Tomorrow (Friday), the Turner Classic Movies channel is devoting the evening to Elaine May.  It starts at 5 PM (Los Angeles time -- 8 PM in the East) with an hour-long documentary on her comedy career with Mike Nichols.  It's titled,  Nichols & May:  Take Two.  If they didn't show any other of her films, this alone would be enough for me to look forward to.

The movies they're showing are A New Leaf (which she starred in with Walter Matthau), Nickey and Mikey (with Peter Falk and John Cassavetes) and Ishtar (with Dustin Hoffman and Warren Beatty).

I haven't seen A New Leaf in many, many decades, but remembering liking it and finding it pretty funny.

I didn’t see Mikey and Nicky until about 2-3 years ago.  And was stunned by how good it was -- both the writing and directing -- most especially for being SO different from all her other films.  It's not at all a comedy, though there are touches of humor, but a pretty dark, gritty independent-style film about two low-level gangsters.  In fact, it looks sort of like something Cassavetes might have made.  If someone showed me the movie , and I knew nothing about it, and they asked who I thought wrote it and also who directed it, I never would have guessed Elaine May for either.  Never.  Ever.  It's not for everyone, but it's extremely good.

I saw her famous, huge flop Ishtar in a theater.  (Not during its initial run, but soon after, I think at the WGA, but I wouldn’t swear to it.)   I enjoyed it -- much better than its massive flop status, though (for me) not as great as many of its defenders now say.  My recollection is that I thought it was a fun “Hope and Crosby road picture,” though somewhat too big.  But I wasn’t remotely offended by it being big and expensive (which was its criticism at the time, and unfairly so), just that (if I remember correctly), making it so big detracted a touch from the charm.  However, I might like it more with the passage of time, distanced from everything swirling around it.  So, I'm at least recording it, just in case I decide to watch it again.

Here's the trailer for Mikey & Nicky.  As you can see, it is most definitely not a comedy.  An interesting side note: the woman in the trailer, playing Cassavetes ex-girlfriend, is Joyce Van Patten.  And she not only appeared in two episodes of Columbo, one of them a small, very funny scene as a nun at a soup kitchen who mistakes Columbo as a homeless man, but in the other she played the murderer -- and it was made the same year as Mikey & Nicky (1976).  Furthermore, that episode, "Old Fashioned Murder," features a supporting role by Jeannie Berlin, who is Elaine May's daughter.  (Most recently, she had a recurring role in Succession.)  For what it's worth, Falk's good friend Cassavetes played a murderer in Columbo, as well, a very good episode, "Etude in Black."

Yesterday, I referenced how on Super Tuesday, the Trump team had worked with the RNC to make their primaries “functionally” winner-take-all, which would help Trump.  (“Functionally” was Steve Kornacki’s word.  I had originally written “essentially,” but I decided I liked his choice better.) 
 
I thought it would be nice if I explained what I meant.
 
Going into this election, the Republican primaries on Super Tuesday were, in fact, proportional.  Delegates were given out according to how well each candidate did in each state’s primary results.  And officially, the primaries are still “proportional.”  But that wasn’t good enough for Trump, who wanted to guarantee his victory in as crushing a way as possible.  And so, they worked with the RNC to – and this is so pure Trump projection – rig the elections.
 
The way the state primaries now work on Super Tuesday is this –
 
The winner of the state does not get all the delegates.  But…delegates are given out “proportionally” (sic) according to who wins a district.  If you win a district, you get all its delegates.  If you win half the districts, you get those delegates, and if your opponents split winning the other half of the districts, they’ll win all these other delegates.
 
Sounds cool, fair, right?

Except, no.

Under an actual “proportional” race, if you get 55% of the vote, you get 55% of the delegates.  If the second place finisher gets 30% of the votes, that candidate will get 30% of the delegates.  Right?
 
But in this new Trump-pushed system.  If those same percentages occur in every individual district, the first place finisher (in this case most surely Trump, as the leading candidate by far) will get…100% of the votes.  Because he won each district.
 
Now, it’s certainly possible that Nikki Haley will win some districts.  It’s possible.  It’s also worth keeping the concept of “some” in mind.  After all, in Iowa, there were 99 districts, and Trump won 98 of them.  Haley won some.  In this case, that translated to one.
 
So, essentially – or functionally – these “proportional” states in the Republican Super Tuesday races are winner-take-all.  And that’s why Trump will swamp Nkki Haley (and would have swamped whatever candidates had still been in the race).  He’ll sweep the table.  And the Republican race for the presidential nomination will be over, or close to over.
 
Trump likely would have won the nomination in today’s GOP easily without this.  But this just made it brain-dead easy.  And the sheer whimsy of it all is that it’s done by Trump himself openly rigging the election.
 
But then, that’s the old Trump Rule.  When he charges you with doing something bad, you can rest assured he’s projecting his own actions.

During the Writers Guild strike, the five hosts of nighttime talk shows – Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers and John Oliver – teamed up to do a weekly podcast that they called Strike Force Five.  The point was to raise money for their staffs, which they did through donations, selling merchandise and having a couple sponsors (including Ryan Reynolds who does truly funny ads on the podcasts for his companies Mint Mobile and Aviator Gin). 
 
They did 12 episodes in all.  I caught up with the podcast well after the fact, and (for my taste) found them exceedingly funny – and even very interesting at times – in fact, often hilarious.  What stands out from the podcasts is how much the hosts seem to truly like and respect one another – 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.
 
I won’t link to them all, but do want to single out several which I thought especially leaped out.  And will post here over the coming weeks.
 
This first is from Episode 5 which Jimmy Fallon hosted.  (Hosting duties alternated from week to week.)  Every episode’s host got to pick the themes to talk about, and for Fallon’s week here, he decided to make it a sort of Newlywed Game.  During the preceding week, he texted the other hosts’ wives and asked them questions which he would then, in turn, ask the hosts to try and match.  All I’ll say is that it goes hilariously bad, and the others are utterly cutthroat in their treatment of Fallon.  So pitiless that they continue to bring it up – at length – on later shows.  He takes it all in good-natured stride, though that doesn’t bring any comfort or let-up from the others.
 
Let’s put it this way -- on the Strike Force Five website, they describe the episode this way:  “Episode five is about our wives. Jimmy Fallon hosts the WORST GAME SHOW EVER in our favorite episode so far.” 
 
One last thing I’ll mention.  For the first podcast, Jimmy Kimmel found an explosion sound that he would play every time the show’s name, “Strike Force Five” (booooooom!!!) got mentioned.  He continued this for several shows until some of the others complained.  This became a running debate – some listeners loved it, some didn’t, and the hosts themselves were a little divided between absolutely hating it or wanting it in moderation.  Moderation tended to win out, but the debate continued.  I don’t recall if they discuss it much in this particular episode, but you’ll definitely hear the explosion, and that’s what it’s about.
 
I can’t embed the podcast – it was done for Spotify – but here’s a link to the episode on the Strike Force Five website. 

​Sorry, I mean on the Strike Force Five  (booooooom!!!) website.

I thought I would try something different here.  I am writing this on Tuesday at 4:38 in the evening, Los Angeles time, a full 22 minutes before the polls close in New Hampshire.  Consider it post-election analysis before the fact.
 
Using by Bob Exit Polling Service, which is based on nothing known in reality, we are calling the race for Trump, with Nikki Halley finishing second in a two-person race by 18 points, topping my suggestion a couple weeks ago that she would lose by 16 points, while all the news media was breathlessly suggesting she was within single digits.
 
Now, of course, she may lose by “only” 10 points – which is hilarious that that would be considered a win (nor single digits) – but then, she might also lose by 25 points.
 
And still, Lawrence O’Donnell on MSNBC is breathlessly talking about how Nikki Hayley is showing that there is real interest in the Republican Party having an alternative to Trump.
 
No, there isn’t.
 
New Hampshire is almost nothing like all other Red states,  It’s not only significantly more moderate than the extreme-fascist right that are the rest of Red states in the GOP, but also, New Hampshire allows independents (also known as “not members of the Republican Party) to vote in the Republican primary if they register in time.  If the Democratic primary was more meaningful this year, these same independents could have registered to vote there.
 
It also bears repeating that the very next race when Haley and Trump are both on the ballot is the South Carolina primary, which is not only Nikki Haley’s home state, but she was its governor – and a recent poll has her losing by 35 points!
 
There is not “real interest” in the Republican party having an alternative to Trump.  That’s why Trump is leading all others by 30-40 points.  Which is the first hint that there is not “real interest” in the GOP for an alternative to Trump. 
 
Further evidence of that is when Sen. Tim Scott endorsed Trump last week – since the only reason Scott is even a senator is because Nikki Haley appointed him!  If Tim Scott even had a whisp of a thought that there was GOP interest in an alternative to Trump, I feel certain he would have at least held off endorsing Trump before the South Carolina primary.
 
Additional evidence is when days later Rep. Nancy Mace – also of South Carolina – who after Jan. 6 held Trump accountable for the Insurrection and who Trump called “absolutely terrible,” “untruthful,” “crazy,” “disloyal,” “a terrible person” and “despised by almost everyone” while endorsing her GOP primary opponent in 2022 – endorsed Trump, over Nikki Haley, the former governor of her own state.
 
No, there is not “real interest” in the Republican party having an alternative to Trump.
 
And no, there is no path for Nikki Haley to win enough delegates to get the Republican nomination to be president.
 
And we haven’t even mentioned Super Tuesday on March 5 when Trump is expected to crush the Haley campaign and may even end up with enough delegates after that night to clinch the Republican nomination.  All the more so since -- despite what Joy Ann Reid and Michael Steele said on MSNBC about the states distributing delegates proportionally -- they are “functionally” winner-take-all, because of rule changes the Trump campaign pushed through last year.  (Something Steve Kornacki, not surprisingly, noted correctly was the reality.)
 
It’s worth adding that despite breathless news media assertions, Nikki Haley is not in a two-person race with Trump because she's Republican's second choice -- but because (and only because) unlike other candidates, she stayed in the race despite having absolutely no chance to beat Trump.
 
All this said, I do expect Nikki Haley to make a glowing statement that it was a great night because she finished second to Trump.  In a two-person race.  Where she didn’t lose by 32 points, like in Iowa.
 
[UPDATE:  I swear this is true.  I wrote the above paragraph before Nikki Haley gave her speech.  As I said, I began writing this before the polls even closed.  And she opened it by saying – “What a great night, and God is so good.  Thank you, New Hampshire for the love, kindness and support – and a great night here tonight!”]
 
Further, over half the Republican senators and over half the party’s congressmen have already endorsed Trump.  Nikki Haley has one member of Congress who has endorsed her.  Ralph Norman from her state of South Carolina.  Eleven GOP governors have endorsed Trump, two have endorsed Haley.
 
No, there is not real interest in the Republican Party having an alternative to Trump. 
 
(The only “real interest” in Nikki Haley has pretty much nothing to do with Nikki Haley, it appears.  It’s among people financing her campaign, terrified of Trump leading the party again or him again in the White House.  But that’s it, that’s as far as it flies.)
 
By the way, Nikki Haley could still conceive get the GOP nomination.  But not because she has a path to beat Trump.  She doesn’t have a path and won’t beat him.  But after Trump gets the nomination and is the official Republican candidate, if – for some improbable reason – he doesn’t run, Nikki Haley could become the new GOP nominee.  Though I don’t know how that process works – and I’m not sure the GOP knows yet either.
 
Actually, in the end, I don’t even think the Republican primary is the big story of the night out of New Hampshire.  After all, Nikki Haley was behind in the polls there by 19 points.  She was going to lose.  And will not get the Republican nomination.
 
But to me, the bigger story was the Democratic primary.  President Biden wasn’t even on the ballot (because the party changed the order of primaries, and New Hampshire decided to go first anyway, despite being told if they did so, no delegates would be awarded).  However, a couple of minor, but semi-known candidates were, notably Marianne Williamson and Rep. Dean Phillips, who are waging national campaigns to challenge the president.  And despite not being on the ballot, enough New Hampshire voters wrote in President Biden’s name – and he was declared the winner.  Not only the winner, but with 68% of the vote.  As a write-in candidate who did not show up to campaign in the state.  It’s not a major thing, but noteworthy.
 
And far more significant than Nikki Haley getting pummeled again in a Republican primary, despite the news media insisting she was within single digits and has a path to win.  Which she doesn’t.
 
Okay, that’s all started before the polls were even closed and long before the final results are in.
 
We’ll stop now and watch to see how close the Bob Exit Polling Service got...

UPDATE:  At 11:05 PM with 89% of the vote in, Trump is leading Nikki Haley by 11.4%.  That's smaller than I anticipated -- and not great for the de facto party leader -- but still a substantive, double-digit win for getting the GOP nomination.  Which is why everything else in the article stands.  Including that among specifically Republican voters only, Trump beat Nikki Haley by...50 points!  In moderate New Hampshire.  Or, another way of saying that is --

No, there is no real interest in the Republican Party having an alternative to Trump.

 

Okay, one more time, we go back to Sesame Street, which every once in a while has had country music stars on to sing with The Muppets.  This time, it’s Travis Tritt who not only found his way to Sesame Street, but wandered over to Elmo’s World.
​

On Monday, the Supreme Court ruled that only the federal government can decide border issues and not states.  In this specific case, the ruling blocks Texas from putting razor wire across its southern border, which of course is the southern border of the Unites States, and so in turn was blocking U.S. Customs and Border Protection from accessing migrants.
 
(While this ruling seemed like a no-brainer, the very conservative court only ruled by a slim margin of 5-4.  I was going to say “razor thin margin,” but that seemed unnecessary.)
 
As a result of the ruling, there has been a small outbreak in Texas of calls for the state to get a divorce from the Union and secede.  No word yet on who they think would get the children. But that's not surprising because clearly they haven't thought this break-up through.
 
My position on secession, as I’ve noted on other occasions when whining Red state cry to secede, is very simple --

Let any state that wants to secede do so.  Then, since they are clearly enemies of the United States, and clearly are significant threats to the nation by virtue of bordering the U.S., the American government should then declare war on them and send in the military.  After we defeat these rogue nations, which should take, I'm guessing, about 45 minutes if traffic is heavy, given that they won't have a financial system or...well, military (not even the National Guard since, after all, it's "National"), we then take all the assets as spoils of war that we believe are to our nation's interest -- such as mail service, and interstate highways -- and then negotiate a fair peace over whatever remains, which they can keep, like local DMVs, their crumbling schools, and unemployment insurance.
 
But I also like when pockets of people living Red states are so “outraged” that they cry out mournfully to secede because it lets me bring out the old chestnut --
 
To start with, no state has a right to secede on its own.  It's, of course, unconstitutional so if Texas said it seceded, it would still be part of the United States.  And so, you can pretty much stop there.  But there are so many things that this gibberish cry completely ignores if a state ever did, somehow, miraculously manage to secede from the Union that it’s worth referencing them once again.  Among them are --

It would need its own currency and monetary system.

It would need its own military – Army, Air Force, Navy, Marines, Coast Guard, missile defense system (and as noted, they’d have no National Guard) – to protect its borders and be able to fight off an invasion from being taken over by another country.  Or another state.
  
It would get zero federal aid.  This is an especially big one, since Texas get $68 billion in aid, which is about one-third of its budget.
 
There would be no federal subsidies for industries that exist in states, which might drive some of those businesses out of the states.
 
If any state actually could secede (it can’t), it would have no access to the federal highway system and to any interstate commerce.

It would need its own postal service.
 
Residents of any state that seceded, if it could (it can’t) would need a passport to travel outside it borders into the U.S.   And need to go through immigration control every time they left – and returned.  (In fact, it’s possible that they would need proof of vaccination to enter the U.S.) 

All business outside the state would require international documentation.  The added costs of doing business might also drive some corporations from “foreign” states into states in the U.S.
 
Every resident of Texas over the age of 62 would lose their Social Security and Medicare benefits.

If Texas ever somehow managed to secede, it wouldn't be able to vote for any Republican to be U.S. president. (And the GOP would lose all those Electoral Votes it counts on.)  For that matter, Texas would no longer even have a U.S. senator or any members of the U.S. House.
  
This is just me, and I’m going out on a limb – and others may not agree -- but I don’t get the sense Texans calling for secession are thinking this through…