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Three days after Obama made the speech about which Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-Nev.) said, “I am extremely troubled by President Obama’s call for Israel to ‘act boldly’ for peace” (h/t to Charles Davis), Obama gave another speech, to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
THE VALUES WE SHARE: “America’s commitment to Israel’s security flows from a deeper place -- and that’s the values we share. As two people who struggled to win our freedom against overwhelming odds...” So the values we share come from killing Brits. Fair enough. Everyone enjoys killing Brits.
PRIORITIES: “[D]espite tough fiscal times, we’ve increased foreign [i.e., to Israel] military financing to record levels.” So, although Twitt Romney said Obama threw Israel under the bus, Israel was pretty well cushioned down there by several billion dollar bills.
OBAMA DOESN’T WANT YOU TO MAKE A MISTAKE: “So make no mistake, we will maintain Israel’s qualitative military edge.”
SECURITY = LEGITIMACY, OR SOMETHING: “You also see our commitment to Israel’s security in our steadfast opposition to any attempt to de-legitimize the State of Israel.”
He beat up on Iran for a while, to great applause, then he went on for some time about how awful Hamas is and how Hamas should shape up or ship out, but “And yet, no matter how hard it may be to start meaningful negotiations under current circumstances, we must acknowledge that a failure to try is not an option.” He couldn’t say any more clearly that he wants Israel to put up a pretense of negotiations but doesn’t expect Israel to do anything that would make them a success. Netanyahu, of course, doesn’t even want to put on a dog and pony show for us.
SO WHAT DOES THE REACTION TO YOUR SPEECH TELL YOU ABOUT YOUR “REAL FRIENDS”? “I also believe that real friends talk openly and honestly with one another.”
He makes an argument that the “Arab Spring” requires Middle East peace talks: “a new generation of Arabs is reshaping the region. A just and lasting peace can no longer be forged with one or two Arab leaders. Going forward, millions of Arab citizens have to see that peace is possible for that peace to be sustained.” Er, so we used to be able to come to a “just and lasting peace” with dictators and absolute monarchs?
IF WE HAVE ANYTHING TO SAY ABOUT IT: “No vote at the United Nations will ever create an independent Palestinian state.”
HOW ABOUT LIMERICKS? “Israel’s legitimacy is not a matter for debate.”
WHAT ISRAEL CANNOT BE EXPECTED TO DO: “we know that peace demands a partner -- which is why I said that Israel cannot be expected to negotiate with Palestinians who do not recognize its right to exist.” This formulation may be the least challenged pro-Israel trope. But what is this “Israel” whose right to exist Palestinians are expected to recognize? Netanyahu would claim Israel’s borders are set in stone, Obama said they should be determined by future negotiations. How do you recognize a state without set borders? Israel says no right of return for Palestinians but unlimited right of immigration for any Jewish person in the world, even if they’ve never set foot in Israel; Palestinians disagree. How do you recognize a state without a set population? Netanyahu and Obama speak of Israel as a “Jewish state of Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people” or even An oxymoronic “Jewish and democratic state.” If Israel’s legitimacy is not “a matter for debate,” what about that of the non-Jewish citizens of Israel? How do representatives of the Palestinian people recognize a state in which Palestinian people are defined as outsiders?
HOW WILL WE DO THAT? “And we will hold the Palestinians accountable for their actions and for their rhetoric.”
SO THERE’S MARCHING INVOLVED? “But the march to isolate Israel internationally -- and the impulse of the Palestinians to abandon negotiations -- will continue to gain momentum in the absence of a credible peace process and alternative.”
BECAUSE GOD KNOWS I TRIED TO AVOID PUTTING ANYTHING ORIGINAL INTO THAT SPEECH: “There was nothing particularly original in my proposal; this basic framework for negotiations has long been the basis for discussions among the parties, including previous U.S. administrations.”
BECAUSE GOD KNOWS I TRIED TO AVOID PUTTING ANY SUBSTANCE AT ALL INTO THAT SPEECH: “If there is a controversy, then, it’s not based in substance. What I did on Thursday was to say publicly what has long been acknowledged privately.”
THE STORY OF ISRAEL TEACHES US THAT PEACE IS POSSIBLE? “For if history teaches us anything, if the story of Israel teaches us anything, it is that with courage and resolve, progress is possible. Peace is possible.”
By the way, in neither speech did Obama say a word about the ongoing blockade of Gaza.
Lurking Death of the Day -100: “Think Death Lurks in Ice Cream Cones.” Children have been getting sick and two have died in Yonkers. Curdled milk in the ice cream? Cones made of sugar and paper? In those pre-FDA days, who knows.
Six blacks are lynched in Lake City, Florida by ten men who pretended to be cops and tricked the sheriff’s son into releasing them with a fake telegram. The men were suspected of killing a white dude in Tallahassee and had been moved 100 miles to Lake City to prevent them being lynched, but the mob went on a road trip.
And an old negro preacher who killed his wife and shot a deputy is lynched in Swainsboro, Georgia, the town’s second lynching this month -100.
French Minister of War Maurice Berteaux is killed at an air race when a monoplane crashes into the stands and Prime Minister Ernest Monis and his son are injured. Monis had to be dug out from under the wreckage. His nose was broken and two leg bones had compound fractures. Once again, I’m surprised by the level of gore the NYT is willing to print (also in the Florida lynching story): “Minister of War Berteaux was badly mangled. The swiftly revolving propeller cut off his left arm, which was found ten feet away from the spot where he was struck, the back of his head was crushed in, his throat gashed, and the whole of his left side cut and lacerated.” The pilot was fine. The race will continue tomorrow.
Madero signs a peace agreement ending the Mexican Revolution. President Díaz and his VP will resign shortly.
A lynching in Bluefield, West Virginia of a “foreigner,” evidently not a black person, for attacking some woman. Hanged on the cross on the steeple of a Catholic church and shot 150 times.
The debate on Arizona statehood is still focused on the provision in its proposed constitution for popular recall of judges. Rep. Rufus Hardy (D-Texas) offers a rather odd historical analogy: Rome had the recall until Caesar refused to be recalled from beyond the Alps, and from that moment Rome lost her former liberty of popular action. Well, I’m convinced. Wait, was that Caesar thing an argument for or against the recall of judges?
Italy may legalize divorce. Currently, rich Italians hop over to Hungary or Switzerland, become citizens, get divorced and return home.
General Electric attempts to revive one of its electrocuted employees by repeatedly shocking him with 50,000 volts. The defibrillator is a long way away. 50,000 volts is closer to barbeque.
Fun Fact of the Day -100: “The President sits over a ton of ice each day”.
Obama met Netanyahu today. What fun. Afterwards, they came out to pretend not to loathe each other in front of the cameras.
Obama repeated his alleged support for “a contiguous, functioning and effective Palestinian state,” adding, “Obviously there are some differences between us in the precise formulations and language, and that’s going to happen between friends.” For example, Obama said he supports a contiguous, functioning and effective Palestinian state, and Netanyahu said, “Fuck the Palestinians.” You know, just differences in precise formulations and language.
They both agreed that Hamas, which at the last election was the party that garnered the most votes in the Occupied Territories, is not a viable partner for negotiation (“the Palestinian version of Al Qaida,” Bibi called them). Obama said, “it is very difficult for Israel to be expected to negotiate in a serious way with a party that refuses to acknowledge its right to exist.” Because they keep saying, “Does anybody hear something? I thought I heard something” when you’re trying to talk RIGHT NEXT TO THEM.
Netanyahu rejected the 1967 borders Obama called for because “they don’t take into account certain changes that have taken place on the ground, demographic changes that have taken place over the last 44 years.” Massive settlement activity, deportations, the occasional massacre, you know, demographic changes.
JEWZ IS SHORT: Netanyahu: “Mr. President, you’re the -- you’re the leader of a great people, the American people. And I’m the leader of a much smaller people”.
Some Mexican rebel generals are ignoring Madero’s armistice. And some rebel groups haven’t even heard of it, which is what happens when one of your tactics is cutting telegraph wires and railroad tracks.
Headline of the Day -100: “Sultan Faints With Fear.” A “party of boisterous Kurds” rushed his carriage trying to hand him a petition.
Both houses of the Illinois Legislature pass a bill banning publication of the details of crimes or executions. In completely unrelated news, the US Senate is re-opening its investigation of the bribery in the Illinois Legislature that resulted in William Lorimer being elected to the Senate.
Obama gave a speech on the Middle East today, at the State Department.
YOU’RE WELCOME, BILL: “I want to thank Hillary Clinton, who has traveled so much these last six months that she is approaching a new landmark – one million frequent flyer miles.”
HEH, HE SAID... OH, NEVER MIND: “I believe that she will go down as of the finest Secretaries of State in our nation’s history.”
NOT BEFORE WE SHOT HIM IN HIS UNDIES, ANYWAY: “Bin Laden was no martyr.”
AND IF THERE’S ANYTHING THAT BARACK OBAMA IS AGAINST, IT’S VIOLENCE AGAINST MEN, WOMEN AND CHILDREN AS A PATH TO CHANGE. HE HAS A NOBEL PEACE PRIZE, YOU KNOW. “He was a mass murderer who offered a message of hate – an insistence that Muslims had to take up arms against the West, and that violence against men, women and children was the only path to change.”
THEY’RE NOT “COOL” AND “WITH IT” AND “DOWN WITH THE KIDS” ANYMORE: “But even before his death, al Qaeda was losing its struggle for relevance”.
I’M PRETTY SURE “THE VAST MAJORITY” OF PEOPLE IN THE MIDDLE EAST ARE SAYING RIGHT NOW, “FUCK YOU FOR IMPLYING THAT WE ALL USED TO BE TERRORIST SYMPATHIZERS WHO HAVE NOW COME TO OUR SENSES, JUST FUCK YOU”: “By the time we found bin Laden, al Qaeda’s agenda had come to be seen by the vast majority of the region as a dead end”.
GEDDIT, SPARK, GEDDIT? He tells the story of the Tunisian street vendor dude who set himself on fire. “Sometimes, in the course of history, the actions of ordinary citizens spark movements for change”.
BUT ROSA PARKS WASN’T ACTUALLY ON FIRE AT THE TIME, WAS SHE? “In America, think of the defiance of those patriots in Boston who refused to pay taxes to a king, or the dignity of Rosa Parks as she sat courageously in her seat. So it was in Tunisia, as that vendor’s act of desperation tapped into the frustration felt throughout the country.” I’m just thinking that encouraging people to express their discontent by setting themselves on fire may not be such a good idea.
EXCEPT IN BAHRAIN AND YEMEN AND SYRIA AND SAUDI ARABIA AND... “But the events of the past six months show us that strategies of repression and diversion won’t work anymore.”
AT LEAST, NOT IN WORDS. WAIT, WHAT? “In Benghazi, we heard the engineer who said, ‘Our words are free now. It’s a feeling you can’t explain.’”
YELLY, SHOUTY DIGNITY: “In Damascus, we heard the young man who said, ‘After the first yelling, the first shout, you feel dignity.’”
OIL OIL OIL ISRAEL OIL ISRAEL OIL: “For decades, the United States has pursued a set of core interests in the region: countering terrorism and stopping the spread of nuclear weapons; securing the free flow of commerce, and safe-guarding the security of the region; standing up for Israel’s security and pursuing Arab-Israeli peace.”
WHAT’S GOOD FOR AMERICA IS BY DEFINITION GOOD FOR THE ENTIRE WORLD: “We will continue to do these things, with the firm belief that America’s interests are not hostile to peoples’ hopes; they are essential to them.”
BECAUSE IF THERE’S ONE THING THE US HATES, IT’S AGGRESSION ACROSS BORDERS. WAIT, WHAT? “As we did in the Gulf War, we will not tolerate aggression across borders”.
OH, THOSE SUSPICIOUS, SUSPICIOUS MIDDLE EAST PEOPLE: “failure to speak to the broader aspirations of ordinary people will only feed the suspicion that has festered for years that the United States pursues our own interests at their expense.” Suspicion!
WHAT THE UNITED STATES OPPOSES: “The United States opposes the use of violence and repression against the people of the region.” Unless they’re Palestinians, obvs.
HOW MANY IS THE RIGHT NUMBER? “Unfortunately, in too many countries, calls for change have been answered by violence.”
WHAT THE UNITED STATES HEARD: “But in Libya, we saw the prospect of imminent massacre, we had a mandate for action, and heard the Libyan people’s call for help.” Actually, they called “Hey, we have oil!” It’s like when they say that women being attacked should yell Fire instead of Police.
LEGITIMATE AND CREDIBLE: O. says the Libyan “opposition has organized a legitimate and credible Interim Council.” Just as he kept saying that Qaddafi lost legitimacy without ever saying when and how he’d ever acquired legitimacy, now he fails to explain the process by which the Council acquired its legitimacy.
WHAT THE SYRIAN GOVERNMENT MUST DO: “The Syrian government must stop shooting demonstrators and allow peaceful protests”.
He accused Iran of “hypocrisy” for aiding Syria’s repression of protests. If there’s one thing Obama hates, it’s hypocrisy in... oh, you get the idea.
He does say that Yemen’s President Saleh “needs” to follow through on his lie that he will step down. And Bahrain should knock off the repression too.
BROADER LESSONS: “Indeed, one of the broader lessons to be drawn from this period is that sectarian divides need not lead to conflict.” What is the great example of how sectarian divides need not lead to conflict? Er, Iraq. “In Iraq, we see the promise of a multi-ethnic, multi-sectarian democracy.” So our model for the future is, oh dear lord, Iraq.
A BLOGGER? DOESN’T HE KNOW BLOGS ARE DEAD? UH, WAIT... “We will support open access to the Internet, and the right of journalists to be heard - whether it’s a big news organization or a blogger.”
That’s Benjamin Franklin, writing Poor Richard’s Blog
WOMEN! WE TOTALLY SUPPORT WOMEN IN THE MIDDLE EAST. “For the region will never reach its potential when more than half its population is prevented from achieving their potential.” It’s just basic mathematics. Which girls in the Middle East aren’t taught.
HOW MANY IS THE RIGHT NUMBER TO WAKE UP WITH FEW EXPECTATIONS OTHER THAN MAKING IT THROUGH THE DAY? “Too many in the region wake up with few expectations other than making it through the day”. Sorry for harping, but that “too many” thing just annoys me.
CAN WE PUT THAT IN OUR GAS TANKS? “The greatest untapped resource in the Middle East and North Africa is the talent of its people.”
NO COINCIDENCE: “It’s no coincidence that one of the leaders of Tahrir Square was an executive for Google.”
THINK OF THE CHILDREN: “For decades, the conflict between Israelis and Arabs has cast a shadow over the region. For Israelis, it has meant living with the fear that their children could get blown up on a bus or by rockets fired at their homes, as well as the pain of knowing that other children in the region are taught to hate them. For Palestinians, it has meant suffering the humiliation of occupation, and never living in a nation of their own.” So that’s what the Arab-Israeli conflict has meant: Israeli (note the use of the term Israeli when he really means Jewish Israelis) children in danger from bombs and rockets and being hated by mean kids, while Palestinians are, um, humiliated. Funny, I could swear I’ve read about lots of Palestinian children being shot and blown up too. Maybe I imagined it.
Some people think the stalemate will go on forever. Obama disagrees. Phew.
“For the Palestinians, efforts to delegitimize Israel will end in failure. Symbolic actions to isolate Israel at the United Nations in September won’t create an independent state.” I guess he means the attempt to get the UN to recognize Palestine is, for Obama, an effort to delegitimize Israel.
SHARING AND CARING: “As for Israel, our friendship is rooted deeply in a shared history and shared values.” What shared history? Which shared values?
And then he launches into the fairly timid remarks that will be the only ones American politicians and pundits will be talking about: “But precisely because of our friendship, it’s important that we tell the truth: The status quo is unsustainable, and Israel too must act boldly to advance a lasting peace. ... The international community is tired of an endless process that never produces an outcome. The dream of a Jewish and democratic state cannot be fulfilled with permanent occupation.” And he wants “borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps”. This is pretty much the least he could possibly have said.
NO OF COURSE PALESTINE DOESN’T GET TO BE SECURE TOO: “So while the core issues of the conflict must be negotiated, the basis of those negotiations is clear: a viable Palestine, a secure Israel.”
BY ITSELF: “As for security, every state has the right to self-defense, and Israel must be able to defend itself -- by itself -- against any threat.” Although we might send Joe Lieberman along.
“The full and phased withdrawal of Israeli military forces should be coordinated with the assumption of Palestinian security responsibility in a sovereign, non-militarized state.” Wait, didn’t you just say “every state has the right to self-defense” just two sentences ago? Also, sovereign and non-militarized is pretty much an oxymoron.
KINKY! “Suspicion and hostility has been passed on for generations, and at times it has hardened.”
WELL, TECHNICALLY THEY WERE CHANTING, “PEACEFUL, PEACEFUL, OW, I’VE BEEN SHOT, PEACEFUL...”: “For all the challenges that lie ahead, we see many reasons to be hopeful. ... In Syria, we see it in the courage of those who brave bullets while chanting, ‘peaceful, peaceful.’”
UNSETTLING: “For the American people, the scenes of upheaval in the region may be unsettling, but the forces driving it are not unfamiliar. Our own nation was founded through a rebellion against an empire. Our people fought a painful Civil War that extended freedom and dignity to those who were enslaved.” So the Middle East is just like two of our longest, bloodiest wars, so that’s okay then?
BIG FINISH: “But the United States of America was founded on the belief that people should govern themselves. And now we cannot hesitate to stand squarely on the side of those who are reaching for their rights, knowing that their success will bring about a world that is more peaceful, more stable, and more just.”
(Update: Robert Fisk: “And then we had to hear what America’s ‘role’ was going to be in the new Middle East. We did not hear if the Arabs wanted them to have a role.”)
Pancho Villa says he is quitting the rebel army and Mexico itself, and will move to the US and “cease to be a Mexican.” Francisco Madero, who announced Villa’s plans, “did not appear to be greatly grieved over his loss.”
Gustav Mahler dies. At the time, he was perhaps more famous as a conductor than as a composer.
Sen. Gallinger (R-NH) introduces a resolution for an Amendment to the Constitution changing the presidential inauguration from early March to late April. Not for any reasons of good governance, but because it’s too fucking cold in D.C. in March. At Taft’s inauguration, thousands of dollars were spent on grandstands “which when the parade passed were occupied only by snowdrifts.”
Harriet Stanton Blatch and other suffragists were ordered off the floor of the NY State Senate, where they were lobbying for the women’s suffrage bill. Some senators are horrified that after having pledged to support women’s suffrage during the last election to get women off their back, the bill might reach the floor and they would have to actually vote on it.
Headline of the Day -100: “Diaz, in Agony, Tells Cabinet He Will Quit.” Mexican President Porfirio Díaz has finally agreed to resign sometime in the next few days, to be replaced by Foreign Minister Francisco de la Barra acting in conjunction with Francisco Madero pending a new election within six months. The rebels will also be in charge of half the states. Oh, the “agony” bit: Díaz has a toothache.
Pancho Villa crosses into the US in a rage to find Col. Garibaldi and settle their personal feud (they are ostensibly both on the rebel side, but they clashed during the taking of Juarez), but the mayor of El Paso, backed by the Secret Service, takes Villa’s guns from him and sends him back to Mexico. “The United States Secret Service is a great institution,” commented Garibaldi.
Arnold Schwarzenegger: “After leaving the governor’s office I told my wife about this event, which occurred over a decade ago.” What’s the douchiest part of that sentence?
Kosher Headline of the Day -100: “Taft Praises Jews.”
Non-Kosher Headline of the Day -100: “Spaniards Defeat Five Hundred Pigs.” The commander of Spanish troops in Spanish Morocco believed they were under attack by tribesmen one night and opened fire. Their commander sent a message to the Spanish consul claiming a great victory, then found out the next day that they had in fact routed a herd of pigs.
Meanwhile, in soon-to-be-French Morocco, French troops kill 100 rebel tribesmen.
British Chancellor David Lloyd George introduces a budget that includes an astonishing (to me, anyway) £1.5 million for the coronation. Also, members of Parliament will receive salaries for the first time (a sop to the Labour Party included in the bill, which is still working its way through the Lords, cutting back the veto power of the House of Lords). £2,000 per annum. Previously, only cabinet ministers received salaires.
Another of Count Zeppelin’s dirigibles, the Deutschland II, comes to grief, crashing into its hangar. It was windy. The Deutschland II lasted six weeks, a much longer career than that of the Deutschland I.
Gun control (permits for sale or carrying, registration of sales) passes the NY Legislature.
The Supreme Court affirms that Standard Oil must be broken up within 6 months. However, it also, in an act of gross judicial over-reach, construes the Sherman Anti-Trust Act to ban only “unreasonable” restraint of trade, despite the rejection of that language by Congress in 1890 and in attempts every session since then to so amend the Act, precisely because Congress didn’t trust the courts with the power to decide what constituted a reasonable or unreasonable restraint of trade.
Teddy Roosevelt refuses permission for the Progressive Republican League of Nebraska to put him on the Republican ballot for president in 1912.
Jews in Kiev have been expecting a pogrom ever since a boy was found murdered and mutilated near the Jewish quarter, leading to the traditional “ritual murder” rumors.
I’m a little surprised that every managing director of IMF hasn’t been arrested for sex crimes. Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s evident assumption that he has a droit de seigneur to use a Ghanaian maid however he sees fit just seems a natural extension of what the IMF does to the Third World every single day.
Strauss-Kahn had been thinking about running for president of France, so that probably won’t happen. Now if he were Italian....
President Taft, speaking to the convention of the Brotherhood of Railroad Men, opposes employees of the federal government being permitted to join unions and strike. Allowing strikes would be to “recognize revolution as a lawful means of securing an increase in compensation for one class, and that a privileged class, at the expense of all the public.”
Says the newly chosen secretary of war Henry Stimson, “I’m probably the most ignorant man on military affairs in the United States.” Hell, it was good enough for Rumsfeld. Stimson may have intended it as a joke, but the NYT agrees with his self-assessment. However, Stimson does possess one great advantage: he is a protege of Teddy Roosevelt, who Taft wants to appease to stop him running against him in 1912.
There’s been a slight disagreement between Francisco Madero and Gen. Pasqual Orozco. Namely, the general pulled a gun on the provisional president and ordered him to fire his cabinet. Pancho Villa supported Orozco, demanding that federal Gen. Navarro – who was rather vicious during the fight for Juarez, ordering prisoners killed and the like – be turned over to his troops and executed. Orozco eventually calmed down. Soon after, Madero personally drove Navarro out of town, got him a horse, and he is now hiding out in the cellar of a department store in El Paso.
In Russia, Father Iliodor, aka The Mad Monk, has split with the Orthodox Church and with Rasputin, with the support of the Tsar.
Headline of the Day -100: “Insane Patient Celebrates.” The 42nd anniversary of her confinement to the NJ state asylum for a “mild but incurable mania.” No word on whether there was cake.
Attorney General Eric Holder explains that the Bin Laden assassination was not an assassination because he could have surrendered if he’d done it really really quickly before all those bullets hit him, and that the assassination was completely legal under international law (no one asked Holder whether it was legal under Pakistani law).
And he explained what separates us from those who we are fighting: “I actually think that the dotting of the i’s and the crossing of the t’s is what separates the United States, the United Kingdom, our allies, from those who we are fighting.” He did not clarify what we use to dot the i’s and cross the t’s. I’m guessing bullets and blood respectively.
Secretary of State Philander Knox sent the following instructions to the US ambassador to Mexico (see if you can read the first sentence out loud on a single breath): “You are authorized officially to deny, through the local press and otherwise, as under instructions to do so, all foolish stories of intervention, than which nothing could be further from the intentions of the Government of the United States, which has the sincerest friendship for Mexico and the Mexican people, to whom it hopes will soon return the blessings of peace, which is not concerned with Mexico’s internal political affairs, and which demands nothing but the respect and protection of American property and life in a neighboring republic. You will use the language of this instruction.”
Secretary of War Jacob Dickinson resigns, to spend more time with his coal mines. Taft nominates as his replacement Henry Stimson, failed Republican candidate for governor of NY in the last election.
Duuuuude! A few days ago, rebels in Mexico made a bloody horseback charge on a federal machine gun in Mazatlan, trying to put it out of commission, and one of them succeeded by... wait for it... lassoing it.
Madero names a provisional cabinet in his new capital of Juarez. The federals plan to court-martial Gen. Navarro for surrendering Juarez. Also entering Juarez: American criminals, pickpockets, and suspicious characters (according to Madero). The rebels are allowing US Secret Service agents into the city to arrest them.
Probably you’ve seen the Mother Jones article “Newt in His Own Words,” widely linked on the interwoobs this week. Here’s some more they left out:
1978: Running for Congress for the first time against Virginia Shapard. She intended to commute to D.C. from Georgia and hire a nanny. He accused her of breaking up her marriage (this was just before his wife got cancer and he dumped her).
1994: “You cannot get to universal coverage without a police state.”
1994: called for Republicans to take back the Senate from the “enemies of normal Americans.”
1995: called for mandatory death penalty for drug mules, with mass executions, 30 or 35 at a time.
It wasn’t just Susan Smith’s murder of her two children that Gingrich blamed on “how sick the society is getting”. The following year, 1995, when a 9-month pregnant woman was murdered (along with her two children) and the fetus (which survived) cut out, I guess to be sold on the black market, Gingrich blamed the welfare state for creating moral decay.
In 1996 he explained what freedom is all about: “A mere 40 years ago, beach volleyball was just beginning. Now it is not only a sport in the Olympics. There are over 30 countries that have a competition internationally. There are some 13 states with 25 cities in America. And there’s a whole new world of opportunity opening up that didn’t even exist 30 years ago or 40 years ago, and no bureaucrat would have invented it. And that’s what freedom is all about. Freedom is about having a dream, and maybe I feel that particularly because the greatest Georgian of this century, Martin Luther King, went to the Lincoln Memorial and said in his extraordinary speech, ‘I have a dream...’”
1997: Clinton was thinking about apologizing for slavery. Gingrich said this would be “emotional symbolism” – one day after the House passed a Flag Burning Amendment.
By the way, in 1990, his opponent, David Worley, came within 1,000 votes of unseating him and might have won but the Democratic Party decided to give his campaign no funds because he broke omerta on talking about the pay raise Congress had voted itself.
(Update: Here’s one which I couldn’t find earlier because I googled pigs instead of piglets; Gingrich 1995 on why women should be kept out of combat: “If combat means living in a ditch, females have biological problems staying in a ditch for thirty days because they get infections and they don’t have upper body strength. I mean, some do, but they’re relatively rare. On the other hand, men are basically little piglets, you drop them in the ditch, they roll around in it, doesn’t matter, you know. These things are very real. On the other hand, if combat means being on an Aegis-class cruiser managing the computer controls for twelve ships and their rockets, a female may be again dramatically better than a male who gets very, very frustrated sitting in a chair all the time because males are biologically driven to go out and hunt giraffes.”)
Headline of the Day -100: “Woman in Trousers Daring Aviator.” A... wait for it... girl is taking flying lessons. A Miss Harriet Quimby (who will be the first American woman with a pilot’s license but not the first aviatrix). The Times seems almost as shocked by her wearing trousers – “For more than a week it was not even suspected that she was not a man”. (Spoiler alert: Quimby died in a plane crash in 1912).
Lt. George Kelly, one of the Navy’s new pilots, dies in a crash.
Nicaragua’s President/coup leader Estrada resigns and flees the country.
Mexican insurrectos capture Juarez. Gen. Navarro surrenders (interestingly, to Col. Giuseppe Garibaldi, Jr., grandson of the liberator of Italy) and Madero invites him and his officers to dinner, then puts them on their word not to leave the city.
For what seems like the thousandth time, women’s suffrage fails in the New York Legislature (90-38). One assemblyman argued, “For every woman who wants the ballot there are ten modest women who don’t.” A legislator from the Independence League said he was not surprised to find the machine politicians opposing women’s suffrage. Harry Heyman of Queens harrumphed, “I would like to know what Mr. O’Connor means by machine politicians.” Replied O’Connor, “If you can find a mirror large enough, take a good look in it; there it is.” Burn, 1911 style!
White House spokesmodel Jay “The Carny” Carney, asked yesterday about the National Journal’s estimate that the cost of tracking down Bin Laden has been $3 trillion, said: “I have no idea about that estimate, but I think most Americans would feel that it was worth every penny.”
My, it’s almost like the Obama administration has taken complete ownership of every one of George Bush’s foreign policies and his domestic “security” policies. But that couldn’t be right, could it?
Worth every penny. Every fucking penny. All 300 trillion of them.
Sigh.
A NYT editorial admits the success of this week’s women’s suffrage parade in gaining “for perhaps the first time the serious attention of their foes,” despite the fact that the parade “by all the established conventions was distinctly unfeminine and therefore obnoxious and ridiculous”. It did so because “more notably and more obviously than ever before, the suffrage women in this vicinity showed themselves as a class to be active, courageous, and determined,” where previously the movement had seemed to consist of a few leaders who did all the talking. “We now know that there is an army as well as Generals”.
What there isn’t, however, is support in Albany. The relevant committees of both houses of the Legislature refuse to report suffrage bills out.
The rebels in Mexico are in the process of capturing and/or burning Juarez. And socialist rebels have captured Tijuana, which is why it is a utopian socialist paradise to this day.
Teddy Roosevelt denies that he will spend the summer of 1912 hunting polar bears in the Arctic.
Madero is claiming that Díaz’s promise to resign (eventually when he feels like it after all unrest ends completely), somehow “changes everything” and can lead to the resumption of peace negotiations.
In another sign that Madero doesn’t control all the rebels, there is an attack on Juarez by 150 or so rebels. They beat the federals, but have to withdraw because the main rebel army didn’t join them. Bullets crossed the border (didn’t Taft tell them not to do that?), killing five in El Paso, but the US has decided to treat the deaths as “incidents of war,” and not use them as an excuse for military intervention.
Francisco Madero decides not to capture Juarez after all, in an effort to stave off American intervention by keeping the fighting away from the border and stray bullets from crossing it. Forces will be withdrawn from the north and will now focus on capturing Mexico City, which the insurrectos say they will do within a month (it would be easier if they hadn’t blown up all those railroad bridges). Madero is making a huge tactical change and giving up a militarily advantageous position in the north purely to appease the US.
President Díaz announces that he will resign – just as soon as peace is restored. Or as he puts it, “when, according to the dictates of my conscience, I am sure that my resignation will not be followed by anarchy.”
A father in Rhode Island is refusing to give up his 15-year-old son to the authorities. The kid has leprosy, and they want to confine him to either the Massachusetts leper colony on Penikees Island or the Pawtucket Pest House, for the rest of his life. Who wouldn’t want to live in a place called the Pawtucket Pest House?
Headline of the Day -100: “Savage Africans Menace Big Ship.” The British freight steamship Kasenga, now in Brooklyn, had some difficulties in East Africa.
The armistice in Mexico ends, President Díaz having made no move to resign.
A Madero-supporting newspaper in Mexico reprints the claim of a NY socialist newspaper that the US is about to invade Mexico to restore peace, and then compensate itself for its trouble by annexing another strip of Mexico south of the Rio Grande.
The women’s suffrage parade went off as planned.
The NYT notes, “There were several negro women in the parade.”
One banner: “New York State Denies the Vote to Criminals, Idiots, and Women.”
Portugal ends the Catholic Church’s status as the state religion. Priests will no longer be paid out of taxes, the state is taking over all church property, and services must be held between sunrise and sunset with a government official present. Papal bulls are not to be published without government permission.
The Colorado Legislature adjourns without electing a new US senator to replace the late Charles Hughes, thanks to a deadlock among Dems. Colorado will have only one senator until 1913.
Headline of the Day -100: “The Wholesale Debauchery of the Ohio Legislature.” Several members of which were indicted this week for taking bribes from private detectives posing as lobbyists.
Unexpectedly, the Scottish National Party has been elected to an absolute majority in the Scottish Parliament, and will at some point hold a referendum on independence. David Cameron says “If they want to hold a referendum, I will campaign to keep our United Kingdom together with every single fibre I have.” He wants the UK kept together with his fibres? Every single one of them? How many fibres does he have? Ah, I see, fibre is from the Latin fibra, meaning entrails. So he wants Scotland literally tied to England using his own intestines. Personally I support Scottish independence, if the Scots vote for it, but I’m also quite in favor of disemboweling David Cameron, so I’m rather conflicted here.
........
This is what happens when you blog on a Friday night: you start by picking at a phrase – “I will campaign to keep our United Kingdom together with every single fibre I have” – that can be read in two different ways, and it just goes all weird and disgusting and unpostable, but you post it anyway, just because you’re bored (although not so bored that I’ll write about the failure of the Alternative Vote referendum).
You’re welcome.
Initial reports of military actions are like the first receipt the Safeway cashier gives you, inflated. Fog of war and all that, but the second reports never make the US military look better, any more than the “mistakes” made by Safeway cashiers are somehow never in your favor.
(Guess where I just came from and guess who tried to over-charge me $5?)
Anyway, I’m assuming until proven otherwise that the reason we’re not seeing the Bin Laden pictures is that he was shot at extreme close range and was wearing Winnie the Pooh pajamas.
Not that it matters. Bin Laden was always going to be shot dead after making a threatening gesture. In the same way that Clinton executed brain-damaged Ricky Rector to prevent him becoming another Willie Horton, and would likely have lost the 1992 election had he not done so, so Obama had to kill Bin Laden to prevent him becoming another Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. If shooting Bin Laden dead sealed his re-election, taking him alive would very likely have led to endless demagoguery over where he was held and whether he was tried and by whom and when and where he’d be executed, and whatever Obama did would be wrong and he might very well have lost the 2012 election. Capturing Bin Laden alive would just have been dumb electoral politics.
Women’s suffragists are about to hold a large suffrage parade in NYC to try to put pressure on the Legislature to pass a suffrage bill. Or, as the NYT puts it, they “will try to demonstrate their fitness for the suffrage by parading on Fifth Avenue.” Actually, the Times editorial isn’t being as sarcastic as that sounds. It adds that the parade “will indicate the courage of the paraders, the strength of their conviction, and their determination to win. No cause can be won without efforts of this strenuous and showy sort. ... They may get the suffrage some day, but never by reading papers at women’s clubs and passing resolutions.” It goes on to “sincerely hope, for their own sakes and the sake of the State, that they will fail.”
While not the first suffrage parade, the spectacle of women marching and giving speeches outdoors is something new, previously the province of women of the Salvation Army, and is still somewhat controversial among the national suffrage leaders. So what does a women’s suffrage parade look like? It will begin with someone playing “the delicate little lady of long ago in her sedan chair”, followed by a float featuring women in the domestic industries that have since moved into factories and shops, then actual workers from those factories and shops, then a float from Pennsylvania showing early Quaker women. It will be “a democratic procession,” i.e., no automobiles and only one carriage, for old pioneer suffragists who can’t walk five miles. There will be male supporters, led by Prof. John Dewey. Women from the five suffrage states, and 20 women from suffragist Norway, will march under their own banners (and a five-starred US flag, which some people will write letters to the Times denouncing as unpatriotic). There will be groups of college women and athletes. Some businesses are threatening to fire any female employee who marches in the parade.
Banker Jacob Schiff is planning to finance a colony of Jewish farmers in New Mexico.
In Kansas City, MO, on his testing-the-water-tour, NJ’s Gov. Woodrow Wilson says that what needs to be corrected in political life is “the control of politics and our life by great combinations of wealth.” Phew, glad they cleared up that problem 100 years ago.
Random quotes from the first Republican presidential debate:
Tim Pawlenty: “I love the Huck.”
Pawlenty complained that none of the big names showed up at this debate, evidently worried that he was being totally eclipsed by Herman Cain, the Godfather’s Pizza dude, instead of by Palin or “The Huck.” His greatest dream is to be totally eclipsed by Donald Trump. “One of the things about leadership is that you’ve got to show up,” he said, desperately hoping that no one would ask him what the other things about leadership are.
Pawlenty: “I think the momentum is on my side.”
Pawlentum™ is the new Joementum.
Pawlentum™ says he is the child of a “working-class family in a meatpacking town.”
Speaking of meatpacking, Rick Santorum (see what I did there?) (what did I do there?) said: “Anybody [i.e. Mitch Daniels, who wasn’t there] who would suggest we call a truce on moral issues doesn’t understand what America’s all about.” Moral panics and telling women what they can do with their hoo-hahs?
Ron Paul came out in favor of legalizing heroin. SUGGESTIONS FOR BUMPER STICKERS IN COMMENTS, PLEASE. There was great applause from all the audience. He is so our next president.
T-Paw on the shooting of Bin Laden: “But that moment is not the sum total of America’s foreign policy.” It kind of is.
T-Paw-Canoe-and-Tyler-Too attacked Obama for letting the UN tell us what to do in Libya because the UN is “a pathetic organization.” Now you’re just hurting its feelings.
Santorum: “It’s not just checking the boxes. It’s having the courage to lead.”
Ron Paul, asked why he supports the Defense of Marriage Act despite having said that government shouldn’t dictate who people can and can’t marriage, said oh, he didn’t mean state governments. Or water and sewer district boards, community college districts...
Paul said Americans “vote from their bellies.” Or from their inner thighs under their ball sacs, in the case of his new heroin-addict fanbase.
Wait, that wasn’t the line I started writing. Paul said Americans “vote from their bellies,” glancing nervously at the pizza guy.
(I didn’t see the debate and there’s no transcript, so I’m piecing this together from various sources. One has that quote as “Americans vote with their bellies,” which is an image I could have done without.)
He went on: “Because it’s whether they’re hungry, or have jobs or need things, that’s why they vote.” Oh, I thought I was the only one who ate my “I voted” sticker.
Everyone except the pizza dude would totally release the dead-Bin Laden pictures.
Santorum, the pizza dude, and Pawlenty would all resume waterboarding. Paul opposes it simply because it’s ineffective.
They were all in favor of lowering taxes.
Headline of the Day: “Israel Stops Hairdressers Travelling to West Bank.” And quote of the day: “I’m not sure what security risk [is posed by] hairspraying models.”
And note the death of Claude Stanley Choules, the very last surviving combatant veteran of World War I. Known as Chuckles, because the last surviving combatant veteran of World War I would just have to have been called Chuckles. He also served in World War II and, as if two world wars weren’t scary enough, a 76-year-long marriage. He was a pacifist.
British Chancellor of the Exchequer David Lloyd George introduces a National Insurance bill, a plan for insurance against sickness and unemployment. Workers’ contributions would be partially matched by contributions from employers and the state, but the benefits would be mostly administered by “friendly societies,” which are private voluntary bodies formed in the nineteenth century for the purpose of providing mutual insurance by members of the upper working classes and lower middle classes. The Tories aren’t putting up any significant opposition, talking about death panels, nuthin’.
Mexico’s Congress is working on a bill to ban re-election for the offices of president, vice-president, governor, legislator (although a provision to ban the relatives of incumbents from succeeding them failed).
Evidently those English archaeologists didn’t steal the Ark of the Covenant, but are believed to have stolen Solomon’s sword, crown and ring.
Disappointing Headline of the Day -100: “Sees a Hitchcock Plot.” Sadly, the Hitchcock in question is Postmaster General Frank Hitchcock, accused by Sen. Jefferson “Jeff” Davis (D-AK) of a “diabolical plot” to bankrupt a women’s magazine. Not exactly North by Northwest, is it?
that all 235 voting Republican members of the House voted for the “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion” Act? How is this a party-line issue?
Don’t think I’ve mentioned that the US has an air force now, which the NYT calls the Army Aero Corps, although I doubt that’s the official name. Anyway, its head, Lt Paul Beck, just had a little crash in the Texas desert after his engine cut out at 300 feet, but was uninjured.
Pres. Taft opens the Third National Peace Congress in Baltimore. Talking in a veiled way about Mexico, he says that the US is hampered in bringing peace by the suspicions of others about its territorial ambitions. Taft, the former governor of the Philippines, says the US has none.
Riots in Jerusalem because some English archaeologists are believed to have stolen the Ark of the Covenant (they then fled the country very quickly indeed, on a yacht)(possibly with a giant boulder rolling after them)(or should I be doing H. Rider Haggard jokes?).
The National Congress of Mothers’ 15th annual meeting passes resolutions for a federal law against polygamy, for a ban on the marriage of “feeble-minded and degenerate” people, and denouncing soothing syrups, medicated soft drinks and comic supplements.
Competing polar explorers Scott and Amundsen meet at Whale Bay.
Following the Triangle factory fire, NYC aldermen vote to require quarterly inspections of all buildings in NYC used for manufacturing. Mayor Gaynor vetoes it because there aren’t enough inspectors.
The NY Assembly passes (86 to 36) a bill to restrict the work of children under 18 and women under 21 to 54 hours a week. Republicans object that the bill is unconstitutional because it curtails the right of contract.
Headline of the Day -100: “Ate Pie Daily, Lived to 96.” Twice a day, in fact. Job Tillou of South Orange, NJ. He also chewed tobacco.
Peru’s President Alan Garcia says the credit for the killing of Osama bin Laden belongs to... wait for it... the late Pope John Paul II. According to Garcia the extra-judicial execution was, literally... I mean LITERALLY, a miracle.
May Day riots in Paris, just, you know, because. At one rally, a German worker made an anti-militarist speech, saying that in the event of war, German workers would refuse to fight against their French comrades. That’s reassuring.
Rebels in Mexico capture Mazatlan, Durango City, and Topolobampo.
A man attempts to mail himself in a wood box from Lawrence, Kansas to Galveston but is forced by heat to come out in Fort Worth.
First Obama shows us a birth certificate, then a death certificate.
I’m not sorry to see bin Laden dead, but I can’t share in the triumphalism currently flooding the airwaves, nor do I feel any sense of relief, since I don’t expect this to change anything.
(Triumphalism in Obama’s address: “tonight, we are once again reminded that America can do whatever we set our mind to.” Dude, it was killing a dude on dialysis, not the freaking moon landing. Though it did take as long to accomplish.)
I could have done without Obama’s use of the word justice – “bring him to justice,” “justice has been done.” This is George Bush’s definition of justice, a shooting without a trial. It might be justice in a moral sense, but from the standpoint of a state – the only standpoint a head of state should adopt – the phrase “justice has been done” should only follow a judicial process.
Obama: “His demise should be welcomed by all who believe in peace and human dignity.” Because nothing says peace and human dignity like sending soldiers into a foreign country guns blazing.
Speaking of peace and human dignity, this happened 8 years ago today:
Following NATO’s attempted assassination-from-above of Qaddafi that killed his son and three grandsons, mobs have attacked the American, British, French and Italian embassies in Tripoli. A British official called the attacks “a very strong breach of international protocol,” an example of British understatement made all the more impressive by the fact that he was on fire at the time.
New Jersey’s new governor, one Woodrow Wilson, will take a four-week speaking tour of the Western states, but claims not to be running for any higher office.
The Mexico City Express which arrived in San Antonio at 2:30 pm yesterday -100 (the only line still open between the capital and the United States) was stopped ten different times by rebels looking for federal soldiers.
Who will be the first to weaponize aircraft? The problem is that light-weight 1911 airplanes can be destabilized by the recoil of guns. Krupp has just patented a self-propelling aerial torpedo for use against a “hostile balloon.”
Yesterday, Qaddafi called for a cease-fire and negotiations with NATO. Today, NATO killed his son and several of his grandchildren. A simple “No” would have sufficed.
The Colorado Legislature votes to dig a tunnel through the Rockies. The NYT seems to think that the most important thing about this story is that the bill passed a close vote in the lower house due to the votes of two women legislators.
Minnesota abolishes the death penalty.
The NYT updates the situation in Mexico: the government is fuuuuuuuucccccckkkkked. The military is losing or on the defense everywhere. “The patriotic efforts of the members of Congress to arouse the conservative sentiment throughout the county to the support of the Government is largely without effect, because most of those gentlemen have no local standing or influence. They have spent their whole lives in the capital. The case of Deputy Bulnes is a typical one. Although he has represented Lower California for twenty years, he has never even visited his constituency.”
The queen of England has banned hobble skirts and other tight skirts from court. Not that you could curtsy in one anyway.
Last month, doctors in Libya claimed to have found Viagra in the pockets of some of Qaddadi’s soldiers. And you know what that means, don’t you? Don’t you? Well, UN Ambassador Susan Rice does. This week she told the UN Security Council that Qaddafi is giving his troops Viagra to encourage them to engage in mass rape.
(Asked to back up the Viagra claim or to offer any evidence of sexual assaults by Libyan troops, State Dept spokesmodel Jake Sullivan declined.)
The Voter ID bill Texas Gov. Rick “Good Hair” Perry wants won’t let people use college photo ID cards, but will let them use handgun licenses.
Taylorism. Frederick Taylor holds a demonstration of “scientific management” at Carnegie Hall. He showed how 30 girls in a bicycle factory can do the work of 100 in less time. Taylor bemoans the short-sighted trade unions for opposing putting 70 girls out of work through scientific management. For example – and watch out for one of the greatest phrases in the history of the English language – “When my friend [Frank Bunker] Gilbreth worked out his philosophy of bricks he ran against the unions.”
Headline: “Russia Grants Privilege to Jews.” Recently Russia’s been expelling Jews from the cities and restricting their education, so it’s good to see them being granted an entirely new privilege. Jews in Siberia will be allowed to use the curative waters of Minusinsk for up to two months, provided they have a medical certificate and don’t engage in trade while they are taking the cure.
So the British will be voting on whether to hold elections under the Alternative Vote system. The Tories, currently running Britain despite having received just 36% of the votes in the last general election, like the current system just fine and say that AV, in which voters rank candidates according to preference, is simply too confusing for the poor, stupid British people (Jimmy Carr points out that AV is just basically a game of fuck-marry-kill) (although he called it shag-marry-kill, which is just adorable).
Anyway, I got an email from the Conservative Party chairthing which has this convincing sentence: “So if, like me, like Churchill, like many leading historians, sports stars and scientists, you know that AV would be a disaster for our democracy...”
(The other big news story in Britain is that at Prime Minister’s Questions, David Cameron adopted a line from an insurance commercial and told Labour MP Angela Eagle, who had just pointed out that he had told an untruth, “calm down, dear.”) (Cameron says the furore over this proves that socialists have no sense of humor.)
The House votes on a reapportionment bill, expanding the House from 391 to 433 (435 if and when Arizona and New Mexico become states). That would be one rep per 211,877 people. This is the last time the size of the House was increased, as was done in every previous decade (every previous decade also saw the accession of new states). (Historical oddity: after the 1920 census, there was no reapportionment. Not sure why; check back here in ten years.)
Reapportionment of districts will be decided by the states as usual; the D’s voted down an amendment to have it done by the Department of Commerce and Labor and another one which would have allowed for referenda for those states so inclined. Republicans from Democratic-dominated Kentucky and Missouri complain that gerrymandered Democratic congressional districts in their states have much smaller populations than Republican ones, and propose several amendments to correct that, all of which fail.
Rep. Victor Berger, Socialist from Wisconsin, proposed a joint resolution for a constitutional amendment to abolish the Senate, which he described as “an obstructive and useless body, a menace to the liberties of the people and an obstacle to social growth; a body many of the members of which are the representatives neither of a State nor of its people, but solely of certain predatory combinations”. Berger may be disciplined for violating the House rule against telling the truth about criticizing the Senate.
France announces that its military intervention in Morocco is necessary to protect foreigners at Fez, re-establish order, and protect the sovereignty of the sultan. Isn’t it nice of them to help out like that?
In other North African colonial news, Britain is rumored to be planning to send Sir Mathew Nathan to Egypt as its new Resident. Or as the NYT puts it, “Jew May Rule Egypt.”
Headline of the Day -100: “Value of Fingers and Toes.” In Lake County Superior Court, an employee at the Standard Steel Car Works who lost four fingers in an industrial accident was awarded $100, and another man got $500 for five toes.
President Taft is visiting New York City. Last night he attended a dinner of newspaper publishers, a dinner of Methodists, and a dinner in honor of retired Congressman J. Van Vechten Olcott.
Headline Expletive of the Day -100: “Bosh, Says Taft of Annexation.” At, I believe, his second dinner of the evening. He again denied plans to annex Canada. Canada must be feeling either relieved or kind of insulted by the constant repetitions of how the US is just not that into them.
The Dutch seize an American possession, Palmas Island, part of the Philippines. But the US doesn’t plan to object because the island is considered valueless. Don’t know what the 50 or so residents of the island feel about that. Hurt, is my guess. The issue went to arbitration in the 1920s, when Palmas was awarded to the Netherlands. Today it is still part of Indonesia, although closer geographically to the Philippines.
Canada may start banning the immigration of African-Americans on the grounds that they can’t adapt to the cold climate and are therefore likely to become public charges.
Headline of the Day -100: “Kitchener in Robes at Last.” Lord Kitchener takes his seat in the House of Lords for the first time since being ennobled 12 years ago.
Madero didn’t have the authority to agree to a meaningful truce after all. Other rebel leaders continue to fight.
ProtectMarriage, the people who brought us Prop. 8, California’s 2008 anti-gay-marriage initiative, are demanding that the ruling against the proposition be set aside on the grounds of the judge’s bias, not because he’s gay – no they certainly would never suggest such a thing – but because he’s in a long-term relationship with another dude. If Judge Walker were having one-night stands with a different pickup from a leather bar every night, they would be okay with that. And a little bit aroused.
ProtectMarriage do not say in their appeal whether judges in heterosexual marriages, or indeed in long-term heterosexual relationships that might lead to marriage, should also recuse themselves.
