HBO has changed its policy of releasing the Main Story video from Last Week Tonight with John Oliver on Mondays, the day after the broadcast.  Now, they are releasing it on the Thursdays following.  So, if you didn't see the show this past Sunday, here 'tis.

The Main Story was on Internet scams, specifically a scam that goes by the notable name of "Pig Butchering."  (No, this has nothing to do with animals, but the victims of the scam.)  The story is extremely interesting, and often very funny.  (And Oliver is more self-effacing in his ridicule of himself than usual.)  But it does take a darker turn when diving deeper into the scam.

It was a pretty big news day yesterday, with so much of importance to pick from to write about.  But I think I’m going to go with Mitch McConnell announcing he would be stepping down as Republican leader in the Senate.  It’s probably not the most consequential story of the day, since he likely would have been voted out of his position by his fellow-Republicans in the new Congress, and further, for all we know, his replacement may well be worse and even more antithetical to democracy (though that’s a very high bar to get over).  But just having him gone from the job is enough for me.
 
Because of Mitch McConnell -- who, on the Senate floor, very bluntly put responsibility of the January 6 Insurrection directly on Donald Trump, yet backed off from pushing for his conviction -- Trump missed by just a few votes from being found guilty in his second Impeachment Trial, which would have blocked him from running for political office ever again.
 
That alone is enough of a dark stain on the eternal legacy of Mitch McConnell.  And we could stop right there.  In fact, we almost should stop there.  But it goes so much deeper that it would be wrong to stop.
 
Because of Mitch McConnell, the Supreme Court was contemptibly and hypocritically manipulated to a 6-3 landslide conservative majority, when it should be 5-4 liberal.  Violating the standards of the U.S. Constitution, he blocked (well…“stole” is a more accurate word) a nomination by President Obama for nine months, saying – against all precedent (since it was still very early) -- that it was too late in the president’s term to vote on a replacement.  And then he fast-tracked a nomination by Trump in just three weeks, saying – against all precedent (since it actually was too late in the president’s term at that very late point) – that there was plenty of time to vote on a replacement.
 
And as a result of this, we have, among a great many things, a Supreme Court that went against 50 years of precedence and overturned Roe v. Wade. 
 
A Supreme Court that threw out the core of the Voting Rights Act. 
 
A Supreme Court that undercut the use of Affirmative Action is race-based college admissions.
 
A Supreme Court that allowed businesses to discriminate against LGBTQ customers by not having to provide some services to them.
 
A Supreme Court that said Catholic elementary school teachers are not eligible to sue for employment discrimination because they are, apparently, “ministers.”  
 
A Supreme Court that ruled the Environmental Protection Agency – the agency mandated to deal with protecting the environment -- does not have the full authority to limit carbon emissions from power plants.
 
A Supreme Court that blocked gun safety regulations in big cities.
 
A Supreme Court that ruled partisan gerrymandering by states is not the jurisdiction of federal courts, but instead challenges must be returned to those states. 
 
A Supreme Court that said that when police violate the Miranda Warning, this police violation does not provide a basis for civil rights lawsuits about police abuse.
 
A Supreme Court that is believed will soon take up overturning the 40-year policy of the “Chevron Doctrine” that says judges should defer to the experts in government agencies to interpret regulation ambiguities, rather than allow Congress to make political decisions.
 
A Supreme Court whose trust and legitimacy has plummeted in public approval at a breathtaking pace.

And we haven't even touched on yesterday's Supreme Court decision to delay the Trump trials despite a highly-regarded, unanimous Appeals Court ruling.
 
These Supreme Court decisions and many more are part of the Mitch McConnell reprehensible legacy undermining equal fairness in America by (in all true sense of the word) shamelessly fixing the makeup of the High Court until was able to pursue a far-right political agenda, rather than “…and justice for all.”
 
This is a core part of the legacy of Mitch McConnell’s America.
 
What is also part of Mitch McConnell’s legacy was him telling his Republican caucus that their “Job One” was not preserving and protecting the United States Constitution, but ensuring that the newly-elected president Barack Obama, who wasn’t even sworn in yet, be blocked at every opportunity so that he wouldn’t have a second term.  (Side Note:  President Obama did win a second term.)
 
Mitch McConnell’s legacy includes refused to sign a bipartisan statement on Russian interference in the 2020 election, something that has now long-since been established by the Mueller Report and elsewhere.
 
And while his legacy includes getting the nickname “Moscow Mitch,” what is generally forgotten is the reason for it.  That came from when he relaxed sanctions on a Russian oligarch, after which the oligarch made a major investment in McConnell’s home stage of Kentucky.
 
And the list goes on and on, to dark depths against protecting the democratic interests of the country, all on behalf of what was best for Mitch McConnell and his leadership, and what was best for the Republican Party.
 
Mitch McConnell will only be stepping down from Republican leadership, though making him largely irrelevant in the power structure of Washington.  He will stay in the Senate.  His term expires in January, 2027, which it seems likely he won’t run for reelection.  The time can’t come too soon.

The Adventures of Kotara and Hana continue…  It's been a while since I've posted of video of the pair, so it's been long enough for us to get back to them.  This time, we get to watch the rambunctious otters open doors for one another.  Yes, I find this wonderfully entertaining.  It takes about three minutes into the video to get to that (though their playing around beforehand is fun on its own), but then for the next four minutes, the compassionate otters show what thoughtfulness is about – except when Kotaro decides to screw around with Hana and pretend he doesn’t see her wanting to get in.
 
By the way, one of my favorite thing about these videos – other than the joy of watching the playful, smart, goofy otters – is the production of the videos, both the choice of music used, and the witty “dialogue.”  Just so you know, the text written in blue is what Kotaro is supposedly thinking, the pink text is Hana’s thoughts, and what the owner is thinking is in white.

Sometimes, you just need a break from the morass that is Trump World to recharge, and this seems a good palate cleanser.

Many decades back, during what I call my “dark days,” I worked in movie publicity.  At one point, I was the head publicity writer at Universal Pictures.  It actually had some high points to it – like working on certain movies like E.T. and On Golden Pond and Sophie’s Choice.  But one particularly leaps out among the rest.  That’s when I attended the knighting ceremony for Alfred Hitchcock.  Really.  Well, sort of.  But really.
 
It was in January, 1980.  Hitchcock had been knighted, but it was too difficult for him to get back to England for the official affair.  Instead, they held an event at a screening room at the Universal studios, where he had his office.  (After he passed away a few months later, his long-time secretary Sue Gauthier came to work in our department.  I got to know her a bit, and it was a treat talking with her.  She never gave interviews -- but I convinced her to do one with my childhood friend Patrick Goldstein who wrote for the L.A. Times, which she agreed to as long as I sat in on it.  As far as I know, it was the only interview she ever did.)
 
I don’t know if they had a full ceremony at Universal, or just held a press conference.  My recollection is that they did have something official first, handled by either the British Ambassador or British Counsel, I forget, though I think the latter.  However, it was held during working hours, and I couldn’t get away from the office.  But as soon as my lunch break started, I raced over.  (I’d asked others on staff if they wanted to join me, and was flabbergasted that no one wanted to.  My God, this was the “knighting ceremony” of Alfred Hitchock!  A four-minute walk away!  How on earth could someone working at a movie studio not want to be there??)
 
Whatever happened earlier, I got there for the Q&A.  I was discussing this the other day with Greg VanBuskirk, and said that though I vividly remember the occasion, I only remember one specific thing from the event.  Some reporter asked a bizarrely pathetic question -- "Sir Alfred, now that you've been knighted, do you think this will affect your relationship with your wife?"
 
Yes, really.  You could feel the entire room tense and some almost inaudible mumbles of "Yeeeesh" filled the air around me in the make.  And most people were probably filled with the same thought: How in the world would he respond?? And then, after a moment, he said -- and please read this with the voice of Alfred Hitchcock in your mind --
 
"I certainly hope so."
 
The room exploded with laughter.
 
A short while later, Greg wrote back to me.  He’s done some searching on YouTube and actually found a CBS news story of the knighting event – and it included footage of it.  But better…no, make it “more amazing” than that – they actually had footage of that question and answer!!  The one thing I’ve remembered and told as a fond memory for over 40 years.
 
And next best of all is that it confirms my memory from four decades ago.  I got it right.  The only difference is that he doesn’t say “certainly.”  Proof that I wasn’t lying.  Vindication.  They really, truly did hold the knighting event for Alfred Hitchcock on the Universal lot, and he really, honestly had that great response.

(He also has another great response with a tremendous, quick-witted pun that most of the people in the room miss.  It comes when he's asked what does a maker of mystery do when he's been made a "Sir"?)
 
And with thanks to Dr. Buzz, here is the video.

A while back, I mentioned that after watching the HBO documentary on Albert Brooks, I decided to start posting some of my favorite of his comedy bit, mostly his inspired, lunatic appearances on The Tonight Show.  As they mention in the documentary, he never used material from his act but always came up with new material for the performance.  And they are just classic gems.]

I have always dearly loved this one.  I think it's one of his best.  In it, he does a ventriloquist act with his pal Danny.

I don’t know what happened to Jonathan Turley, but he may have hit a new low.  He posted a long thread on Twitter, but the first, slimy, cringe-filled tweet  in the thread said all you need to know.  It read -- “The Hill is out with my column in [sic] a recent discovery of the criminal history of the great-great-grandfather of Joe Biden. It turns out that the evasion of accountability may be something of a family trait acquired through generations of natural selection.”
 
Yes, really.
 
Mary Trump, though, had the best response.  She replied back to Turley, “Now do my family.”
 
Brilliant.

Other responses online were, as you might imagine, less polite.  Giving him the...well, pointed piece of their mind.  Blunt and scathing about how totally responsible he was.
 
I went to Turley’s Twitter page and saw a long posting from him there where he went into great detail slamming people who he said totally missed that his reference to “natural selection”  was a quip. (In fairness, you might need a microscope to find the joke he intended.)
 
I replied to that tweet by writing back to him -- “Ohhhh, it was just a humor column!!  I get it.  Like something for ‘The Onion.’  Cool.”
 
However, I then decided to check out his article on the chance that everyone had it wrong, and that maybe Turley did, in fact, write a sarcastic article that ridiculed Republicans going on and on about the supposed “Biden crime family.” 
 
But nope, no such luck, his article was dead-on totally serious.  The only “quip” in sight was that knee-slapper about “natural selection.”  To be fair, I only skimmed the article, since I couldn’t stomach it, but it seemed to be almost entirely about -- literally -- Joe Biden’s great-great grandfather, Moses Robinette, and a serious legal issue he had, stabbing a man in a bar fight.  In 1864!!!  He was charged with attempted murder, sentenced and sent to prison, but pardoned by Abraham Lincoln.  And at the very end of the article, Turley suggested that this from 160 years ago was just core to the Biden family history. 
 
At that point, I also replied to his initial tweet that promoted the article.  What I wrote was --
 
“The great-great grandfather, eh? Cool. (I don't have a clue who mine are. So, how nice to find his!)
 
“After you follow up on Mary Trump's request to do her family, maybe you can do the great-great-great grandfathers of the Rockefellers, Vanderbilts, Carnegies and Astors.”

But after a friend sent me an article on the historical story of the event that he’d read in The Smithsonian magazine, I decided not to leave it there.  So, I also tracked down the original article in the Washington Post that The Smithsonian references.  And I then gave in, took a deep sigh, and read Jonathan Turley’s article so I could compare them all.
 
It turns out that Turley’s article is actually much worse than I first thought.  As a result, I wrote a 5-part tweet explaining just a handful of the slight changes he made so that the story would seem worse. 
 
Here’s that Twitter response thread, which I’ve put all together and smoothed out to make it read better than tweets do (with their character limitations).  It was sent to Jonathan Turley as a reply to his initial tweet.  

 
I just finished reading the original articles of this 1864 tale that initially appeared in the Washington Post, and then followed up by The Smithsonian.  As it happens, I trust them more on history than Mr. Turley's retelling, most especially with his slight changes to make the story worse.
 
He writes that Moses Robinette (Joe Biden’s great-great-grandfather) pulled "a knife," which sounds big and dangerous. The historians, however, say "pen knife" and "pocketknife which, while dangerous, is certainly less so. He says Moses stabbed John Alexander "repeatedly," which sounds like in a crazed, angry fury and out of control.  Neither of the historians say "repeatedly," just stabbed.  (One of the historical articles does say there were several cuts, but even though that certainly means it wasn’t just a single stab, of course, something that is “several cuts” doesn’t seem as being wild, but perhaps more defense.)

Also, though Mr. Turley repeatedly refers to the charge of attempted murder, for which Moses Robinette was charge, he leaves it there.  What he doesn’t ever say, as the historians do in their articles, is that John Alexander survived.  Maybe that goes without saying from the word “attempted,” but saying it actually drives the outcome home clearly.
 
Turley says that Moses was overheard by Alexander "bad-mouthing" him.  What the historians say, however, is that all that’s known is Moses was talking about Alexander, but it’s not clear at all what was said. 
 
Mr. Turley says dismissively that mere "friends" took it upon themselves to ask the army to intercede with "powerful political figures," suggesting something unseemly.  The friends were actually three officers in the Army! They all served with Moses Robinette and apparently went to their superior officers, as protocol would require.
 
He says Alexander didn't have a weapon, which everyone agrees on, but omits defense testimony that the man was "much superior in the strength and size" and drunk, stating that he was clearly a threat to Robinette, even without a knife or gun.
 
He says that Moses Robinette "didn’t have any formal medical training." The historians call him a "veterinary surgeon."
 
Turley uses damning words like "pressured" and "leaned on" in the pardon petition that got to Abraham Lincoln.  The historians only say that Lincoln got the petition, went through all the documentation and pardoned him.
 
He also goes out of his way to demean the pardon by saying, pretty unnecessarily it seems that Lincoln was known for giving out many pardons.  That may be true, but it doesn’t even remotely mean the pardons weren’t justified.  Abd, most especially, it doesn’t mean that the pardon of Moses Robinette specifically was without full merit.
 
And he derides Moses as being a "political ally" for those asking for and granting the pardon. This clearly sounds like there were some underhanded shenanigans going on.  What the historians say, though, is that if he was in Turley's words a “political ally,” that’s because -- he was on the side of the Union, and was loyal and helpful to the Union cause.

As far as political allies go, that's a pretty good one.  At least as far as U.S. history and democracy goes.
 
But worst by far is the end.  That’s when Mr. Turley inexplicably and reprehensibly tries to tie this 1864 bar fight, that ends with a pardon, to Hunter Biden -- and even to Joe Biden (including the President despite zero evidence of even a crime).  And throws in a total dismissal of the importance of Republican star impeachment witness Alexander Smirnov being discredited for being a Russian asset and admitting to lying.  All from this from a Civil War bar fight story that ends with a pardon.  But to Turley, he calls it a "familiar pattern" of "what the Bidens do best."
 
Having read the two articles by article historians, I’m still trying to figure out what Mr. Turley means “it” is.
 
It was an utterly awful article that Jonathan Hurley wrote, and which The Hill published.  When the Washington Post and The Smithsonian wrote their articles, they were historical pieces showing an interesting, off-beat tale of the distant ancestor of the U.S. President.  What Jonathan Turley did was turn a quaint piece of bar-fight history from 160 years ago, overlapping with Abraham Lincoln, into attempted evidence of modern-day political crime.
 
As I said, I don’t know what in the world happened to Jonathan Turley.  The best I can figure is that he seems to gotten infected by close contact to Alan Dershowitz…
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