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.

On this week’s ‘Not My Job’ segment of the socially-distanced NPR quiz show Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me!, the guest is pro basketball player A'ja Wilson, who was this year’s Most Valuable Player in the WNBA. In her good-hearted conversation with host Peter Sagal, she talks about playing the past season in their official “bubble.”  (She says that one of the biggest challenges during the season was that, with no fans in the stands, the referees could hear everything you said.)  Also fun is how worked up and competitive she is playing the quiz.

On this week’s episode of 3rd & Fairfax, the official podcast of the Writers Guild of America, the guest is screenwriter Scott Frank, who is the co-creator-showrunner-writer-director of The Queen’s Gambit, the most-watched limited-series on Netflix.  He talks about adapting Walter Tevis’ novel, as well as his other work, that includes Get Shorty, Minority Report, Marley & Me, Logan, the limited-series Godless (for which he wrote and directed all episodes) and more.
 

From the archives.  ​This week's contestant is Jim Hanson from St. Paul, Minnesota,  It's a short, fun piece -- and I didn't get any of it.  And my teeth were chattering enough because so much sounded familiar that i felt I should get both the hidden song and composer style.  It turns out that while I do indeed know the song quite well, it isn't one that I know as wildly-familiarly as I thought.  To the contestant's great credit, he guesses it -- so it is gettable.

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.