Vee

I knew from Day 1.

Ron always does this - reveals a 'good' character to be some sort of sinister nut or pious hypocrite, and thinks that balances scales with the audience.

I mean, Schumer appears ready to put it on the floor and make him vote no, which is also what Waters said above they should do. I think it will happen and it should. But I don't blame anyone for the likely result of that vote or for Manchin's behavior but Manchin. I have had many issues with Jayapal in the past but she played it smart when she came out the other day and said that she didn't blame POTUS but Manchin who she felt betrayed Biden's trust. That's the kind of talk that gets her labeled a sellout by the dirtbag left, but it's the truth.

Rafe is here because someone thought Luis from Passions tested well with focus groups at NBC. That's it! He is a charisma void and even his initial story was a weak tea riff on Marlena and Roman and frankly beneath Sami's heights up to that point IMO. He did have more chemistry with CC but people freaked out about that. He should've been fired years ago.

This character should not exist. At least half the kids currently on the show should not exist. Don't get me started on why I'm supposed to care that they are featuring McBain and Greenlee's lisping daughter on General Hospital. These kids only exist because the show is lazy and keeps doing more hetero baby stories which eat up time and are easily approved by the network. Charlotte, the test tube quasi-rape baby with Billy Joel Cassadine who has no reason to exist, is just the start. There's what feels like Sonny and Carly's 20th child, named after a deceased GH crew person so now they can never kill her off. There's Dante and Lulu's kid who is suddenly out looking for his learner's permit, when his parents are hardly dried up for story and I feel like he was born like twenty minutes ago. It's turning into late-stage GL or AMC on the network, where it was like some sort of TLC reality show Mormon wet dream, where Bianca, Kendall, Marissa, etc. had like six kids between them and it was a mob scene of shrieking tykes and I couldn't remember who half of them were. This happens all the time here now: Charlotte, Violet, Leo, Rocco, Scout, Wiley, Donna? I can't remember they exist half the time but they age all their parents and they burn story. Same with Maxie's children I don't remember the names of! I'll come back in 5 years and Maxie will have five kids. Remember the school bus crash? BJ's Heart? I'm just saying, maybe there should be another school bus crash. And no hearts! Ricky Martin can't help them now!

Politico!

I think Murkowski can potentially go rogue. Sasse is pathetic.

I think Manchin is more likely to support a carveout on voting rights based on recent tea leaf readings from various journos (I can't find the tweets right now) than he is to ever support BBB. I agree on Murkowski.

There are always more kinescopes turning up somewhere - I wonder If any survived among random associates. I know Ellen Holly has maintained she has several of her key episodes from her early days on OLTL, thanks to urban affiliates.

The thing here is that he says, repeatedly, that he would never support BBB and he knew it all along. Many of us suspected it from the start bc his arguments against it have always been circular, repetitious and half-baked, and when he dropped one he'd always go back to another. Now today, in his radio interview, he has gone back to old stuff he was saying last spring or summer and referring to testing and committees, things that have already been done in several cases on key components. It's possible that dropping climate and adding pork would get his vote on pieces of this bill, and that may be a goal worth pursuing. But I don't think he wants to do anything period, it's clear now that his bruised ego and right-wing sensibility is far more important to him than any other political enrichment he might actually get from the passage, and I hope the WH doesn't take too much from the Politico Whisperers insisting there is a way to get to 'yes' with Manchin. I think any yes would be extremely meager and they should consider looking at Murkowski. All that being said: It is very possible Manchin's vote will be there for us on voting rights, so there is that.

Being called out as opposing the CTC really rattled him last week, and still does. Hence this morning's second leak.

Olivia Nuzzi is outraged! Not by the white supremacists she clubs around with, but by this:

If the Democratic fusillade continues (and I think some of it will) he is likely to get more than he cares for. When people in the press gaggles hit Manchin on sore points, like his family's money or the CTC, he hollers and loses his cool. The leak today about his CTC comments is not a coincidence.

He has impressively managed to publicly array just about the entire party against him, including people like Josh Gottheimer and Spanberger (who is undeniably smart and tough but comes from a conservative constituency).

What a day.

A bit! Just a tad! Going back many, many years, this behavior is not new from him.

Agreed. That delivered in a major way, more than I had expected bc I am not super susceptible to fan service without real weight and purpose. This had that and is probably the most emotional Marvel film for me besides the Infinity War/Endgame duology. Forgot to add:

I really liked the ending with the lone saxophone. That was great. It's just so strange because I felt last year would be the time for something like that, and here we are again.

That Weekend Update is legitimately funny, I'll give them that. I also loved Tom Hanks' opening line: "Thank you, surviving crewmembers."