Vee

Honestly though, as pointless as some of her recent stints are they're pretty benign. None of them are nearly as terrible as her original return in the mid-2000s. It's sometimes hard to remember now, but Guza had her holding Port Charles and thousands of lives for ransom over the monkey virus. That was horribly OOC for Holly (who I have no profound fondness for, I like Emma but I was always an Anna/Finola stan) and that same creative team spent years after bumbling around trying to make up for it with goofy comedy con artist hijinks designed to lighten the character up again without really addressing it, and I'm not sure they ever did. That being said, while I've always wanted Robert and Anna back together I know I am in the minority. And if it gets him away from Diane I am all for Robert and Holly reuniting yet again.

I mean I'm happy for Emma, but she's popped in many times in the last 20 and especially 10 years. She's a regular guest and that's great. I don't know why I open these headers expecting them to have finally bit the bullet on VM though, lol. I am surprised to hear she apparently ties into Lucky's return. I'm not sure if her and JJ have ever shared scenes, I don't think so.

Vance's fixations run deeper than I knew:

You know it's bad when Trey Gowdy comes off like a distinguished statesman.

I still don't think he's the right optic but I see @DRW50's point:

Foregoing 'go high' has borne fruit - creeps like Vivek wouldn't be pleading to talk policy otherwise. More WP (non-paywalled): Vance's rocky debut

Meanwhile: Walz at it again: This has worked tbh:

Not that good, lol. He was also messy BTS.

A solid piece from the Post re: How Kamala Harris took control of the Democratic Party (non-paywalled). An excerpt: Really a remarkable demonstration of party discipline and something that should be studied in future - in addition to what I'm sure will be more painful and ugly exposes about how other parties drove Joe out. This fortunately seems largely separate from that.

NBC's Sahil Kapur, who should know better, embarrasses himself on abortion in this tweet, gets ratioed to hell and is still trying to dig his way out a few hours later attempting to lamely parse his own words:

Note the dates of each poll (since last Sunday) and the dramatic shifts from Biden's polling against Trump to Harris. As I've said, Harris is gaining fast.

I just don't think there'll be that many of those staying away this time.

Usha Vance was a registered Dem until marrying JD Vance, and went on to clerk for (yes) Brett Kavanaugh. Their relationship at Yale was also prodded forward by infamous "Tiger Mom" and Kavanaugh booster Amy Chua.

I always liked Creech. I was disappointed to see her only briefly pop up on GH as an assassin during Guza II.

That's why you always run the URL for paywalled articles through archive.is.

He's a good guy, but I don't think Walz is photogenic or young enough. I think Kelly is solid enough, but I'd prefer Shapiro or Beshear.

SDCC Trek stuff. Carol Kane remains a delight: I'm glad Lower Decks is back in October, but I wish it wasn't ending - I can't tell if it's down to Paramount's money woes or the higher-ups being petty bc it's been more popular than Discovery and S31, or both. (Which is another reason I'm convinced they're dragging their feet on the Picard spinoff - neither LD nor Picard Season 3 came from the main creative heads, and both have been far more popular than the other seasons of Picard or DSC - but I may just be being a tinhat conspiracist on this, as money at Paramount is super tight and the streamer will likely collapse soon and sell everything Trek off to another outlet.) At least Tawny Newsome is jumping to another Trek show (and also writing for Starfleet Academy) - but I'm not super into either premise, though I love Justin Simien. The Section 31 film looks deeply tryhard but also looks like it will at least be reasonably diverting dumb fun. I am at least interested in it taking place in the time gap between the Kirk movie era and TNG, and I'm happy for more Michelle Yeoh. I'm glad this edgelord pet project of Alex Kurtzman has been relegated to just a streaming movie (though it clearly seems to be a pilot film to me for the originally planned series fans were not enthused by). I don't have high hopes for Netflix picking up Prodigy for more, but I hear it's doing well over there. I'm in the middle of Season 2.