And could the impeachment hearings be complete without an appearance by Randy Rainbow? Of course not…

A couple of times on this site, I've suggested that Trump might not make it to the final presidential ballot. That's not a real prediction on my part but doesn't it seem a wee bit more possible this week? This whole business with Ukraine won't knock him off but a few more of these scandals could do it. So could a total meltdown/breakdown that convinces much of America he's mentally unstable and he seems to be getting ever-closer to that. So could a lot of things.

The most interesting revelation for me this week was not that Trump ordered the deal to release the funds in exchange for an investigation of the Bidens. We all knew that…or thought we did. I was surprised it was proven as decisively as it was, leaving his defenders with precious little wiggle room to insist it had never happened. I was also surprised that it came out that what Trump wanted was not the investigation so much as an announcement that they'd launch an investigation. It wasn't necessary for them to actually investigate. He knew they'd never find anything. What he wanted was to be able to refer to "the corrupt Joe Biden whose whole family is under investigation." And then he'd allude to damning dirt he'd seen that was being uncovered but we'd never see it. As this article reminds us…

During the height of Donald Trump's relentless birtherism in 2011, the reality TV star claimed he had personally sent investigators to Hawaii to uncover information about President Barack Obama's birthplace and boasted that they couldn't "believe what they're finding."

Of course, we never saw all the dirt they found. We never even saw evidence that Trump has ever sent anyone to investigate…but that's his playbook. Ukraine would have investigated the Bidens the same way. It would be great irony if Trump got himself impeached trying to destroy Biden…and then Biden wound up not being his opponent and he had to start ginning up stories about the corrupt Elizabeth Warren, the corrupt Bernie Sanders, the corrupt Pete Buttigieg…

In case you've forgotten, we love unusual interpretations of the song "The Rhythm of Life" from the Broadway show, Sweet Charity. Here's one from a BBC show called Strictly Come Dancing. It looks to me like they got these costumes by raiding my closet…

I forget who it was but I remember a day not that long ago when someone who wrote or drew comic books passed away and that passing was noted with an actual obit in The New York Times. I was at some comic convention and a bunch of us got to naming other, more important comic creators who'd died with no mention whatsoever in the Times or other mainstream papers. I don't think the deaths of Syd Shores or Bill Everett got much or any attention there. When someone finally did eulogize a comic book guy — and not for his hand in a character like Superman or Batman, known from another medium — it was an important marker. It said that comic books were no longer a fringe art form and were being recognized as a significant one.

That's all a lead up to my observation that another marker may be coverage of the death of someone who didn't write comic books but wrote about them. I can't think of anyone else that was true of before this nice obit for our friend Tom Spurgeon in The New York Times. And yes, its author George Gene Gustines is well-versed and already knew all about Tom. I'm just saying it matters that the loss of someone like Tom now belongs in the obit section of the Times. I'd like to think Tom would have noted the new attitude.

And speaking of Tom, his blog The Comics Reporter now has up a lengthy, well-researched piece about him written by Douglas Wolk. The piece notes that Tom's website will be preserved online in several venues but don't take a chance. Go read Wolk's piece there now.

I have written here before — here, for instance — about Andre's, a little Italian cafeteria that I frequent in the Beverly Grove area of Los Angeles, across the street from the world-famous Farmers Market. Andre's isn't much on decor but there's a reason locals love it so much. It sells great, fresh Italian food for very low prices. It's a friendly place with great service and the only complaint I have is that at dinner time on weekends, there's a long, long line out the door.

A lot of what I've written here about Andre's has been about the current threat to its very existence. It's in a shopping center that is soon to undergo major renovation. When this will happen and what will be done have both changed several times but most of the announced plans would have meant that Andre's would close for many months and perhaps never reopen. This may all change but at the moment, Andre's only seems safe through about June of next year.

So in the meantime, the manager of Andre's opened a clone of it out in the Valley. It's called Grandi Italiani and it's located in Canoga Park on Sherman Way, a few blocks east of Topanga Canyon Boulevard. It's the exact same food at the exact same prices and the exact same management. Unfortunately, it is not getting the exact same crowds coming in to eat spaghetti and ravioli and lasagna and pizza and other tasty items.

It's tough to establish a new restaurant…even one operated by experienced management offering a tested-and-proved menu. It can take a long time to build up a following and sometimes the investment becomes too great. That's what's happened with Grand Italiani. The folks in and around that area just haven't discovered its wonderfulness yet. It's in serious jeopardy of closing in the next week or three.

If you live in Canoga Park, Chatsworth, Woodland Hills, Reseda, West Hills or anywhere around it, go there immediately and take all your hungry friends. You will all think, "Hey, we've got to keep this place open." Grand Italiani is open every day except Mondays, 11:30 AM to 8 PM. The address is 21730 Sherman Way in Canoga Park and you can preview its menu right here. Buon Appetito!

During the hearings yesterday, I suggested that some show like Colbert's, Kimmel's or SNL bring in comedian Jeff Ross to play EU ambassador Gordon Sondland in a sketch and let him roast everyone. And that's just what Jimmy Kimmel's show did.

I'm trying to figure out who's in more trouble this morning, Donald Trump or Rudy Giuliani…but that's not what's giving me the headache. For those who are new to this blog, I should explain that when I'm too swamped with deadlines to blog or not feeling great, I sometimes declare a Mushroom Soup Day here. In this case, it's a little of each and what it means is that I may do little or no posting here the rest of the day. Note the "may."

So all the folks who said "there was no quid pro quo" in the Ukraine matter have to scramble for a new line, probably that, yeah, it was wrong but it doesn't meet the criteria of an impeachable offense. My feeling is that everyone saying it doesn't would be saying the opposite if it had been done by Barack Obama and especially by President Hillary. It's going to be fun the next few days watching D.J.T. tell us he barely knows Rudy…although given Trump's speeches lately and a few peeks at his notes, that may not be as absurd as it seems. We may yet see him say he's never met Don Jr.

I need to get whatever part of my brain I have functioning off this topic so I'm going to leave you with this thought: Colbert, Kimmel, SNL…they're probably all going to do sketches where someone plays EU ambassador Gordon Sondland testifying and burning everyone. They oughta bring in comedian Jeff Ross — he wouldn't even need make-up — and let him just roast everyone…

I'm starting to think launching this feature was a mistake on my part. Three-fourths of the news sites on the Internet have turned into little Trump Dumps, listing Yesterday's Bad News for Donald Trump and Yesterday's Outrage by Donald Trump. Doing it daily also forces me to spend time reading those sites and there are some days when I'd rather just forget he's there and he has so many people hating each other. The last few days I've had an intermittent headache and while he's not the cause of it, he sure ain't helping.

I couldn't follow all of the hearings today but my impression is that this is the game he and his defenders are playing. If it feels familiar, that may be with how much it resembles the way O.J. Simpson's lawyers made it possible for him to walk. They couldn't argue the facts of his case. They offered no alternate theory of who'd killed those two people if it wasn't Simpson. In fact, after the case was over and O.J. was acquitted, several of those lawyers and others who supported him said they would blow the case wide open with books revealing who really dunnit.

None of them did. Well, F. Lee Bailey eventually published one that was high on conjecture and devoid of facts…but the point is that no one had an even semi-credible argument that someone else killed Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman. Simpson got away because they convinced the jury that there was "something wrong" with all the evidence. They couldn't really say what it was they made that jury generally distrust the whole prosecution and they set O.J. free because to those jurors, a frame-up felt highly likely. It was feelings over facts.

The way this parallels what we're seeing now — and I'm not claiming this is an exact match — is that Trump's defenders are attacking the process and the witnesses saying "something's wrong." No matter how many fact witnesses (and even the not-a-transcript that Trump released) corroborate what The Whistleblower said, they argue that he is evil, he is biased, he is a Never-Trumper, he has always had it in for Donald, etc., and so he's tainted everything that followed. (A "Never-Trumper," by the way, now seems to be anyone who has ever indicated that he or she thinks D.J.T. has ever done anything that wasn't brilliant and perfect and more successful than everyone else.)

In other words, if the process proves Trump committed an impeachable offense, the process cannot be trusted because it involves people who think Trump committed an impeachable offense.

Anyway, there are ten bazillion sites where you can read what was said in the hearings today and why it's so damning to anyone who cares about facts over feelings. I'm going to go lie down and I won't think about Trump except to come up with a new name for this feature without the word "Daily" in it.

Back in this post, we discussed the scathing review that a New York Times food critic gave to my old fave, Peter Luger's Steak House in Brooklyn. Having not been there in a long time, I could not agree nor could I disagree…though a number of the e-mails that I received about the place seemed to think I'd agreed wholeheartedly with the bad review. I also received some nice invites from friends who live back there and want to take me there the next time I'm in the area.

Here's a TV news spot that ran right after that review. I'm posting it just to show you what the place looks like. It was always a fun restaurant in which to eat, especially when someone else was paying…

The gentleman who sent me this message didn't ask that I omit his name but I think I will for now. If he writes and asks me to include it in this post, I'll go back and edit this. What he wrote was…

I appreciated your post on Chick-fil-A today. There are two outstanding problems with the company's announcement. The first is that the company has not admitted that their donations to anti-LGBTQ organizations may have caused irreparable damage to some members of that community. Not only should there be an apology, but also a good faith donation to some charities that help the at-risk LGBTQ community to help heal the damage they had a hand in causing, even if it was indirect.

Second, just because there won't be any more corporate donations to organizations like the Salvation Army and others that hold anti-LGBTQ beliefs, that doesn't mean that the owners of the family-held corporation won't continue to do so from their own pockets.

If they had really evolved in their thinking they'd have made such a point in the announcement. The lack of one proves that as you said, this is merely a ploy to help them increase business in areas hostile to their company. As the parent of an LGBTQ child, I'm far from letting them off the hook for anything. Thank you for your diligence.

I am 100% behind the idea that consenting adults should be totally free to love or marry — or even divorce if they so choose — but I think your expectations are unrealistic. We know very little about why the decision was made at Chick-fil-A HQ but it's probably not because everyone involved was struck by the same bolt of complete enlightenment at the same time. Maybe the decision to donate to anti-LGBTQ charities has increasingly been a conflicted one with some folks there.  Maybe some are concerned with it being bad for business, some firmly behind it, some wavering in some beliefs that Gay Marriage was a bad thing, etc.

Human beings don't usually leap from being firmly against something to firmly in favor of it.  Not unless they're Lindsey Graham, at least.

I have an acquaintance who not so long ago thought same-gender wedlock would trigger the end of civilization as we then knew it. He and I had some (shall we say?) "interesting" debates on the topic but what has really moved him away from that conviction is that it has now been 4.5 years since the Supreme Court made its decision in Obergefell v. Hodges. He can't draw any line between that decision and any of 93 things that trouble him about the world today.

He has not evolved to the point of baking gay wedding cakes and atoning for past sins.  His attitude is now more like "I still think it's wrong for them to marry but I'm not so sure the government should be making laws about it."  So he has more or less absented himself from that battle.  If you knew this guy, you would consider that a tremendous "win" for your point-o'-view and would not expect more right away.

Some controversies end that way, at least on a personal basis.  As I understand it, when you hear that some big company has decided to stop advertising on (and therefore supporting) a Tucker Carlson or a Lawrence O'Donnell, it is not that the outfit feels the need to renounce something those gents say.  It's that they just want out of the battle.  I once heard someone say on some show of one such decision, "It was the compromise to stop the fights over outside political matters in the Board of Directors meetings."  Everyone there feels the same way they always did except that a majority no longer thinks it's good for the corporation to wade into that particular fray.  Someone said, "Let's stop trying to change the world and just sell personal grooming aids!"

That may be the case with Chick-fil-A.  They decided to just sell chicken sandwiches, maybe due to increased competition from Popeye's.  It's why your second point is, to me, not something we can or should do anything about.  Individuals are free to donate to causes that you and/or I find abhorrent.  My buying power in the last few days has benefited (among others) Amazon, CVS, Spectrum Cable, TicketMaster, Grubhub, Shell Oil, a nearby car wash, a couple of restaurants, some book publishers and ten or twelve others.

Someone who draws a paycheck, and perhaps a big one from at least one of those firms has probably donated a smidgen of that paycheck to some cause I think is doing the devil's work like opposing minority rights, trying to buy Mr. Trump a second term or, of course, the manufacture of cole slaw.  They're free to do that.  If I hear about it, I'm free to modify my purchasing if I like.  I'm not sure I like or can even track that kind of thing and there's something wrong with boycotting a whole company because one or two folks who work there…

Oh, wait. This is absolutely true: As I was writing the above, I got a text from my associate John that he was on his way over.  I texted him back, "Pick up Pollo Loco on your way."  He'll be here any minute now with our usual order of El Pollo Loco chicken.  Just because I'm writing this piece, I hit Google and entered "pollo loco political donations." And what I found was the perfect example to illustrate what I was just writing about.

It's this statement, which apparently used to be on the company website but which has scrolled away with the passage of time.  It's about Proposition 8, the 2008 movement in California that for a time barred gays from marrying.  I'll quote a little of it here…

Recent TV newscasts or newspaper articles about the Proposition 8 controversy caused many people to incorrectly believe that our company contributed to the campaign to pass Proposition 8. That is NOT the case. NO donations in support of, or against, Proposition 8 were made by El Pollo Loco or on behalf of our franchise organizations. Our inclusion in news coverage is due to the fact that the name of a single individual who is associated with an El Pollo Loco franchise appears in a published list of contributors.

We are proud to be an organization that respects and values the different perspectives of our employees and our guests and our franchise owners. We believe in equal rights and as well as the rights for people to express their opinions. We believe that our company is made stronger because of our differences and we reinforce our beliefs through our training programs. Some of our guests who mistakenly drew the conclusion that El Pollo Loco contributed to the passage of Prop 8 wrote to tell us they would no longer eat at El Pollo Loco restaurants. We invite you to read the letter that one of our executives sent to those guests.

You can read for yourself that letter from a Senior Vice-President.  She had every reason to not support Proposition 8 since she was living with a "partner" (that's what they called them then) of the same gender. A little more Googling will show you a history of El Pollo Loco helping out disaster victims and folks who in everyday life are in need of food.

That's not why I frequently patronize their business. I didn't even know about it until just now. All I knew was that they have great chicken…which, when you come right down to it, is reason enough.

The Chick-fil-A company has announced it will no longer donate to anti-LGBTQ organizations. None of the news stories I've seen today (like this one) really say why other than to suggest the firm is eager to expand into areas where an anti-gay stance might make them unwelcome. They sure seem to be opening or building a number of new outlets in the Los Angeles area. Some of the reports suggest caution, saying the company has proclaimed this before and not followed through.

I ate at Chick-fil-A a few times before their stance became known and notorious. I've eaten there twice, I think, since…once because I was in an airport and famished and it seemed to me to be my only option, once when I was in a hotel and just plain too exhausted to walk much farther than the Chick-fil-A next door. I thought the food was pretty good for what it was and did not feel even a smidgen of Liberal Guilt.

Then again, I've also avoided them for that reason and, to be honest, because the ones I drive by always have too long a line at their drive-thru window. Or sometimes — and this is true — I think, "Hey, I'll be driving past Chick-fil-A. Maybe I'll stop in and pick up a sandwich"…and then I realize it's Sunday and they aren't open.

My attitude on things like this has long been that if it makes you feel uncomfy to give your money to a business because of something like this, fine. Don't. But don't think you're making a real contribution to the cause of fairness to LGBTQ rights and don't think you're part of a movement that will bring the fast food chain to its knees. Based now on the fact that Chick-fil-A seems to want everyone to stop thinking they donate to anti-gay efforts, maybe I need to rethink that second point. Maybe it has made a difference…

My pal, the esteemed Disney historian Jim Korkis, has this to say…

I am getting a lot of questions about Disney not running Song of the South on Disney+ because I wrote a book called Who's Afraid of the Song of the South? with a foreword by Floyd Norman about the making of the film and the controversy surrounding it. You are right that Disney isn't releasing it because it wouldn't generate enough income to offset the bad publicity even with disclaimers.

SOTS is probably the most misunderstood film in Disney history. First off, it doesn't take place during the era of slavery. It takes place after the Civil War during Reconstruction. That's why Uncle Remus can say he is packing up and leaving. He is a free man. If he were a slave, he would be considered property and wouldn't be able to leave. The people working on the plantation are sharecroppers not slaves and one of the reasons the father goes to Atlanta is to raise money to pay them.

Here is an exclusive just for your column that doesn't appear in my book because the exciting and frustrating thing about Disney history is that there is always something new being discovered. For the 1948 Academy Awards, James Baskett received an honorary Oscar for his portrayal of Uncle Remus. According to columnist Hedda Hopper's autobiography that I recently read, the Board of Governors was opposed to the award because "Baskett played a slave and the feeling was that Negroes should play only doctors, lawyers and scientists." Jean Hersholt, the president, argued in Baskett's favor until four in the morning at which point he gave his ultimatum: "If he doesn't receive an Oscar, I shall stand up tomorrow night and tell the world the whole disgraceful story." The board gave in and actress Ingrid Bergman gave Baskett his Oscar.

To me, the best argument for Disney releasing Song of the South is to just end this silly controversy. If they did, I suspect there'd be people who would try to gin up some sort of outrage because they think that would help empower them for some larger purpose. Most people would ignore it or — if the "ban" intrigued them, they'd buy a copy, watch it and wonder what all the fuss was about. It's a pleasant enough film and the animated sequences are somewhat delightful.

But the whole movie is probably best known for its unavailability and once it loses that, it will be largely forgotten. It commits the greatest sin a Disney movie can have these days. There are no princesses in it.

Speaking of John Oliver, he's doing a few stand-up gigs during his hiatus. Here he is from many years ago when he did a lot more stand-up than he has time for nowadays…

Stu Shostak just phoned me to say that there's a new episode tonight of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver…their season finale. My wording of an item earlier today on this blog made it sound like last week was his season finale. No, it's tonight and it reruns all week. My D.V.R. is set to record it and I trust yours is, as well. I have revised the earlier post.

As we all know, Trump suffered a certain humiliation the other day when John Bel Edwards won re-election as the Governor of Louisiana, over challenger Eddie Rispone. Louisiana is a very red state, Edwards is a Democrat and Rispone is a Republican who had Donald Trump out campaigning for him at rallies. Conservative columnist Rod Dreher lives in Louisiana and he writes of how he was unsurprised and why he voted for the Democrat over the Republican. Some of the reasons Dreher gives for the victory seem pretty sound to me.