Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

Everybody saw this coming.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

Let there be snark.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

I was promised a recession.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

The GOP couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

It’s the corruption, stupid.

In my day, never was longer.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

You are here: Home / Past Elections / 2020 Elections / Election Year Open Thread: Young Prince Jared Tries His Hand At Rodent Fornication

Election Year Open Thread: Young Prince Jared Tries His Hand At Rodent Fornication

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… And fails by every possible metric, because that’s his real skill-set:


… “We have no knowledge of what Kanye West is doing or who is doing it for him,” the Trump campaign’s spokesman said at the time. But last weekend, indefatigable Trump cheerleader and former aide Sam Nunberg had no qualms about bragging to The Washington Post that he’d introduced Trump in 2014 to the GOP pol who got West on the ballot in Arkansas last month. To Nunberg, running West was a coup for Republicans. “Does the Biden campaign want Kanye West campaigning in Cleveland, in Cincinnati, in Milwaukee?” he asked. “I don’t think they do.”

Into this maelstrom of racial animus and nihilism strides Kushner, a bloodless man possessed of a singular genius for locating new petards with which he can hoist himself. Last Thursday, Kanye got on Colorado’s ballot; within 48 hours, he’d gotten a private audience in the state with the permanently wincing White House senior adviser, who started his political career by trying to establish backchannel Trump communications with Russia and who most recently was excoriated for completely fucking up the U.S. coronavirus response—possibly, it was reported by Vanity Fair, because he reasoned the virus “was going to be relegated to Democratic states” and Trump “could blame those governors” for the resulting mass deaths.

If one could bracket out the immediately obvious evils of manipulating a man in a mental health crisis for maximum political gain, using Kanye to halfheartedly rig an election would be the perfect Kushner tasking. He has grand ideas about his abilities, as we’ve seen. But this is probably closest to his sweet spot: chumming with celebrities and concocting the stupidest scheme imaginable to keep his extended family’s grift going just a bit longer…

Sure, some voters — even in swing states! — might write in Kanye West. Others will write in Ron Paul, Lydon LaRouche, or their own favorite celebrity. Doesn’t make Kushner’s attempts to ‘encourage’ his ‘friend’ any less despicable, or futile.

Black political reporter, for some reason, not finding this funny:

Reader Interactions

117Comments

  6. 6.

    Kay

    “Does the Biden campaign want Kanye West campaigning in Cleveland, in Cincinnati, in Milwaukee?” he asked. “I don’t think they do.”

    I don’t think the low quality Trump hires are supposed to admit Trump’s worried about Ohio. That’s supposed to be in the bag.

  7. 7.

    NotMax

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    It is. It’s not anywhere close to anything approaching a serious campaign, it’s a not so covertly R-financed spoiler campaign to attempt to funnel just enough votes away from Biden in certain states.

    And a dismal joke, as if a competitor tried to cut into Uber’s business by backing another company which drives nothing but Yugos.

  8. 8.

    Omnes Omnibus

    Into this maelstrom of racial animus and nihilism strides Kushner, a bloodless man possessed of a singular genius for locating new petards with which he can hoist himself.

    I just wanted to see this again.

  9. 9.

    Eljai

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):  So far, I think he’s only been able to get on the ballot in Colorado, Oklahoma and Vermont.  He got booted from Illinois for too many invalid signatures.  Fervently hoping his attempt to get on the ballot in Wisconsin will fail as well.

  10. 10.

    Kay

    That’s the great part of Trump hiring all his otherwise unemployable relatives though- if you beat him the whole family is humiliated and fired. Big reward. It’s an incentive. 5 assholes with one stone.

  12. 12.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Eljai:

    I had thought he had already failed to get on the Wisconsin ballot. It’s a battleground state, so yeah he needs to be kept off. West actually had the gall to invoke the race card for being rejected in Illinois

  13. 13.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    A bunch of them in one state were bs ones like “Bernie Sanders”. I wish his “campaign” would ask me to sign it for Ohio. I’d sign something ridiculous like “Clark Kent”. Unless it’s illegal to put a false name on ballot petition?

  15. 15.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @NotMax:

    It really speaks to either the GOP’s arrogance that these efforts are so brazen or their (racist) stupidity. Not that this shouldn’t be taken seriously obviously

  16. 16.

    Nelle

    A Republican lawyer suited the petition for West to get on the Iowa ballot just before the deadline today.  His named electors are Republican.  The petition gatherers were all at a Comfort in where someone snapped a photo of “campaign ” men going through the petitions.  These signatures will be challenged.  The gatherers were being followed by local Dems who were interviewing people they approached about what they said.

  17. 17.

    Wyatt Salamanca

    One of the great things about a Biden/Harris victory will be that Jared, this putrid pukestain and pathetic excuse for a human being, returns to obscurity and won’t be heard or seen again.

  18. 18.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Alison Rose: We do, it is called the herem, which translates as The Ban. There are a range of possible outcomes/punishment from ostracism to execution.

  19. 19.

    Winston

    Since this is an open thread, I just wanted to share my movie viewing the last couple of days to further everyone’s depression. Last night I watched Threads(1984) for the first time ever. “the film was the first of its kind to depict a nuclear winter. It has been called “a film which comes closest to representing the full horror of nuclear war. its aftermath, as well as the catastrophic impact the event would have on human culture. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threads_(1984_film)

    True that I don’t need to see it again to realize that.

    But it is supposed to be the British counterpart of a US movie in 1983. “The day after”. And which is the best depiction. So I watched The day after tonight. It is available on UTube for free.

    So which is the best movie to scare the everloving shit out of you? I call it almost a tie, but Threads ekes out a win. I never want to see either one of them again. I get the point.

    The pandemic is tame in comparison.

  20. 20.

    Yutsano

    @Alison Rose:  We don’t excommunicate true. But we do shun. And I would love it if his synagogue shunned them both. No entry. No words. Just turn them out on the street like the trash they are. And contact as many Orthodox rabbis as possible in the areas where they live to enforce the same shunning. It won’t teach them any lessons, but their synagogue might just regain their dignity.

    @Adam L Silverman:  Thank you. The word was sticking in my brain. I’ve been rather foggy in the brain as of late.

  21. 21.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): It is part of the influence campaign. Bannon summed it up as “flood the zone with shit”. Create so much chaos, make so much “news” that reporters have to constantly chase, that you create the following effects:

    1. No one actually has the time or energy to keep track of everything that is going on.
    2. All the chaos produced in broad daylight serves as a mask to screen the real stuff with real effects going on in the background that is being obscured by the shit that is flooding the zone.
    3. Create a situation where so much is going on, no two people can agree on everything that is going on, which creates
    4. The dynamic that nothing is true, therefore anything and everything is possible.
  22. 22.

    Winston

    As to Kushner, he doesn’t have any immunity and I hope once the dust settles when Biden/Harris assume our leadership they are prosecuted. So there.

  24. 24.

    dmsilev

    @Alison Rose: Much as Jared deserves shunning, I have to think that Stephen Miller is ahead of him in any ranking. Miller is far more competent in his evil. And besides, his own family has already signed off on the “he’s a moral monster” thing, so there won’t be any pushback.

  25. 25.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Yutsano: I was just talking about this a little while ago.  In addition to prosecutions for whatever can be established, All of these people need to be shown that they are no longer acceptable in decent society.  Chad Wolf’s neighbors who served snacks to protesters and the people who drove Ilsa the She-Wolf of the DHS out of a restaurant have the right idea.  This isn’t about policy differences; this is about the kind of people who proudly put took kids from their parents and put them in cages.  They are not acceptable in a decent society or even one that merely purports to be.

  28. 28.

    Winston

    The thing with me is, it’s all over. As soon as I receive my mail in ballot, I fill it out solid blue. There is no need to debate any right wing idiot, or pay attention to their scummy schemes at this point. It’s just over and a lot of my friends feel the same way.

  29. 29.

    Adam L Silverman

    @dmsilev: Miller deserves to be scarfed up, black bagged, sedated, and deposited at The Hague for a crimes against humanity trial.

  30. 30.

    NotMax

    @Winston

    Threads is a harrowing watch, one which has lost practically none of its iron-fisted, brass knuckled punch. Nearly 20 years earlier, the equally shattering The War Game was deemed to be too disturbing for audiences in 1965 and held back from its planned airing on the BBC until the 1980s.

  31. 31.

    H.E.Wolf

    @NotMax:
    In Simon Schama’s 1987 non-fiction book about Dutch history, Embarrassment of Riches, he tells a story of Dutch citizens mooning the British (or vice versa) across the English Channel, some time in the 17th century or thereabouts….

  32. 32.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Winston:

    I’ve watched both of those movies. By far the bleakest depiction of nuclear war is When the Wind Blows (1986), an animated film about a older British couple that grew up up during WW2 that bumblingly follow the UK government issued Civil Defense pamphlets from the period.

    They took off all the doors to the house (including exterior ones!) to build a sort of an interior “shelter” with them, covered it with throw pillows, painted the windows white, etc. The film makes it clear they’re stuck in the past and completely trust the government.

    They miraculously survive the attack, only to slowly die of radiation poisoning. All of their neighbors have died; the main characters, Jim and Hilda, even wonder if someone is cooking roast beef…

    The movie ends on a bleak note, with Jim and Hilda climbing into trash bags (because the pamphlets told them to), thinking the British government is going to come to their rescue. But they never do and it’s already been 2 weeks

    As for Threads, the biggest issue I have with it is how it has stupid scenes like a woman pissing herself and a man getting off a toilet during the attack. Detracts from the film’s serious message imo. Total realism isn’t always a good thing

  33. 33.

    kindness

    I feel sorry for Kanye.  He’s mentally not all together.  Trump’s people know it and are manipulating him.

    I would say ‘At long last, have you no sense of decency?’  No they don’t.

  35. 35.

    Adam L Silverman

    The good news is that Senator Burr (R-NC), at the time still the chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, has referred Jared to the DOJ for investigation. Also, Steve Bannon, Don Jr, Erik Prince, Sam Clovis, and several others. If Biden is elected, those referrals will still be at the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia.

    https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-08-14/senate-committee-sought-investigation-of-bannon-raised-concerns-about-trump-family-testimony

    The Senate Intelligence Committee has sent a bipartisan letter to the Justice Department asking federal prosecutors to investigate Stephen K. Bannon, a former Trump confidante, for potentially lying to lawmakers during its investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

    The letter, a copy of which was reviewed by The Times, was signed by the panel’s then-chairman, Republican Sen. Richard M. Burr, and its ranking Democrat, Sen. Mark Warner.

    It also raised concerns about testimony provided by family members and confidants of President Trump that appeared to contradict information provided by a former deputy campaign chairman to Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III. Those it identified as providing such conflicting testimony were the president’s son Donald Trump Jr., his son-in-law Jared Kushner, former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and former White House Communications Director Hope Hicks.

    “As you are aware, the Committee is conducting an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election,” the letter states. “As part of that inquiry, and as a result of witness interviews and document production, we now have reason to believe that the following individuals may have committed a criminal act.”

    The letter then names Bannon, the chief executive of the 2016 Trump campaign and later a top White House strategist, and two other men — Erik Prince, a private security contractor, and Sam Clovis, who served as co-chairman of Trump’s campaign.

  36. 36.

    Wyatt Salamanca

    @Adam L Silverman:

    You may have addressed this point in a previous post, so I apologize in advance if I missed your comment, but what’s your reaction to Colin Powell asserting that the media got carried away in its reporting of Putin offering bounties for the killing of US soldiers in Afghanistan.

  37. 37.

    West of the Rockies

    @Eljai:

    Trump will win Oklahoma with or without Kanye’s “assistance.”  As for Vermont and its (checks notes) 23 black voters and THREE electoral votes, who cares.  Also, too, Trump ain’t winning Colorado, period.

  38. 38.

    Mallard Filmore

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Miller deserves to be scarfed up, black bagged, sedated, and deposited at The Hague for a crimes against humanity trial.

    Along those same lines …

    .@ElieNYC is always thinking of how to get the handcuffs on, for which America should be grateful.

    Promising a Nobel—like a truckload of coke—to get Trump to an Oslo arrest point is an ace operation. I’m seeing a livestream. https://t.co/iZDweZ36jd

    — Virginia Heffernan (@page88) August 13, 2020

  39. 39.

    HumboldtBlue

    I got nothin’ other than I just had an online video session with brilliant people and I can’t stop smiling.

    Needed that.

  40. 40.

    Adam L Silverman

    @NotMax: I saw the initial reporting a couple of days ago. The seizure is allowed under the sanctions in place, but this, like almost everything we’ve ever done vis a vis Iran since the revolution, is going to have to opposite effect than the one we’re seeking.

  41. 41.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Adam L Silverman:

    I really think they fucked up with the timing of the Postal Service. It would’ve made more sense to do that in late September or October. Now people have time to adjust, hopefully. The USPS IG is getting involved as well and they can’t be fired so easily. Many state AGs are announcing investigations into the USPS shenanigans too.

    The USPS has (allegedly) said it will halt post box removals going forward. Now, we have to hold them to that and force DeJoy to reverse his other “reforms” too. A lot of people all over the country are experiencing mail delays. The Dems are going to have to make sure Trump gets blamed for it. I think he will

  44. 44.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Wyatt Salamanca: I don’t know how read into these things Powell is anymore, so I have no idea what he knows to base this on. I know that the CENTCOM commander has indicated some skepticism, but the reality is that threat was taken seriously enough to lead the military to take additional force protection measures in Afghanistan. I’m not read onto any of this as I’m not working on anything even remotely related to it, and if I was I couldn’t comment, so everything I know is based on the open source reporting. Based on that, I think there is enough that any prudent commander would take implement additional force protection measures and a functional national command authority would push back.

    I did see reporting yesterday that Pompeo has now stated that both he and Secretary Esper pushed their Russian counterparts on this. You don’t do that if there’s no there there.

  46. 46.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @West of the Rockies:

    I agree. Iowa I’m more worried about. Obama won that state back in 2008. Can’t remember about 2012, but my impression is that Iowa is potentially gettable

  47. 47.

    NotMax

    @Adam L. Silverman

    What happens to the cargo? I haven’t the slightest idea what its legals status might be. Sits indefinitely in the Texas harbor? Sold at secret “auction” to a Dolt 45 crony?

  48. 48.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Have I said something to annoy you or have I said something wrong? If I have I apologize. It’s just I’ve made many replies to you that have gone unanswered tonight. I can’t help but wonder

  49. 49.

    CaseyL

    @Winston: There’s another very good US TV movie called “Threads,” also more about the aftermath than the attack itself.  Focuses on a single family.  Another heartbreaker.  Jane Alexander stars, and William Devane is also in it (albeit briefly).

    Nuclear war movies were, I guess the word is  “popular,” in the mid-80s, thanks to Reagan playing “Can you top this?” with the Soviets.

    It makes me wonder what kind of movies will come out of our era.

  51. 51.

    Adam L Silverman

    @NotMax: That’s the question. This is bordering on using the US Navy as privateers with the sanctions functioning as a bill or marque.

  52. 52.

    Feathers

    If people want a cheerful and uplifting watch, I highly recommend THE SPEED CUBERS on Netflix. Someone on Twitter who isn’t a crying type said they wept, so when it showed up in my scroll, I watched. I hate heart tugging, but this was something a bit more interesting.

    A great thing about streaming is that it isn’t tied to lengths having to fit defined schedule slots. This is 40 minutes long. 30 wouldn’t have been long enough, and I’m so glad they didn’t pay it out to 60. 

  53. 53.

    NotMax

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    May look stupid to you in today’s milieu but that kind of verisimilitude simply wasn’t shown on TV then. The shock of seeing such scenes was an intentional device to concentrate the gravity of the message.

  55. 55.

    Wyatt Salamanca

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Adam, thanks for your response.  I was disappointed by Powell’s comments, but obviously the main objective is voting this lunatic President out of office on Election Day.

  58. 58.

    Wyatt Salamanca

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Your point about Powell is well taken.

    Hopefully, Biden wins on Election Day and Trump, Jared and this entire rogue’s gallery of creeps and morons serving in the Dumphf administration will get swept into the trash receptacle of history where they fucking belong.

  59. 59.

    Adam L Silverman

    @NotMax: The question is who is provoking who? Or whom? The Iranians had to know the shipments are being tracked. So they let one go knowing it is going to be interdicted. What they’re probably hoping for is that it’ll be seized as it gives them something to make noise about. Remember, the Iranians are descendants of the ethno-national group that invented chess, the President doesn’t appear to be the kind of person that could effectively play CandyLand.

  65. 65.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    Speaking of other nuclear war films, here’s one, World War III

    World War III (Der Dritte Weltkrieg) is a 1998 German alternate history television pseudo-documentary, directed by Robert Stone and distributed by ZDF. An English version, in collaboration with TLC, was made as well and aired in May 1999. It depicts what might have transpired if, following the overthrow of Mikhail Gorbachev, Soviet troops, under orders from a new hard-line regime, had opened fire on demonstrators in Berlin in the fall of 1989 and precipitated World War III. The film mixes real footage of world leaders and archive footage of (for example) combat exercises and news events, with newly shot footage of citizens, soldiers and political staff.

    A late 80s/early 90s nuclear war is not something I’ve seen a whole lot of in fiction, except for this movie. I’m not sure how plausible it would be for the Soviet Navy of the period to enforce a blockade of Europe, but the fact that WW3 would last only a few days, with most conventional weapons being expended within the first 48 hours is pretty believable

  68. 68.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @NotMax:

    I guess. It just seemed out of place. The Day After never had scenes like that in it and it was better for it imo

  70. 70.

    Alison Rose

    @mrmoshpotato:

    cartwheel to my local USPS office

    There we go, let’s decide the election that way. Whichever candidate pair can turn the most cartwheels in a row wins. We got that shit locked. Biden’s old but he’s hale and hearty, and Harris could probably do half a mile’s worth

    ETA that I am a frail disabled old lady so normally I wouldn’t even joke about a physical contest, but these ain’t normal times, and Trump and Pence deserve to be mocked in whatever ways we can dream up.

  72. 72.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Alison Rose:

    Trump’s doctor has assured us all that he is also hale and hearty. He totally hasn’t had a mini stroke or anything like that

  75. 75.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @mrmoshpotato:

    Same. I plan on putting both the application and the completed ballot in the county board of elections drop off box

    I’ve voted absentee for the last 4 years by mail. Not this time. I’m not risking it

  79. 79.

    NotMax

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    Updated Hitchhiker’s Guide for 2020.

    R official: But the dropbox is on display…
    D voter: On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find it.
    R official: That’s the display department.
    D voter: With a torch.
    R official: The lights had probably gone out.
    D voter: So had the stairs.
    R official: But look, you found it, didn’t you?
    D voter: Yes, yes I did. It was on display at the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying “Beware of the leopard.”
    .

  84. 84.

    Redshift

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    I thought it was too late for West to get on the ballot in several states? 

    It’s not quite too late in Virginia, but it’s soon, and we’re known for requiring an insane number of signatures (you have to get a minimum number in each congressional district), so the chances of meeting that requirement under current conditions are pretty much zero.

  86. 86.

    Couldn't Stand the Weather

    OT.

    Fareed Zakaria went full Broder on the Post site on Friday.  He blamed both parties for the lack of a new COVID-19 relief bill.

    One commenter had this to say to Zakaria’s both-sides tripe, which I felt the need to quote here:

    You unspeakable hack. This is not a “both sides are to blame” issue. The House passed its relief bill months ago; the Senate ignored it. The Democrats are willing to negotiate in good faith; the Senate wants more goodies for its mega donors and crumbs for everyone else.

  88. 88.

    Fair Economist

    The post-nuclear war film that really stuck in my head was Testament. No big splashy effects, just the story of one suburban family trying, and failing, to deal with the aftereffects of a nuclear war. Several scenes I still think about frequently even though I just saw it once nearly 40 years ago. The movie never even said why there was a war, which to me just emphasized it didn’t matter – no political issue could ever justify something like that.

  89. 89.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Omnes Omnibus: All of these people need to be shown that they are no longer acceptable in decent society … or even one that merely purports to be.

    Amen. I do disagree that “this is not about policy differences” though. There are certain “policies” that should not be tolerated in “decent society.” Anyone who supports caging kids at the border should simply forfeit his/her right to a hearing for her/his “ideas,” analogous to how the Germans have nixed Holocaust denial.

    This is why we, the decent people of the USA, need as large and crushing a victory as possible come November: The closer we can squeeze the Trumpublican vote down to the 27% crazification factor, the more unacceptable the jumble of inhuman and inhumane “ideas” at its rotten core will become in “decent society” & the more consistently they are met with derision and shunning.

    Otherwise we will simply have to stand guard 24/7 over the flat rocks they’ll scurry back under, lest their poisonous “ideology” regain traction at some point in the future. And we progressive types are really lousy at eternal vigilance – we’d much rather be home listening to our music & cooking up some ethnic delight for dinner.

    Remember how we danced in the streets & high-fived one another when “post-racial America” finally arrived on Election Night 2008? How long did that sweet illusion last, 2 years maybe?

    All the forces of fascism have to do is parlay the inevitable difficulties of Democratic governance into general discontent & put up a smarter, slicker Führer-wannabe & win one election – just one – & there goes liberal democracy.

    Let’s not campaign like we’re 10 points down. Let’s campaign like we’re 10 points short of where we want (and need) to reach so that Jar Jar Kush and his Botox Barbie bimbo & Reinhard Heydrich’s Mini-Me & “Dis” Barr & the rest of those sick mofos don’t dare poke their filthy snouts out for at least a generation.

    /soapbox

  90. 90.

    Anne Laurie

    @Winston: If you want to make it a trilogy, look for a copy of Testament.

    I watched both Testament and The Day After when they came out — saved Threads to my bookmarks when it resurfaced, but haven’t found an opportunity when I feel up to watching it.

    You think I’m an alarmist about pandemics… surviving a nuclear attack was the *earliest* fear I can remember, and that was even before the Cuban missile crisis.  It was actually somewhat reassuring when the nuns at our primary school pointed out that, since we were in NYC, the chances we’d even see the blast that killed us were minimal; their suggestion was that we stay in a state of grace at all times, so we could go directly to the Better Place.

  91. 91.

    Winston

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):  That scene is played out in Threads, except the mother shits on the bed. The human characterization in Threads is so realistic it makes me puke, almost. It’s just a movie, I kept telling myself.

  92. 92.

    Anne Laurie

    @CaseyL: There’s another very good US TV movie called “Threads,” also more about the aftermath than the attack itself. Focuses on a single family. Another heartbreaker. Jane Alexander stars, and William Devane is also in it (albeit briefly).

    That’s the one I know as Testament.

    In the sense of inspiring horror, Reagan was indeed… inspirational.

  93. 93.

    Anne Laurie

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): A late 80s/early 90s nuclear war is not something I’ve seen a whole lot of in fiction, except for this movie.

    I gotta go keep working on the coronavirus update — what year did the music video for 99 Luftballoons come out?

  94. 94.

    Winston

    @Anne Laurie: Testament plays out north of Santa Rosa, California. Maybe Ukiah, where I used to live. That’s 100 miles north of SF. So maybe they get a few days.

    I subsequently lived about 15 miles from El Dorado Springs Missouri, the southern end of the bombing run from KC. I actually drove by the site of their Minuteman missile silo many times. I know we would have been toast. It was the mid nineties when I saw the movie.

  95. 95.

    James E Powell

    @Anne Laurie: 

    It was actually somewhat reassuring when the nuns at our primary school pointed out that, since we were in NYC, the chances we’d even see the blast that killed us were minimal; their suggestion was that we stay in a state of grace at all times, so we could go directly to the Better Place.

    I was in 2nd grade during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Sister Mary Laurentine was not at all reassuring. She told us that when the communists come, they will kill us Catholics first because they know we are the closest to God.

  97. 97.

    Anne Laurie

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): The Day After never had scenes like that in it and it was better for it imo

    The Day After had a scene where the newlywed young wife starts miscarrying in church, IIRC — she stands up, bleeding heavily through her skirt, obviously in shock, before her family carries her away.  It drew a lot of outrage from the usual Morality Censors… they didn’t mind mutilated corpses, but lady troubles in a house of worship!?! Won’t someone think of the CHILDREN!!!

  101. 101.

    opiejeanne

    @NotMax:  Well. That was fascinating. Imagine all of those men who died that the king could once again sit comfortably.

  103. 103.

    Ruckus

    @Yutsano: 
    You don’t really think he still attends do you?
    I mean it sounds like something that should happen to him, at the minimum, being shunned. But his exalted view of himself, his family, his inlaws seems like it would sort of be self limiting when it comes to faith.

  104. 104.

    Ruckus

    @kindness:

    I would say ‘At long last, have you no sense of decency?’  No they don’t.

    Yeah that ship, fully loaded with racist haters trying to steal everything except they are the gang that couldn’t shoot in any direction.

  105. 105.

    J R in WV

    So our power was out for 15 hours last light; a tree fell against the power line, somewhere… 150 customers were out. The night of Thursday into Friday morning.

    We were ok, the whole house generator keeps the lights and fridge running, the only two things we lose is the whole house A/C ’cause the compressor draws too much power for it to run on the gen set, and eventually, running water, because the well is like 800 linear from the house, and the power drop over that distance keeps us from running the pump down at the bottom of the well. The storm cooled things down, so not having the A/C for that long was not an ordeal.

    Then this (Friday) afternoon it rained really hard, probably a couple of inches, and tomorrow (Sat) it’s supposed to rain more than it did yesterday… Flash Flood watch in effect.

    And folks are watching end-of-the-world movies for relaxation and distraction? Sound pretty nuts to me, I lived through the Cuban Missile Crisis, the murder of President Kennedy. Now the election of a criminal and his auto-destructive administration of our government… No, I don’t need any dystopian fiction any more… the dystopian reality is plenty of excitement for me.

  109. 109.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    Something that just occurred to me.does the Trump campaign have a GOTV?   I don’t think I’ve seen anything from the Trump people beyond “send us money” and “tell Trump how much you love him”.

  111. 111.

    debbie

    @Alison Rose:

    You assume a) he’s really religious, b) he really attends shul, and c) he would listen to anyone, ever. What type of observant Jew would spend High Holy Days in Paris with his wife and without his kids?

  113. 113.

    Ruckus

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques:

    Well “Give me money and tell me you love me!” is his total rational for living. He is not and never has been a normal, mature, rational human being. His support is from people who also fall into that general nature, most of them not as far gone as he is but some who seem to be the same shade of irrationality if not the same degree.

  115. 115.

    Ian

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    Depends on the State.  Here in Colorado it is illegal to knowingly accept false signatures as a collector, but its pretty damn hard to prove anyone guilty of that as proving intention is difficult.

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