Vee

It's still an incredible scene (and script). So good, and such amazing work from BM one more time. I don't remember the scene with Jason rejecting Courtney for Sam lol. I wish I could find it.

Walz has also cleared his schedule and will allegedly be meeting with Harris tomorrow. But that goes for most of them this weekend.

Reuters on Harris making a play for the Sun Belt state path, which is totally doable IMO.

This NYT thing is becoming a whole situation for them:

It was hilarious, a total 180. And yeah, I liked ALW on AW and liked her at the show initially with BW. It was too bad. But she was placed in a position where she became unbearable fast. I think it may have been a combination of things, but I'm not sure. I expect Guza liked the idea of finally bringing Scorpio back (he wrote there in his heyday, after all) and he certainly early on in the return pushed this cynical take on the character being much more cavalier about Robin and his family vs. his life as a career secret agent. I know Tony Geary had also pushed for it for years - allegedly, his original version of "Endgame" which he wrote with Irene Suver (and which JFP discarded) had featured Robert's return from the dead. I think it also benefitted the show at the time. Kimberly McCullough had just returned on contract, was now a major foundational player again and in spite of issues with execution they began to re-orient a massive portion of the show around the hospital again, focusing in on Robin and her love interest Patrick. It also synergized well with the network striking gold in primetime with Grey's Anatomy. To the show's credit, that return to a significant hospital focus and several major on-contract hospital characters at any time has pretty much remained ever since late 2005-early 2006. That came from Robin's return.

The only thing that made Courtney an A-player was Brian Frons and Chuck Pratt's fascination with her. The A.J. story worked early on but putting her with Jason made her unbearable and unpopular. As soon as Frons' focus shifted, Guza cast her out and then eventually got to kill her off.

I have a host of issues with Beutler's past history, but this is accurate and so was Variety: NY Times Pitchbot also still really, really pisses them off. This is the second time a critique has gotten under Tani's skin recently.

The Times gets blowback for headline choice again, reacts predictably, then buckles in the end: Martin did get ratio'ed for his reaction before the headline change, but it's remarkable just how openly contemptuous in recent times they've become in various media outlets, from guys like Max Tani to up and down the ladder. And it's wild that their recent argument has been 'don't blame us, journalism have no agency or impact in current events!' while also still claiming to be the essential bulwark informing the public in difficult times. But wait! There's more!

Dovere is often a gossip, but the story is worthwhile:

He's nowhere near as effective as his many exiled predecessors.

The ever-booked Mckenna Grace (Faith, Y&R) and Lacey Chabert (Bianca, AMC) both have voice roles in the new Amazon series Batman: Caped Crusader.

I didn't see this up, so here's the very in-depth WSJ story on the prisoner swap. Non-paywalled.

I don't think he will win most of them, if any. And I still think Shapiro is a very solid choice and impressive voice with normie non-online voters, but I would still probably prefer one of the others. But we'll see.

Hilarious:

I've also been really offended with people posting Rumble links throughout the board because they apparently don't know how to use Google or link properly. I don't blame AMCOLTL for it because I suspect I know the source.

Lord. Not Natalia and Brenda in the same shot! Nothing personal, Eva.

Vladimir Kara-Murza, a journalist, activist and filmmaker, was one of the men freed whose family was at the WH in those videos - his wife and two children speak to him in the clips. I'm not sure he was present in the video at the tarmac the other night but he has been released. He was a protege of the late Boris Nemtsov, and like Nemtsov Putin attempted to assassinate him - twice, with poison. I'd love to believe he's right.

@DRW50 even for the Times this is shameless tapdancing. I give this one the night to get quietly changed.

A good piece above. Meanwhile, back at Semafor the gossip train goes where it can: A moment of clarity with TomI(!!): The repeated rounds of deranged longtime right-wing operators, bigots and weirdos (Rove, Vivek, now this) all lining up to beg the Trump campaign on TV to stop talking about race and get serious for days, only to watch them continue to fúck up is absolutely hysterical to me.

They've got absolutely nothing. This is like he's riffing.