H.W Bush/Dole 1980 (Collaborative Thread)

December 18th, 1983: To pay for his lawsuit against the government, and to deter investigators looking into anti-trust violations, Kirk Kerkorian sells his share of Columbia Picture to New York real estate mogul Donald Trump.
 
December 24th 1983: A Christmas Nor'Eastern cripples New Jersey, New York and New England just during the Christmas holiday. thousands are stuck on airports and train stations. Heavy snow leave Buffalo excluded from the outside world.
 
December 1st, 1983: The Official Report on Dam Safety is released. Nearly 6,000 dams are deemed "High Hazard". They are to be repaired and updated with federal funds. Since most dams are privately owned, companies that do not comply, will be heavily fined.
 
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January 3, 1983: California governor's election: Tom Bradley defeats George Deukmejian by a few hundred votes, after promising "state public transport that will be state of the ART". The narrow margin shocks pundits, as polls said it would be a higher win; it's assumed white voters had only claimed they'd vote for a black man to pollsters. Robert List, meanwhile, narrowly defeats Richard Bryan to remain Governor of Nevada, running off Bush's high polls.

July 15 to August 20, 1983: The power outage and subsequent shortages & brownouts obliterate Hollywood's production schedule over this period. The bigger companies rush in generators by the 21st to get back to work but this causes extreme discontent - with two riots on July 25th and August 1st - in poorer areas of Los Angeles. Governor Bradley uses the state of emergency to force the companies to donate more generators to LA. (Bush does not condemn this, further angering the Republican fiscal conservatives) By the 20th August, production has returned to a consistent schedule but TV filming has been spread across California on location.

July 19-22, 1983: President Bush tours the affected areas, facing a mixed response.

July 24, 1983: The KGB and their Cuban and Angolan allies decide to double their aid to the South African insurgency, now America is distracted.

August 19th, 1983: Relief bills go into effect. The ad-hoc emergency power systems (using generators, diverted power from other areas, and overworking generators) will continue, with extra spending for thousands of new generators and a new nuclear power station (outside of earthquake zones) to be fast-tracked; the Flood Clearance Corps are created, a "New Deal" style force that will assist the National Guards in cleaning up the damage over the next few months; short-term trailer parks set up for displaced people while prefab homes are planned, with locals to be hired for the construction. Secretary Dan Quayle (Interior), Secretary Donald Hodel (Energy), and Secretary Anne Armstrong (Labor) will cooperate on this via an intermediary, the three-year-term "Department of Glen Canyon Relief" administered by General David C. Jones (who was extremely surprised to get the call).

Senator Al Gore is put in charge of the Dam Safety Committee.


August 21st, 1983: Bush is confidentially briefed that Las Vegas cannot be restored to its pre-disaster state, not without significant investment. Bush knows he can either put in this investment or make swinging cuts elsewhere, as he refuses to allow the deficit to go up much further. He discusses with Kemp and close advisors if they politically have to invest in Vegas or if they can afford to let it decline. This is not decided when they discover the briefing was leaked to CNN and Governor List proclaims "the president is never going to abandon Las Vegas" (which he genuinely believes).

August 22nd, 1983: Bush publicly declares an investment package for Las Vegas - he will ask Congress to approve half the amount recommended by the report, while "we will work with the state and private enterprise to generate the rest", and states the need to keep "some cash in reserve" in anticipation of the upcoming dam works. Poll numbers go up to 44% nationally but drop by a few percent in Las Vegas. In private, a highly depressed Bush has accepted that the US will be hit with a ballooning deficit; Treasury Secretary James B. Pearson is unhappy and has thought about tendering his resignation, but politically cannot do that when there's still a national crisis.
 
September 2nd 1983: In an interview on NBC's "Meet the Press" President Bush speaks openly of the burdens of the presidency. The depression of President Bush is cause of much debate on whether he is fit to run again in 1984.
 
July to November, 1983: American comics industry is massively hit by the Glen Canyon disaster: distribution is upended in the affected states, speciality comic shops are hit (80% of California's do not survive), and newsstands across the country slash their comic sales by 40% as a recession bites. DC, Marvel, and Archie do mass cancellations and staff layoffs - 'name' titles like Captain America, Josie & The Pussycats, and Justice League are lost. The California-based companies Pacific Comics and Fantagraphics go under, as does underground Kitchen Sink Press and nascent European-reprinters Catalan Communications; Eclipse Comics is in financial straits and is left thanking God that they'd not yet started their planned move to California; nascent First Comics does every trick in the book to not have its loans called in early.

Even as their publisher goes under, Los Bros Hernandez work on a ferocious comic with their "Hoppers" living through post-Glen Canyon LA. Las Mujeres Enojado is self-published and cheap, making its way across the country after Dave Sim's Aardvark-Vanaheim agrees to distribute them. One issue has a back-up strip by Jack Kirby, a semi-autobiographical bit of fury about the animation industry (where he worked) having the lights still on so he can work when he knows other people are left in the dark.
 
Though, many lives were lost due to the failure of Glen Canyon Dam, it's a testament to the power of Mother Nature. The dam is a blight on Glen Canyon. For hundreds of years it was untouched by man. Native American sites were left as they were when they were abandoned. Only few had seen the carefully eroded and smoothed crevices and openings. I urge you to look up Glen Canyon before the Dam. It was a garden of Eden.

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November 5th, 1983: The AmeriAid concert is held to raise funds for refugees from the Glen Canyon burst. Featured artists include John Lennon, David Bowie, Queen, Bruce Springsteen, Michael Jackson, and Billy Joel.

January 5th, 1984:
An anonymous leak from the CIA reveals that they were aware of that American teenager Augustus Claude was being held in a South African prison, but they didn't attempt to get him out, as he had "been sympathetic to terrorist causes", despite the conditions in the prison being notoriously brutal. This sends massive shockwaves across the black community. Claude's mother denounces the failure of the American government to bring her son back. Governor Tom Bradley and Reverend Al Sharpton make similar statements.

January 15th, 1984:The Reverend Jesse Jackson announces he will run for the Democratic nomination for President, citing the implicit US support for Apartheid, and the increasingly dismal state of African American communities as his reason

October, 1984:
Marvel, enboldened by their success with Moore's Swamp Thing and Dr. Strange, purchases the rights to the original Marvelman series (renamed Miracleman, ironically because of Marvel's intervention), from the cash-strapped Eclipse Comics, and plans to release the full series in the US
 
October, 1984: Alan Moore is disgruntled by Marvel outright buying Miracleman and Berger has to bend over backwards to stop him from departing - he's already irritated with Shooter's increasingly authoritarian management style. He stays with Marvel in exchange for promises of less editorial control on his latest pitch, Twilight of the Superheroes; feeling bad for Eclipse, he also arranges for them to reprint V For Vendetta and finish the series for them.

March 1985: V For Vendetta #1 is a big hit for Eclipse, which was on the verge of packing it in due to fluctuating profits. The Yronwoods immediately start asking Moore if he wants to do anything else.

May 1985: Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill's Twilight of the Superheroes comes out, which pushes Marvel's characters as far as Shooter would allow and features a world where, after a particularly destructive battle, the Avengers had to step in as an emergency government and have forcibly retired all other heroes and villains from acting as vigilantes. When someone begins murdering former heroes and villains, a middle-aged Spider-Man and others team up to find out what's going on. (As the issue goes out, Moore is being told he can't have Captain America - the outgoing President of the US - as the murderer after all.)
 
October 1-4, 1983: After a series of attacks elsewhere in South Africa, rebel forces make a massed attack in Johannesburg - this coincides with an Angolan offensive in SA forces there. Government offices and key roads are seized in the first day, and rebels take key infrastructure and capture/kill police during the next three days while government forces try to fight their way in. Helicopter gunships are shot down on the fourth day, the first use of foreign anti-aircraft missiles by the rebels. The government falls back to wait it out. CIA assets trapped in the city begin reporting in real-time to Langley. Most consulates in the city are evacuated but a small Irish consulate remains, after the UK quietly cuts a deal with Ireland so they can convertly keep channels open.

October 9th, 1983: The South African government publicises crimes being committed against Afrikaners in Johannesburg - which are at the moment opportunistic and not systematic, with the rebel leaders simply not thinking this is a priority to stop - and demands the rebels let the residents leave if they want. The rebels can't allow this, as they know it's only the Afrikaner population that keeps them from being assaulted with heavier weapons.

October 11th-12th, 1983: Joe Slovo is smuggled back into South Africa and heads for Johannesburg, to help get the rebel-held city organised. He demands the Afrikaner population are protected, both for humanitarian reasons and, more importantly, because they're losing support overseas and they need that to win. The Western members of the African Brigades are the rebels most hostile to the idea but are talked around.

October 14th, 1983:
Following discussions with the Johannesburg Liberty Council and representatives of the white population, which are overseen by the Irish consulate, the Afrikaners are given a seat on the council and are allowed to form an official, armed "Neighbourhood Watch for the purposes of keeping the peace" in their area. The Soviet's global propaganda machine is instructed to promote this as a sign the rebels are not going to scourge the white population. The CIA, meanwhile, reports that Slovo is in the city.

October 15th-28th, 1983: "The Big Bad Battle of Jo'Burg". The SA regime launches are a sudden, brutal attack to liberate the city, hoping to kill Slovo. Airstrikes on the centre and borders are followed by infantry raids, supported by CIA intelligence. Despite initial sweeping success, the rebels fight ferocious withdrawals that slow the advance. An expected white uprising does not occur (the white locals don't want to risk it) and CIA intell is swiftly compromised by the speed of the battle & bad rumours by locals, which causes the regime troops to be badly distributed. By the 18th, the rebels are back on the offensive and the troops decide to fall back and specifically capture the white-only areas; they believe Slovo has fled the city anyway, after a CIA spy overheard a disgruntled Sizwe soldier say so (unaware that soldier was just bitching about what he assumed had happened).

Rebels and black rioters sweep across the rural part of the country in a spree of arson attacks, forcing regime reinforcements to be redirected from Johannesburg. (A thousand Africans are shot between the 17th and 19th to stop this violence, of which almost seven hundred are civilians) By the 23rd, regime forces have piled into the Afrikaner areas and a 'corridor' and are taking up siege. Rebel forces, under Slovo's advice, simply leave them there and publicly announce they won't attack a civilian-filled area. Praetoria orders air strikes across the city on the 27th anyway, killing hundreds - rebel forces expected this and use Soviet missiles to shoot down four of the six bombers sent, making it clear the regime can't keep doing this (actually this used most of the Russian missiles but the regime doesn't know that). Over a thousand civilians are left dead and western journalists at the Irish consulate report this.

On the 28th, rebel forces bring forward a planned attack on the corridor in revenge for the airstrikes. Regime forces evacuate with a third of the Afrikaners, unable to take more. The Joannesburg Liberty Council then declares both victory and that the October 14th agreement still stands (though a new Afrikaner rep is needed as the old one fled). This is a major, and intentional, propaganda coup, made worse for the SA government as news broke out days ago that the October 14th agreement was in place and many whites feel the government deliberately endangered the J'burg Afrikaners.

October 30th, 1983: The CIA ring in Johannesburg are rounded up after one spy is betrayed by the Neighbourhood Watch. The Liberty Council forces them to send false information back to Langley - two of the five men there try to alert Langley on the quiet, but this will be overlooked until December.
 
And also, because we overlooked a few places:

July 17th, 1983: As the scale of Glen Canyon roles around the planet, the Argentine economy, already coughing up blood, collapses with a run on the banks. Soldiers are put on the streets and the death squad Intelligence Battalion 601 are ordered to identify and take out troublemakers.

July 19th, 1981: Riots have broken out in major Argentine cities and 601's murders have only spread anger while removing leaders who might call for calm (including former acting-presidnet Italo Luder). The CIA, who have some ins with 601, report that they're out of control - the US State Department decides that Argentina will need a "firm hand" to avoid collapse.

July 21st, 1983: Galtieri commits suicide. (It will be years before it gradually comes out that he was murdered by a guard that the CIA had bribed) The Interior Minister, General Saint Jean, takes power and, having been worked on by Baker and the US ambassador, announces democratic elections will be held in December and that a bailout package is on the way from the US and Spain. Baker knows the US can't do it alone, thanks to Glen Canyon, but still underestimates the damage. Intelligence Battalion 601 are quietly ordered to stand down, for now.

August 2nd, 1983: The bailout package to Argentina is only half what was promised, and that's after Chile had been taken into ponying up some cash (Pinochet quite enjoys the idea of his rival publicly needing his help). This stabilises the country but leaves it disgruntled.

December 5th, 1983: The Justicialist Party win the Argentine election by a slight margin, and Deolindo Bittel - chosen due to his opposition to the dictatorships - has become President. While the military hand over power peacefully, they have kept Battalion 601 around without telling Bittel, with the aid of the CIA to remove 'communist threats' if needed.

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July 30th, 1983: The declining UK unemployment rate is going back up, following the Glen Canyon global recession.

August 2nd-3rd, 1983: Parliament is recalled from summer recess to vote on emergency measures: PM Foot, working closely with Chancellor Peter Shore and Employment Secretary Cyril Smith, orders a major keynesian plan to build a wave of new housing and road & rail links - "British ART", is how it's nicknamed. Despite Tory opposition, it passes. (the Alliance aren't too sure about some of it but 'whip' their backbenchers to keep the coalition going)

September 30th, 1983: Cyril Smith visits the first building site at Liverpool, in a big press blaze. The brash and bold "Big Cyril" becoming one of the most popular of the coalition ministers, eclipsing his party's leader Steel - and often Foot.
 
October, 1984: Eclipse, with its success with V for Vendetta, has a major coup with an agreement with creators Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird to publish popular underground comic Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
 
I don't know how long it's going to take for a complete recovery of Nevada and Arizona, there might never be a true recovery. It's not looking good for Bush in 1984, considering it could also be leaked that the U.S. is supporting the Pro-Apartheid Government in South Africa. I'm going to have Joe Biden announce a run.
 
He's been biden his time.

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July 23rd, 1983:
The Netherlands announces a survey of all its dykes and levees, to ensure Glen Canyon can't happen there.

December 3rd, 1983:
Bush announces he will follow the Official Report on Dam Safety. The dams will be repaired over a ten year period - the Treasury argued strongly against doing it on a shorter timescale due to cost - and for privately-owned dams, private companies will be expected to put up half the cost or have charges against yearly gross profits. Nearly 6,000 dams are deemed "High Hazard". They are to be repaired and updated with federal funds. Since most dams are privately owned, companies that do not comply, will be heavily fined. The Relief Department is instructed to draw up two timetables, one for public dams and one for private, with action on the former to start in the new year.

Power companies begin lobbying the Republican Party, saying the penalties are too stiff and some of them will be bankrupted. Bush's poll ratings spring to 52% nationally - people are hungry for action and like the idea of the companies being punished.


December 16-18th, 1983:
James Pearson resigns as Secretary of the Treasury, and publicly criticises Bush for "a constant, unending deficit". A weary Bush is overheard in the White House calling Pearson "coward". Bush promotes the Deputy Secretary of the Treasury, Richard Darman, to be the new Secretary - rapidly approved by Congress on the 18th due to the crisis - and parachutes Robert Mosbacher, a political chum and businessman, into the Deputy role. On the 18th, Darman announces on Fox News "read my lips: we'll do what we have to do" regarding the ongoing crisis.


January 6th, 1984: Angry protests in eighty different American cities and large towns, with "WHERE'S AUGUSTUS" being a common picket sign. The protests in Los Angeles break out into a destructive riot, injuring dozens, as black youth vent their general frustrations about both Glen Canyon and existing poverty & LAPD actions. Thirty two people are injured and one killed.

January 7th, 1984: Governor Bradley visits Los Angeles communities in an attempt to calm the situation. While protesting continues and there are some violent clashes, he has convinced enough locals that 'something' will be done to prevent another night of rioting. Bush is finally pushed into an official statement, which is that he can't ask the South Africans to release Augustus Claude when he's been involved in "killing South Africans" - a broadly popular comment for most of the country (a lot of non-black people disquieted by apartheid consider the African Brigades 'too much'), but it crashes his poll ratings with black Americans and students. (The Young Republicans in Virginia even come out against it, on grounds that "the American government can't allow an American citizen to be mistreated abroad")
 
January 16th, 1984: Freida and Jeremy Claude, parents of Augustus, appear with Presidential hopeful Jesse Jackson. They denounce Bush's statement about their son, calling it libelous and defamatory, saying their son was never involved in actually killing South African soldiers, and was merely serving in an auxiliary role. (Whether this is true is in dispute. Some witnesses confirm the Claude's statements. Others, including a few escapees from the encampment he was captured from, say they saw Claude fighting.) They demand the government at least attempt to get their son back, even if he has to be persecuted. They also denounce the Bush handling of the Glen Canyon disaster, noting how that had caused the LA riots. Jackson states that black communities have suffered severely under Bush, and he has failed to address the issues that affect Black communities across the nation. Jackson says that he will be the man who addresses these issues.

July 18th, 1984: Through backdoor deals and manuevering, Donald Trump emerges as the sole owner of Columbia Pictures. To both expand the Columbia library, and to get cheap, low budget, but high appeal films, Trump signs a deal with Cannon Films, agreeing to distribute their films. He also sends out a decree through the studio, calling for "patriotic" films to be produced.

July, 1984: The Action Heroes line is produced by DC Comics, taking advantage of their Charlton acquisitions. Opening comic series include Blue Beetle, The Question, and The Peacemaker. An issue of The Question has art and story by guest writer Frank Miller, who had recently left Marvel's title Daredevil to take an offer writing the revived Batman series.
 
March 14-15th, 1984: Gerry Adams, on lunch break during a trial, is shot in Belfast. While undercover policemen catch the UFF gunmen and driver, Adams bleeds out before reaching the hospital. Sinn Fein declares that "Britain allowed this murder to happen" and rioting breaks out. Northern Irish Secretary Don Concannon, who has grown tired of dealing with unionist leaders, bluntly declares "the UFF will cease to exist". The government agrees that in order to keep republican tensions down - Concannon, Williams, and Foot are trying to get a new NI Executive set up - they will need to crack down hard, risking unionist tensions. MI5, the RUC, and the Army are all ordered to start a campaign on the Ulster Freedom Fighters.

March 22nd, 1984: A group of teenage paramilitaries including Johnny Adair are accidentally busted by the army and under interrogation, they admit that the "Ulster Freedom Fighters" are a cover used by the Ulster Defence Association. PM Foot personally orders the army to make a series of raids, as Concannon is suspicious about 'failed' arrests done by certain RUC men.

March 23rd, 1984: "Night of the Long Guns", as unionists dub it: the government announces the UDA is illegal following twenty-one army-led arrests, including leaders Andy Tyrie and John McMichael and an RUC quatermaster named William Stobie. Protestant youth riot and there's sporadic gunfire at British soldiers by unionist gangs.

March 25th, 1984: Don Concannon and his driver are murdered by a car bomb on his way to Whitehall. Foot is visibly, publicly distraught and confused, and it's Deputy PM Steel that pushes Defence Secretary John Silkin to agree that there needs to be a heavy retaliation against (it's assumed) unionist groups. Due to his upbringing in Northern Ireland and his Royal Marines & MI6 bexperience - and as a blunt show of force - Paddy Ashdown is promoted from Minister for the Armed Forces to Northern Irish Secretary. His first move is not known (but is rumoured) for years, which is requesting MI6 is sent in as Special Branch/MI5, who've been working closely with the RUC, may be compromised. (The cover will be that their intelligence is gained from Ireland's spies)

Various foreign governments express their dismay at Concannon's murder. Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald not only does that, but - sensing there could be major action on NI and wanting to offer a carrot in advance - proposed an Extradition Act, which will end a legal defence against extradition of suspects who can claim violence in the UK was a political offence.
 
14th September, 1984: The Buxton Bombing. The harried UDA bomb the hotel that SDP ministers are staying in for the Party conference - a threat is also made to the press that the Liberal assembly will follow later that month and Labour in October. Shirley Williams is badly wounded but survives; Lord (Roy) Jenkins, Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs Tom McNally, and backbencher David Ginsburg are killed, along with eleven hotel staff and assistants.

The weakness of the coalition is shown by a day of severe Cabinet paralysis in which Secretary Ashdown, who personally phones and screams at every high-ranking RUC official to "fucking do your jobs or fuck off", is the only public face. Ashdown also announces that the bombers will be charged with treason. In the evening, Williams addresses BBC reporters from her hospital bed and the sight manages to calm domestic jitters.


17th September, 1984: At Bournemouth, before the Liberal Party assembly, the bomb squad find and disable two explosives planted in the conference hall. At Blackpool, where Labour will be meeting, no explosives have yet been found (the UDA were unable to do it due to heightened security).
 
June 15th, 1984: Batman is released into theaters to generally favorable reviews. John Travolta receives widespread praise for his role as the lead, with many believing his career has been revived. Many critics also praise Robin Williams' disturbingly hilarious turn as the depraved Joker, with Roger Ebert proclaiming: "If you don't give this little Joker an Oscar next year, you'd be "Robin" him, pun intended!" Steven Spielberg announces a sequel will be out by 1987.
 
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