Vee

Chuck Todd has fled Twitter, tired of regular roasting:

I honestly don't remember. I just remember an endless Mobius loop of impossibly huge gaffes upon taking office, like sleeping in for events.

Champ had a long life and was clearly feeling his age - I've seen that kind of slow walk and hip issues before in dogs I've had or lived with, and I knew he'd pass 'in office'. I'm glad he got to spend some of his last months in a lovely new home. The NYC race seems to absolutely fascinate (in either a passionate or morbid way, or both) some friends and acquaintances (and NY journalists like Haberman who consider city politics the center of the universe, to be covered with far more fury than Trump's Washington) but as a once and perhaps future New Yorker I just can't be bothered. I hope Wiley can take it, but at least I doubt it will ever be Yang. And after BDB, oof.

Sad news:

That's wonderful.

I think people trying to take out Murkowski will remain disappointed.

The HK/Taiwan issues are close to my heart bc of some of my personal and work connections over the last decade. I can't countenance another war, but I also can't accept the US doing nothing if China tries to invade Taiwan and the country is poised for a worse fate than Hong Kong. There are no good answers. As for Matt Stoller, he's just another loud white blowhard like Stancil. I think Stoller in particular is insane on a great many topics; I don't take that wing of the dead-end left seriously at all and don't consider it remotely influential outside of that increasingly-waning niche group, which (like the right) is consistently struggling post-Trump to lay a glove on Biden, having failed to get him pulled from the ticket over Tara Reade or his supposed dementia. Meanwhile:

This looks like silly fun, but what a cast. @DRW50

Knowing soap fans as well as the gays, there will be complaints no matter who the moderator is. I do think there are better options than giving Locher literally every spot, particularly with shows he either does not know well at all or is clearly reticent to allow the actors to be open out of his own brand loyalty to P&G beyond all reason.

Didn't Bette love Lisa Brown on GL and want her to play her in a biopic?

Yep, I watched the Karen rescue stuff again not long ago.

Capitol Hill reporters are IMO openly, aggressively scornful of the effort by Schumer to put forth S1 next week regardless of not having 60 votes. I never hear this kind of relentless hectoring about GOP choices, but that's because they love McConnell's 'savvy.'

Nichelle hasn't been well for a long while now; this is lovely to see.

Did Alan fake technical difficulties when the ladies began dishing?

They're never going to strike down the ACA. They've had plenty of chances. Meanwhile:

I called that they were going to pull Ron's same Gigi/Stacey rewrite from the end of OLTL with this the moment they did it with Judi Evans' characters. I'm just surprised it's taking this long.

In which I regretfully post the Intercept (and ugh, Lee Fang):

I think we could have Vanessa back at this point, but Frank is being petty bc of whatever drama went down with him and her in 2013 - realizing she doesn't need this show or him. He hates that, at least from women. They could have her back as a cornerstone of the show and park Maurice with her and fundamentally change the show again, but Frank won't do that for anyone other than his favorite performers. Look how much arm-twisting it took to get him to accept having Genie on contract in her current role - he thought he could play her like a recurring.

Fun fact I'd forgotten: Kaitlan Collins is an alumni of the Daily Caller.