Though I've generally enjoyed country music well-enough over the years, I didn't watch the Ken Burns documentary series "Country Music" when it initially ran on PBS starting last September. A few weeks ago, I saw that they were halfway through repeating the series, and as there was nothing else at the moment I wanted to watch, I put it on. It was really terrific, and I've watched it since with one week. When it returns, I'll have to catch up with the first few episodes I've missed. This past week, they had a fascinating story about something famous I never had any idea of. I have no doubt that far-more serious country music fans than me knew the story. But I had no idea. The segment dealt with Dolly Parton's love-hate partnership with Porter Wagoner. That I did know about. Wagoner was a big country star with a TV show, always flamboyantly-dressed (even by Dolly Parton standards), and during the run brought in Parton who fame grew and started to eclipse his. He gave her a platform to grow, but was extremely controlling. As I said, that part I knew. Parton is interviewed throughout the documentary, and extensively about this part. She's very gracious, talks openly about it all, and says how much she loved working with Wagoner and how much she owes him, though acknowledges they fought like cats and dogs, too. Eventually, she wanted to leave -- not only having fulfilled her five-year contract, but by two years, in fact. But Wagoner wouldn't hear of it and fought her off, among aother things threatening to sue. Parton says she realized that she told her stories best by song, so she went home one night and wrote a song. When she came in the next morning, she told Wagoner he had to listen to this song she'd just written. He said it was the best thing she'd done, and agreed to let her depart the show, but that she had to let him produce the record of the song. It was an extremely interesting story, but as I was listening, I suddenly realized -- "Oh, my God, I know the song that she wrote!" I'll give you a moment to see if you can figure out what the song was, too. I was right, by the way. And I was sure of it. And what a totally different spin it puts on this number. Here's a video of the song from 1974. And what makes it all the better is that you see about one-second of the always flamboyantly-dressed Porter Wagoner at the very beginning having just introduced Parton and then comes back on at the end for some conversation, which means this is almost certainly is the first time she sang the song on his show.
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This will be really basic. Because it's easy to follow the bouncing ball.
Ever since news broke about Trump's phone call extorting the president of Ukraine throughout the House Impeachment Hearing through the Senate Trial, Trump and his defenders have claimed that the whole "reason" behind him withholding funds mandated for the country was because of his "concern" about corruption. Others have noted that it's impossible to find one other instance of Trump being even remotely "concerned" about corruption anywhere in the world, rendering the "reason" for withholding funds meaningless at best and infantile at worst. But yesterday, the evidence against him got even more pointed and far-more blunt. That's because on his Day of Many Pardons, Trump went around pardoning convicted felon after convicted felon who had been found guilty by impartial juries of...corruption. Rod Blagojevich. Convicted of corruption, attempting to sell a seat to the U.S. Senate to the highest bidder, literally caught on tape making his sales pitch. Bernard Kerik, Convicted of corruption, having plead guilty to charges of tax fraud and lying under oath to Congress. Michael Milken. Convicted of corruption, having plead guilty racketeering and securities fraud charges, not only sentenced to prison but fined $600 million Judith Negron. Convicted of corruption, sentenced to 35 years in prison for helping set up a $205 million Medicare fraud scheme while the owner of a mental health care company. Paul Pogue. Convicted of corruption, found guilty of filing false income tax statements. Trump singled out Pogue's charitable work in explaining the pardon. Note: The Pogue family's charitable work includes an $85,000 donation to Trump Victory, a joint fundraising committee for the president’s reelection campaign and Republican National Committee. Angela Stanton. Convicted of -- wait, hey! Not corruption. How about that?!! Convicted of participating in a stole-car ring. In recent years she has shown her efforts to better society by giving interviews about her support of Trump. All of these people pardoned or had their prison sentences commuted...yesterday -- yesterday!!! -- by Trump, that tireless international champion against "corruption." That Trump spent so much intense, convoluted effort going after Hunter Biden for supposedly corrupt actions -- effort, to be clear, for which Trump himself committed a crime by withholding mandated funds, according to a report by the Office of Management and Budget -- is not only beyond insanely ludicrous, but by Trump standards you wonder why he didn't put Hunter Biden up for a Presidential Medal of Freedom instead! Indeed, the only reason I can think of why he didn't is because, in the end, Hunter Biden didn't do anything actually corrupt. And that in Trump World appears to be the biggest sin of all. We have a new song from Randy Rainbow -- and it's definitely different. First, the parody is not of a Broadway song, but rather "New Rules" from Dua Lipa. But second, and most notably, this is far-darker than any other of his effervescent parodies. That said, it's very appropriate for what the song has set out to do. And the production is one of his more involved.
Today's comes from the eminent Constitutional scholar, Laurence Tribe --
For those new to these pages, Newton Minow is best known as the former patient and poker-playing buddy of my doctor father, Edward. Among his other credentials, he was the FCC Chairman under President Kennedy, recipient of the Medal of Freedom from President Obama, and -- perhaps most important of all -- father of three daughters including the oft-mentioned around these parts, Nell. He also hired Barack Obama to work at his Sidley Austin law firm in Chicago, where Michelle Robinson was also employed. If you want to read the article by Newt that Tribe refers to, you can find it here. It's very short and exellent. But the quick summary is that he suggests Judge Amy Berman require all the prosecution lawyers in the Roger Stone case explain why their sentencing recommendation got changed in order to get to the bottom of the truth before making her decision -- and if she doesn't get a satisfactory answer, that she call Attorney General William Barr. This is SO smart from Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), and something Democrats can address throughout the presidential campaign. She makes the point -- and clearly.-- that Trump's cash grab to divert mandated budget funds from the Department of Defense in order to pay for small portions of his "Wall" will, in fact, take money from states, including and most importantly in the election, swing states, like Wisconsin. Over $100 million budgeted for a defense company based in Wisconsin (Oshkosh Defense) will have all the money diverted away. . In addition, a $650 million ship-building project would have its mandated funds diverted, and some of that work was to be done in Wisconsin. Hence the slogan -- and this is oddly the most important part since slogans are easy to remember and make their point so clearly: "Mexico isn't paying for the wall, Wisconsin is."
You can read the article here. Yesterday, within an hour of each other, I saw two tweets from Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Sen. Cory Gardner (R-CO) -- two of the most at-risk Republican senators running for re-election this year -- excitedly proclaiming the big grants they got from the U.S. government for their home states.
Collins got $9.5 million to "preserve & modernize" affordable housing in Maine. Gardner announced over $20 million for upgrades and improvements to Colorado airports. Various reactions. At least we now know what it costs to buy one vote to acquit. Colorado apparently has double a higher standard of living than Maine. Perhaps it's the Aspen and Denver ski resorts as opposed to being stuck out in the middle of nowhere away from everything else in the U.S. Cory Gardner clearly is a far-better negotiator than Susan Collins. We now have a good idea what the current value is for 20 pieces of silver. (Factoring in that "standard of living" difference, of course.) Usually when people get bribed they try to hide it much, much better. Although Gardner is obviously a stronger negotiator, neither he nor Collins appear very good at it since the best they can do is get money to "preserve & modernize" and for "upgrades and improvements." They couldn't even get new housing units or new transportation centers that would provide real benefits to people. The best they could come up with is money for a paint job and better faucets. In Chicago when they wanted to fix elections, they often just took names off of death registers. But since there are only 100 senators, it probably would be too weird if the vote total to acquit was 105. Also, when paying people to get their votes, machine bosses often just had to give them lunch and a ride to the polls. Senators obviously cost much more. I'm looking forward to seeing residents of Maine and Colorado wearing t-shirts that say -- "My senator sold out for a traitor and all our state got was lousy upgrades." Susan Collins and Cory Gardner are each one step closer to being out of their jobs. |
AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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