Yesterday, I was exchanging some notes with my friend Michael Shoob, who is an accomplished filmmaker of such films as the drama Driven and the wonderful documentary Bush's Brain, based on the book about Karl Rove.  We were discussing Roger Stone's ill-advise, egregious  Instagram threat towards the judge overseeing his case, and Michael off-handedly mentioned that, as he put it, "My Dad was a pretty gentle, tolerant guy (and a Federal Judge for 37 years), I feel sure that he would have sent the Marshalls out there to pick him up and Stone would have been back in jail."

As low-key and modest about his pretty gentle and tolerant dad as Michael was, the larger story is that Marvin Shoob was the Atlanta judge who oversaw the infamous BNL bank scandal case in 1992 about the $5 billion unauthorized bank "loan" to Iraq laundered by the GHW Bush Administration -- and who, as a result of it all, publicly criticized the U.S. Attorney General for not pursuing the case with an independent counsel. That Attorney General? William Barr, just nominated by Trump and approved by the GOP Senate...

That's of note because, as Rachel Maddow devoted a long story on her show yesterday, Barr now oversees the Special Counsel and has been publicly critical of the investigation.  So, it's uncertain and understandably concerning to people what the future holds for Robert Mueller and his team.

With that in mind, this article from (as whimsy has it) yesterday, as well -- it was a busy day yesterday, though this came first thing in the morning -- in Politico, written by Darren Samuelsohn, about major difficulties for Trump and his circle face regardless of what happens to the Special Counsel investigation.  The story, "Trump can't run the Mueller playbook on New York feds" is a detailed look at how how Robert Mueller has passed off a good amount of his investigation to another division in the U.S. Justice Department, federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York.  And the SDNY (also known sardonically as the "Sovereign Districst of New York) is renowned for its independence -- and has no parameters constricting what it investigates, unlike the mandate for the Special Counsel.  Further, what it does investigate is large state-related, and most charges it can come up could be outside the purview of a presidential partner.  Moreover, they are so independent they may not feel constrained by department policy and could therefore indict a sitting president if they felt it was justified.

(As John Sale, a former SDNY and Watergate prosecutor says in the article, “I’m thoroughly convinced the SDNY will make its own evaluation. They will not say that’s a department policy.  They’re obviously looking at the president and I wouldn’t rule out that they could decide you can indict a sitting president.”)

Among the areas they are currently investigating are the Trump inaugural, Michael Cohen and the Trump Organization.  And many of the people they have as cooperating witnesses are among those who have known and worked with Trump the longest, like Cohen, Trump organization chief financial officer Allen Weiselberg, and David Pecker, CEO of AMI, the owner of National Enquirer.  

The article notes that Trump's difficulties with the SDNY are compounded because, unlike his personal attacks on Mueller, in an effort to discredit the Special Counsel in the eyes of his base, he will be challenged to do with same with the SDNY.  Not only is there not a single personality to focus on, but their investigation is not centered on Trump's time in the White House but before, so there can be no claims of Executive Privilege nor charges of "witch hunts" against supposedly non-existent collusion with Russia.  And their investigations can (and likely will) go on long past whenever Robert Mueller delivers his own report.

The article is terrific and interesting on its own merits, but for anyone kept up sleepless at night about whether Robert Mueller is fired and what will happen to his report, the piece is like an electrocharge jolt to a weak heart, giving it strength, joy and a new, long life

You can read it all here.

John Oliver returned last night with the new season of his Last Week Tonight.  After my recent move, my cable subscription changed -- since I was grandfathered in with my old Time-Warner subscription, and my new Spectrum account includes several premium channels at pretty much the same price.  And this includes HBO which means I finally got to see Oliver's entire show for the first time, rather than just segments.  

I've long been a huge John Oliver fan -- no, seriously, a huge fan beyond the norm, even recommending him to a movie producer only six weeks after his first appearance as a "correspondent" on The Daily Show (going so far as having a friend who was a writer on the show put together a reel of Oliver's best work).  So, this was a long-awaited treat.  And happily, the show did not disappoint.  It was quite wonderful.

But at the center was his look at what will happen with the deadline for the official Brexit only weeks ago.  It was deeply detailed and informative, highly entertaining, and (at its core, of course, this being a comedy show) incredibly funny.

Side Note:  The film project I recommended him for never ended up going forward, so it wasn't a case of him "rejected" by the producer.  Just normal Hollywood Development Hell.  So, the movie world's loss was HBO's gain.
​

Earlier today, Nell Minow, my fellow co-head of the Apology Institute of America, sent me a Facebook posting about a profoundly weak non-apology from a British politician over a deeply racist comment she made.  It's my turn to return the favor. This just in from the lawyers of Roger Stone who today submitted a court filing that apologized for his Instagram post today that trashed the ethics and threatened the life of the judge of his pending trial. 

Looking through our AIA manual's guidelines for "Meaningful Apologies," I'm wondering how socially -- and legally -- substantive a one-sentence "Gee, I'm sorry" is when you've trashed and threatened the life of the sitting judge for your upcoming trial, and further how heartfelt when you have someone else say it for you... Especially since it doesn't even include the classic, "If I offended the judge..." or even "This isn't who I am" (which is particularly problematic since it is exactly who Roger Stone has spent a career trying to make clear in as public a way as possible that it is precisely who he is).  Especially since you already have a gag order on you ordered for your past actions by this same judge.

By the way, to be clear, being "legally substantive" is not generally a condition that Ms. Minow and I look to for grading the quality of an apology.  But when an apology is offered for threatening the life of the judge for your upcoming trial (not to mention slamming her work and ethics), and your lawyers feel obligated to file a court brief in response, then the little-known and even-more rarely used "legal" codicil does kick in.

Roger Stone did include his own two-sentence P.S. to his lawyers' filing, basically saying, "What they said," noting that he never meant to disrespect the court.  Although it's impossible to read his original comments along with that photo as anything but total, sneering and unadorned disrespect.

Usually, at a bare minimum, throwing oneself prostrate before the court to beg for mercy is considered a good place to start before even getting into what you're apologizing for and why.  And secondly, having a letter from your doctor to support the explanation of your condition requiring the plea is pretty much thought to be highly-valuable to present to the judge, as well.

A one-sentence "Gee, I'm sorry" from your lawyer and your own two-sentence, "Ditto, sort of," is the equivalent of putting paint on the debris of a Vegas casino after it's been imploded and saying, "Ah, there, it's back to its old self now!! All's well."

And if you simply are so craven that you can't manage any of that or actually apologize in any way yourself, then trying "That wasn't me, your honor, but my evil twin" is probably better as apologies go than having someone else say "Gee, I'm sorry" for you.
​

Here's hoping that everyone here -- and everyone, period -- had a safe weekend surviving the National Emergency.  Reports of hoards of non-white people gathering to cross the Mexican border have been pouring in from far-right wing blog sites.  True, more reports have been pouring in than marauders but you can never be too prepared.

Also, the American National Red Cross says that its workers have been overloaded during the crisis, as the need for beds and shelter has been pushed to the maximum, especially since the housing they had been counting on is used up already by immigrant children.  Crisis summits are underway with the organizers of the Burning Man and Coachella festivals to use their expertise in setting up tent cities on their grounds and in pockets across the country.

On the positive side, food, clothing and medical supplies are being gathered by our Canadian neighbors and convoys have been arranged to bring them in to the needy here in the United States.  (To be clear, these are "convoys," not "caravans."  Caravans are bad, convoys good.)  Happily, this effort should be successful because there is no outcry for border wall protection to the north, so the trucks, vans and bicycles will be able to trundle in with only a wave and "Howdy!" to greet them.  Also, there are warehouses of material that never made it to Puerto Rico which is now available for real Americans.

Lest anyone is concerned about our government standing on guard to protect us all during this most dangerous of National Emergencies, there is the heroic Lindsey Graham (R-C) -- when confronted with the fact of defense allocations would be diverted in Kentucky to the building of Trump's wall (or at least the very tiny few miles of Trump's wall that could be funded -- telling the public, “I would say it's better for the middle school kids in Kentucky to have a secure border...right now we've got a National Emergency on our hands.”

Now, one might think this is a risky proposition since Kentucky ranks 45th on the list of most-educated states, and that that would appear to be far more of an emergency. But to be clear, Lindsey Graham can be cavalier about this because his state of South Carolina ranks higher than Kentucky and is 42nd out of 50 on the most-educated list.

And lest anyone be concerned that Trump himself can't multi-task and keep his eye on what's important while vacationing at his country club to play golf and eat at the omelette bar, know that he's on top of everything when he sent out this tweet on Sunday --

So, there you have it.  A Trump wall to keep us safe for ignorant school children and Trump-branded prisons to keep us safe from comedians.

On this week's 3rd and Fairfax, the official podcast of the Writers Guild of America, the guest is screenwriter and multiple Oscar & WGA nominee, David Magee, who wrote Mary Poppins Returns, as well as such films as  Life of Pi and Finding Neverland.

​In honor of it being the NBA All-Star Weekend, the guest contestant on the 'Not My Job' segment of this week's NPR quiz show, Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me!, is Mike D'Antoni, head coach of the Houston Rockets of the NBA.  The talk is largely about basketball -- but don't go rushing off, since he's a pretty open, amusing guy.  And the quiz is a lot of fun.

I had something else planned for this morning, but interrupt it for this National Emergency...

To be clear upfront, I am going to state the obvious:  I think Trump's proclamation of a "National Emergency" (sic) is galling, pathetic, stomach-churning,racist, divisive, autocratic, and I assume wildly unconstitutional and illegal, and fill in the rest of the like-adjectives you can think of.

That out of the way, I am also not overly-concerned by the impact of it.  (I don't mean the precedent it would set, but rather the immediate results.)  And in some ways is a good thing.  Let me explain.

For the sake of argument, let's assume that all challenges to this fail, that it gets through the courts, beyond the Supreme Court, and every effort to stop it in Congress, and he gets his money.  The most money that Trump will get is $8 billion.  Now, of course, that's a lot of money that would be take from areas that need it, including bizarrely, national defense, and which will cost the taxpaying public.  But it's a paltry amount as part of the national budget, and it's nothing he can really do much of anything with.  Keep in mind that Trump was once offered $25 billion for his wall which he turned down because it was not nearly enough.  Some studies say that $50 billion would be needed to build what Trump is talking about.  Perhaps even more.  So, $8 billion will not come even close to building his "wall" or accomplish anything of substance.  All it will do, the only thing, is placate his base.  A base which already adored him and believes he could do no wrong.  If there was no wall built, that base would still adore him, blaming its absence on Democrats, a weak Republican Congress, the courts and whatever other targets they could think of.  Anyone, anything but Trump.  So, while the only thing this $8 billion would do (again, assuming he actually gets it) is placate a base that didn't need placating.

On the other hand, it is going to cause massive damage to Trump himself in other ways, and to the Republican Party.

Even if Republicans in Congress vote for it, they will hate that they feel they have to.  We know this because, when the GOP controlled both houses of Congress and the White House they never passed a bill for a wall.  So voting for it now only means they feel obligated to do something they're against.  All because Trump put them in that hated position.  They know it's idiotic, they know there's no "emergency," they know this is not needed.  (After all, we know that, again, because Trump just told us all in the Rose Garden.)  So, this will cause a major rift between Trump and Republicans in Congress.

Further, I feel certain that the public will upset by this and blame Trump -- and the GOP for enabling him.  We know this because polls show that the public is strongly against a wall.  And also we know that the public voted for Democrats to take control of the House of Representatives despite Trump not only campaigning about the threat of marauding Hondurans coming to take over the U.S., but also sending actual troops to the border.  They knew there was no "emergency."  So, to see Trump circumvent the Congress by calling for a "National Emergency" (sic) and taking money from national defense can likely only outrage the public and lose Trump -- and the GOP which enabled him -- support.

And this further will push a wedge between Trump and the Republicans in Congress, who see the looming 2020 elections when all the House is up for reelection and Republicans in the Senate this time around are the ones most at risk.  Not only will that make it more difficult to get any legislation through, but when the Senate is the body that votes on impeachment, I'm not really sure if you want to risk pissing off your only means of support.  And they will all know that this set a horrific precedent for allowing the president to abuse authority around the responsibilities of Congress..  (Though in fairness, that being the case, enabling Republicans in Congress would have no one to blame for that but themselves.)  But precedent is a separate matter from what paltry detritus Trump has to gain from his action, and how much he has to lose.

And all this is based on the assumption that it all goes through and Trump gets his money for his wall.  There's almost nothing to gain from that, and a huge amount to lose.

Now imagine if he doesn't get it.  That he's stopped by the courts or Congress.  That may even be worse.  Yes, Trump will have lots of people to blame, and his base will love it.  But they'd love him regardless.  And everyone else will be infuriated that they had to go through this autocratic madness.  And it will be a humiliating loss.

To repeat what I said at the beginning:  I think Trump's proclamation of a "National Emergency" (sic) is galling, pathetic, stomach-churning, autocratic, and I assume wildly unconstitutional and illegal, and fill in the rest of the like-adjectives you can think of.  And I hope it gets stopped cold at every possible corner where it can be, in the most blunt, devastating way.

But it's a no-win situation for him whatever happens.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to take my cue from Trump and go on vacation to play golf...

There's a double reason for this, so bear with me.

The Encore! series in New York presents semi-staged concert versions of well-regarded musicals that have largely fallen under the wire.  They recently did the 1950 show Call Me Madam that originally starred Ethel Merman, who also recreated her role in the movie adaptation.  It's not known for its plot, written by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse (who most famously would write the book to The Sound of Music), that was largely a light-hearted spoof of politics centered around a character loosely inspired by Perle Mesta, a Washington, D.C. socialite party-giver who had been made an ambassador during the Truman Administration, known as the Hostess with the Mostes.  However, it has a fun score by Irving Berlin, including the stand-out counterpoint song, "You're Just in Love."

(Side note: a while back, I posted here the Mystery Guest segment of What's My Line? where the contestant was the real-life Perle Mesta.)

The show is pretty much a creature of its time, so it hasn't had a Broadway revival, though its original production had a successful run of 644 performances, about a year-and-a-half.

The Encore! production starred Carmen Cusack, who I wrote about last year when I saw her in the Los Angeles production of Bright Angel, for which he won the Tony Award as Best Actress in a Musical, that had a score by Steve Martin and Edie Brickell.  And it had a very nice supporting cast including Brad Oscar (who played 'Franz Liebkind' in the stage musical of The Producers) Carol Kane, Darrell Hamond (of SNL), Jason Gotay and...Randy Rainbow.

Yes, that Randy Rainbow.  Which is the second reason for writing about this.  It was a small role, but still a nice touch by the producers.

An occasional reader of this site, conductor-composer Peter Breiner (whose wonderful Christmas Goes Baroque CDs I tend to post selection from each holiday) saw the show and said that it was a thoroughly enjoyable evening, helped by that terrific Irving Berlin score, though the night he went Ms. Cusack seemed to be under the weather.

I have a couple of videos from the production.  This first has the best selection of songs, though no Randy Rainbow.  That's in the second batch.

In this second montage, you'll see Randy Rainbow (hard to miss in his trademark pink sunglasses), and a few of the same songs, but a bunch of different ones.  Brad Oscar comes along a little after the 2-minute mark -- he's the larger, bald member of the trio.

On Wednesday, I posted a column here that I had written 13 years ago on the Huffington Postabout far-right efforts to get a wall built on the Mexican border -- and I noted that if they were actually serious about border security they'd also be pushing for a wall along the much longer border to the north with Canada.

Four years passed, and in 2010, Arizona Republicans passed an anti-immigration bill and not long after Republicans in the cheery state of Minnesota got all excited and I can only assume remembered my column for earlier and decided to push for their own sense of lunacy.  All of which brought about this Huffington Post article from me, nine years ago, which -- given that we are now apparently in a "national emergency" (sic) over that southern border while ignoring the even bigger and unprotected one on the north (which would seem to be the real emergency... -- I think again bears repeating.

May 13, 2010

Last week, Minnesota Republicans announced they wanted to introduce an anti-immigration bill, similar to that passed by Arizona.

"We have an illegal immigration problem here in Minnesota," the bill's sponsor Steve Drazkowski (R-Mazeppa) explained to Politics in Minnesota.  "We've had it for years."

Finally.  Unlike with Arizona, this bill is something I can fully applaud.  There are an estimated 100,000 illegal immigrants in Minnesota, at least according to crack Republican estimators.  And like Arizona, Minnesota has illegal immigrants pouring into the state because it also shares borders with another country.  Unlike Arizona, however,  that country is Canada.

Illegal Canadians have long been a cause of mine.  It's an issue of national importance overlooked by the all-too easy shadow of Mexico.  Back when vigilantes started patrolling the U.S.-Mexican border and demanded a giant wall be built, I wrote about the dangers of Canadians sneaking in, too, and the need for a wall on America's northern border.

"If you were honestly concerned about keeping illegal aliens out of the United States," I noted in May, 2006, "you'd want to keep them all out.  Right?"  Of course some people dismiss this, insisting there are no 'criminal cartels' of Canadians trying to slip in illegally.  But then, how do you explain William Shatner?  And Howie Mandel?

It turns out I was years ahead of my time.

Oh, sure, it's unlikely that many illegal Canadians would be interested in picking vegetables or doing grunt menial labor, however none of those jobs are taking work that anyone else wants.  But illegal Canadians - ah, those are people who can blend right in and take your job.  Some cushy position as a secretary or in upper-management.  Or selling double-lattes.  Or one of those temp holiday jobs when department stores need to add extra staff.  The next time some salesperson asks, "May I help you?" and they're just a little too polite - guess what, they're probably an illegal Canadian.

If you don't think there are illegal Canadians in the United States, you're hurting America.  When the government instituted a practice called "expedited removal" along our northern border back in 2006, officials claimed that up to 500 illegal Canadians would be deported each year.  At that rate, it would take 200 years to get rid of them all in Minnesota.

Illegal immigration from Canada is as big a problem as Mexico.  Just look at a map.  We share 5,000 miles of border with Canada, the longest in the world - but a paltry 1,900 miles with our neighbors to the south.  Yet Mexico gets all the attention, all the armed militia, all the wall-building material.  Is this fair?  Is this safe??!!

Some unpatriotic deniers would insist it's not the same problem as with Mexico.  After all, why would Canadians want to illegally sneak across the border to live in America?  Have you ever spent a winter in Manitoba?  Have you ever spent a day in New Brunswick?  Have you ever tried speaking two legally-mandated languages?  They speak French there, you know.

The problem of illegal Canadians is far more insidious than you think.  I've spent time in Minnesota, and can tell you that it's really hard to distinguish a Canadian from the locals.  They blend in really easily.  Especially in Minnesota.  For starters, Canadians look just like you and me.  (Unless you're black or Hispanic, but you get my point.)  They speak perfect English.  And they wear nice shoes.

So, it's about time that we have an anti-immigration bill in Minnesota to deal with illegal Canadians.  But once we have the bill, our problems don't stop there.  

How does it get enforced?  What is it about an illegal Canadian that would make them "reasonably suspicious" to be stopped und show zer papers?  It's so much more difficult than with illegal Mexicans.  For one thing, they're not Mexican.  You can't just stop and question someone simply because they look…well, very white.

True, there's their tell-tale dialect.  But a person can just avoid saying things like, "I'm going ootside."  And of course legal Canadians say "oot," so that's not suspicious, just silly.  Moreover, Minnesotans have their own strange dialect, so everyone blends together.  See how difficult it is?  

There are two ways to detect an illegal Canadian:

One is excessive politeness.  Normal politeness, of course, is not suspicious, because they could be a perfectly legal Canadian.  But someone illegal will try at all costs to avoid confrontation.  If that happens - if someone is so polite your teeth ached, bam, you've got reasonable cause.  

The other way is if the person is using phrases to avoid words that would otherwise have an "oot" in them.  Like "I'm leaving the house and going through the front door so that I'll be away from the inside and in open air."  That, my friend, is the language of an illegal Canadian.

Difficult as this problem is, though, don't despair.  Because there's one thing about illegal Canadians that, once you've established "reasonable suspicion," makes proof and deportation drop-dead easy.  Indeed, it's the greatest gift ever to law enforcement:  if you ask an illegal Canadian if they are illegal - they will tell you the truth.

So, hat's off to Minnesota.  It's about time someone shined a light on the illegal immigration problem with our neighbors to the north.  

Now, if only we could start building that 5,000 mile wall, we'll finally be on our way.