As a bonus, we'll throw in a couple of other good -- and lesser-known -- Christmas songs from the show.  This first is during the courtroom scene and W.H. Macy is called to the stand and has to say under oath whether he believes that there is actually a Santa Claus.

And we'll conclude things with an absolutely lovely song that the lawyer (the fellow who ends up defending Kris at the end, played by Craig Stevens) sings to the daughter of his neighbor, the cynic who hired Kris but sees it all as just business (played by the aforementioned Janis Paige). The young daughter has picked up much of her mother's cynicism, but their neighbor Fred slowly starts to bring some holiday cheer into the girl's life.

Last night, Rachel Maddow opened her show by talking about a true story made into a movie that starred Sissy Spacek that dealt with a lame-duck governor who abused the pardon system for massive bribes.  The film was titled, Marie, and also starred Jeff Daniels and featured John Cullum, best known to many for Northern Exposure (though who had a major Broadway career).

What Maddow left out of her story is that the real-life Marie's attorney was...Fred Thompson, who played himself. It was his first movie that led to his acting career, most-notably in Law & Order as the District Attorney and then later to his Senate seat. 

I'm a bit surprised that Maddow left this out, since it's a fairly noteworthy part of the movie's legacy, though I assume she just forgot.  The movie is from 1985, after all, and it's not a lead role, though substantive.  The movie is good, thoughtful and exciting, by the way.  Here's the trailer.  (Fred Thompson is referred to and you hear his voice, but he appears briefly around the 1:30 mark.)  

I was very sorry to find out about the passing of Rafer Johnson at the age of 86, one of the country's great athletes, who won the Decathlon at the 1960 Olympics and was a great ambassador for the U.S. since.

How great?  It would be too long to go into detail, but I'll just note that when the United States hosted the Olympic Games in Los Angeles in 1984, the person chosen to light the Olympic flame was Rafer Johnson.

I was very sorry to find out about the passing of Rafer Johnson at the age of 86, one of the country's great athletes, who won the Decathlon at the 1960 Olympics and was a great ambassador for the U.S. since.

This is a good, 4-minute video of Johnson's Gold Medal victory, in what's considered one of greatest decathlon competitions in Olympic history.  Not just because it was between the two top athletes in the world at the time, but they also were not only close friends...but teammates at UCLA, even though they were  representing different countries.

I don't really have much of a personal story to pass along about Rafer Johnson, but he has a very nice autobiography, The Best That I Can Be, which was written with the talented Philip Goldberg, who I was friends with but alas haven't seen for years since moved out of state too long ago.  The only time I cross paths with Rafer Johnson was when I went to a book-signing event.  We didn't talk long -- there was a long line -- but he was gracious and spoke wonderfully about Phil, who over the years always spoke even far-higher of Rafer.​

On his Facebook page, Phil wrote this --

"​I just got the sad news that one of the finest people I've ever known, Rafer Johnson, has passed away at 86. In the 90s I had the profound honor of working with Rafer on his autobiography, "The Best That I Can Be." It was a joy and an inspiration from start to finish, and we remained friends ever since. For those who don't know, or remember, Rafer was one of the greatest athletes in American history, and to my mind an even greater human being and citizen."

If you're interested in the book, you can find it here.

When I came across this on Tuesday, I had another piece planned for the next day, but figured I'd instead post this today.  Little did I know it would already be out of date!

It was a tweet from first-term California Congresswoman Katie Porter who has made a huge name for herself with her blistering cross-examination of witnesses at the House Oversight Committee she sits on, along with her popular white board that she uses regularly.  As she notes in the tweet, she includes a video montage that her staff put together of some of her most memorable moments with witnesses.

So, who knew that yesterday she'd have another blistering and withering encounter on the committee, questioning Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. Without that footage, therefore, here's the rest of the "Best of..."

There was so much major news yesterday to write about, and it was hard to choose. 

One possibility was Attorney General William Barr saying that there was no fraud in the election this year.  Like most people I suspect, I’m shocked that Barr said it.  I don’t know if he’s trying (much too late and far too little) damage control with the exit so close or just had a “screw you” moment for Trump or what.  (As much as it seems like revenge, I can’t quite wrap my head around that since all the things he’s done have been willingly, nothing that he’s been pushed to do against his will.)  But whatever the reason, it surely does take a massive amount of wind from the sociopath in the Oval Office.  And it also raises the question – will he now be fired?
 
Then there was the late-breaking story about a Department of Justice investigation that began this past August about a possible bribery for a presidential pardon.  SO much of the official documents have been redacted that they might as well have just used black paper.  And it's unknown if any of the story has gotten up to Trump directly or not.
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But in the end, I decided on something else entirely.  It was when a low-level public official in Georgia, the state's voting systems manager Gabriel Sterling came to give his press conference update on the status of the recount.  And instead, as he put it, he had sort of two press conferences to hold, because he had another issue he wanted to discuss and in a barely-restrained outrage unloaded on his fellow-Republicans who have been reacting not just irresponsibly, but dangerously, and he couldn't not speak out about it.

The shaking fury in his voice, as well as demeanor is palpable.  And as much attention as has rightly been given to the sick threat by one-time Trump attorney Joe DiGenova against former Trump cybersecurity official Chris Krebs, it turns out that Mr. Sterling's main point of his anger isn’t even about Krebs!  As ghastly as that is, it's almost just a side issue.

In his speech, Mr. Sterling directly addresses Trump and mentions two others he holds responsible, but doesn't name them.  Later, he's asked by a reporter who he's referring to, and at that time he then does specifically name the two senators who are currently in the the upcoming Georgia run-off -- David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, .

Of course, given that this is who Trump has been for four years in his own words and encouragement of others to act with violence, it shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone.  But such outspoken fury is none-the-less welcome at any time, most-specially from another Republican, finally outraged enough to speak out and so forcefully..

One other thing stood out for me.  This by Mr. Sterling is an “At long last, have you left no sense of decency?” speech that in many ways mirrors the one that a barely-restrained, irate Joseph Welch gave to Sen. Joe McCarthy in 1954 -- even to the degree of both speeches being about an innocent young man being unfairly smeared.  With the further overlap being that McCarthy's committee lawyer was Roy Cohn, who was later a mentor to -- Donald Trump.

And so, I turn these pages over to Gabriel Sterling from the moment he walked out to face the media --

As a bonus, and by way of comparison, I tracked down the famous four-minute sequence between Joseph Welch and Joe McCarthy -- with a mortified Roy Cohn watching his boss go down in flames.
​

'Tis the season.  We're back with our Holiday Music Fest of little-known, but wonderful holiday songs or ones that are popular but with fun, unique arrangements -- as well as some uncommonly seen videos.  And this year, we have some new additions, a couple of old, wonderful, Christmas TV specials.  So, fa la la.

We'll start with a great oddity from the terrific Bad Lip Reading Folks that they did a couple of years ago.  This is a rarity for them -- not just a song, but one for the holidays.  "Christmas is Here."  And given the recently-released hidden recordings of Melania's disdain for all the festive gala, it takes on new meaning this year, as well.

There was an interesting article yesterday in RealClear Politics written by Jeff Greenfield, titled, "Is American Democracy Really Holding? Maybe Not."  The sub-heading is "Donald Trump didn’t manage to overthrow the electoral system. But he’s drawn a clear road map for breaking it."  Greenfield is a very good, thoughtful journalist, and addresses five points that Republicans pushed to steal the election, noting that next time -- if handled by an equally corrupt but more accomplished leadership -- could undermine a legitimate vote.

You can read the full article here, but in brief the issues he addresses in detail are --

1.  Convince your voters that the election has been stolen from them
2. Make sure local and state officials are loyal
3. Open the door to state legislatures seizing the vote
4. Turn to the Supreme Court
5. Bend the last guardrail: the U.S. Congress

The article got a lot of attention, including a discussion on Morning Joe on MSNBC.  It was well-deserved, and I think it's a very valuable issue that people should be seriously concerned about.  Indeed, as much attention as there's been on the Team Trump efforts, the larger problem is how it impacts future elections, cutting into public trust.
 
However, I have a wider view of the issue.  As well-addressed as point of Greenfield's article is, I thought that the article was too focused on a single “What if…” scenario and didn’t do as good a job as it could to make the case of what I think is the much-larger problem.  Basically, the article tries to make its point by saying that “If every piece along the way is fascist and corrupt, and everything works perfectly in their favor and all those pieces fall perfectly into place when everything is aligned exactly right, then democracy is in trouble.”  Well…yes, this is 100% right.  But I think the issue isn’t “What if everything goes wrong at the same time?” – because “If everything goes wrong” at any time, it is always a problem for everything.  The larger issue, I think, isn’t “What if everything goes wrong at the exact same time perfectly?” but rather what if nothing goes wrong, but lots of small things start eroding protections that are taken for granted.  And we’re there now.    
 
The larger problem, I think, is having a demagogic president and a compliant party supporting him in Congress, not doing their checks-and-balances sworn duty.  Far more than imagining the article’s convoluted scenario, imagine instead a very simple one:  imagine if Republicans hadn’t been swept in 2018 and had maintained control of the House.  They’d have had the House, Senate and White House.  No checks on Trump, no committee investigations, no impeachment.  Total free reign.  And even add to that something just as simple:  imagine also if the president wasn’t so clearly and proudly nuts and sociopathic and insecure and didn’t do such things so horribly wrong. For instance, imagine if Trump had actually listened to scientists and pushed masks and social distancing and kept the pandemic under reasonable control.  He’d likely have won and perhaps in a landslide – without needing the article’s five corrupt, fascist steps going perfectly.  Just simply followed science and helped protect the country.
 
The good thing about the article is that it notes loopholes that can be fixed.
 
The bad thing about the larger issue is  that it’s not reliant on fixing loopholes but is the result of human nature.  And that takes relentless working of leaders and the public to fix inequities and making the world a better place so that people don’t feel lost, downtrodden and without a place to turn, and therefore feel they can rely on public institutions and the law to be their support.
 
The good news is that the reality is democratic institutions did ultimately hold in this election.  There was no fraud, so no evidence of fraud could be offered in court.  And they lost in court every single time.  The bad news is that even with the democratic institutions holding, 40% of the people believes the election was rigged.  And I think that’s an even bigger problem.  The issue the article addresses is serious.  But I think the most critical problem is not “What if every step of the process gets corrupted by fascists?”, but what if fascists convince the public and win legitimately?  And that’s what people have to stay most vigilant over.
 
Three final things:
 
First, in listing its points of what could be corrupted, the article is wrong about state legislatures overriding the voters and instead picking Electors.  By law, that cannot be done after an election.  Whatever standard for selecting Electors is in place before election must be used for that election.  It can only be changed for the next election.
 
Second, the important issues raised in the article all point to the greater need of addressing the Electoral College, which would go a long way for fixing this.  And that means hopefully more effort can be made to passing the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which is actually reasonably close to becoming reality.  

And third, when the title says "Maybe not," that's not especially definitive, and means that "Maybe so" is an equally viable answer. 

But the larger point holds.  It's a valid, serious question to be vigilant over.  And the bigger point related to it -- that while democracy is vulnerable to corrupt actions, it is just as vulnerable and in need of eternal protection to the perfectly legal misuse of its principles until democracy bleeds across the fine line into fascism.

Which is one major reason why for the past two years I have been writing -- This is not about Trump, we know who he is.  This is about the elected members of the Republican Party who enable him and are complicit.

I have the sense that the Republican Party in Congress has pretty much given up even trying to avoid the perception of being shameless. 

​Yesterday, I saw the following tweet from Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX).

The good news is that his comments apparently on behalf of "ethics" and "transparency" did not go unnoticed by social media, and he was rightfully shredded for supposedly discovering the concept of "ethics" over aides who may not have ethical problems in the slightest -- after ignoring actual corruption directly by Trump himself for four years, not to mention by his family members who are top aides to him, as well as by some of his cabinet members, like Wilbur Ross.  And none of this even touches on the basic, regular ethics violations by the Trump White House, including almost weekly breaking the Hatch Act ethics rules, which are SO far down the list of Trump administration ethics violations that they almost seem quaint.

In fairness, it's possible that after ignoring White House ethics violations for four years, Republicans in Congress may have forgotten what ethics actually are.

Having said that, I do think Sen. Cornyn deserves a big "thank you" for presenting voters in Georgia with yet another reason to vote for Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, to give Democrats control of the Senate, rather than more years of Republican "...but what about Benghazi"-like fake hearings to obstruct governing and keep from helping Americans.

The bad news is that I hope Joe Biden notices Sen. Cornyn's tweet as a reminder that this kind of thing is the Republican Party in Congress who, as President, he'll be dealing with.

After all, consider that most Republicans in Congress haven't even admitted that Joe Biden is the winner yet (!), but already are claiming that he has -- no, not even that, but rather just possibly has -- an "ethics" issue because of perhaps, maybe questionable ties to unknown firms by...no, not by Biden himself, but by...by...nominated aides!!!  

So, it turns out that "aides" is the new "Hunter Biden."

The good news is that on January 20, 2021, Joe Biden will be sworn in as President of the United States.  And also that if this is all that the Republicans have, they are going to be firing blanks for a long time.