Hullabaloo

Tuesday, April 12, 2016

 

The video and the damage done

by Tom Sullivan

TPM has word that Robert Lewis Dear Jr., the Colorado Planned Parenthood clinic shooter, was a fanboy. After months of press inquiry by Associated Press and news outlets, court documents just released provided more details to Dear's motivations beyond his reported upset over "the selling of baby parts":

He told police he admired Paul Hill, a former minister, who was executed in 2003 for the 1994 shootings of abortion provider Dr. John Bayard Britton and his bodyguard, a retired U.S. Air Force officer named James Herman Barrett, outside the Ladies Center in Pensacola, Florida.

Hill himself said he was inspired by the shooting death of another abortion doctor in Pensacola a year earlier. At the time of Hill's execution, some urged that he be spared for fear the extreme wing of the anti-abortion movement would turn him into a martyr.

Hours after the gun battle, Dear told police "he was happy with what he had done because his actions ... ensured that no more abortions would be conducted at the Planned Parenthood facility in Colorado Springs," which has since reopened.

Dear told police he hoped aborted fetuses would meet him in heaven to thank him.

Th Colorado Springs Gazette fills in some even more details about last November's shooting:

It wasn't easy for Dear to find the Planned Parenthood clinic. According to the documents, he was coming from Woodland Park when he had to stop at several places to find out the address of the building.

Dear placed propane tanks around the building and hoped they'd explode when he shot them, the documents said. He shot officers as they arrived to the scene, and fired a bullet at one officer through the tinted window of his truck.

Police found Dear wearing "a homemade vest made of silver coins and duct tape." Dear returns to court later this month for a mental competency hearing.

Digby last week reminded readers of the damage done by the manipulated "baby parts" videos from the Center for Medical Progress last July. CMP founder David Daleiden and a colleague, Sandra Merritt, have been indicted over falsifying driver’s licenses they used in making their video stings. But the damage continues:

The National Abortion Federation released a report last week documenting what should come as no surprise to anyone: that anti-abortion harassment, threats, intimidation and violence have spiked dramatically since July 2015 when the Center for Medical Progress began releasing deceptively edited videos aimed at discrediting Planned Parenthood's fetal tissue donation practices.

Despite the Center for Medical Progress' videos having been widely discredited, and the indictment of its leader, the group continues to release videos — which federal and state politicians are using to justify invasive government investigations into abortion clinics and further abortion restrictions. This one-two punch of anti-abortion activity almost guarantees that the increased violence against abortion providers NAF documented in 2015 will continue into 2016 and beyond.

Somehow I don't think Dear's and CMP's victims will be thanking them in heaven.


Undercover Blue 4/12/2016 06:00:00 AM

Monday, April 11, 2016

 
Trump's bronies

by digby

What's the difference?

I have a friend who teaches high school in Maryland and she says 90%of her male students love Trump. Because they feel they're being persecuted:

Jack Rowe, an 18-year-old high school student from St. Paul, Minnesota, sat in the front row of a Donald Trump rally in Eau Claire, Wisconsin last weekend, sandwiched between two friends.

He had caucused for Trump in Minnesota for the very first time a few weeks earlier. Freckled and grinning, he sported a red "Make America Great Again" hat and a gray Trump t-shirt.

Rowe had some thoughts on Trump's rhetorical treatment of women, which had been dominating the news lately thanks to the Republican front-runner's comments about punishing women who have abortions. Mainly, Rowe said, it's a non-issue.

"Misogyny was an issue about maybe 60, 80 years ago," said Rowe. "That's not an issue today. There are a lot bigger fish to fry...You know, ISIS is chopping off heads. We've got 19 trillion dollars in debt."

Young men like Rowe are a common sight at Trump rallies around the country: Mostly white, they travel in packs and frequently wear Trump's signature "Make America Great Again" hats, pumping their fists and cheering loudly as protesters get hauled out by security. They document their political activity like any good millennial would, recording their outings on Snapchat, Instagram and Twitter.

They are dudes, jocks, preps and just-your-average college and high school kids. But on the campaign trail, they've come to be known simply as "Trump Bros."

"Bro," once just shorthand for "brother," is a term that today describes a white youth subculture of "fratty masculinity," as National Public Radio once politely put it. Depending on your perspective, "Bro" can either be meant as high praise (usually from a fellow khaki-wearing bro), or a derisive insult.

In dozens of interviews conducted around the country in recent months, one thing is clear: Many of them absolutely love the GOP frontrunner.

At a recent Trump event in Bloomington, Illinois, Tony Maniscalco and Ryan Poland arrived at 5:30 a.m. to line up for an 11 a.m. rally inside a chilly airport hangar on the outskirts of town.

Standing patiently with their arms draped over the fence at the front of the venue, wearing matching tie-dye muscle tees and baseball hats that read "TRUMP 2016, THERE WILL BE HELL TOUPEE," the two 18-year-old high school seniors had coveted spots with an unobstructed view of the man they called "Mr. Trump."
[...]
Their reason for backing Trump was simple, and echoed the sentiments of his other fans: He isn't politically correct, and he doesn't back down in the face of criticism.

"I like Trump because he speaks the truth," Poland said.

David Portnoy, the founder of Barstool Sports -- the frat-focused sports website where the "Smokeshow of the Day" serves as the ultimate clickbait -- said Trump's appeal to young men speaks to anxiety over a creeping political correctness throughout American society.

"There is a sentiment among frat guys, lacrosse players and middle class affluent white kids that they are kind of getting persecuted lately," Portnoy told CBS News.

"You tell a joke it gets blown out of proportion. You gotta walk on eggshells. There's kind of that feeling, and Trump, he tells a joke and doesn't back down. He says things that would normally been frowned upon. At a school, a kid would get expelled. Not that it's right or wrong, but he's sort of defending a lot of the things they've been attacked for in the last five years or so."

"It's an F-U to society, who is telling us we are a bad guy because we like hooking up with girls on spring break," he added. "And they see Trump sticking up for that."

J. Camm, the managing editor of Bro Bible, another bro-focused site, said Trump's lack of policy details means little to his young supporters.

"Part of the allure of Trump is that people find him to be someone who tells it like it is and honest, although he has no specific policies to back up anything that he's actually saying," Camm said.

The appeal personality over policy was on clear display among one group of young men in Eau Claire.
[...]

The group of first time voters may have gathered together on this Saturday night to get "pumped," as Sandberg phrased it, but they were also in tune with the news cycle, offering detailed responses to the rocky week Trump had faced in the run-up to the Wisconsin Primary.

"We were just talking about that," Sandberg said of Trump's campaign manager Corey Lewandowski being accused of simple battery for grabbing a female reporter. "I don't know the complete story, but from what I've heard, this reporter or woman was being aggressive to Trump, and as a campaign manager that's something you don't want your candidate to go through. He did his job and that's it.

At a time when Trump has watched his favorability numbers among women tumble, these bros have come to his defense. The Eau Claire crew unanimously agreed that Trump respects women, something they said is important to them.

Manas, a young entrepreneur with a sock business whose Twitter bio reads "Bros do Bro Things" and who made a point of checking himself out in his iPhone camera in selfie mode before speaking with a reporter, piped in enthusiastically.

"I love women!" he said.

Trump took the stage, and they screamed.

Read the whole thing to see how they all dress up in "Americana" Trump gear and get together and "pumped" before a rally.  Their girlfriends used to do the same thing before a One Direction concert when they were 13.

Here's a short video from the Showtime series Halperin and Heileman did on the campaign. This one featured southern millennial Trump voters:


digby 4/11/2016 06:00:00 PM

 

Ivanka the GOTV expert

by digby

This kind of says it all about the Trump campaign right now:

Despite spending the last four months lecturing Trump supporters on how to register to vote, Ivanka Trump missed the deadline to register to vote for her dad in New York.

Ivanka’s failure to follow New York’s non-complicated voter registration rules to change her affiliation from independent to Republican (to vote in the closed primary) is remarkable, given that she’s been the public face of her father’s get-out-the-vote efforts.

She made nearly half a dozen campaign videos on the importance of registering to vote. But her family didn’t seem to be paying attention, since her brother Eric also forgot to register.
“Hi, Iowa,” she said with a cute wave in a Youtube video published Jan. 30 that clocked more than 100,000 views. “I’m Ivanka Trump, and I am really excited to tell you how to caucus for my father, Donald J. Trump, on February 1.”

She then explained—in small words and short sentences—how Iowans could vote for Trump in the first contest of the cycle.

She made similar videos for other primaries.

Trump explained that his daughter didn't understand the rules. There's a lot of that going around in his campaign.

And Trumpie's pissed:

Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump erupted on “Fox & Friends” Monday morning after a weekend that saw Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas sweep all of Colorado’s 34 delegates without any votes being cast by citizens in a traditional primary process. 

“I’ve gotten millions … of more votes than [Sen. Ted] Cruz, and I’ve gotten hundreds of delegates more, and we keep fighting, fighting, fighting, and then you have a Colorado where they just get all of these delegates, and it’s not [even] a system,” Trump said, during the Fox News broadcast. “There was no voting. I didn’t go out there to make a speech or anything. There’s no voting.” 

His comments came after Cruz won the remaining 13 delegates at the weekend’s convention, bringing his total for the state to 34, an outcome he described as unfair and just shy of illegal. 

“They offer them trips — they offer them all sorts of things, and you’re allowed to do that,” Trump said, of the method by which some woo delegates. “I mean, you’re allowed to offer trips, and you can buy all these votes. What kind of a system is this? Now, I’m an outsider, and I came into the system and I’m winning the votes by millions of votes. But the system is rigged. It’s crooked.”

Oh heck. Maybe he should have asked somebody about party rules. He's supposed to be the ultimate player. He should be able to pull this off with no trouble.

.
digby 4/11/2016 04:30:00 PM

 
Trump and his shady consiglieres

by digby

This story in the Washington Post about Trump's Atlantic City lawyer and the elections legal adviser he hired at his urging is a fascinating look at how Trump really does his "deals":

Trump turned to a portly Irish American attorney named Patrick McGahn — “Paddy” to his friends, and Uncle Pat to his nephew Don.

Paddy, the son of a shopkeeper and recipient of three Purple Hearts from the Korean War, was known to have the best professional connections in town, and the high legal fees worthy of them. As Trump gobbled up real estate, Paddy paved the way.

When Trump was seeking city approval to build an employee parking lot at Trump Castle, Paddy threw a party for the mayor’s wife, inviting about 16 people aboard the Trump Princess yacht and taking them out to a dinner at one of the casino’s gourmet restaurants, according to news reports at the time.

When Trump purchased property from two brothers with Mafia ties, he paid double the value, according to Wayne Barrett’s book, “Trump: The Deals and the Downfall,” and put the title in the name of Paddy’s secretary before transferring it to one of his corporate entities.

There was no problem too big or too small for Paddy, who once represented Trump in a fight with a vendor selling hot dogs outside a Trump property. Trump was so appreciative that he named a cocktail lounge for him at the Taj Mahal in Atlantic City: Paddy’s Saloon.

The dealmaker didn’t even mind paying top price, according to John R. O’Donnell, former president of the Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino. In his book, “Trumped!,” O’Donnell recounted the time he complained to his boss about McGahn’s exorbitant fees.

“Jack, I’m 13 and 0 with this guy,” Trump said. “What do you want me to do? He gets things done in this town.”
[...]
Did Trump recognize a name he could trust when he decided to hire Don McGahn to get things done in This Town? McGahn did not respond to repeated requests for an interview, nor did the Trump campaign.

“I got to believe that Trump came to Don because of Pat, that’s got to be the connection,” said Bill Pascrell III, a lobbyist who worked on behalf of Trump casinos for more than a decade. “When Trump needed an election lawyer, I doubt he just Googled ‘good election lawyers.’ ”


McGahn during his tenure as on the Federal Election Commission in April 2013, when he was known for loosening many campaign finance regulations. (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post)
Even if he had, he could easily have landed on McGahn. There aren’t many top-tier election lawyers, and even fewer with a résumé as strong as McGahn’s.

At the FEC, he frustrated campaign finance reform advocates by pushing to minimize government oversight; the commission’s top lawyer resigned when McGahn attempted to keep his office from sharing information with federal prosecutors. But he also won praise for opening up many formerly closed-door deliberations. He later moved on to the campaign-finance practice at the law firm Patton Boggs LLP and spent nearly 10 years as counsel for the National Republican Congressional Committee. Currently, he hangs his hat at Jones Day, another high-profile law firm.

Despite McGahn’s establishment bona fides, he makes a surprisingly good fit with the insurgent candidate.

“I could see them getting along,” said Jack Deschauer, who worked with McGahn at Patton Boggs. “Don’s a straight shooter, tells it like it is, and isn’t at all stuck up.”

He’s always been a bit of an iconoclast. Until recently he kept his hair long, and he still plays bass in an ’80s cover band that gigs in Ocean City, Md. While many of his colleagues boast Ivy League diplomas, McGahn got his law degree from Pennsylvania’s Widener University. Like Trump, he’s something of an outsider no matter how far inside he gets.

[Cable news, a welcoming home for the weary ex-campaign staffer]

But there’s another reason McGahn may have been willing to work for Trump.

Shortly after McGahn started at Jones Day he picked up a new client: Aaron Schock, the congressman who was then reeling from a scandal involving the misuse of federal funds and has since left office. To this day, according to FEC reports, Schock has still not paid Jones Day the nearly $750,000 he owes them. (Jones Day representatives also did not return calls.)

Getting stiffed by Schock put McGahn in a difficult position with his new law partners, said a Republican strategist who has worked with him. “He had this huge hole to fill. And when Trump came along, he was under a lot of pressure by management to fill that hole.”

So far, according to FEC reports, Trump has filled nearly $700,000 of that hole.

That's the ti[ of the iceberg of this story. McGahn, the hack election lawyer, has got Jones Day partners all up in arms because they can't stand being associated with Trump.So, as much as they want that Trump cash they're mortified by Trump himself.

This is the way a businessman would run the government. And it's not any better, actually worse, than the way the "Washington Cartel" is run today by lobbyists and the revolving door. Why thee Trump voters think this guy is above all that kind of back-scratching and double dealing I'll never understand. He's a rich guy who pays people off. That's how his business is done.

He says he'll do all that on behalf of "the country" which is nice. But rich guys are going to get richer. That's how the art of the deal is done. The working man doesn't factor into it all anymore --- productivity gains all go to the 1% these days.

Anyway, it's a fascinating look into one small slice of Trumpworld. Well worth reading.








digby 4/11/2016 03:00:00 PM

 
The conservative unity ticket

by digby

They're getting worried and for good reason.  Not only is this presidential primary breaking up the GOP coalition, it's breaking up the conservative movement. So now they're proposing that Trump and Cruz join forces. From Richard Viguerie's shop:

The Eagle Forum, founded by First Lady of the Conservative Movement and our longtime friend Phyllis Schlafly, has probably generated millions of man hours in support of conservative causes and candidates since its beginning during Mrs. Schlafly’s battle to stop the ERA.

Many conservatives were surprised and disappointed that Mrs. Schlafly was the first national conservative organization leader to endorse Donald Trump.

Mrs. Schlafly’s groundbreaking 1964 book, “A Choice Not an Echo,” was a foundational text of the modern conservative movement and a prescient analysis of how the Washington Cartel controlled the levers of political power to the detriment of country class Americans and constitutional liberty; fifty years ago the book made the case for the rise of outsider candidates Ted Cruz and Donald Trump.

We prefer Senator Ted Cruz as the Republican nominee for President for the many reasons stated in Mr. Viguerie’s endorsement of Senator Cruz, but respect Mrs. Schlafly’s view.

Mrs. Schlafly, with her base in St. Louis, Missouri, has long been a powerhouse in state politics in Missouri and Illinois. Her support was likely a major factor, if not the deciding factor, in Trump’s narrow win over Senator Cruz in the Missouri Republican Primary.

Now, news has broken that since Mrs. Schlafly endorsed Donald Trump the Eagle Forum has been riven with internal dissension to the point that a group of the organization’s directors, outraged by Mrs. Schlafly’s endorsement of the decidedly non-conservative Donald Trump, were contemplating an attempt to oust Mrs. Schlafly from the leadership of the organization she founded.

The result has been the abrupt firing of long-time staff, and an internal brawl that has broken the unity of one of the conservative movement’s most effective grassroots organizations, potentially sidelining the Eagle Forum in the most important political cycle since 1980.

Unfortunately, the brawl at the Eagle Forum is playing out in other organizations, from Republican county precinct organizations, to conservative policy organizations and think tanks, to journals and publications conservatives and populists have turned the Trump vs Cruz primary into a series of vendetta-like bloodlettings more worthy of a Mafia leadership succession battle than the coalition-building necessary to find the best candidate to defeat Hillary Clinton and the Democrats in November.

The natural beneficiaries of the bloodletting between the conservative and populist wings of the anti-establishment coalition are the Republican establishment and the Far-Left who seek to maintain and expand their power by undermining constitutional liberty and continuing the crony economic policies that have devastated America’s country class for two decades.

Our friend Patrick J. Buchanan made this point incisively in his recent column, “Lock Out the Establishment in Cleveland!”

Trump and Cruz, though bitter enemies, are both despised by the establishment. Yet both have a mutual interest: insuring that one of them, and only one of them, wins the nomination. No one else.  

And if they set aside grievances, and act together, they can block any establishment favorite from being imposed on the party… 

Pat Buchanan later said of a Trump – Cruz alliance, “I think that ticket would set the country on fire.”

Right now, the establishment’s goal is to sow as much chaos as possible in the lead-up to the Republican National Convention so that no candidate reaches the magic number of the 1,237 delegates necessary to win the nomination on the first ballot.  

We urge Donald Trump and Ted Cruz delegates to be smart about what is happening, keep their eye on the prize, which is defeating Hillary Clinton and dismantling the establishment stranglehold on our country, and to follow the lead of their compatriots in Tennessee by forming an alliance to ensure that the Republican National Convention nominates a conservative – populist ticket. 

Such an alliance would not guarantee a Republican victory, but like 1980 it would create the most competitive coalition of voters to defeat Hillary Clinton, and with a victory in November it would break the Washington Cartel’s stranglehold on America and preserve constitutional liberty for future generations.

Trump as George W. Bush to Cruz's Dick Cheney? Why not? Trump could make speeches and talk tough and Cruz could run the country from the fourth branch. Wouldn't be the first time.

Would Cruz's ego let him be second banana? Maybe. After all, he'd be looking at the possibility of a 16 year term as president. He could do a whole lot of damage.

They'd have to get elected first. But Pat Buchanan thinks it would set the country on fire. I agree with him.  But probably not in the way he thinks.

.
digby 4/11/2016 01:30:00 PM

 
What's the matter with Kobach?

by digby

The least surprising "screw-up" of the election season:

The Spanish-language voter guides from Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach's office include two errors about registering to vote in the state, while the English guides do not include the same errors.

The Spanish-language guides said that voters could register up to 15 days before the election, while the English version included the correct deadline, 21 days before the election, as the Daily Kos flagged last week. And while the English guides told voters they could use their passport as a photo ID, the guides in Spanish did not include a passport in the list.

Kobach is notorious for his push to enact strict voter ID laws in the state, impose other voting restrictions, and pursue criminal prosecutions of alleged voting fraud. Kansas faces several challenges to its law requiring proof of citizenship for residents to register to vote.

Craig McCullah, the official in charge of publications for the Kansas secretary of state, claimed responsibility and said that the office would correct the errors, according to the Kansas City Star.

"It was an administrative error that I am diligently working to fix," he said.

McCullah said that the online version of the guide has already been corrected and that they are working to print corrected guides as well.

Kobach's the guy who wrote Arizona's SB 1070 "show us your papers" bill. A guy like that has no credibility when itcomes to a "mistake" like this.
digby 4/11/2016 12:00:00 PM

 
For a big winner he sure is weak

by digby

Harry Enten at 538 compares Trump to other GOP wining candidates and look who's got the smallest hands. Metaphorically speaking:

Despite getting drubbed in Wisconsin this week, Donald Trump has won more votes than any other Republican candidate this year. So, he’s doing OK, right? Well, for all the talk that unbound delegates and quirky convention rules could prevent Trump from winning the GOP nomination, it’s easy to forget that Republican voters also play a part. Trump’s 37 percent of the cumulative primary vote and 46 percent of delegates won so far may sound impressive, but his percentages make him the weakest Republican front-runner, at this point in the process, in decades.

Of course, a front-runner is still a front-runner, but by historical standards Trump is limping along — hence the increased chances of a contested convention.

This is the seventh Republican primary in the modern era (beginning in 1972) without an incumbent president in the race; here’s the cumulative vote percentage that each eventual nominee received over the course of the primary season in those seven campaigns:

Past GOP nominees such as George H.W. Bush in 1988, George W. Bush in 2000, Bob Dole in 1996 and Ronald Reagan in 1980 had bigger shares of the vote at this point, even if they started out slowly. You’ll also note, however, that the two most recent Republican nominees, John McCain and Mitt Romney, weren’t doing too much better than Trump is now.

McCain and Romney, though, were far ahead of Trump at this point in the delegate race. All the eventual nominees studied here won a majority of the delegates allotted1 by this date. Trump remains short of a majority.

You’ll also note that past nominees tended to increase their delegate and vote leads from this point forward, mostly because their rivals had faded or dropped out. In 2008, McCain vanquished Romney by early February and Mike Huckabee by early March. About this time four years ago, Romney lost his main competitor, Rick Santorum, after winning the Wisconsin primary. That left McCain and Romney with an easy road to winning larger and larger shares of the delegates and votes in the remaining contests.

The greatest deal maker in the history of the world sure is having a hard time closing this one:

From Thursday to Saturday, Trump suffered setbacks in Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, South Carolina and Indiana that raise new doubts about his campaign’s preparedness for the long slog of delegate hunting as the GOP race approaches a possible contested convention. He lost the battle on two fronts. Cruz picked up 28 pledged delegates in Colorado. In the other states, rival campaigns were able to place dozens of their own loyalists in delegate spots pledged to Trump on the first ballot. This will matter if Trump fails to win a majority of delegates on the first ballot in Cleveland, as his delegates defect once party rules allow them to choose the candidate they want to nominate.

Trump’s campaign mounted a haphazard campaign for delegates in Colorado, where hundreds ran to be at large representatives in Cleveland at the state convention in Colorado Springs. The frontrunner’s advisers repeatedly instructed supporters to vote for the wrong candidates—distributing the incorrect delegate numbers to supporters. Cruz, who traveled to address the convention, swept the state’s 34 delegates on the back of a disciplined organizing effort, that included text message and video displays advertising his preferred slate.

But hey, the guy just realized that there was more to presidential party politics than holding rallies and calling into "the shows." Recall:

The situation in Louisiana infuriated Mr. Trump, who threatened this week to sue the Republican National Committee over it.

But when Mr. Priebus explained that each campaign needed to be prepared to fight for delegates at each state’s convention, Mr. Trump turned to his aides and suggested that they had not been doing what they needed to do, the people briefed on the meeting said.

.





.
digby 4/11/2016 10:30:00 AM

 
The plutocrats are depressed

by digby

Poor plutocrats. They thought they were the deciders. Well, they are, sort of. It's just that one of the rich deciders decided to make a run himself and a couple of other rich deciders are religious fanatics and wingnut extremists themselves. So they're stuck with Trump and Cruz.

Dispirited over a Republican Party primary that has devolved into an ugly, damaging fight, some of the GOP’s biggest financiers are reevaluating whether to invest in the 2016 presidential contest at all.

Among those on the sidelines: Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire casino mogul who hosted the Republican Jewish Coalition’s spring meeting at his Venetian hotel this weekend. His apparent ambivalence about 2016 was shared by many RJC members here. With grave doubts about the viability of the few remaining Republican contenders, many of these Republican donors have decided to sit out the rest of the primary entirely. And while some are reluctantly getting behind a remaining candidate, others are shifting their attention to congressional contests.

On Friday morning, during a meeting of the group’s board, Arthur Finkelstein, an iconic Republican strategist who has advised numerous politicians over the past four decades, presented polling data that showed Donald Trump sitting at historically low approval numbers among American Jews, according to three attendees who described the off-the-record meeting. Ted Cruz, despite an aggressive recent push to court Jews, fared little better.

Following the nearly 30-minute presentation, the group turned to a discussion about what’s next in the race. While some in the room spoke in favor of Cruz, others expressed reservations about his prospects in the general election. Trump, meanwhile, had little support: Not one person volunteered to raise money for him if he were the nominee.

Over the course of the weekend, some of the party’s disappointed and most sought-after contributors said they may be done with the 2016 race. Mel Sembler, a Florida real estate executive and former U.S. ambassador, said that after helping to bankroll Jeb Bush’s campaign, he had turned his attention to defeating a local medical-marijuana initiative.

“That’s my focus for the rest of this year,” he said.
[...]
The lack of interest is partly rooted in exhaustion. After watching many of the party’s establishment prospects — from Scott Walker to Marco Rubio — go up in flames, many top donors say they’ve simply grown tired of opening their wallets. Some here have given to multiple candidates, only to watch them suffer defeat.

“Burnout’s real. People spent a lot of time and energy traveling on their own nickel, asking friends for money from different candidates. There’s only so many times you can go back to the well,” said Jay Zeidman, a Texas executive who has thrown his support to Cruz after initially backing Jeb Bush.

For some who’ve watched their favored hopeful go down, the idea of getting behind someone else is almost unthinkable.

“It’s tough. Jeb was such a good candidate,” said Ronald Krongold, a Florida real estate investor and Bush friend and golfing partner who for years shared office space with him. “He was such the guy that should have been president that the people who backed him are still confused. When you compare him to anyone else, if you’re a Jeb guy, you’ve seen things you thought were really great about him, and I don’t know that any of the other candidates had all the things he had going for him.”

As the volatile primary rumbles toward a conclusion, some of the most prominent GOP donors are turning their attention toward races for House, Senate and governor. While in Las Vegas last week, Ron Weiser, a former Republican National Committee finance chair, ferried around Eric Greitens, an Iraq and Afghanistan war veteran who is running for Missouri governor. Greitens was among the small group that joined Adelson at his home Thursday evening.

Weiser, who cut a check to Marco Rubio, said he was uncommitted in the GOP primary.

The conference was jampacked with down-ballot contenders eager to make inroads with deep-pocketed contributors. Florida Rep. Carlos Curbelo, one of the most imperiled House Republicans, attended a Shabbat dinner along with Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, who is facing a challenging reelection contest. Jon Keyser, an attorney running for Senate in Colorado, was the subject of much interest among those at the Venetian.

After helping Rubio, former Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman, an RJC board member, said he’d turned his attention to leading American Action Network, an outside group that spends in congressional races. With Trump as the possible nominee, Coleman said there are growing worries that he could imperil the party’s hold on the House and Senate.

“We’ve been getting a lot more folks coming to us,” he said. “One of the realities of a Trump candidacy is it puts the House in play, as it does a number of Senate seats.”

Cruz, though, is undeterred. Not so coincidentally, the Texas senator held a donor retreat over the weekend at the Venetian, giving him easy access to the RJC members roaming the hallways, and supportive super PACs did the same. Cruz was the only presidential candidate to address the group, and he has locked down the support of some influential RJC board members. In a Saturday speech, he warned against focusing singularly on down-ballot races as he urged the room to get off the sidelines and behind his campaign.

“If the top of the ticket is getting blown out of the water by 10 points, we’re losing the Senate, and there’s not a thing that can be done to stop it.”

On Friday night, Cruz courted over a dozen RJC members at Acqua Knox, a dimly lit seafood restaurant just off the casino floor. He schmoozed with attendees including Texas businessman Fred Zeidman and California venture capitalist Yitz Applbaum, both former Bush supporters, and former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer. Among the topics discussed, according to one person briefed on the informal get-together: how the ongoing delegate fight will play out.

For all the consternation about Trump — in December, he delivered a speech before the group in Washington, D.C., that was widely panned — top RJC organizers were interested in hearing from him. In recent weeks, the RJC’s executive director, Matt Brooks, waged an unsuccessful behind-the-scenes effort to get the New York businessman to attend the Las Vegas gathering. Brooks contacted two of Trump’s top aides, Corey Lewandowski and Michael Glassner, to see whether Trump would be interested in speaking to the group, according to one person briefed on the outreach.

Just days before the start, the RJC got word back: Trump wouldn’t be coming.

Cruz needs the money,Trump doesn't.




digby 4/11/2016 09:00:00 AM

 

Working without a net

by Tom Sullivan

Walking That Tightrope- Demian Bell

David Dayen shares scenes from his life in the "gig" economy, or what he calls "the 1099 Economy." They are tales a lot of freelance writers can relate to, I imagine, as well as anyone working for themselves and receiving no benefits. Perhaps the most startling bit of data from research by Princeton’s Alan Krueger and Harvard’s Lawrence Katz is that the growth in those sorts of jobs accounts for pretty much the entire growth in the job market over the last decade. It is one key reason, Dayen argues, why voters are angry:

The way the 1099 economy is sold, with airy platitudes about freedom and being your own boss, doesn’t correspond to the very real anxiety of this type of arrangement. You’re cut off from any safety net that relies on employers. You have an unpaid, part-time job consisting of getting your next job and making sure you get paid for your last job. Your taxes are a nightmare to unravel. You have no advocates for you in the workplace, and little bargaining power to improve your lot.

The fact that this shift toward the 1099 economy occurred mostly during a terrible labor market suggests it was never a matter of worker choice, but an exercise of employer power. And it’s become a frustration for millions, a confirmation of the rigged economy that places more of a burden on ordinary people. It certainly informs this anti-establishment, anti-business-as-usual political moment.

I've spent enough time working in cubicles to know some of those airy platitudes. When you start hearing phrases like "enhancing shareholder value," update your resume and start filling boxes. Reduction in force, right-sizing, etc. They're all candy coating on the coming pink slip. The message is always the same: employees are human "resources" to be consumed, used up and disposed of. Just another way for the Midas Cult to turn humans into gold.

Dayen credits Steven Hill (Raw Deal) for advocating one possible solution: making workplace benefits universal and portable:

These operate like insurance plans: Workers pay in a small amount in every week and get health and pension benefits, disability or unemployment insurance, even sick and vacation days. But to make them work, it’s essential that employers also have to contribute a matching portion of a worker’s salary into the plans, regardless of whether the employee is on staff or a contract worker. This way, independent contractors receive the same protections and benefits for doing mostly the same work as everybody else.

This would take the safety net for individuals out of the discretion of the employer, and end the discrimination against the 1099 worker. It could also lead to federalizing the safety net in ways that would widen the pool of workers covered, and lead to greater efficiencies. You could imagine multi-employer plans competing with one another to attract workers, offering extra perks like job training and apprenticeships, childcare, or other worker-linked benefits.

The problem is, Dayen writes, these matters are not getting the attention they deserve in the presidential debates. Nor are they getting it further down the ticket from where I sit. Economic uncertainty is indeed behind a lot of the anger in the electorate. It gnaws at people. You've heard about its consequences:

Suicide, once thought to be associated with troubled teens and the elderly, is quickly becoming an age-blind statistic. Middle aged Americans are turning to suicide in alarming numbers. The reasons include easily accessible prescription painkillers, the mortgage crisis and most importantly the challenge of a troubled economy. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention claims suicide rates now top the number of deaths due to automobile accidents.

I get the burden that student debt places on younger voters, and that's seeing some TV time during Democratic debates. But the frayed safety net (or no safety net) middle aged workers face across America and the job insecurity behind death statistics we don't like to talk about are personal issues that impact people's lives every day. Democrats ought to talk more about those and less about abstractions like "the economy" and "trade." Donald Trump's response is to give jittery workers someone to blame, and vague promises of "winning" again. Democrats who want to see themselves winning again in Congress need to speak more directly to what's eating at American families and propose reinforcements like Hill's to workers stressed out trying to climb the ladder without the security of a net.

At a local fundraiser over the weekend, I caught a stump speech from a major candidate. It was a good speech, confidently delivered. But it had all the boilerplate elements you've heard a million times, stuff friendly audiences nod at but don't feel in their guts. Public education, small businesses, good jobs. "We're open for business," blah, blah, blah. All the emotional content of a toothpaste ad. What voters need to hear from their leaders instead is that they understand why neighbors are taking their lives, that they know their anxieties and struggles to stay in their homes, and why family members have turned to prescription drugs to dull the pain. Democrats need to make an emotional connection with American workers, not an intellectual or economic one. But most of all, voters need to feel candidates plan to do more than give them someone to blame. That they will help people secure their homes, their families, and their futures again.


Undercover Blue 4/11/2016 06:00:00 AM

Sunday, April 10, 2016

 
A little good news for this sad planet

by digby

Baby tiger steps:

The number of wild tigers has been revised to 3,890, based on the best available data, said WWF and the Global Tiger Forum (GTF) ahead of a major tiger conservation meeting tomorrow in New Delhi to be opened by India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

This updated minimum figure, compiled from IUCN data and the latest national tiger surveys, indicates an increase on the 2010 estimate of ‘as few as 3,200’, and can be attributed to multiple factors including increases in tiger populations in India, Russia, Nepal and Bhutan, improved surveys and enhanced protection.

“For the first time after decades of constant decline, tiger numbers are on the rise. This offers us great hope and shows that we can save species and their habitats when governments, local communities and conservationists work together,” said Marco Lambertini, Director General of WWF International.

The meeting of tiger range governments at the 3rd Asia Ministerial Conference on Tiger Conservation this week is the latest step in the Global Tiger Initiative process that began with the 2010 Tiger Summit in Russia. Governments at that meeting agreed to the Tx2 goal to double wild tiger numbers by 2022.

“This is a critical meeting taking place at the halfway point in the Tx2 goal,” said Dr Rajesh Gopal, Secretary General, Global Tiger Forum. “Tiger governments will decide the next steps towards achieving this goal and ensuring wild tigers have a place in Asia’s future.”

Over the three day meeting, countries will report on their progress toward the Tx2 goal and commit to next steps. Prime Minister Modi will address the conference on the essential role tigers play as a symbol of a country’s ecological well-being.

“A strong action plan for the next six years is vital,” said Michael Baltzer, Leader of WWF Tx2 Tiger Initiative. “The global decline has been halted but there is still no safe place for tigers. Southeast Asia, in particular, is at imminent risk of losing its tigers if these governments do not take action immediately.”

Tigers are classified as endangered by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, threatened by poaching and habitat loss. Statistics from TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network, show that a minimum of 1,590 tigers were seized by law enforcement officials between January 2000 and April 2014, feeding a multi-billion dollar illegal wildlife trade.

This illegal wildlife trade is monstrous and must be stopped. Whomever it is that buys them should be jailed.

But it's good to see the world cooperating on something like this. Maybe we can cooperate like this about saving the planet itself. And if that works out maybe could stop killing each other too. Progress.

Here's film of a rare Siberian tiger named Zolushka being released back into the wild after being found orphaned and rehabilitated:



She was spotted two years later with her two cubs!



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digby 4/10/2016 05:30:00 PM

 
Sunday Funnies

by digby

digby 4/10/2016 04:00:00 PM

 
Honor and dignity

by digby

Those of us who went through Newt Gingrich's Republican Revolution with Newt Gingrich will remember that he pounded the dishonesty and immorality of Bill Clinton as the basis for impeachment which resulted in him nearly losing the House majority in 1998 and losing his speakership.  And then it was revealed he was having an affair . His replacement, Bob Livingston also had to resign because he'd had one too. The head impeachment manager Henry Hyde had also been revealed to have had a long term affair but he got to keep his job.

So when they appointed Denny Hastert, the avuncular congressman from Illinois, as the new speaker everyone breathed a sigh of relief that they'd finally found a leader with impeccable morals. Considering the mantra at the time was that the GOP had more "honor and dignity" than the Democrats, it was always a little bit hard to take, but there you have it.

Who would have guessed that the Speaker they chose for his unimpeachable morals turned out to be a sexual predator? We've known about all this for some time, of course.  But this story in the New York Times details the case the authorities uncovered, which includes at least four teen-age boys on the wrestling team he coached. An excerpt:

After a series of recorded phone calls, with Mr. Hastert’s cooperation, the investigators concluded that there was no extortion, but that Mr. Hastert was actually carrying out an agreed-to settlement for real abuse.

Even when Mr. Hastert told Individual A, as investigators listened in, that he needed more time to come up with more money, Individual A “did not make any threats” and even “expressed understanding,” the prosecutors said. At another point, Individual A seemed agreeable, even empathetic, suggesting that they settle on smaller amounts and keep the payments as a “private, personal matter.” Individual A even pushed Mr. Hastert to tell his wife about the payment agreement, and suggested that an outside lawyer or confidante might be called in.

Of the abuse of Individual A, prosecutors said there was “no ambiguity.”

Prosecutors said the motel incident had happened during a trip to a wrestling camp, in which several other boys shared a room but where Individual A and Mr. Hastert spent the night together. Individual A told prosecutors he did not know why Mr. Hastert had singled him out.

The court filing says Mr. Hastert had the boy strip naked and lay on a bed under the guise of treating a groin pull, but it “became clear to Individual A that defendant was not touching him in a therapeutic manner to address a wrestling injury but was touching him in an inappropriate sexual way.” The boy then ran across the room, confused and embarrassed, before Mr. Hastert asked him to get onto Mr. Hastert’s back and to give the coach a massage. “Defendant lay on the bed in only his underwear, and Individual A gave him a back massage,” the prosecutors said. “They then went to sleep in the same bed.”

When Mr. Hastert was charged last year, the accusations rattled the town of Yorkville, Ill., about an hour west of here. Mr. Hastert, a Republican who served as House speaker from 1999 to 2007, was regarded as a hero by many in Yorkville, where he had taught high school. But prosecutors said Mr. Hastert’s life had been “marred by stunning hypocrisy.”

They alluded to a fifth boy from Mr. Hastert’s days in Yorkville who recalled Coach Hastert brushing against his genitals during a massage at one point. But he said he was unsure whether the contact was intentional though he found it “very weird.”

Of the boys, prosecutors said: “He made them feel alone, ashamed, guilty and devoid of dignity. While defendant achieved great success, reaping all the benefits that went with it, these boys struggled, and all are still struggling now with what defendant did to them.”

They love to hit liberals over the head for their lack of decency and morality. More often than not it seems they are doing it to hide their own sins. That happens a lot in life.

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digby 4/10/2016 02:00:00 PM

 

If he can't handle Cruz how can he handle ISIS?

by digby

Tough guy whines about tough guy tactics:

After being asked whether threatening delegates is fair game in the hunt for the 1237 required to secure the Republican nomination, Manafort responded, "It's not my style, and it's not Donald Trump's style … But it is Ted Cruz's style." He then called the Cruz campaign's methods "Gestapo tactics, scorched-earth tactics." 

"We're going to be filing several protests because reality is, you know, they are not playing by the rules," Manafort said. 

But Manafort, who has advised Republican presidential campaigns going back to Pres. Gerald Ford, would not outline the rules he is playing by either. When pressed on whether paying for a delegate's golf membership or trip to the convention was in the realm possibility he answered, "Well, there's the law, and then there's ethics, and then there's getting votes. I'm not going to get into what tactics are used."

The last I heard,  when the enemy breaks the rules the only way to deal is to break the rules yourself. Isn't that how Trump expects to "win" against ISIS? What's the big deal? Why doesn't he just waterboard a few faithless delegates? That'll teach 'em.





digby 4/10/2016 12:30:00 PM

 
So TV isn't enough

by digby

My oh my, I would have thought Trump could just fly in to the state conventions and make a great deal, a yuuuuge deal, and walk away a winner.According to Politico, not so much.

Trump, who handed the reins of much of his campaign this week to strategist Paul Manafort in an effort to shore up his operation before the nomination slips away, was swept out of delegate slots up for grabs at Colorado’s state convention. Adding to his woes, he picked up just one delegate of six on the ballot in South Carolina. The most painful result, though, may have been Trump’s failure to capture two of three slots in his strongest South Carolina congressional district.

In fact, Trump lost five of the six delegate seats on the ballot in South Carolina’s 3rd and 7th congressional districts. Ted Cruz nabbed a delegate in the 7th district, while another, Alan Clemmons, remained uncommitted despite Trump’s dominant finish there in the state’s Feb. 20 primary. (The Manhattan billionaire won 43 percent of the district’s vote, to Cruz’s 20 percent and Kasich’s 6 percent.) Cruz also won two of three delegates in the 3rd district, while a third — Susan Aiken, a supporter of Marco Rubio — will go to the convention as an uncommitted delegate.

At the same time, Trump so far has been swept in Colorado, which unlike most states chooses its delegates indirectly, through a series of caucuses. Cruz, who has had a team working the state for months, received a thunderous ovation in Colorado Springs at Saturday afternoon’s chaotic GOP assembly as he announced his preliminary delegate haul while Trump’s bare-bones operation struggled to get organized.

After firing the organizer initially put in charge of Colorado last week, Trump’s team hired Patrick Davis, a GOP operative from Colorado Springs, to put together a slate in an effort to win some of the delegate slots to be elected by just fewer than 4,000 party activists at Saturday’s assembly. Heading in, Cruz had already swept the seven assemblies held in the state’s congressional districts, each of which elect three delegates, giving him 21 of Colorado’s 34 elected delegates – a majority – before ballots hit the floor at the state convention.

"We have beaten Donald Trump," Cruz told supporters packed into the World Arena.

Trump’s last-minute organizing effort did not go well. The leaflet his campaign handed out listed a slate of 26 delegates. But in many cases the numbers indicating their ballot position — more than 600 delegates are running for 13 slots — were off, meaning that Trump’s team was mistakenly directing votes toward other candidates’ delegates.

When the balloting results were announced Saturday evening, Cruz picked up the 13 statewide at-large delegates chosen during Saturday’s convention, with the final three appointed automatically by the Colorado Republican Party, giving him all 34 of Colorado's elected delegates (Trump did win six of the 34 alternate spots).

“Cruz had the crowd eating out of his hand when he spoke,” said Kelly Maher, a GOP operative based in Denver.

It’s an extension of a losing streak for Trump that threatens the mogul’s odds of winning the Republican nomination at what is increasingly likely to be a contested convention in July. Trump is close to falling short of enough support in the state-level primaries and caucuses to clinch the nomination outright, meaning his fate would be determined by delegates in Cleveland.
Yet Trump’s thinly staffed operations, even in the states he carried easily in February and March primaries, have left little organization behind to support delegate candidates. In addition to the congressional-district routs in South Carolina and Colorado, he’s been dealt setbacks in Indiana, North Dakota, Tennessee, Louisiana, South Dakota, and Georgia. Massachusetts is also shaping up as a delegate battleground, despite Trump’s dominance of the popular vote there.

Trump has primarily lost delegate races to Cruz, whose superior organization, months of preparatory work and resonance among the GOP’s activist base has helped him consolidate support in the insider-oriented battle for delegates. Trump has begun mobilizing for a delegate push in recent days, empowering Manafort, a veteran of past convention battles, to lead his effort, but the 67-year-old lobbyist and political consultant is still playing catch-up.

Trump failed to understand that political parties are organizations made up of people who have long-standing ties and loyalties to one another and their institution. He could have run as an independent and not done any of this stuff. He had the money and probably could have gotten himself on the ballot in all 50 states. But he wanted the legitimacy and the infrastructure of the GOP without working to ensure the loyalties of the people who participate in party politics day in and day out.

He apparently didn't even bother to find out how the party works. He thought it was all about being on TV. You want to be an outsider? Great. But don't expect to have any loyalty from the people you're slagging all day long.

Cruz was the smart one. He positioned himself as the outsider who represented the conservative movement. Those people have been infiltrating the party apparatus for years and they don't have a problem supporting him in these state delegations. They don't like the "Washington Cartel" but Cruz is a party man without being a RINO. He's got the best of both worlds.


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digby 4/10/2016 10:30:00 AM

 
Politics and Reality Radio

by Joshua Holland

Politics and Reality Radio: Fire Bill Clinton?; Bernie and Hillary Aren’t That Different

Hillary Clinton is trying hard to distance herself from some of her husband's more controversial policies, but every time she gets some space he drags her back to the 1990s, often generating bad headlines in the process. What's going on? Is Bill Clinton unconsciously sabotaging his wife's campaign? This week, we kick off with Slate's Michelle Goldberg calling for Hillary to fire Bill.

The we're joined by Newsweek political correspondent Emily Cadei. Cadei took a deep dive into the congressional records of both Democratic candidates, and found that not only were their voting records very similar -- and not only did they work together on 26 bills during the two years they overlapped in the Senate -- but they also demonstrated similar styles of coalition-building to advance their agendas. She says the two candidates vying for the Democratic nomination are a lot closer than the conventional wisdom suggests.

Finally, we'll talk to Dr. Arijit Nandi, a scholar at McGill University in Montreal, about how paid family leave is not only vital for achieving work/life balance, but also for infants' health outcomes.



As always, you can subscribe to the show at iTunes or Podbean.

Playlist:
Merle Haggard: "That's the News"
Amy Winehouse: "To Know Him Is to Love Him"
The Isley Brothers: "It's Your Thing"
Kiddus I: "Graduation in Zion"

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digby 4/10/2016 09:00:00 AM

 

Boston Globe gives Trump a Bronx cheer

by Tom Sullivan

We take @realDonaldTrump at his word https://t.co/tLcadvrdQa pic.twitter.com/Z4BnNQE5Ts

— Boston Globe Opinion (@GlobeOpinion) April 9, 2016

This morning the Boston Globe offers a glimpse into President Donald Trump's America with a mocked-up front page illustrating the kind of stories we could expect if Trump were elected president. Stocks plunge, trade wars loom, and "riots continue" over mass deportations.

Reuters:

Other mock entries include a story about unrest in the ranks of the U.S. military as soldiers refuse orders to kill family members of Islamic State militants, and the headline: "New libel law targets 'absolute scum' in press."

"It is an exercise in taking a man at his word," explains the editorial accompanying the graphic on the front page of the newspaper's "Ideas" section:

That’s not a pretty picture. But then nothing about the billionaire real estate developer’s quest for the nation’s highest office has been pretty. He winks and nods at political violence at his rallies. He says he wants to “open up” libel laws to punish critics in the news media and calls them “scum.” He promised to shut out an entire class of immigrants and visitors to the United States on the sole basis of their religion.

The toxic mix of violent intimidation, hostility to criticism, and explicit scapegoating of minorities shows a political movement is taking hold in America. If Trump were a politician running such a campaign in a foreign country right now, the US State Department would probably be condemning him.

The editors chastise the GOP for missing opportunities to stop feeding the "hateful currents" behind Trump's movement. The party, the Globe argues, needs to ask itself how its own actions and inactions paved the way for Trump's ascendancy and muster the courage finally to stop him using "every legitimate roadblock," warning, "It is better to lose with principle than to accept a dangerous deal from a demagogue."

Once upon a time, Republicans worked up an autopsy of their 2012 presidential defeat. And promptly round-filed it. Their 100-page report designed to Make the GOP Great Again urged:

We need to campaign among Hispanic, black, Asian, and gay Americans and demonstrate we care about them, too. We must recruit more candidates who come from minority communities. But it is not just tone that counts. Policy always matters.

States such as Michigan, Kansas, and North Carolina proved just what sorts of policies matter outside the RNC's fanciful self-reflection worked up by the likes of Henry Barbour, Sally Bradshaw, Ari Fleischer, Zori Fonalledas, and Glenn McCall:

Bradshaw was a senior adviser for Jeb Bush’s now-defunct campaign. Henry Barbour, nephew of longtime Mississippi power broker Haley Barbour, had a family tie to Bush’s campaign: His brother Austin was also a senior advisor to the campaign. Ari Fleischer, of course, was George W. Bush’s first White House press secretary. And Fonalledas was on Jeb Bush’s Hispanic Leadership Committee.

They represent a party that a broad swath of the angry GOP base has rejected for Trump. Contra conservative ideology since at least Reagan, "the base doesn’t really believe in, or much care about, small government." Trump's success proves "the party’s intellectual leaders, who organized the base around the National Review/Weekly Standard consensus — small government, free trade, pro-Israel, deregulation, low taxes, social conservatism and an aggressive foreign policy — have been generals of a phantom army."

Except maybe for the aggressive foreign policy part, "Donald Trump might as well have read [the autopsy] and done the exact opposite of what it said." His followers don't care about all that Beltway insider stuff. They're tired of feeling like the kid picked last in gym class. They want to stick it to the party elite and ISIS and the Chinese and the Mexicans. They don't really want to make America great again. They just want someone to make them feel better about themselves. They want a strongman. They want a boy named Trump.

John Avlon might have to update his list of America's 9 Worst Demagogues to include Donald Trump. Trump is a perfect 10. Just ask him.




Undercover Blue 4/10/2016 06:00:00 AM

Saturday, April 09, 2016

 

Saturday Night at the Movies

The empress has no pitch: Marguerite ***

By Dennis Hartley

It’s been said that many who fancy themselves singers can’t “hear” their own true voice (ever been to a Karaoke bar?). Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder; but in the ears, not so much. Off key is off key, and unfortunately for wealthy arts patron Marguerite Dumont (Catherine Frot) this is Paris in the 20s, and Auto-Tune is many decades hence.

Her heart is in the right place, though. In fact music is her driving passion, and in the opening of writer-director Xavier Giannoli’s eponymous drama, we witness a gathering of aristocrats (and a few party-crashers) that has converged on Marguerite’s sprawling estate for a charity fundraiser. Marguerite has invited a number of accomplished musicians to perform. The biggest buzz surrounds the headliner-Marguerite herself, who has prepared one of her favorite Soprano pieces to regale her guests with. However, she’s holding off until her husband Georges (Andre Marcon) arrives; it seems he has car issues.

It turns out that Georges has frequent trouble with the car; weirdly enough this occurs every time Marguerite gives a recital at their home (although the significance of this “coincidence” has never occurred to the unflappably enthusiastic Marguerite). As the guests are getting impatient, the show must go on…and so Marguerite takes center stage.

When Marguerite begins to sing, erm, how can I put this politely…well, let’s just say she is no Edith Piaf. OK, full disclosure: Her caterwauling could decalcify your spinal column at 100 paces. She’s godawful. But…she’s so enthusiastically godawful that she is at once oddly endearing. We assume this, because nobody has ever told her how utterly horrifying her singing is; neither her guests (who in fact give her a standing O) nor her longtime butler (Denis Mpunga), nor husband (aside from those “problems” with the car).

Two of the “party-crashers” I referred to earlier are an ambitious young journalist and his pal, an avant-garde provocateur, who are intrigued by the inexplicably sycophantic cocoon of “admirers” that enables Marguerite to remain cheerfully oblivious to her atonal warbling. Do they do this out of kindness? Or are they being ironic? Perhaps there’s something the young men are “missing”? The pair decides to conduct a sort of social experiment. If they can coax Marguerite out of her hermetic bubble, into a real public performance, she might prove to be a true phenomenon. Stranger things have happened.

What ensues is a sometimes uneasy cross between The Producers and The Dinner Game. The saving grace is Frot’s brave and moving performance; she’s sweet, funny and heartbreaking all at once. Michel Fau is another standout as a fading opera singer who is reluctantly recruited into playing Henry Higgins to Marguerite’s Eliza Doolittle (his characterization also recalls the exasperated singing coach who is hired to tutor Orson Welles’ tone-deaf wife in Citizen Kane). While there are many amusing moments, this is not a lighthearted romp; the odious, uniquely human capacity to cruelly exploit others for personal gain is on full display. Then again, you know what they say: “That’s show biz!”

More reviews at Den of Cinema

--Dennis Hartley

digby 4/09/2016 05:30:00 PM

 
The crack-up gets serious

by digby

Now they're trying to kick Phyllis Schlafly out of the Eagle Forum for supporting Trump.  Phyllis Schlafly is The Eagle Forum. Seriously, this is amazing:

digby 4/09/2016 04:30:00 PM