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20 Female US Presidents, as Imagined by Hollywood

by RalfBonetj Posted on November 8, 2016

Mother Jones

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If the odds-makers have it right, Hillary Clinton will soon be America’s first female president. But Hollywood, for better or worse, has been imagining women in the Oval Office for more than half a century. Here’s a taste of some scenarios the men of Tinseltown have come up with:

ROLE REVERSAL
Kisses for My President (1964 movie): Leslie McCloud (Polly Bergen) is elected the first female commander in chief, leaving hubby Thad stuck in traditional first-lady roles—like attending garden parties. (‘Cuz it’s all about the guy.) All is made right again when President McCloud learns she’s pregnant and resigns.

Warner Brothers

A HEARTBEAT AWAY…
Whoops, Apocalypse (1986 movie): Veep Barbara Jacqueline Adams (Loretta Swit) is elevated to the Oval Office after her boss, a former clown trying to prove his mettle, challenges a journalist to hit him in the stomach (fatally, it turns out) with a crowbar.

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Mars Attacks! (1996 movie): First daughter Taffy Dale (Natalie Portman) succeeds her dad (Jack Nicholson) as president after cartoonish aliens gleefully kill everyone else in the government.

Chain of Command (2000 movie): Vice President Gloria Valdez’s (María Conchita Alonso) boss is shot and killed in a struggle over the “football.” As his successor, Valdez must face down China in a nuclear exchange.

Commander in Chief (2005-06 TV series): Mackenzie Allen (Geena Davis), a Republican congresswoman turned vice president, ignores the dying request of President Teddy Roosevelt Bridges that she step aside to make way for a successor who sees “the same America” as he does.

VICTIMS OF ALIENS AND STUFF
Contact (1997 movie): In Carl Sagan’s 1985 novel, a female “President Lasker” presides over radio contact with extraterrestrials, but she doesn’t survive Hollywood’s knife: In the 1997 movie version, Lasker is replaced by cleverly edited footage of Bill Clinton.

XIII: The Conspiracy (2008 TV miniseries): President Sally Sheridan is assassinated during a Veterans Day speech—her own brother is behind it. The ill-fated series was canceled after only two episodes.

Independence Day: Resurgence (2016 movie): Elizabeth Lanford (Sela Ward) and most of her cabinet are obliterated by nasty alien invaders. (Film critics are forever traumatized.)

20th Century Fox

NASTY WOMEN
Hitler’s Daughter (1990 TV movie): So, it turns out the mother of President Leona Crawford Gordon was impregnated by the Fuhrer, brought to the States by U-boat, and then killed by the Nazis shortly after giving birth to America’s future commander in chief. Got that?

USA Network

Prison Break (TV series, 2004-2009): As vice president, Caroline Reynolds (Patricia Wettig) collaborates with “the Company” to fake her brother’s death. When the shadowy group turns on her, she arranges for the president’s assassination so she can assume control.

20th Century Fox Television

Divergent (2011-13 novel series, 2014 film)
In a society sorted by personality type, President Jeanine Matthews—actress Kate Winslet likens her character to a “female Hitler”—aims to kill factionless Divergents, whom she sees as a threat to her dominion.

Scandal (TV series, 2012-present): Ultraconservative VP Sally Langston (Kate Burton) kills her husband and hides the evidence. Then, after a would-be assassin leaves President Fitzgerald Grant in critical condition, she takes over the White House.

COMICS IN CHIEF
Hail to the Chief (1985 TV series): President Julia Mansfield (Patty Duke) struggles to run the country while keeping tabs on her philandering husband and wild teenagers. The series was canceled after seven episodes. Go figure.

Mafia! (1998 movie): Diane Steen (Christina Applegate) almost achieves world disarmament—but peace is put on the back burner when her mobster ex-boyfriend comes around looking to win her back.

The Simpsons (2000 “Bart to the Future” episode): Lisa Simpson, the “first straight female president,” is elected in 2030—following in the footsteps of Donald Trump and Chastity Bono.

Iron Sky (2012 movie): An unnamed Sarah Palin spoof (Stephanie Paul) sends a black model to the moon as a publicity stunt to get herself reelected—and later leads an attack on a Nazi moon base.

Veep (TV series, 2012-present): Selina Meyer (Julia Louis-Dreyfuss) starts this HBO comedy series as a perpetually dysfunctional vice president. She moves up during season three, after her boss resigns to care for his mentally ill wife.

PLANETARY POLITICS
Special Report: Journey to Mars (1996 TV movie)
President Elizabeth Richardson’s (Elizabeth Wilson) support of a Mars mission gets her reelected, but the mission is sabotaged. Crisis ensues.

KEEPING AMERICA SAFE
24 (TV series, 2001-10): Republican President Allison Taylor “has nothing to do with Hillary,” insists actress (and Hillary Clinton doppelganger) Cherry Jones. Nope. America’s first female president in this thriller series is “a combination of Eleanor Roosevelt, Golda Meier, and John Wayne.”

State of Affairs (TV series, 2014-2015): Before Sen. Constance Payton (Alfre Woodard) becomes America’s first black female president in this widely panned series, her son is killed by terrorists in Kabul.

NBCUniversal

Homeland (TV series, 2011-present): Sen. Elizabeth Keane (Elizabeth Marvel of House of Cards) is elected president in the upcoming season of Showtime’s terrorism drama. Co-creator Alex Gansa says she’s basically a composite of Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, and Bernie Sanders. Keane “challenges the norms,” Homeland star Claire Danes noted in a live appearance, and “is a little scary for that reason.” You’ll catch some glimpses of her in the trailer.

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20 Female US Presidents, as Imagined by Hollywood

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Burning coal can help the planet, delusional U.N. board decides

by Adalber2350 Posted on March 30, 2015

Burning coal can help the planet, delusional U.N. board decides

By on 30 Mar 2015commentsShare

Good news, America! The U.N. has just proved that the United States does not have the world’s monopoly on bad climate ideas. The board in charge of the U.N.’s Green Climate Fund — money that’s supposed to be used to help developing nations fight and prepare for climate change — decided last week that some of its funding can be used to build … coal plants.

That’s right — the dirtiest, shittiest fuel we have (at least until someone figures out how to make electricity from used diapers) is perfectly acceptable! Totally fine! Definitely NOT going to kill you and me and everyone you’ve ever known and loved including the panda-cam pandas and this dog who takes herself to the park on the bus!

Now, presumably, the U.N. is aware that pollution from coal plants kills more than 100,000 humans in India each year alone, and even more in China, and is also the world’s single largest source of carbon emissions — so if their decision seems a bit odd to you, you’re not alone. “It’s like a torture convention that doesn’t forbid torture,” said Karen Orenstein of Friends of the Earth U.S. “Honestly it should be a no-brainer at this point.”

So what’s behind the U.N.’s decision? Wild speculation here as my calls to 1-800-UNF-CCCC went unanswered, but the Guardian reports that only 1 percent of the $10.2 billion that rich nations pledged last December to pay into the fund has actually been paid (the deadline is April 30), and so giving the OK to coal investments might at least make it seem like rich countries are doing more to help poor ones. Either that or whoever is steering this ship is actually an alien from a distant star who is running a psychological experiment to see just how far humans will go before we ruin the only planet with enough oxygen to keep us alive. LOL! GOOD ONE, ALIENS!!! Now that you’ve seen how things work down here, maybe go back home and take those coal plants back with you. Thanks.

Source:
UN green climate fund can be spent on coal-fired power generation

, The Guardian.

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Burning coal can help the planet, delusional U.N. board decides

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Goodnight Measles: Bedtime Stories for Your Unvaccinated Child

by Fern6331kdffr Posted on February 13, 2015

Mother Jones

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As of February 6, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has counted 121 reported measles cases this year in 17 states and Washington DC. Of those, 103 (85 percent) are linked to the outbreak that began at Disneyland in December. And the cause of this resurgence of a disease that until recently was considered licked in the United States? All evidence points to parents refusing to vaccinate their children.

At least some of those parents, though, are happy to inoculate their children with anti-vaccine sentiment. There’s a whole ouevre of anti-vax fiction for kids, and some of it takes a pretty, well, creative approach—zombies! shape-shifting aliens!—to advancing ideas about the danger of vaccination. Some of the books include claims about links between vaccines and autism that have been repeatedly and conclusively proven false by science.

Here are a handful of examples, rated on a scale of 1 to 5 syringes (5 being the most explicitly anti-science):

Melanie’s Marvelous Measles (2012):

Summary: A little girl named Tina learns that her best friend Melanie is out of school with the measles. Melanie is vaccinated, but Tina’s parents decided not to vaccinate her after her little brother “was very sick” from his shots. Tina’s mother assures her daughter that measles make the body stronger, and they go to Melanie’s house so Tina can get the measles, too. Another (vaccinated) classmate ends up catching measles from Melanie, who eventually recovers, but Tina doesn’t contract the disease, because “she eats lots of fresh, raw food, and also because she plays in the sunshine daily and drinks plenty of water.”

Excerpt: “Tina heard Jared tell Travis, the boy beside him, that he wouldn’t get the measles because he had been vaccinated. Travis said that he wasn’t vaccinated, but didn’t mind, until Jared then told him angrily, ‘Well, you’re going to die if you don’t get vaccinated.’ Travis thought about this for a minute and said to Jared, ‘Well I know that isn’t true because I haven’t had any vaccinations and I am still alive.’ Jared didn’t know what to say to that!”

Rating:

Vaccination: A Zombie Novel (2014):

Summary: The federal government mass-produces a swine flu vaccine that turns recipients into zombies. A 911 dispatcher who has foregone the vaccine must find a way to save himself and his two kids. Escaping to Mexico might be their only chance.

Excerpt: “They’re not dead though. They look it. But they’re not. Their bodies will continue to decay, but they’ll keep going, keep coming after you, keep eating until they just can’t do it anymore. They get all dumb, and forget how to do things, but not how to eat. They remember that. And how to run. My God, they’re fast. So, so fast.”

“Who forgets things?

“Who?” he laughed. “All of them. Everyone who got the vaccination.”

“What vaccination?” I asked.

“For the flu. Aren’t you listening to me?”

Rating:

The Vicious Case of the Viral Vaccine (2013): Mae, the daughter of a research nurse, believes the new Universal Flu Vaccine is safe, but her classmate Clinton isn’t so sure. As protests against the vaccine heat up, Selectra Volt, Dudette from the Future—a time-traveler—sends them on a mission to go back in time and see how vaccines were developed. On their journey, they visit the likes of Louis Pasteur and Jonas Salk, creator of the polio vaccine. They must return to the present in time to uncover a plot against the new flu vaccine.

Excerpt: “That vaccine could make people really sick,” Clinton burst out.

Mae clutched her current events report and looked out at the class. “It won’t. My mother worked on this vaccine. and it’s safe. Only crazy people think it isn’t.”

Rating:

The Vaccine Aliens (2005):

Summary: A son develops autism after getting the Measles-Mumps-Rubella vaccine. The father then discovers that in addition to causing autism, the MMR vaccine is part of a plot by shape-shifting aliens to destroy the human race.

Extra: Author Raymond Gallup is the president of the Autism Autoimmunity Project. In 2002, he wrote a letter on the anti-vax site VaccinationNews responding to a Time magazine story headlined “The Secrets of Autism.” In the letter, he alludes to some of the sinister themes of his book, claiming that “the medical community and government health officials avoid the vaccine/autism link of the MMR vaccine.”

Rating:

No Vaccines for Me! (2010):

Summary: This “interactive family book” is written by Kathleen Dunkelberger, a registered nurse. It’s a collection of illustrated stories that go through the history of vaccines, their ingredients, potential dangers and side effects (including autism), government connections to the pharmaceutical industry, and more.

Excerpt: “Babies and kids don’t always need shots. Many doctors and nurses know this now, but there are still some who will try to give these shots to all people of all ages. They sometimes try to give them to children in school. These shots are called vaccinations (vax-sin-nay-shuns). Vaccinations can be given as a shot, a liquid to take in your mouth, or as a spray mist up your nose.”

Rating:

Continued – 

Goodnight Measles: Bedtime Stories for Your Unvaccinated Child

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