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  Little did I know it would already be out of date!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.
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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.

I've posted a bunch of videos from JL Cauvin, who I think is terrific, not just for his basic humor and the vocal quality of his impersonation, but also the little details he tosses in.  His latest is a hoot -- Trump feeling sort of obligated to contact the troops overseas for Thanksgiving.

On this week’s Al Franken podcast, he talks about the election and “heaps scorn and ridicule upon Trump & his team.”  This includes, as a bonus, that he opens the show with a fun sketch interviewing a Trump election attorney about a press conference he plans to hold.  Also, former GOP political operative Stuart Stevens joins the show later as a guest to talk about on his mea culpa” as described by his book’s title, “It Was All A Lie,” and discusses what the GOP has become.
 

'Tis the season for pardons.  Fa la la...

And so, as the Pardon Season starts to crank up, Trump has started things off by pardoning former National Security Director Michael Flynn.

A few brief comments:

First, accepting a pardon is the legal equivalent of making a guilty plea.  Related to this, Flynn already pled guilty twice in court.  So, this is a Flynn Trifecta.

Second, It is my hope that voters in Georgia make note that Trump pardoned someone who was the National Security Advisor and twice pled guilty to lying about illegal dealing with our adversary Russia -- and the two Republican senators in the run-off seem just fine with that. 

And finally  -- and importantly -- by accepting a pardon Flynn no longer has a Fifth Amendment protection and therefore will be required to testify in full and honestly if he is ever subpoenaed in court.  And if he doesn't do so, he can be tried for obstruction of justice, which is not covered by the pardon.

I was watching the presentation yesterday when Joe Biden introduced a half dozen members of his national security team.  And I was surprised that I was moved by how terrific they were – smart, decent, understanding of what America means to the world, and focusing on their willingness to speak truth to power, and on science.

What I loved too was all the professional reactions about the event from career diplomats and security professionals.  To a person they were not only bowled over, but moved by it, as well.  And rightly so.  Former U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power said she used up a lot of tissue.  And all the reasons they each were moved by it made it all the more special.  I particularly loved former Senator Clare McCaskill saying how it stood out to her that not one person went out of their way to praise Biden for how great he was and how he won the election by so much. 
 
What stood out most for me was when Avril Haines, the nominee to be Director of National Intelligence,  said that to Biden that she knew he was aware she'd never had trouble speaking truth to power when she thought something different from what people were hoping for, and that wouldn't she stop doing so now -- and she was sure he wouldn't want her to.  As another TV analyst noted, related to this, how wonderful it was to hear all these people talking about that their responsibility wasn't to Joe Biden but to the United States.
 
The day before, when Biden announced all these names, he was asked why almost all his initial selections were in the national security realm.  It was near-impossible not to love his simple answer.  What he said was, “Because it’s national security.”
 

When something gets repeated over and over and over and over and over, people tend to get used to hearing it.  Further, when something changes by incremental degrees, the change may be noted, but the result tends not to be all that notable.

For instance, when we hear that the number of deaths in the United States from COVID-19 went up today from 142,356 to 142,941 it registers as a tragic increase, but not something that makes headline news. Similarly, when after eight months that happens every day, and the increase each day reaches around 2,000 deaths, hearing that the number of deaths from the coronavirus in the U.S. increased from 214,183 to 216,274, that daily number of 2,000 deaths is what most leaps out, more probably than than the total -- because it's was over 200,000 national deaths the day before.  And the day before.  And they day and day and day and day before.

We all know the number of total deaths is ghoulish.  Or at least most of us know that.  But after a while, we're not only used to hearing that number, but many people probably create a protective buffer from having to hear such things every freaking single day for eight months after month after month after month.

Perspective and memory are important here.  

Once upon a time, we were told by Trump and other Republicans that the coronavirus is just like the flu.  In fact, for many months, Trump and Republicans still kept repeating it as the number kept climbing.  They've pretty much stopped saying that, though that not only doesn't wipe out the deadly con they continually did their best (or worst) trying to flim-flam the country, but the number of deaths kept rising anything, regardless of what they said.

And for the important sake of perspective, it helps to remember that during a normal flu season, about 30,000 to 40,000 Americans would die of flu every year.  On a rare, disastrous occasion that number would soar. One year, decades ago, there were 60,000 deaths. But generally, it's around 30-40,000 deaths from flu each year.  That's tragic.  But it's important to remember, because then, when hearing that so far 262,696 Americans have died from COVID-19.  And "so far" is the operative term.  We're now told that -- given the winter wave that scientists have predicted from the beginning and given how Trump has not only surrendered leadership but is pushing for herd immunity -- it's likely that deaths could reach 400,000 by the time Joe Biden takes office.  And it's not like the deaths will stop on January 20, 2021.  Deaths should slow drastically once the vaccines are (hopefully) approved and distributed.  But that's still eight months off or so until most of the country has been vaccinated.

So, those are the ghoulish numbers to keep mind mind.  That a normal flu season has 30-40,000 deaths and we are already at 262,686 deaths from COVID-19, and it's rising at around 2,000 deaths a day and could reach 400,000.  I know that most people grasp the magnitude of it all, but not only does a certain level of acceptance creep in, just so people can go on with their lives, but gallingly far too many people still don't accept even the reality of it.

But beyond that perspective, there is another perspective that must be brought into view, and it's that comparing COVID-19 deaths to deaths from the flu was never a valid comparison.  Never.  During the flu season, the public generally did not wear face masks, people didn't socially distance, people didn't self-isolate at home and only go out for essential services, families didn't reunite to live together for months, businesses didn't have employees work from home as much as possible,  people didn't avoid going shopping outside, companies didn't go out of business by the thousands, children didn't stay home from school for weeks at a time -- let alone months, people didn't horde toilet paper, professional sports didn't close down, movie houses didn't close down, stage theaters didn't close down, people shook hands hello, people hugged goodbye, people went on first dates and kissed and on and on and on.  Rather, during a normal flu season...life went on as normal.

That has to be repeated.  During a normal flu, life went on as normal.  There is nothing normal about life during the coronavirus pandemic.

And so, with people wearing face masks, and social distancing, and self-isolating, and families reuniting to live together, and working from home, and going to school from home, and not going to restaurants and shopping and movies and plays and sports events and all the rest, no shaking hands, hugging and kissing -- with ALL those protections...deaths went from 30,000 to 262,696.  So far.

This is not like the flu.  This was never like the flu.  This was a deadly infectious pandemic.  It's just that the leaders of the Republican Party chose to make it about the flu and make it political.  It was never political.  It was a deadly infectious pandemic.  It was science.  It didn't care what you or anyone or even a malignant narcissist thought.

This is not meant to be depressing -- though it certainly is profoundly distressing, and depressing is part of life for the past eight months.  Rather, perspective is meant to give a sign post to what we all have been through collectively across the entire world, together, and are still going through so that there can be understanding.  If one feels run over by a bulldozer, there's not only a reason for it -- there's a great reason for it.  In fact, something would probably be wrong if one didn't feel that way.  In fact, taking a step back, tragic and crushing as this has all been, there is a sense of something positive about it, too, at this point -- that we are not only on the verge of been able to survive a pandemic, but also survive the Trump administration aggressive push towards fascism.  Though there is work to be done on both fronts so that neither happen again.

And with that perspective, it's important to see, too, that there is light coming.  Not just on January 20 with a new administration -- since that only directly impacts the U.S., not nations around the world -- but vaccines.  And that perspective makes it important too see, too, how we got here.

This is not about Trump, we know who he is.  This is about the elected Republicans in Congress who have enabled him, continue to enable him, continue to downplay any serious need for face masks and social distancing, continue to have leader after leader of their party test positive, have literal blood on their hands and are complicit in it all.

And the perspective makes that more clear than anything.

​Scroll down to hopefully avoid seeing the reply, and first read the original tweet and photo attached to it.  Then check back above for the response quoting it --

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