Jonathan V. Last's Blog

Episode 1.3 features G.I. Joe #21, an ode to Zima, and the great Marvel vs. DC movies debate.

Let the Truth and Reconciliation Show Trials begin!

So I’m doing a podcast now with Vic Matus and Santino. It’s about movies, allegedly. Though I suspect we’ll wind up spinning off into lots of different topics. As the Czabe always said, it’s not really a “movie” show, it’s an “us” show.

Anyway, you can listen to it here or over at the iTunes store, if that’s the way you consume your podcast material.

This week’s episode is about film adaptations, starting with Jack Reacher and riffing through the Tom Clancy movies, Goodfellas, The Godfather, Layer Cake, and much else. Don’t miss the Elvish.

Third debates usually don’t matter. But if this one turns out to matter, bye-bye House and Senate.

Three quick items:

1: The election is over.

2: What comes next?

3: A parable of late-stage Trumpism.

We’ve reached the stage of Trump where the only question is how big the rout will be. My own sense is that we’re heading toward a Cat-5 superstorm where the House is gone and Paul Ryan steps down before Christmas. But maybe not.

I’m not pretending to have precognition here, mind you. This outcome was always a very real possibility with Trump. As soon as he clinched the nomination in May the chance of a Democratic wave election was at least as good as a chance of a narrow Trump victory.

But since August Trump’s loss has been nearly inevitable. (Evitable?) One of the great miscalculations of 2016 has been the continued denial of this reality by elected Republicans trying to save their seats. It was a failure of imagination that has only compounded the catastrophe for the party.

Verdict: Trump did just well enough in St. Louis to keep Pence, Ryan, and Priebus from hitting the self-destruct button.

You’ll never guess which skill set wins that fight.

Also: VP debates don’t matter.

It was the go-away debate. Clinton didn’t win, but Trump lost. And it probably won’t matter except to bring wandering D’s back onto the reservation.

I spent some time with the only conservative in the 2016 race.

A look at how my inadvertent attempt to institute a regime of gender-neutral toys went over with the kids.