I was tracking various videos the other day, and this caught my eye.  It’s an episode of a series that was, I think, on Amazon Prime sponsored by Coca-Cola, called “The Santa Stories.”  The show is made up of short films that deal in some way with…well, Santa Claus.  This caught my eye because it’s directed by someone who I think has a great future as a director, even though she is flying a bit under the radar, and has a strong career as an actress.  Bryce Dallas Howard.  She’s directed four episodes in the “Star Wars” canon on Disney+, and directed the documentary “Dads,” as well as several nicely-done short films.
 
This, too, as I said, is a short film, only 10 minutes.  It features two wonderful actors – Colm Meaney is the star, and Fionnula Flannagan provides the narration.  To give full credit, it’s written by Kevin Jakubowski.  I find it thoughtful, whimsical, wistful, overloaded with charm, touches of whimsy and an eye for detail.  It’s called, “The Note.”

​The Republican Party has been causing a great many problems for themselves lately, but one leaped out as “Whoa, where did that come from???!!”  In fairness, it wasn’t directly from the Republican Party, but rather the very conservative Heritage Foundation.  However, the Heritage Foundation can probably best be described as “Official Republican Party adjacent.”  It’s probably the advisory think tank that’s most-closely associated with the GOP.  The advisory think that puts together the list of judges they want to party to get on the bench.  So, when the Heritage Foundation writes something, it’s not difficult to tie it to the Republican Party with a bear hug.
 
In this case, it wasn’t something that the Heritage Foundation wrote that can be interpreted different way by third parties.  No, this was something that the Heritage Foundation posted themselves from their Twitter account.
 
It should be noted that what they wrote was done in a really weird way, opening with a quotation without saying who they are quoting.  And it all reads like you’re coming into a conversation in mid-sentence.  (The quote appears to come from a woman speaking in a video they’ve embedded – though they don’t even say who they woman is in the video either.  But unless you watch the whole video, you wouldn’t know that for certain.  Nor will most people, I suspect, know who she is, even if she’s well known.  And she may well be, or not, but I can’t tell from this.)  But the tweet is so, “Whoa, where did that come from???!!” that none of that matters, because what they posted just leaps out that everything else falls by the wayside, and their words, no matter how disjointed, are all that matters.  Because what they wrote was –

​Yes, really. That’s what the Heritage Foundation posted.  Really.  Honest.  See what I mean?!  And to show I’m not lying, here’s the tweet –​

Due to a change in HBO policy (for now), they are no longer making the Main Story from Last Week Tonight with John Oliver available the next day, but now are holding it until Thursday.  Hence the delay in my posting it.

But it's worth the worth.  The Main Story was on the question of ethics in the current Supreme Court, most particularly on Clarence Thomas.  And it's detailed, scathing and extremely funny.

If you do watch, be sure to stick around to the very end, when Oliver has one of his classic finishes.  In fact, it was so notable that you might have already read about it because it made the news in a lot of places.  And if you don't decide the watch the report but want to his his close, then just just to the 26:15 mark.

​But the whole thing is excellent.

It’s almost like an article from the satirical publication “The Onion,” when the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos are children.  Because, they say, “unborn children are children.”  But no, the ruling was real.
 
For the record, this is what they are talking about –​

​And furthermore, I don’t think the question to be asked of Republican politicians should anymore just be “What is your position on abortion?”  Because “No” or “Yes, but only up to six weeks” or even “16 weeks” or “No, but with exceptions” isn’t good enough anymore.  Now, Republican politicians must be asked, “Do you think a frozen embryo is a child?  With the same rights and protections as a born child?  Without limitations.”
 
Maybe they do.  And if so, fair enough, that’s their right.  (Without limitations.)  But then, they have to be asked all these questions about.  And others.  Because
 
Once you declare frozen embryos to be children, then you can’t stop there because Children are Our Future and deserve our full protections, and so anyone defending this ruling has to go all the way defending it.
 ​

We return with another of the better episodes for the Strike Force Five podcast – which is saying a lot because I thought all 12 episodes were wonderful, at times hilarious.
 
As I mentioned before, during the Writers Guild strike, the five hosts of talk shows – Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers and John Oliver – teamed up to do a weekly podcast.  The point was to raise money for the staff. 
 
This is Episode 7, and they make a slight change for it, inviting a guest to participate.  And that guest is Jon Stewart.  And he’s terrifically funny here…as are they all.  Last week, I posted one of the rare and short videos they've posted from the podcast.  It was wonderful -- and this is that on steroids.

What stands out from the podcasts is how much the hosts seem to truly like and respect the others – though being comedians have no trouble ridiculing the others, at times mercilessly, including relentlessly bringing up past derision from previous weeks, not letting foolish misdeeds be forgotten.
 
A few things to mention so that when they’re brought up in the episode, they make sense.
 
One is that in an earlier show, Jimmy Fallon talked about bringing food to bed, something the others found outlandish and relentlessly ridiculed him about it.  It became a common joke on the series, and it’s brought up here again.  
 
Another is that they also bring up again (as they did often) the truly horrible -- yet wildly funny – episode that Fallon hosted, when he tried to make his turn a Newlywed Game-type event, but it went very, very, very...very... hilariously wrong.  (f you missed it, it's posted here.)
 
Third is that Ryan Reynolds is one of the few sponsors for the podcast (to help raise money) and does truly funny ads for his companies Mint Mobile and Aviator Gin. 
 
And finally, for the first podcast Jimmy Kimmel found an explosion sound that he would play every time the show’s name got mentioned.  He continued this for several shows until it became a matter of debate.  Some of the hosts absolutely hated it, the others preferred it in moderation.
 
I can’t embed the podcast, which was done for Spotify, but here’s a link to the episode on the Strike Force Five website. 

It was one thing when the FBI arrested Alexander Smirnov for lying and obstruction, since he was the Republican Party’s star witness in its “impeachment investigation” of President Biden.  This was devastating news for the GOP which had been relying so heavily on Smirnov, from Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) on down to Rep. James Comer (R-KY), chair of the House Oversight Committee through to Fox host Sean Hannity who has done 85 segments on Smirnov and delivered 28 monologues about him, and so many other Republicans.
 
Then yesterday, the government released a court filing on its indictment which states they have evidence that Smirnov not only lied and fabricated a bribery scheme between the President and his son, but far, far worse had "high-level contacts with Russian intelligence operatives."
 
And this is who the ace GOP has been relying on and trusting as their star witness.  An asset of Russian intelligence delivering misinformation to bring down the U.S. President.  The Russian expression for such unwitting conspirators is “Useful idiots.”
 
It should not come as a shock.  Trump made his position clear in a 2018 press conference in Helsinki with Russian despot Vladimir Putin, a former KGB officer, when he said he trusted Putin more than all U.S. intelligence services.  And given how slavishly acquiescent Republicans have become in caving to Everything Trump, it only follows that they would unquestioningly believe the word of someone who, it turns out, was passing along disinformation from "high-level contacts with Russian intelligence operatives."
 
This, of course, isn’t the only such disaster for Republicans in their faux-effort to “investigate” President Biden in order to impeach him for no reason.  Just last year, another supposed major witness not only disappeared before he was supposed to testify under oath, but he was later found to be an agent for China.
 
It’s easy to see why Republicans in Congress (and from them, their base) believe lies fed to them by high-level Russian intelligence operatives and agents of China.  It’s because they want it to be true.  And after wanting it to be true for so long, they eventually have gotten to the point where they need it to be true, but their political futures and the 2024 election depend on it.
 
And so, they put aside all sense of rationality, decency, responsibility and honor, and just blindly accepted lies so devastating that they could help undermine the government, and – leading to Trump – democracy.
 
But then, this is the party that enabled the Jan. 6 Insurrection to overthrow the government and democracy, so this all follows.
 
It’s the sort of driven, willful blindness that got Rudy Giuliani to destroy the lives of two innocent women, that ended up costing him $146 million in a lawsuit.
 
It’s the sort of mindset that’s gotten Trump to be impeached twice and indicted four times with 91 counts, thinking that the law and decency and reality don’t pertain to him.  A jury verdict that he was liable for the equivalence of rape and defamation, and a $453 million conviction for fraud – so far – have told him to the contrary.
 
Trump, the man who only last week that if he is re-elected, he’d tell Russia that they could do “whatever the hell you want” to our allies.  And Republicans in Congress pretty much shrugged “okay.”
 
Because that’s who the Republican Party is today.  A party of Useful Idiots whose star witnesses are an indicted liar who had "high-level contacts with Russian intelligence operatives” and an agent of China.
 
And all the while, Useful Idiot Trump cries out that he’s the victim, that all the investigations of him are just political vindictiveness and witch hunts.  As he tries desperately and sickeningly in the same whining breath to paint himself as a martyr just like the dead Alexei Navalny, murdered by Trump's handler Putin.  All the while echoing the words of Hitler.
 
Though I’m sure it all sounds better in the original Russian.

But not much better.