to his employees, he'd be in violation of the law. Any company over 50 full time employees (or 50 full time equivalents) is required to provide coverage to their employees or pay a tax penalty. So him being out there declaring the issues his employees are having with Obamacare coverage should invite a nice little investigation by the IRS as to whether he's meeting his obligations.

When his supporters were whining about Ecuador cutting off his internet access, I was laughing. Gee, a country didn't want to be involved in a guest of their embassy utilizing their resources to interfere in another country's electoral process? I'm shocked. Hey, Julian? I'm sure if you wander on out of the embassy, you can find yourself any number of internet cafes or hotels with wi-fi. Oh, what's that? You're hiding out to avoid being arrested for rape? Hey, maybe you can see if Roman Polanski's place has wi-fi. It feels so damn odd to respect March Rubio, but at least he's taken a stand that he will not discuss anything related to the leaked hacks. So the Trump camp and his supporters have found a new thing to bitch about - "biased sampling." I could not stop laughing when I saw that start popping up. His campaign and his supporters constitute one big echo chamber. Nothing filters in that doesn't confirm their preconceived notions, and they're talking about sampling bias? And then Trump will praise any poll from Breitbart or its ilk that shows him leading. Like that isn't the ultimate in sampling bias? That reminds me of something else I meant to bring up before. His supporters claim that, because he draws such "huge" crowds at his rallies, that means he's really winning. I think the reason his crowds are so big while he's still losing is that his support base is very, very involved and vocal. I think that, when it comes to voters attending rallies, he has a much higher participating rate than other candidates. It would be interesting to compare the rally attendee to voter ratio for him compared to other candidates. I'd bet his ratio is much higher. Of course there's also the other angle to his rally numbers - he's been inflating them since the primaries. I have a few family members who braved one of his rallies about a month ago, because one of them needed to write a column on it. His people employ various tricks to make it seem like a larger, more devout crowd than there really is. It started with the line to get in. They were only letting a small number of people in at a time in order to maintain a line waiting out in the street, making it look like the demand to get in was more than it really was. Once they got in, there were staffers working through the crowds, rearranging them for the best visual impact, both in terms of making it look more crowded and making sure that people in the best camera sight lines had the preferred signs. They are pros at making it look like a full arena when it's not even half full. That's not to say that he absolutely never has a full arena, he's had a few, but his people use the overhead pictures from those arenas, that show them full, and post them on social media days, weeks, months later, claiming that they're pictures from that day's rally. His sons have been busted on that one more than once (the most prominent I can think of is Mark Cuban busting him trying to pass the Dallas arena where the Mavericks play off as an arena in Florida).

Ditto. It's an appropriate image, though.

Seriously, how do I get off of this ride?

I don't think they fully have a story line plan in place for it now. I bet cat eyes come in real handy for a bad guy. Better night vision will be a huge advantage for Valentin when he eventually traps everyone at Wyndemere and cuts the power.

If this story doesn't arrive at a point where Brooke is backing Eric instead of Ridge, then the writers are truly incompetent. Especially since Quinn has really done not a single damn thing to Rick. Rick should be polishing up his crown to be the new number one son, Eric and Quinn's most trusted confidant. Maya should be ingratiating herself with Quinn to help boost Rick's career. That this isn't happening is absurd.

I've never doubted the allegations against him. And it's so infuriating that his side keeps trying to act like he's never been accused of this before. He has been. There have been multiple allegations in the past. He's got a civil trial for raping a 13 year old starting in December. His own wife accused him of it (and semi-walked it back, no doubt for cash, but her "walking it back" still involved her calling it a violent violating episode). And his response (as well as his followers' response, I'm sure) in the case of the porn star is so gross. I knew that was what was going to happen, without a doubt. It was going to be a general attitude of "well, come on, she's a porn star." If anyone wonders why she didn't come forward sooner, all they need to do is listen to the response to her coming forward now. It must be monumentally difficult to report sexual assault or sexual harassment when you work in a sex-based industry. A few weeks ago, I saw a meme that had a picture of the two of them next to a picture of Beavis & Butthead, and it was dead on, especially Eric (the blonde one). It's all I can see now when they're on TV. Exactly. Women often don't come forward when their assailant is just some average guy. But they're often even more reluctant to come forward when they're attacked by someone famous, rich, or powerful. They system is rough enough when you've been sexually assaulted, but when the person you're accusing has those extra advantages, it's got to be a nightmare. It's like being repeatedly victimized over and over by the system and the general public. When I was a teenager, I worked at a local store. The owner sexually harassed all of us. There were smacks on the ass all the time. I still remember one time I was waiting on a customer, and the owner came up beside me while he was passing out paychecks, and he stuck my paycheck (and his hand) in my front pocket. Stuff like that was routine for him. None of us ever reported it. But I was just saying to my husband the other day that, if the Trump campaign was going on with that guy as the candidate, I would have to speak up and corroborate his pattern of behavior. And, it goes without saying that he would not have my vote. And talking about him makes me hope that we get a woman who worked for him to come forward. Because not only would I have been able to, as a former employee of the pervert I worked for, speak to his harassing behavior, but, I also knew some less than ethical (and some illegal) activities he was engaging in with regard to the business. You just know there's some former (or current) female employee out there who can not only corroborate his repulsive behavior towards women, but can also spill the beans about some of his corporate shenanigans. I think it has motivated women voters. I saw a story earlier tonight about how in some key swing states, early voting among women is way up. I would imagine that his attitude towards and treatment of women is the reason for that.

I'm kind of similar, except I have to take them pretty much every day. (I have an autoimmune disorder that causes extreme pain, and the medication that treats the disorder tried to kill me, so I'm kind of stuck with needing painkillers to stay out of the hospital.) I think that some people just don't have the chemical make up to be an addict, and I'm, luckily, one of those people. (I've had this condition for more than a decade, and after the initial few visits with the pain clinic, where we experimented with different meds and doses until we hit on what worked, I've never asked for an increased dose or more pills in all of that time.) I get concerned when I hear how much some would like to change the system. I know that there needs to be some change, because it is, currently, a little too easy for an addict to doctor shop and pharmacy hop to get them filled. If they can track and limit the purchase of Sudafed, like they do here in Illinois, they should also be able to track and limit the purchase of pain pills. That way if someone goes to multiple doctors and then takes one prescription to CVS, one to Walgreens, one to a local privately owned, pharmacy, etc, something will trigger in the system, flagging them as a potential abuser. Any patient getting a prescription for certain pain medications would have to sign something similar to what I sign with my pain clinic which, among other things, gives the physician and pharmacy permission to discuss the prescription with any other doctor who prescribes similar medications.

I absolutely think he's just counting on being able to keep the money for himself somehow. If nothing else, he'll either hold one last campaign event, which will basically be a party to thank his team or something, and he'll hold it at Trump Tower and wildly overcharge the campaign for use of the space. (Maybe he'll have it in that janky ass public garden.) At some point early on (or maybe this was even the reason he ran), he figured out that he could find ways to personally profit off his campaign. The "I'm self-funding" turned out to be a way to earn money in that he didn't "self-fund" so much as he loaned that money to the campaign. Once he "realized" that he needed to take donations to compete with the other candidates, then the campaign could pay him back for that loan, plus interest, of course. I wonder - if he fails to pay them, does that give his staff wiggle room in the NDA? If signing the NDA was a part of their employment agreement, and he fails to live up to his part of the employment agreement, does that mean they aren't necessarily beholden to that NDA? Because I also believe he'll stiff at least some of the campaign staff. When he doesn't win, they'll take the blame. We've already seen him try to sell the "they probably didn't do a good job" line to justify his repeated stiffing of various contractors. So why wouldn't he pull that with his campaign staff on a losing campaign? It, of course, couldn't possibly be his fault he lost, so they must have not done the job right. This seems closest to what he'll pull. We've already heard his son say that the Presidency would be a "step down" for him. So I'd bet that it's the angle they've decided to go with for the loss - that he didn't seriously want it anyway. He was sacrificing of himself to make the run, for the good of the country, but he never really wanted the job when he has his wildly successful company, the best company, it's so successful, it's unbelievable. So successful. But he would have done it for the people, because he's such a huge patriot, nobody loves this country more than he does. And people were telling him how bad the country was doing, and how they desperately needed someone to fight the corrupt Clinton machine, and he was the only one who could do it and save the country from them. Because he's wildly popular and people just like him...endorsements. He got so many endorsements. The best endorsements. ICE - they've never endorsed anybody. Never. And, it's just tremendous, they endorsed him, because they knew he could save this country. But he has these businesses, and he's so successful, you have no idea how successful. And being President was a sacrifice he was willing to make, but it was never his dream.

When the Emmy thing came up at the debate, my son said "so, someone just give him an Emmy so he'll go away!" I responded "well, you know, John Oliver has one." And, sure enough...

Or coddling the mob boss and begging Carly to take that mob boss back to heal his pain over blowing up their son.

I read the deposition he gave in the trial where he's suing that chef for pulling out of his new hotel. He basically says that Ivanka and Don Jr do the negotiating and hammer out all the details and then just show him when he's done. My immediate thought was that this is a man running on his business acumen, and he's admitting that he doesn't actually do much to run his business. He's just a figurehead. (It also lends credence to Kasich's claim that the campaign approached him about being the VP, promising he'd be in charge of everything while Trump will be in charge of "Making America Great Again." That's basically what he does now. His kids are in charge of everything, and he promotes the brand. "Make America Great Again" is simply the new brand. For me the bigger issue with his kids running things during his hypothetical presidency is not that he'd be behind the wheel at Trump, but there are two other glaring issues. The power it imbues in his kids is one. The company does a lot of out of the country work. Imagine if you're some local authority in another country, and the children of the President of one of the most powerful countries in the world show up looking for a variance on something, or bidding on some key piece of property to launch a new project. It's going to be awfully hard for those localities in other countries to ignore that they're negotiating with someone with that kind of power at their backs. And if he wants to talk "pay to play," how many times will some other country get some kind of consideration or preferential treatment from his administration if they've extended themselves for his company? The other issue is, of course, government contracts. How fair would it be to any company to be competing with a company run by the President's children when trying to get a government contract? Even if they swear that all bids were made anonymously, there's no way to ensure the integrity of that system when the people who run one of the bidding companies are the children of the POTUS. I know, Don Jr swears "we'd never talk about business." But, let's be real, the man has no integrity and no shame. If he can do something to aid his company, he'll do it. Not to be flip, but one of his kids can't even be assed to pay a buck or two for his beverage at a fast food place, and we expect that he's not going to do everything in his power to jump the line when we're talking millions and billions in company revenue? I've said a number of times recently that I hope that there is an unprecedented level of security around the Clinton family on election night and inauguration day. Because I have no doubt that some deranged supporter might try something, thinking that they're doing it for him. (I'm not saying all of his supporters are at that level, but he does have a core segment of his voters who have a cult like devotion to him. There's no telling how they might react when he loses.) But you're right in that he, himself, may look for ways to "ruin" the family (among others) in other ways after the loss. Something tells me that, at minimum, Hillary will spend her term answering questions, nearly daily, about some outlandish thing he's said about her or accused her of. It would be nice if the media collectively ignored his sore loser antics, but they're not going to be able to resist the ratings of covering his idiocy. Yep. Aren't two of his most prominent ones - Kellyanne and Katrina - former Cruz surrogates? I know there's evidence of Kellyanne, at least, really putting Trump down when she worked with Cruz, but now she's out there smiling and pretending that Trump is the greatest human being she's ever had the pleasure of meeting. Of course, the media rolls with it, because there must be some kind of understood thing that they don't bring up their previous work with other candidates once they're with a new one, because it's just part of the business. (Kind of similar, I guess, to how most voters and media don't buy into using a primary opponent's angles of attack against the candidate once they get the nomination and those prior opponents endorse and, sometimes, campaign for them. He does have endorsements and support from some in the military. I don't think that he'd have a huge problem finding military members who will do his bidding, it if comes to it. Like any good dictator, he'll figure out early on which members of the military are not only for him, but blindly loyal or ambitious enough to not be bothered by the ethical dilemmas presented by his orders. Those are the ones he'll surround himself with to carry out those orders. Once he has some in authority within the military, they'll be likely to order those below them to carry out orders. Then you hit the point where there's a fracture. There will be some who respect the authority of those above them to the degree where they won't question any order. And there will be some who respect that authority, but still hold true to those principles that have been instilled in them, and they won't carry out the orders. And that is when things will start getting really ugly. Not only does that cause a potential battle from within, but that conflict weakens us, in general, and makes us ripe for outside aggressors (hi, Vladimir!). Obviously, that is all a worst case-scenario, but, it's not outside the realm of possibility. That is textbook for how dictatorships get and maintain power (and how rebel groups form in response, as well). It's our ideal to say that our military will not carry out orders that run contrary to their core principles, and we should be able to say that. However, it's never black and white, especially when one of their core principles is a respect for their superiors and the CIC. You can't predict how people will react when some of their principles conflict with some of their other principles. Add in that it's possible that those who are loyal to the dictator will misrepresent the reasoning behind orders, or compartmentalize various portions of a mission so that those carrying it out don't see how what they're doing contributes to a bigger picture they wouldn't support, so those carrying out the orders might not even know that what they're doing goes against their principles until it's too late.

I saw someone after the third debate say how impressive it was that she didn't react at all to his "such a nasty woman" comment. I said "given who her opponent is, some of her debate prep probably consisted of having a guy come in and stand there yelling "bitch!!" over and over at her while she speaks, just to condition herself to not so much as acknowledge any interjections like that."

That was a damn satisfying episode. My 14 year old son had a half day today, so he was home while I was watching, and he was team Queric just from today. Kept telling Pam and Charlie to get out.

Yep. He pulled the trifecta of screwing over his sons. A little something for each of them in that grossness.

It probably wouldn't hurt to try tweeting at him, maybe?

OK, I know these are all English words you've typed, but they make no sense. None. None at all. What the hell is wrong with people????

This is totally the early McBain/Natalie stuff from OLTL. Except those two had better chemistry and it was a better written "oh woe is me, I have a dead chick in my past but I'm really into this girl" story than any of the other versions of it ME has done since then. Actually, it's a little bizarro world sometimes when I glance up at the Dr. Michael Easton/Greenlee scenes, because it's a similar story line, and, from the back, RB's hair has this reddish hue to it under the lights, so it's like "wait Natalie and McBain?" And damn if I can remember who killed him (or even remember that he existed until someone mentions him). I just want to see Julian figure out that, if it weren't for Ava fucking with Morgan's meds, his ass would have blown up in that car, instead of Morgan's useless ass. Then he can just high-five her, teach her how to better dispose of evidence, and never speak of it again. Oh, God, they're going to do a "The City" thing, aren't they? They closed GH, and everyone's talking about moving... Hey, as long as neither one of them ever says "time to meet Grandpa!" Either Grandma is fine, but just say no to the Grandpas. Well, unless Ned becomes an honorary Grandpa. That's fine.

She'd look so good with a nice bob that hits about halfway between the chin and collarbone.

I think it's one of those things where he knows he can rage at his mother, because she loves him and she'll take it, but he loves her, and he is actually happy for her that she has someone like Eric who loves her like this. I think a lot of people tend to take their pain out on people who they know can take it, and who will love them just the same after the venting.

The writers don't even know what the fuck is going on.

Are there like a half dozen writers responsible for the Claudette crap who rotate writing each day without even taking a passing glance at what anyone else has written for her? Because that's the only way this shit makes any sense at all.

I think there's something to that. And it may not specifically be that the engagement is solely to shoot the bird to WWE, as much as their being against it (along with her family, and, likely, some of her friends and fans) makes it all that much more exciting and romantic. I've said before that, for a lot of people in her age range, movies have kind of given them the impression that, the more opposition or hurdles your relationship faces, the more romantic it all is. So, to her, all this drama means it is just meant to be. And WWE definitely seems to be not OK with this whole relationship. I know I saw a story not too long ago about them not wanting her going out to sit and watch his matches. And, I believe they split them up in the brand split, where they seem to have made a point of putting other couples on the same brand. Even if they were tempted to just look the other way and wait for it to play out, the changes in her behavior would have convinced them that this is not good and has a detrimental effect on her performance and career. Of course, factoring both of those positions in, I think that, if WWE wasn't strongly opposed to it and her friends and family didn't oppose it, the relationship likely would have fizzled out by now. But, having said that, I still think that WWE wasn't wrong to be against it, and you certainly can't blame her friends and family for not being thrilled about her getting involved with a guy who's married with kids, has a habit of cheating, and is practically old enough to be her father. Not many people would just ignore all those red flags when they see a loved one making that kind of mistake.