Finishing our trilogy of Theodore Bikel repeats, this is a piece I posted almost 10 years ago with Bikel and Fyvush Finkel (who most people know from Picket Fences and Boston Public) recreating the song "To Life" from when they toured in the musical Fiddler on the Roof.​

The funniest story of the day yesterday was probably when Trump parking garage attorney Alina Habba filed a letter with the court to Judge Lewis Kaplan – the judge in E. Jean Carroll’s defamation suit against Trump – suggesting an improper, unreported, supposedly conflict-of-interest relationship between the judge and Ms. Carroll’s lead attorney, Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge).  It related to an article in the New York Post that suggested from an unnamed source how he had mentored Ms. Kaplan at a law firm over three decades earlier.  Clearly, the hope was to help get the $83 million judgement against her client overturned on appeal.
 
The problem is that this brought a scathing rebuke from Roberta Kaplan, from which you could almost see the flames soaring out.  It referred to baseless claims and that “While both the New York Post and Ms. Habba purport to cite the recollections of an 'unnamed partner'... that partner (if he even exists) clearly has a very flawed memory about events that occurred three decades ago."
 
Roberta Kaplan noted that "The length of our overlap was less than two years. During that relatively brief period more than thirty years ago, I do remember the partners I worked with and none of them was [Judge Lewis Kaplan]."  Most damning was her adding that she reserved the right to seek sanctions against Ms. Habba.
 
It's worth mention that an attorney filing what he or she knows is a false claim against a judge faces huge problems.  For starts, such an action can get them sanctioned or conceivably disbarred.
 
It is no shock, then, to learn that faster than it’s likely taken you to read this fair, so fast that it was like watching feet spin in Roadrunner cartoon, Alina Habba wrote a letter back to the judge along the lines of, “Oh, no, Your Honor, I didn’t mean that at all.”  She tried to explain that she wasn’t making accusations at all.  Just raising questions that should perhaps be looked into.  Really, Your Honor, honest.
 
Of course a problem with her response is that rather than refer to what was written in the Post article as “allegations” or “unsupported rumors,” instead she kept calling it “information.”  But, of course, if what was written was untrue, it is not information at all but rather…well, lies.

Legal expert Elie Hoenig said on CNN that “This is a bogus motion by the Trump team.”  He noted how “Every judge in that courthouse knows, socializes with, has worked with, maybe mentored, dozen dozens, hundreds of attorneys in the city. I used to practice in that courthouse in front of judges who used to be my colleagues and supervisors. That is not enough for a conflict of interest."  To which he then added, “"They have their appeal issues. This ain't one of them."

And all this from the woman who only a couple weeks ago said during a podcast interview that she’d rather be pretty than smart, because you can “fake being smart.”
 
Perhaps she’d have been better served by going for “smart,” because apparently it’s difficult for some people to even fake being smart.

I always look greatly forward to the Thanksgiving episode of Late Night with Seth Meyers.  That’s when he has his parents (who are very natural and funny) and brother Josh (who’s an actor) as the only guests.  They always have fun – and often very funny – conversations and generally throw in some “how well do you remember”-type games. 
 
This from one year is when they a “Newlywed Game” sort of contest, where they expanded the guest list just slightly, though keeping all in the extended family.  The contestants being Seth and his wife, his parents, and his wife’s parents.  Josh served as the host.

​One of the most hilarious, if insane issues that is maniacally triggering the extreme right – both the base and GOP officials – is Taylor Swift going to Kansas City Chiefs football games and cheering for her boyfriend, Travis Kelce, who is a tight end on the team.  This has ratcheted up even more now that the Chiefs will be playing in the Super Bowl.
 
This is all leading somewhere, so bear with me, even if you think you’ve heard it all.  Something new just cropped up, and it’s pretty lunatic.
 
Not that everything so far isn’t hugely lunatic already.  Starting with getting so deeply upset over a young woman cheering for her boyfriend at a football game.  Actually, you would think that a white, blonde woman cheering for her sports hero boyfriend would be something at the heart of today’s Republican Party. But not with Taylor Swift.  And Travis Kelce.
 
Travis Kelce is trigger enough for Republicans, since he’s done ads about getting COVID booster shots, which only to today’s GOP is considered something worth outrage.
 
But Taylor Swift?  She’s making their heads explode.  That’s because she endorsed Joe Biden in 2020, has endorsed Democrats and – and troubling of all for Republicans – is registering voters at her concerts and online.  Just one Instagram post with link last October got 35,000 new registrants that day.  But that’s nothing compared to 2018 when her Instagram post then got 102,000 new voters to register within two days.
 
By the way, her posts don’t say who to vote for or even party to register with, just to register.  In fairness, she did once say about Trump, “We will vote you out,” and her followers do tend to be younger and more liberal.  But still – it’s just been a request to register.  Nothing more.
 
What’s been so hilarious (and truly crazy) is the level of conspiracy and outrage she has evoked among the extreme right.  One tweet that transcended "deranged" explained in detail how it was a plot with agents of with Satan who were working to get President Biden re-elected.  (Apparently, this person believes that Taylor Swift is more powerful than God.) 

There was a conspiracy-laced comment from Jesse Watters of Fox who referred to Taylor Swift as a 'psyops."  (Conspiracies about Taylor Swift became a really big deal on the extreme-right when she was named Time Magazine's Person of the Year.)  Several tweets from people now explain that this is all a conspiracy with the NFL to get the Kansas City Chiefs to win the Super Bowl.
 
Indeed, one of those came from outer space, suggesting Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce are nothing more than an artificially-created couple designed solely to announce their endorsement of President Biden right before the election.
 
Oh, I should note that that crazy one came from Vivek Ramaswamy!  Really.  Honest.

​Of course, nothing cries "artificially culturally propped-up" like the woefully unqualified Vivek Ramaswamy's "presidential campaign." But then, pretty much all his pronouncements have been "wild speculation," so why should we expect him to stop now? Though it’s nice that he considers a Taylor Swift endorsement "major."  And the least-kept secret of the presential campaign.​
​

(Just to be clear, as the cookies say, this is from 2020.)
​
​But my favorite reaction has been from a fellow named Nick Adams, who says that he wrote a book which was endorsed by Trump, and who goes by the handle “Alpha Male.”  He wrote –
 
“By being on the team that won the AFC Championship, Travis Kelce will received [sic] a bonus check of around $70,000.
 
“For those wondering why Taylor Swift is dating Travis Kelce: are things beginning to make sense now?”
 
It’s hard to describe how much that theory transcends hilarity.  Taylor Swift's Eras Tour is the first concert tour ever (man or woman) to gross over a billion dollars. Further, the concert movie of the tour recently became the highest-grossing concert film of all-time, making an additional $261 million. But...but…but a "bonus check" of -- $70,000!  That her man will get. A check which doesn’t even go to her, and which when they started dating she could only hope he might win two playoff games to receive (games for which the team was the underdog in both) – that’s why Taylor Swift started dating Travis Kelce.  “Alpha Male,” indeed.
 
(Fun fact:  Taylor Swift gave $100,000 bonuses each to 50 truck drivers on her tour.  And also gave bonuses to dancers, musicians, technicians, caterers and other crew members on the tour.  But Travis Kelce got a $70,000 bonus and might pay for dinner or buy her a nice pendant!!)
 
And none of delusion yet is the point here.  I’ll get to it in a quick moment.
 
It’s all really quite nuts.  On several levels.  One is that, while, yes, she's supports Democrats and is registering voters -- though of any party -- all she is doing right now that is driving them crazy is...cheering for her boyfriend at a football game.  And if she's on camera cheering, that's the network's doing.  Just like they periodically put the camera on San Francisco quarterback Brock Purdy's parents throughout the game yesterday.  And it's all the more bizarrely deranged when you realize that these attempts to counteract Taylor Swift (for cheering for her boyfriend) are so doomed to failure that the phrase “doomed to failure” doesn’t even come close to explaining how doomed to failure they are.  Consider --
 
Taylor Swift has 272 million followers on Instagram!  Not all in the U.S., of course, but – well, that’s a lot.  And she has 95 million followers on Elon Musk’s TwiXter.  All of them people who really, really, really love Taylor Swift.  A whole lot.
 
Which brings us to the point here.
 
And the point isn’t Taylor Swift, that was important background.  The point is Elon Musk. 
 
The Elon Musk who cries out that at the core of his being is Free Speech.  For all…except that journalists who criticize him, they get their accounts blocked.  And except for people in his company who do things he doesn’t like, they get sued. 
 
That Elon Musk.  The guy who told all users of Twitter (before weirdly changing the name to “X”) to vote for all Republican candidates.  And followed the request of the Turkey dictatorship to block information before the country had an election.  And has backed requests of other despots.  And retweeted and called “true” a deeply virulent and profoundly untrue anti-Semitic tweet.  And has made number deeply anti-Semitic comments, like saying that Jewish financier and Democratic donor George Soros “hates humanity.”
 
And the Elon Musk who told all advertisers that if they didn’t like him, after posting a particularly anti-Semitic comment, they could “Go f*ck yourselves.”
 
That Elon Musk.  Mr. Free Speech.
 
It turns out that many people on TwiXter found that Taylor Swift had been blocked from the accounts.  But even more than that, it turns out that everyone on TwiXter has been blocked from just searching for Taylor Swift!
 
I found this hard to believe.  But it was easy to check out.  So, I did a search for Taylor Swift.  And this is the result that I got --
​

What I especially love is that it not only says, "Something went wrong" with zero results, but that it adds, “Don’t fret -- it’s not your fault.”
 
I had to laugh at that.  Because -- oh, believe me, I know it was not my fault.  In fact, I have a good idea whose fault it is.
 
It certainly could have been a temporary, totally innocent accident.  But I checked six hours later, and it turns out there was nothing temporary yet about it.  The issue was still there.  Nor, given Musk's endorsement of all Republicans and support of despots and dripping arrogance that he can do anything and if you don't like it, you can to f*ck yourself, was there any reason to believe it was an accident or innocent, even if it was.  Because in the end, that it took as long as it did, amid all the blistering attention on the problem, whatever its cause, innocent or otherwise, to finally "fix" what was most surely a simple, quick fix is the most glaring Musk-related indictment of all -- not just of who he is, but how he's gutted his tech department.

The thing is, of course, with 95 million followers on TwiXter, I think there's a really good chance that her fans would be able to find Taylor Swift.
 
No matter how much Mr. Free Speech wants to tell you to go f*ck yourself.

This is largely a repeat from something I wrote only two weeks ago.  But there's a reason for it.  And rather than just provide a link to that article, I thought it deserved a new piece all its own.

Back on January 15, I wrote about seeing a wonderful Danish film, The Promised Land, that was hoping to get an Oscar nomination for Best International Film.  It didn't get the nomination, but it's still wonderful.

I noted that before the film, they showed a terrific Danish short, Knight of Fortune.  Initially, as I wrote, I was annoyed at having to sit through a short, and just wanted to get to the main feature – not because I didn’t want to see a short (I actually like them.  For years, when he lived in Los Angeles, my Academy friend would bring me to the days when the Academy would show the nominated short films, short documentaries and animated shorts), but for another reason entirely because of a scheduling conflict I had.  But in the end, I’m glad they had the short, since I very much enjoyed it.  In fact, how much did I like it?  So much that I added, "It's eligible to be nominated as Best Feature Short, so we'll see what happens there.  Having sat through all the screenings of others that have been nominated, I think it's good enough to be considered."
 
I brought that up at the time because it turned out that the short is from the “New Yorker Screening Room,” and they have it posted on YouTube.  So, I embedded it on the site. 

I mention this again because, as it happens, although the Danish feature-length movie, The Promised Land, did not get an Oscar nomination...that Danish short film, Knight of Fortune -- did!  It was nominated for Best Live-Action Short Film.

The short is only 24 minutes and very good.  I don’t want to give away too much, but will just say that it takes several unexpected and offbeat turns.

And as I like to say here, hey, I tries not to steers ya wrong.

We’ve heard Trump say it relentlessly. “I don’t know that woman.  I have no idea who that woman is.  I’ve never met her.  I don’t know who she is.”
 
He still is saying it, after the $83 million defamation judgement against him.  Which followed up the $5 million defamation judgement against.  All after having been found liable for, what the judge wrote, was the equivalence of rape.
 
“I don’t know that woman.  I have no idea who that woman is.  I’ve never met her.  I don’t know who she is.”
 
Two things leap out. 
 
The first is obvious.  Most everyone paying attention has seen the photo of Trump with E. Jean Carroll.  Laughing with him, standing there at an event together with her then-husband and Trump’s then-wife.  And when I say “most everyone,” I include Trump, who was shown the photo at his deposition.  And famously mis-identified E. Jean Carroll as being his second wife.  And still, after knowing that he saw the photo of him with E. Jean Carroll, Trump still says –
 
“I don’t know that woman.  I have no idea who that woman is.  I’ve never met her.  I don’t know who she is.”
 
The second thing came to me the other day.  And what struck me is that, as obvious as it is, I haven’t heard any legal analyst or news reporter address the point.  Maybe someone has – after all, I haven’t seen every moment of TV commentary – but I haven’t.  And it came to me the other day after hearing Trump once again say, “I don’t know that woman.  I have no idea who that woman is.  I’ve never met her.  I don’t know who she is.”  The thought was –
 
It's my understanding that it is not a requirement for a rapist to actually know the victim he rapes.
 
I’m sure some do.  I’m equally sure that some, or many, or – for all I know - maybe even most don’t.  And either way, it’s certainly not a requirement.
 
Further, it makes one wonder how many women does a man have to rape for there to be so many you can't remember them all?  Yes, that’s a little unfair to ask, I know, but only a little.  Because if someone raped only one woman, and it was 30 years ago, I really do think the person remember.  Sure, I assume it’s possible to emotionally block out your very worst, horrific moment in life and surround it with a protective wall.  But given Trump’s Entertainment Tonight video bragging about women letting stars grab them in the p*ssy, and his many other comments on the subject about women accusers not being his “type” (mind you, I’m not sure what Trump’s “type” is to rape, because he’s never said), he doesn’t seem like the person who would block out rape as the worst moment in his life.  He seems closer to a guy who’d write it down in his diary.  Indeed, when asked in his deposition if he believed his “grab them” comment, what he answered was that, yes, he thought this was largely true over the last million years, “unfortunately,” he thoughtfully noted.  But then bizarrely added “Or fortunately.”
 
Fortunately??  Yes, he really said that.  So, no, a guy who says it is “fortunate” that throughout history women let stars sexually abuse them is not someone who it would seem is likely to have blocked out his memory of sexually abusing a woman out of horrified regret.
 
Which returns to the question of how many woman does a man have to rape for him to not remember them all?  A question I ask because I do think it’s possible that he doesn’t remember raping E. Jean Carroll.  After all, I sense that Trump has a great delusional capacity for convincing himself of almost anything he doesn’t want to be true.  (That said, of course, it is also possible that Trump does indeed remember.)  Not that “not remembering” who you raped is a requirement for being found liable for your action -- as the jury knew and determined.  And fined him twice for a total of $88 million in damages. 

But, to be totally fair, for all we know, maybe E. Jean Carroll is just one of many woman Trump has raped, and so he simply doesn’t remember her.  Or even, as he insists, doesn't know her.
 
After all, he has been very insistent about that.
 
“I don’t know that woman.  I have no idea who that woman is.  I’ve never met her.  I don’t know who she is.”
 
Which, in the end, returns us to my earlier comment that started this all –
 
It's my understanding that it is not a requirement for a rapist to actually know the victim he rapes.
 
And leads to a final thought.

For all those Republicans who cry out "Witch hunt!" and "New  York jury!!" and any other deeply-anxious insistence of Trump's innocence, in the end the clearest evidence that Republican officials get the point that Trump is liable of the equivalence of rape and very guilty of defamation is because -- unlike every other case Trump has been indicted for, when they've rushed to his defense and tried their best to explain away those indictments as Trump having done nothing wrong (even in a case of taking classified government documents where there are numerous photos of those documents actually lying around his property) -- not a single Republican official has cried out in mournful defense of Trump against E. Jean Carroll and insisted she is lying and Trump did nothing wrong and that, like he insists, that he doesn’t know her.
 
Because what they know is that if they do that…they risk getting sued for defamation, too.  And know they would lose.
 
Because what they also know is it’s not a requirement that they actually know the victim they would be defaming either.