You may have seen the video yesterday of Joe Biden at a town hall meeting dealing with a man clearly there to attack him and repeatedly lying, claiming to be a Democrat and saying he supposedly heard the "story" on MSNBC that Biden had put his son in the position on Burisma's board in Ukraine. It was contentious and blunt, with Biden calling the man a "damn liar," among other things. It was obvious that Biden now feels comfortable pushing back.

​"I don’t have to defend myself!  I didn’t do anything wrong. I didn’t do a darn thing wrong!”
 
Just to be clear, no, this wasn't said by Joe Biden at the town hall.  Or anywhere.  Nor was it said by Hunter Biden. 
 
In today's edition of "World of Irony Land," It was, in fact, said by Rudy Giuliani, when asked why he was in Ukraine trying to investigate Joe Biden.

And some people say that God doesn't have a sense of humor...

The difference between Biden and Ukraine and Giuliani and Ukraine, of course, for those still needing to take notes is that there have been two investigations of Burisma and Joe Biden, and he has been vindicated both times.  While Rudy Giuliani's actions have been central to Trump getting impeached.

And for reasons known only to Giiuliani and Trump, he is back there again, in the midst of the impeachment hearings, meeting with two corrupt former prosecutors who have been fired from their jobs.

I mention all this, though, for another reason.

It's that as good a film as Scrooge is, Bricusse's research staff was lousy.  Because 14 years before, in 1956, there was a live TV musical version of A Christmas Carol that was called The Stingiest Man in Town and starred the legendary film actor, best known as playing Sherlock Holmes, Basil Rathbone as Scrooge.  And the very first song in the show was called -- yes, you guessed it -- "A Christmas Carol."

The music for the show was written by Fred Spielman, with lyrics by Janice Torre.  It's not remotely distinguished or memorable, but has quite a few very nice things in it.  And there, right at the top, first thing, is a song, "A Christmas Carol."  A live musical adaptation of A Christmas Carol on American television doesn't seem like a terribly challenging thing to track down for a research staff working on a movie musical adaptation of A Christmas Carol.

So, continuing our holiday theme of unknown Christmas songs from musicals, here is the earlier song, "A Christmas Carol," sung by The Four Lads -- leading into "An Old-Fashioned Christmas" (sung by Vic Damone), from The Stingiest Man in Town.  That the researchers couldn't find.  But we think you fine folks deserve better...  Which is why this isn't the end of the post here.  But here's that other song first --

While yesterday's Judiciary Committee Impeachment Hearing was important, I didn’t find it especially interesting.  Not because it didn't have "pizzazz," but because of how it was handled.  It was basically Democrats questioning their three expert witnesses, each confirming largely the same thing, and Republican’s questioning their single expert witness repeating himself.  (And given that they only had one witness, when their lead counsel had 45-minutes to question him, it was like hearing him give a law school lecture.)  I watched a 2-3 hours, but that was enough.  What I’d have loved to have heard instead was for Democrats to spend some time questioning the Republican expert Jonathan Turley, and had Republicans ask questions of the three Democratic witnesses.  But that was rarely done.  During the time I was watching, I didn’t hear any of that at all.  And the only one instance I'm aware of -- when Rep. Eric Swalwell question Mr. Turley -- it was actually impactful.  There should have been been..  
 
The biggest surprise to me was how far Turley -- who has a solid reputation as a legal scholar -- went in defense of saying that this none of this was (at least yet) impeachable, often saying that there was no quid pro quo established, despite Trump's own acting Chief of Staff vehemently insisting that, yes, of course, there was quid pro quo.  And further, (to my biggest surprise) hearing him praise Attorney General William Barr.
 
Every time Republicans tried to make a point about how during Clinton’s impeachment Jerry Nadler had made some “excellent argument” about fairness and what is required for impeachment, I kept waiting for a Democrat to say, “If you truly believe it was such an ‘excellent argument,’ why didn’t any Republicans follow it at the time???”  Instead, they impeached the president over a sexual affair, but they’re okay with extortion that harms our national security.”  (Of course the other argument is – sure, it was a great argument 20 years ago when there was at least a poor semblance of an expectation of fairness, but that expectation today is long gone.  For all the Republican claims of Democrats being already-decided, Republicans have not only voted lock-step unanimously for near-most of Trump proposals for three years since Day One, but have been even more unmovably decided on supporting Trump over impeachment in the face of criminality, national security and his own public statements.)
 
And further, while Republicans kept pointing out that Democrats have wanted to impeach Trump before he was even inaugurated, there is a clear response that was never used:  Yes, many Democrats wanted Trump impeached because he was committing impeachable acts, indeed we have learned he was knowingly accepting help from Russia, not reporting it to the FBI, and obstructing justice.  And just like us, you Republicans know it, too.  The difference is that you don't seem to care and enable all that.  And further – as much as so many Democrats have wanted Trump impeached for three years and wanted to impeach him since taking control of the House last January…they knew it was such a divisive process and therefor Didn’t Impeach Him -- Until NOW when he committed such a blatant impeachable act that couldn’t be ignored.
 
The best analyst of the day was Ari Melber on MSNBC, who was great.  One notable comment:  while Republicans kept complaining that there no fact-based witnesses, Melber pointed out that during Clinton’s impeachment hearing, Republicans on this same Judiciary Committee called 18 witnesses, none of whom were fact-based witnesses.  He also wonderfully explained why no “underlying crime” is necessary for impeachment or impeachable bribery – the short version is that laws are written for the general populace, but a president can commit crimes that the public can’t.  The public can’t extort a foreign leader to do something, so there’s no “crime” for it written into the legal codes.
 
​And then I rested.

One of my favorite holiday albums -- well, albums, since the first was so terrific they did a second one -- is Christmas Goes Baroque, with songs arranged in the style of classical music by Peter Breiner, who conducts rich symphonic performances.  It's quite wonderful, music that you know are popular songs but you'd swear they were written in 1685.  Here are two of my faves.  This first is "Jingle Bells."

And this second comes from the sequel, Christmas Goes Baroque 2.  It's a remarkable arrangement of "White Christmas" in a way that it sounds like Bach's Air on a G-String.

I know that the House Impeachment Hearings officially start today on the Judiciary Committee, and that's big news.  And I know that the House Intel Committee released its impeachment findings report yesterday, and that's big news, too.  And also big news are the reports about Devin Nunes' far-deeper involvement with Rudy Giuliani than previously known.

But what I thought was the most notable news of the day -- not only on its own merits but also because in many ways it relates directly to the larger picture of impeachment issues for the past three years -- is a story that Salon reported.  And because of all the other major news may get very little attention.  However, the headline and sub-headline say almost all you need to know;

"Russian-owned company caught trying to hack Ohio voting systems on election day.
Russian intrusion attempts continue to mount as Mitch McConnell blocks much-needed election security reforms."

The attacks were apparently fairly unsophisticated.  But as Secretary of State Paul LaRose said, “Some of these unsophisticated attacks are ways that they probe for vulnerabilities. They are poking around for soft spots."  Ohio's alert system was able to spot the attacks quickly and block them.  LaRose added, “The good guys won that day and the bad guys lost.”

But what's profoundly clear is that Republican efforts to ignore adding security measures for the 2020 election and to continue trying to pass along the Russian misdirection talking point that it was Ukraine that attacked the United States in 2016 all just show how complicit -- unwittingly or otherwise -- Republicans in Congress are to Russian attacks on the country


You can read the full story here.

This from the great Steve Goodman is one of the most joyous renditions of "Winter Wonderland" you are likely to hear. And it's as close as any audio recording can come to showing why he was such a special performer live in concert.
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I greatly admire Republicans who speaking out strongly against Trump and the GOP, and who've done so since the beginning.  But I also deeply believe that perspective is important.
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One of my favorite of the most-recent "process" whines of the Republican Party for the House Impeachment Hearings is that Adam Schiff, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee should be called to testify.  I have two mixed feelings about this.

This first is that it's another empty, reprehensible cry from Republicans designed solely to distract and undercut a sense of authority -- which is one of the core tenets of fascism -- and that, of course, he shouldn't be required to testify because it sets an utterly awful precedent.

The other is that Adam Schiff would be an incredible witness, soft-spoken, on point with all his facts, and full of restrained anger with a complete sense of making clear the case against Trump.  And I would dearly love to see him on the witness stand.  The only semi-serious question that Republicans could ask him would be about him knowing the identity of the whistleblower.  He would say, under oath, what he's said publicly -- that he doesn't know, and after that point Republicans would have pretty much nothing to ask him.  But Democrats would, and they would provide an open floor for him to shred Trump.

As I said, though, it sets a terrible precedent, and I default to my initial feeling.  That said, there is only condition on which I could see supporting him testifying -- and that's for him to say, "For me to testify, I believe it is critical that fairness be observed and, as such, that the committee leaders of both parities agree to testify.  And so, if I testify, so much the ranking member Devin Nunes."

There may be next to nothing that Rep. Schiff could be seriously questioned about, but there is an abundance that Rep. Nunes (R-C) could.  And at its heart are the news stories of him traveling to Ukraine with Lev Parnas, the associate of Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani.  There is so much that Democrats would love to ask him about that, under oath.  And that aside, the image of Nunes flailing in red-faced fury, as his does, in contest to the mature calm of Adam Schiff would be palpable.  Even if Nunes pleaded the Fifth to all questions about his activities, indeed almost because of that, his credibility as leader of the committee Republicans would be shot.

That won't happen.  But I'd still love to hear the suggestion made, if only for the image of Republicans scurrying to hide as they er-hem and harrumph down the hallway... ​

Continuing our fa-la-la medley for the season, here's a lesser-known, charming Christmas song from the fine folks over at Bid Lip Reading, "Christmas is Here!"
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Here are some of the runners-up --
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