Vee

Okay - this is real. The usual drumbeat about 60 is beside the point here - if he can get these changes, and a lot of them seem mostly acceptable, and perhaps get the bill renamed the "Joe Manchin Is Not A Racist You Filthy Libs Bill", I believe he'll pass it with reconciliation or some sort of wedge. This is a big deal. Meanwhile, I've always had issues with Kaitlan Collins and the gotcha Beltway Kids:

Could be Manchin vamping for more attention, but this is still a surprise: As to everything else: I have lots of issues with how the Congress is always insistent on avoiding dealing with real criminality among the GOP they break bread with, and always bangs the drum about 'focusing on kitchen table issues' instead every [!@#$%^&*] session. It's a cliche. I understand the Dems are a big tent and that focusing on those issues is integral for certain seats in certain parts of the country, but that does not mean that it's acceptable to regularly punt any responsibility for investigations on Barr or 1/6 or whatever else to a DOJ that is currently not inclined to go beyond enforcing past norms. I also don't agree the media has shrugged off 1/6 - they haven't, outside of the right wing. They still see it as very serious; it's the Dems in the Congress who are still struggling to create a coherent response to it. That's not acceptable, and I say that as someone who is a big fan of Pelosi generally. On a related note, I'm sure Merrick Garland is a decent man but ensuring continuity of old norms and old governmental process only matters insofar as it can be upheld and protected, not routinely violated by one party without any consequences or retribution. DOJ has to do better and so does the House Judiciary. I don't want to hear about another month of 'collating options' followed by toothless letters and subpoena demands that are ignored by their recipients with zero consequence or enforcement just like when Trump took office. I'm not saying turn the entire congressional session into the French Revolution, but if you have to haul some people in, do it. You can both govern on important local issues and do the necessary on these things. Because after a certain point it's not just about good governing, it's optics. Why? Because one thing the Republicans learned long ago is that their base, and I suspect a large portion of our uncurious segment of the base as well, responds to brute strength. If you're explaining why the Republicans are lying bc of all these GOP logical fallacies, you're losing. Nobody in the squishy middle cares. They care about action. If you can drag those guys in and look tough sometimes, do it. If you can pass a bill, do it. I think Biden had a very strong showing in the first few months, but I do think this infrastructure drag searching for imaginary Republican votes is bogging things down. I don't think that's all his fault; I think it's something foisted on them by Manchin's preening ego until such time as he decides okay, they won't happen and he votes for reconciliation after all (as he usually does) while sighing loudly for the benefit of Beltway reporters. But do I think Biden's administration and agenda has somehow collapsed in record time in a furor of unforced errors or struggling initiatives - no. It's only been a few long weeks of this and that's hyperbole. Again, I don't take the Will Stancils of the world remotely seriously. Loud angry white guys shaking their fists at Nancy Pelosi or Obama who think they know how to run government have been a cottage industry since at least 2009. That doesn't mean there aren't things that can't be done better across the administration, starting now. I hope the push by Schumer for a reconciliation bill period is the beginning of that. And I do think a voting rights bill will also be passed, by hook or by crook. The other Senators who supposedly agree with Manchin will not have the courage to block anything without his vote.

Supposedly, per further up the page, they won't do that. I don't think Schumer would go there unless he knows at this point, bc so many House and Senate Dems have made it clear they will not vote for a bait and switch infrastructure bill without a confirmed reconciliation. I still don't think the first bill will happen.

Making Howarth a Q relation by way of Jimmy Lee or whatever is what should have been done to begin with if they absolutely had to bring him back post-Todd (they didn't). Now I have zero patience with it for Character #3.

Finally, some breakthroughs:

Dude did fine.

A sad update.

After the 2000s, a lot of Liz fans will throw themselves in front of a bus to get her a major pairing with someone valued by the show vs. being sloppy seconds for Jason or the latest villain/failed hire du jour. If that meant committing to her being paired with Roger Howarth as he plays a gentle serial killer, a lot of them were willing to swallow that. It's a symbiotic relationship: On Frank's GH, being paired with Michael Easton or Howarth = job security and story, and Frank knows the desperate fanbase will keep those characters reasonably popular and therefore able to justify his favorite OLTL stars' continued employment (unless, in Roger's case, the new management at ABC notices you are still playing a rape-adjacent serial killer in 2021). All in all, they'll take it. Sad but true.

God, amen.

Re: the late Clarence Williams, who guest-starred in Season 2:

A good thread:

I'm not particularly happy about that, nor am I happy about Garland upholding the old institutionalist turn-the-page norms on certain things where it's not wholly necessary (and that's not just a question of the Carroll case). There's a number of things I can not be happy with. But that would happen in any administration, and it won't be the last time. The key is it's also a process, and a series of moving conveyors. I understand the urgency of the moment, nobody needs to remind me. This is a frustrating and tedious period with the infrastructure logjam and the uncertainty over voting rights. But it's not the first. A lot of that is just the nature of the Senate. I think the trajectory now, as all the bipartisan kerfuffle slowly dissolves by the hour, is that things are going to get done, if clearly less swiftly than I'd like, over the next few weeks and months as all this crap fades away. I'm tending to tune out the minute by minute cat-herding tweets about the Senate atm (often from giddy Capitol Hill reporters like Sherman who hero-worship the 'savvy' of McConnell and scoff at Democrats who work to make deals, then ignore them when they actually pass legislation) and am going to give them a pass on posting until real results begin to manifest, which will probably only begin sometime next week. Maybe. That's the Senate for you. If I spent all my time watching leftist accounts I'd think everything is fucked, that the Dems don't want to win and it's all doomed. That's not the case; that's simply what they want because they value vindication and perceived moral superiority over progress. I don't believe for a second the Senate Dems didn't want to win. That doesn't mean there weren't and aren't plenty of blinkered Democrats in the Senate who made mistakes last year and some who are making them now. Same old story for many years. Doesn't mean we can't do anything right. Right now, the force within the party rank and file is to go it alone. There are a lot of things we can eternally criticize Democrats for, especially Democrats in the Senate, especially re: messaging and tactics which will be a generational reeducation process to be honest, but I think ultimately the train will come down the track on some of the key issues of this month - possibly while I'm ready to throttle everyone involved. That's bureaucracy. In the meantime, I am not going to take my mood cues from leftists or CNN.

This guy rapidly became a professional scold and drama chaser. It doesn't surprise me. This explains his recent Twitter meltdowns. Here is the long-form LA Magazine piece the DB story links to - the bigger story.

I'm glad. They need to force him to vote no.

I never understood or accepted the Corday/Greene pairing despite loving both characters, and never will. I think Ming-Na hangs in for awhile but I felt they never, ever used her to her full potential. They should've paired her with Carter IMO but as you'll see, the all-encompassing Carter love dynasty is a different quadrant of characters. I think Susan and Carter may have been involved when she returned, but I don't think they ever committed to it. I don't remember, bc around then I stopped watching.

Trump is never going to jail IMO, but I never thought he was. I do think there will be a House committee on 1/6 which will be more effective than whatever weak tea compromise the Senate would've slapped together to appease McConnell. DOJ isn't the most effective agent for voting rights. The best we can do to protect voting rights starts with passing something - that's what the next month or two is going to be all about. And I think an expanded VRA likely will pass soon, and that will be very good. But leaving it all up to DOJ and executive orders isn't going to do it. As for something I really don't like, if separating Trump from DOJ so he can be prosecuted as a citizen is the angle then DOJ needs to make it clear, IMO. Because right now it looks and feels to a lot of people like the DOJ choosing to simply uphold the old norms and institutional mores, protect the outgoing admin like it was any other and 'move on' as opposed to taking the situation on the individual merits, which is flashbacks to a lot of Bush/Cheney hangover stuff. That's not more #bothsides ammunition anyone needs this month.

It's a stupid move on Garland's part re: the old norms of the institution closing ranks regardless of conduct or past behavior because of longstanding protocol vs. context. It's a mistake.

Tester throws shade at Manchin: