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Obama held a press conference with the South Korean president today.
On the alleged plot by Iran to hire some guy to hire Mexican drug lords to kill the Saudi ambassador to the US, he said the “facts are there for all to see,” and then mostly said he’d let the attorney general tell us what those facts are. But after all “we would not be bringing forward a case unless we knew exactly how to support all the allegations that are contained in the indictment.” See, that proves it, because everyone ever indicted by the US government is guilty. Quod erat demonstrandum. “What we can say is that there are individuals in the Iranian government who are aware of this plot.”
He accused Iran of “a pattern of dangerous and reckless behavior” and worse, “that Iran in fact has been hypocritical when it comes to dealing with the Arab Spring”. Oh noes, not being hypocritical, they are totally worse than Hitler. This hypocrisy is shown by “their own repressive activities,”
and by their propping up a repressive Middle Eastern government, Syria’s, while it’s “killing their own citizens.” Oh, the hypocrisy of it all.
Obama added, “We believe that even if at the highest levels there was not detailed operational knowledge, there has to be accountability with respect to anybody in the Iranian government engaging in this kind of activity.” Because if Obama stands for anything, it’s holding those at the highest levels of government accountable for bad behaviour.
The California referendum on women’s suffrage passes, very narrowly. Men in San Francisco and Oakland vote heavily against it, presumably because they feared women would bring in prohibition, but there is majority support in Los Angeles and the rural areas, which the NYT headlines as “California Farmers Give Votes to Women.”
Arthur, Duke of Connaught and uncle of the king (one of Victoria’s kids), arrives in Canada as the new governor-general.
The recall, initiative and referendum also pass (I’m assuming this means citizen-initiated ones, since referenda obviously already existed), ushering in the modern age of California politics, with medical marijuana and Prop. 13 and so on.
The Chinese Revolution is picking up steam. The slogan is “Down with the Manchus!” Especially Fu. I never trusted that guy.
An Italian proclamation assures the Libyans that they have not been enslaved by Italy. Rather, they have been liberated from the Ottoman yoke. So that’s okay then. And Libyans will be allowed to continue being Muslim, if that’s what they really want.
Headline of the Day -100: “Spanish Queen Sold for $10,000.” A horse named Spanish Queen, as it turns out.
What’s it been, two whole weeks since the last debate? How I’ve missed you, pointless debates. This one is all about the economy.
In honor of the Racist Rock of Doom, I will be referring to the esteemed governor of Texas as Ricky Poopyhead throughout. If you don’t like it, you can paint over his head. I may also have added a phrase to all of Herman Cain’s quotes.
Transcript.
Herman Cain started by talking about his 9-9-9 plan, and never stopped: “I have put my 9-9-9 plan on the table, and (I don’t have the facts to back this up, but) it starts with throwing out the current tax code and putting in the 9-9-9 plan.” So his plan starts with putting his plan in. Sounds like a plan!
Ricky Poopyhead wants to open up “this treasure trove that America’s sitting on”. I’ve never heard America’s ass called that before. “It’s time for another American Declaration of Independence. It’s time for energy independence.” Yes, drilling for oil is exactly like overthrowing British rule. Maybe the Teabaggers activists should stop dressing up in tricorn hats and start dressing up as the Men from Texaco (they work from Maine to... well, never mind). “But, clearly, we’re going to be focused on initially the energy industry in this country and making a America again independent, and clearly the place where domestic energy needs to be produced from.” Yes, America is the place where domestic energy needs to be produced from.
Asked what his economic plan is, Ricky Poopyhead whined that it wasn’t ready yet: “Mitt’s had six years to be working on a plan; I’ve been in this for about eight weeks.”
Bachmann says the economic collapse was not the fault of Wall Street but of federal regulation of the mortgage market and “Feddie,” er Freddie and Fannie. In fact (SPOILER ALERT), there will not be a single word of criticism of Wall Street or the bankers throughout this economy-themed debate.
Gingrich explains that the Occupyistas break down into two groups, professional left-wing agitators and “sincere middle-class people who, frankly, are very close to the tea party people in actually caring. You can tell which group is which. The people who are decent and responsible citizens pick up after themselves. The people who are just out there as activists trash the place and walk off and are proud of having trashed it. So let’s draw that distinction.” Trash the place and walk off, proud of having trashed it. Surely as apt a description of Wall Street, or indeed of Newt Gingrich’s entire career, as one could ask for. He called for firing Bernanke, which he would not have the power to do because the Fed chair serves a fixed term. He also wants to put Barney Frank and Chris Dodd in jail, because why not.
RICK SANTORUM DOESN’T WANT TO BRAG: Santorum brags: “I don’t want to brag, Governor, but Pennsylvania is the gas capital of the world right now, not Texas”. Oh, anywhere you happen to be is the gas capital of the world, Frothy.
Gingrich: “the most recent U.S. government intervention on whether or not to have prostate testing is basically going to kill people.” So Gingrich thinks you should get a prostate exam, guys. Should make for the catchiest campaign slogan since “Tippecanoe and Colonoscopies Too.”
Gingrich says Palin was unfairly attacked for the death panels thing. There are death panels and he’s against them. And for prostate exams, he can’t emphasize that enough.
Bachmann is also against death panels: “the way that ‘Obamacare’ runs, there’s a board called IPAB [Medicare’s Independent Payment Advisory Board]. It’s made up of 15 political appointees. These 15 political appointees will make all the major health care decisions for over 300 million Americans. I don’t want 15 political appointees to make a health care decision for a beautiful, fragile, 85-year-old woman who should be making her own decision.” And what does that beautiful, fragile, 85-year-old woman want? Pudding and the sweet release of death, I’m guessing. “I think that senior citizens across the country have no idea that President Obama plans for Medicare to collapse, and instead everyone will be pushed into ‘Obamacare.’”
Huntsman says he thought Cain’s 9-9-9 thing was the price of a pizza or something. Later, Bachmann says, “When you take the 9-9-9 plan and turn it upside down, I think the Devil is in the details.” You can tell which campaigns can’t afford gag writers.
What happens when you turn Michele Bachmann upside down? America wants to know. Well, I want to know.
That subtle 999 upside down reference is aimed at Herman “Mark of” Cain, because Teabaggers can’t remember which black person they’re supposed to think is the Antichrist in the same way that I got many Google Images hits from people looking for pictures of Sarah Palin eating a corn dog because they (understandably) mixed up Bachmann and Palin.
Cain explains that “(I don’t have the facts to back this up, but) 9-9-9 will pass, and it is not the price of pizza because, it has been well-studied and well-developed. ... It didn’t come off a pizza box, no.” Although oddly it does have cheese stuck on it.
WHERE MITTENS HAS SPENT HIS LIFE: Romney: “I’m not going to have to call up Timothy Geithner and say how does the economy work, because I’ve spent my life in the economy.” He also “wouldn’t keep Ben Bernanke in office. I’d choose someone of my -- of my own –” Again: fixed term; wouldn’t have the power to fire him; you can look this shit up. Twitt wouldn’t mind replacing Bernanke with Milton Friedman, except for the being dead part. “Although what Milton said to us was, he said, you know, if you took all the economists in America, and you laid them end to end, it would be a good thing.” Kinky.
By the way, the actual joke is that if all the economists were laid end to end, they still wouldn’t reach a conclusion, and it was made by Bernard Shaw.
CONCEPTUALLY: Cain evidently supported the Wall Street bailout in 2008. “Conceptually, I made that statement based upon the concept”.
WHY AMERICANS ARE SO UNTRUSTWORTHY: Rick Poopyhead: “One of the reasons that I think Americans are so untrustworthy of what’s going on is because they never see a cut in spending.”
Gingrich on the debt ceiling/supercommittee bill: “And the bill basically says: We’re either going to shoot ourselves in the head, or cut off our right leg. And we’ll come in and -- around Thanksgiving, and we’ll show you how we’re going to cut off the right leg. And the alternative will be shooting ourselves in the head.” I’m not sure what he’s talking about but I suspect you really don’t want to go to Newt’s house for Thanksgiving.
NOT JUST A VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS OF WASHINGTON, BUT A LEADING VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS OF WASHINGTON. Bachmann: “Charlie, last summer I was a leading voice in the wilderness of Washington, and a lone voice as a matter of fact, saying: Do not increase the debt ceiling.” She says that one day tax rates will be 75%. “I’m a federal tax lawyer; that’s what I do for a living.” Someone check her for head trauma, she seems to have forgotten the last 18 years of her life. She says that we have to cut spending and balance the budget and cut taxes. I’m sure it all adds up: she’s a federal tax lawyer, that’s what she does for a living, after all.
Charlie Rose helpfully points out that under Cain’s 9-9-9 plan, Americans would pay 9% more for pizza and beer.
Cain says that he doesn’t have the facts to back this up, but Americans would “have the flexibility to decide on how much they want to spend it on new goods, how much they want to spend it on used goods, because there is no tax on used goods.” So we’ll all have to buy our pizzas used, I guess.
Romney makes a joke about Chinese drivers, I’m guessing: “If you’re not willing to stand up to China, you’ll get run over by China. And that’s what’s happened for 20 years.” Sounds messy.
Ricky Poopyhead: “We’re missing this so much. What we need to be focused on in this country today is not whether or not we’re going to have this policy or that policy. What we need to be focused on is how we get America working again. That’s where we need to be focused.” As Yoda said, there is no policy, there is only do. Evidently if we just start drilling on “this absolute treasure trove of energy” we’re sitting on, manufacturing will come back from China. “You free up this country’s entrepreneurs where they know that they can risk their capital and have a chance to have a return on investment and all of this conversation that we’re having today becomes substantially less impactful.” Oh, I don’t think your conversation could possibly become less impactful, Governor Poopyhead.
Santorum says he wants to go to war with China.
THE AMERICAN PEOPLE WANT HEALTH CARE TO WORK LIKE A WHAT NOW? Romney says everyone else has to have a plan with which to replace Obamacare because “the American people are not satisfied with the status quo. They want us to solve the problem of health care, to get it to work like a market, and that’s what has to happen.”
After the break, the candidates were allowed to question each other.
Bachmann asks Ricky Poopyhead, You used to be a Democrat; why do you hate Ronald Reagan?
Cain asks Romney if he can name all 59 points in his plan, because he can tell you what all three 9’s in his plan are. The RomneyBot can, and starts to do just that.
Gingrich asks Romney why he proposes cutting capital-gains taxes only on people with income below $200,000 and not on the rich. Why are you fighting a class war against the rich, Mittens? Romney says the rich are doing fine and the very poor have a safety net (which he wants to destroy).
Romney asks Bachmann how she’d get people back to work. She begins by mentioning being “a mother of 28 children”, so I guess she’d get people back to work running baby farms. Also, she’d eliminate all government regulation. And Obamacare.
Santorum asks Cain how he’d stop Congress from increasing the the 9’s in the 9-9-9 plan. Cain says he would include a provision saying that future Congresses could only raise the taxes by a 2/3 majority. Such a provision would, of course, be unconstitutional.
Cain says he has two candidates to replace Bernanke, but “I cannot give their names”. I guess he didn’t have the names to back this up.
Cain says when he said that people shouldn’t blame Wall Street if they didn’t have a job, he didn’t mean people who don’t have jobs, he meant the protesters. So that’s okay then.
Romney is given a chance to say that he opposes Congressional Republicans letting the payroll tax rise, but he doesn’t, muttering something about little Band-Aids.
Ricky Poopyhead says the reason there’s poverty in America is because of Obama. Santorum says it’s because of the breakdown of the American family: “the word ‘home’ in Greek is the basis of the word ‘economy,’” he said as if he’d just proven something profound.
The candidates were asked how they could recognize the pain Americans are feeling. Bachmann says she and Marcus “have broken hearts for at-risk kids, Charlie. That’s why we took 23 foster children into our home.” I won’t even touch that one. Cain says he “was po’ before I was poor.” Which I guess means they couldn’t even afford an r and an extra o. Gingrich says he has unemployed relatives, and he occasionally thinks of them when shopping at Tiffany’s; “We have, I think, a pretty good sense of the pain level.” The empathy just flows off him, doesn’t it? Ron Paul says he believes in liberty. Huntsman says “And when I saw on the faces of people who had the dignity of a job, you knew what it meant to moms and dads and entire families.” So he, like, saw faces. Ricky Poopyhead and Twitt Romney ignored the question and said whatever they felt like saying.
I promise that I have now retired the “Ricky Poopyhead” thing forever.
New Jersey Governor Woodrow Wilson says that President Taft’s administration of anti-trust laws is haphazard and unpredictable “and you cannot conduct sound business upon a test of guessing.”
Two negroes are lynched in Caruthersville, Missouri. One was supposedly a robber, the other supposedly “attacked” two white women. 75 masked men broke down their jail cell doors, shot them up and left them floating in the Mississippi. Mayor Garrett says, “I am not a detective. Unless a complaint is made by some one who can prove that a mistake was made in killing the negro, I will take no action. I do not favor arresting anyone on suspicion.” His commitment to the rule of law is an example to us all.
One of New York State’s responses to the Triangle fire was to establish an office of state fire marshal, to investigate all fires outside the city of New York. The new fire marshal immediately asked for, and was granted, exemption from normal civil service rules in the appointment of deputies. The NYT accuses him of adopting the spoils system as “part of the sweeping patronage-grabbing of the machine controlling the party in power.”
Headline of the Day -100: “Fight Over Dead Whale.” A beached sperm whale in Ocean City, NJ. “The Ocean City officials don’t know what to do with it, but refuse to permit anyone else to do anything in fear that they will miss something.” Scientists want the organs and skeleton, but haven’t been allowed to harvest them, while the thing rots and the city negotiates to sell the blubber for oil and the whalebone for corsets.
Do you know where Sarah Palin is right now? The World Knowledge Forum, in Seoul. That is all.
Dr. Dumas, the mayor of Cass Lake, Minnesota, is found guilty for being part of a gang that burned and robbed a post office, and broke into safes and burned down buildings for the insurance money.
I don’t know how it’s come to this, but for the third year in a row I am blogging about the winner of the “highly-coveted Golden Spurtle.” But then, I’m informed that Anna Batchelor, who long-time readers will no doubt recall having won the specialty porridge category two years ago, has 1,400 followers on Twitter, so clearly I’ve been wasting my time covering politics. I can report that last year’s winner celebrated with a tattoo – of what, we are not informed, but presumably a bowl of porridge – and will now be getting a second one to celebrate his win in the specialty category.
Today is both World Porridge Day and Indigenous People’s Day (Berkeley only). Celebrate accordingly.
Name of the Day -100: McKinley’s secretary of the Interior Cornelius Bliss, who has died from heart disease “due in great measure to extreme age.” If you’re wondering what counted as extreme age in 1911, Bliss was 78.
Turkey is threatening to expel all Italians and impose a 100% surtax on Italian goods.
Headline of the Day -100: “Priests Lead Rebels With Crucifixes.” The failed royalist revolt in Portugal.
Italians capture Tobruk. The Turks are really crap at this whole war thing.
Italy issues a proclamation abolishing slavery in Libya.
Evangelist Billy Sunday calculates the cost of soul-saving in Boston at $450 per. Local ministers disagree, putting the cost at anywhere from $3.12 (Methodist) to $70 (Baptist) to $143 (Congregationalist).
Headline of the Day -100: “Killed in Straw Hat Row.” Well, it was out of season.
The Mexican consul at San Antonio has been recalled for the high crime of saying that “Texas is hell” after the lynching of a 14-year-old Mexican.
The Italian-Ottoman war continues to spread. Some sort of naval engagement (two different stories in today’s paper give very different accounts) leads to Italian destroyers firing on the Albanian town of St. Juan de Medua.
The NYT Sunday magazine section has an article on Cubism, the first mention of the movement listed in the NYT index (and the second to mention Picasso, “wildest of wild men”). It explains that Cubists “believe that the right way to paint persons and things is to paint them in cubes, squares, and lozenges.” “Is this art or madness? Who knows?” The article continues not knowing for several hundred words.
Italy has appointed Admiral Borea d’Olmo as the new governor of Libya. And the “cross of Christianity has been raised” over the land for the first time since 1551. So I guess Libya is Christian now.
A second trial of one of the Coatesville, PA lynch mob which burned Zack Walker, this one a 16-year-old, results in acquittal.
Something like 10,000 have been killed in the Chinese uprising. This time it gets 99 words in the NYT, which is an improvement.
Headline of the Day -100 (LAT): “Auto Strikes Angel.” Someone named Lewis Angel.
Obama held a not-very-interesting press conference today.
CLEAR! “Our economy really needs a jolt right now.”
BUT YOU’LL TELL US WHEN IT IS THE TIME FOR THE USUAL POLITICAL GRIDLOCK, RIGHT? “This is not a game; this is not the time for the usual political gridlock.”
RICH PEOPLE AREN’T ASKING FOR TAX CUTS? RICH PEOPLE ARE ALWAYS ASKING FOR TAX CUTS. “We can fight to protect tax cuts for folks who don’t need them and weren’t asking for them, or we can cut taxes for virtually every worker and small business in America.”
THAT’S A RHETORICAL QUESTION, RIGHT? “historically, Republicans haven’t been opposed to rebuilding roads and bridges. Why would you be opposed now?”
WHAT THE AMERICAN PEOPLE HAVE BEEN FOR A LONG TIME: “The American people are very frustrated. They’ve been frustrated for a long time.”
Have you heard about this Occupy Wall Street thing? “Obviously I’ve heard of it. I’ve seen it on television.” No word on whether he’s keeping up on the economic plight of ordinary Americans by watching “Two Broke Girls.” “So, yes, I think people are frustrated”. And evidently they’re mostly frustrated by Republicans who want to roll back Dodd-Frank. And bankers and the financial system and whatnot. If they’re frustrated by Obama and the Democrats in any way at all, Obama must not have seen evidence of it on television.
Jake Tapper asks if they aren’t frustrated that no one on Wall Street has been prosecuted. Obama says that’s because all those corrupt practices were actually legal and shouldn’t be. Way to undercut future prosecutions.
Re “Fast and Furious” (selling guns that went to Mexico so we could track them, without the actual tracking them part), he has “complete confidence” in Attorney General Eric Holder, who has “indicated that he was not aware of what was happening in Fast and Furious,” which you’d think would undercut that complete confidence just a little bit, but evidently not. “And I think both he and I would have been very unhappy if somebody had suggested that guns were allowed to pass through that could have been prevented by the United States of America.” So that’s okay then.
IRONY! “The irony is the same folks that the Republicans claim to be protecting, the well off -- the millionaires and the billionaires -- they’d be doing better, they’d be making more money if ordinary Americans had some money in their pockets and were out there feeling more confident about the economy. That’s been the lesson of our history -- when folks in the middle and at the bottom are doing well, the folks at the top do even better.” Heads, the rich win, tails the rich still win.
Oh, and that is not at all the lesson of our history.
GIVE ME WHAT I WANT, OR I’LL GO MAKE SOME MORE SPEECHES: “I would love nothing more than to not have to be out there campaigning because we were seeing constructive action here in Congress. ... And I would love nothing more than to see Congress act so aggressively that I can’t campaign against them as a do-nothing Congress.” The R’s must really be trembling in fear right now.
“It is reported to be the ambition of King Victor Emmanuel to extend his African possessions and attract there Italian emigration so as to make a vast Italian empire and resurrect for his house the title of the ancient Roman Emperors.”
Headline of the Day -100: “Mayor Buys More Potatoes.”
Italy is bombarding Tripoli.
Dr. Joseph Bell, Arthur Conan Doyle’s model for Sherlock Holmes, dies.
LA Times, “Concerning Woman Suffrage”: “Voting is not, as is often loudly asserted, ‘a right.’ If it is a right, why is it refused to men who are only 20 years and 364 days old? Why is it refused to men over 21 who have been in the State only 364 days? Why is it refused to men because their skins are yellow? Why is it withheld from Alaskans, and Porto Ricans, and Fillipinos?” All good questions.
British Home Secretary Winston Churchill gives a speech in which he alludes to the increasing number of war scares in Europe lately, but reassures his Dundee constituents that “States and Governments to-day find themselves bound together, interlaced and interwoven one with another, by the tenacious network of trade interests, of commercial transactions, of intercommunication, of reciprocal insurance, and of friendly connection. They find themselves standing upon the dizzy and precarious platform of international credit and complex artificial industry, a platform which, were it to collapse or be violently overturned, would produce consequences which no man and no monarch can foretell.” He adds that the strongest nations – Britain, Germany and France – are those with the most to lose and the furthest to fall in the event of war, so they’ll try to prevent one. So that’s okay then.
Turkey may respond to the Italian attack on Libya by occupying the coast of the Italian colony of Eritrea.
Austria threatens Italy over the seeming expansion of its operations against Turkey into the vicinity of Albania, and will send some warships there, just to make its point clear.
Italy is pretending to believe that Turkey had plans to use its vast navy to attack the Italian coast and merchant ships. So Italy was justified in pre-emptively defending itself.
More monarchist uprisings in Portugal. Easily put down.
Headline of the Day -100: “Commodities Little Excited by the War.”
Obama spoke this evening at the Human Rights Campaign’s annual dinner. I assume he dined on the flesh of his enemies. The Human Rights Campaign is a gay group, so he started off with a joke about how he had held “productive bilateral talks with your leader, Lady Gaga.” Stop trying to make jokes, Barry. Just stop.
Fox News begs to differ.
INSERT, ER, INTERJECT YOUR OWN DOUBLE ENTENDRE HERE: “you should never have to look over your shoulder -- to be gay in the United States of America.”
INTERJECT YOUR OWN DOUBLE ENTENDRE HERE: “it took two years to get the [Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell] repeal through Congress. (Applause.) We had to hold a coalition together. We had to keep up the pressure. We took some flak along the way.” Adding, “No one has to live a lie to serve the country they love.” I was contemplating some joke about him being a Kenyan or something when it occurred to me that somewhere along the line the phrase “serve their country” has come to mean military service exclusively.
He does keep inching closer and closer to supporting gay marriage, without ever quite doing so. Zeno’s Gay Marriage Paradox. He warned today against those trying to turn back the clock, “who, as we speak, are looking to enshrine discrimination into state laws and constitutions,” which can only mean bans on gay marriage, but I guess he wants credit for supporting marriage equality without saying words that would be used in attack ads. Sigh.
He castigates the candidates at the last debate for not criticizing the audience members who booed the gay soldier dude. “You want to be commander in chief? You can start by standing up for the men and women who wear the uniform of the United States, even when it’s not politically convenient.” Kind of a weird sentence, that.
Evidently progress in America “happens when a father realizes he doesn’t just love his daughter, but also her wife.” But not in a creepy way.
That said, any time Obama refers to someone in a gay marriage as a husband or wife – I believe I’ve noticed him doing so once before – it counts as a win.
“It [progress, that is] happens when a soldier tells his unit that he’s gay, and they tell him they knew it all along and they didn’t care, because he was the toughest guy in the unit.” Heh, he said “toughest guy in the unit.” Note that to be accepted, gay soldiers evidently have to be “tougher” than straight soldiers.
The Italian fleet is bombarding Tripoli.
Almost 1,000 people, one-fourth the population of Austin, Pennsylvania, are killed by flood and fire when the new, badly built dam bursts (the fire was the result of flood waters rupturing natural gas pipes). (Update: or maybe just 78 people died, according to Wikipedia.) The nearby small town of Costello is wiped out, “not a building standing on its foundation,” but a man in an automobile raced to give the town warning of the flood, arriving 3 minutes ahead of the waters, which gave most of the population time to flee into the hills.
Evidently the Southern Pacific Railroad has come out against women’s suffrage in California (referendum coming up in a couple of weeks).
Maybe someone can confirm (or refute) something I read somewhere or other, that the Saudi king’s magnanimous grant to women of the right to vote in elections in 2015 for the minority of members of mostly powerless municipal councils is subject to those women’s male owners relatives’ giving them written permission to vote?
Italy declares war on Turkey, which looks like it plans to roll over and not resist the occupation of Libya. Italian troops have landed, and Italian cruisers fired on Turkish transports.
The rest of Europe is mostly concerned with keeping the fighting localized, which may be difficult as other Ottoman provinces, including Albania and Crete, are showing signs of unrest.
The NYT notes that no one believes Italy’s pretext of disorder in Libya and danger to Italian subjects and businesses there, and says that Italy is without justification, but “The dying nations must yield as the living nations press forward, just as savage tribes in all history have been forced back or annihilated by the advance of civilization. ... If any race could set up a claim to be the Tripolitans by indigenous right it would be the Arabs” but “There is nothing national about Tripoli. She is and has been a possession, and, like a negotiable instrument, passes from hand to hand.”
In Mexico’s presidential elections tomorrow -100, men can vote at 18 if married and 21 if unmarried. Madero is for all intents and purposes unopposed.
Headline of the Day -100: “Taft in Circus Tent Ends Tour of Iowa.” Sometimes he just liked to feel pretty.
The American Federation of Catholic Societies comes out against the new edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Evidently, all the articles on religion weren’t written by Catholics.
Obama answered some questions from Hispanics. Asked about Cuba, he more or less said that he would lift sanctions if it released political prisoners and had human rights. What, asked one of the hosts, they could still have a socialist economy? Obama, realizing his mistake, quickly backtracked: “Well, it’s very hard to separate liberty from some economic reforms.” Everyone would have to have a right to start their own business, for example. “So some elements of freedom are included in how an economic system works.” So it’s official: Obama thinks “freedom” must include capitalism.
Not addressed: the program under which the Border Patrol now transports Mexicans caught crossing the border illegally to some other random part of the border thousands of miles away before pushing them back over the border, just to be dicks.
40,000 Italian troops are off the coast of Libya. Italy has sent an ultimatum to the Turks that unless they agree to an Italian occupation of Tripoli, Italy will occupy Tripoli.
Hah! Just kidding; I’m not gonna read David Brooks.
US Steel says that it’s not an illegal monopoly and won’t dissolve itself “either voluntarily or at the demand of the Government.”
The French battleship Liberté blows up and sinks at Toulon, the explosion also damaging several nearby battleships. 300 or so people are killed, including 200 of the crew and people on other ships and in the port.
Before:
After:
The Liberté’s captain, who was not on board when it exploded, was Louis Jaurès, whose brother Jean was leader of the Socialist Party and a pacifist MP who was assassinated a couple of days before World War I began.
President Taft gives a speech to the National Conservation Congress in Kansas City. He says that agricultural productivity must be increased if the US is to feed its ever-increasing population. But he is optimistic that the US can support the 200,000,000 Americans that he predicts might exist in 50 years, although he does not say if that’s 200 million Taft-sized Americans or the economy-sized ones.
The State Dept says it doesn’t care if Italy invades and takes over Libya, as long as American traders still have rights under the Treaty of Tripoli (1796-7).
The Denver Evening Post suggests that the Philippines be sold to Japan, since the Filipinos have proven too uncivilized to ever be given self-government.
In Belfast, a conference of Unionist leaders pledges not to acknowledge any Irish government established under Home Rule and to create a provisional government for Northern Ireland in the event of Home Rule.
Booker T. Washington charters a Pullman car for his sole use to avoid Jim Crow laws while traveling in Texas.
The NYT seems to think that in any war, Italy, with its larger, more modern navy, would definitely beat the Ottoman Empire, which has an army 1 million men larger.
The timing of the Italian move on North Africa derives from a claim that it deserves to be “compensated” for France’s achieving exclusive dominance over Morocco by being given similar status in Tripoli.
Some reverend dude giving a sermon against booze read out a letter from President Taft: “The excessive use of intoxicating liquor is the cause of great poverty and crime... Each person must determine for himself the course he will take in reference to his taste and appetites; but those who exercise the self-restraint to avoid it altogether are on the safer and wiser side.” Well, if anyone knows about exercising self-restraint, it’s William Howard Taft.
No war in Europe! France and Germany agree on Africa carve-up: France gets Morocco, with safeguards for German businesses, and Germany gets 150,000 square miles of the French Congo. Germans are evidently pretty pissed off at Britain for siding with France, which ensured that Germany didn’t get nearly as much out of its gunboat diplomacy as it expected.
War in Europe? Italy prepares two army corps and a naval squadron for war with the Ottoman Empire over Libya.
Headline of the Day -100: “New York Too Gay For Tampa Sheriff.” A Tampa deputy – nicknamed Babe – arrived to take an embezzler back to Florida, but decided to have a little fun on the town first. More than a week later, Tampa had to send another deputy, a teetotaler this time, to bail out the first deputy and bring them both back.
I couldn’t find a transcript for the Republican debate last night, so I thought I was off the hook but oh look, here it is, sigh. The debate was sponsored by Google and the Florida Republican Party. Make your own joke about old people and computers.
Perry brags of tort reform that “told personal injury trial lawyers, don’t come to Texas”. Evidently no personal injury trial lawyers are Texans, they all sneak in from elsewhere, possibly Mexico.
234 EXECUTIONS? Perry: “People understand that the state of Texas, during the last decade, something special happened there.”
Romney says Obama has hurt the middle class, but when asked to define where the category of the rich begins, absolutely refused: “I don’t try and define who’s -- who’s rich and who’s not rich,” adding, but if you buy a McMansion as a vacation home, then knock it down to build a bigger one, you might just be... a completely regular guy, who’s middle class just like you. JUST. LIKE. YOU.
Asked how much people should pay in taxes, Michele Bachmann said zero. “You should get to keep every dollar that you earn. ... Obviously, we have to give money back to the government so that we can run the government, but we have to have a completely different mindset. And that mindset is, the American people are the genius of this economy. It certainly isn’t government that’s the genius.” Um, right.
Oh, and Obama has “destroyed the economy.”
Santorum wants to ban collective bargaining by public-sector unions.
Gingrich opposes extending unemployment benefits without mandatory “training.” “I believe deeply, people should not get money for doing nothing,” adding that he prefers giving people Tiffany jewelry in exchange for blowjobs.
Perry: “For those people that are approaching Social Security, they don’t have anything in the world to worry about,” adding, except for their approaching deaths, of course.
Romney and Perry each accuse the other of retreating from things they wrote in their own books. Next week, they’ll be discussing The Bridges of Madison County. Romney adds, “And I believe that the people of this country can read my book and see exactly what it is,” adding, except for people who went to school in Texas, obviously.
Governor Romney, is Obama a socialist? He won’t say, but “what President Obama is, is a big-spending liberal. And he takes his political inspiration from Europe and from the socialist democrats in Europe. Guess what? Europe isn’t working in Europe. It’s not going to work here.” Remember, Romney knows all about Europe, from all that time he spent failing to get French people to convert to Mormonism.
Romney makes a widdle joke: “I only spent four years as a governor. I didn’t inhale.” Really, the RomneyBot’s manufacturers should have made him more life-like.
Santorum, near as I can make him out, calls for the abolition of state education, because it interferes with parental responsibility to educate their children.
Everyone is against the federal government having any role in education whatsoever. Most say they would shut down the Department of Education, no one says they would keep it open. And they want school choice and vouchers.
Romney says the talk about smaller classrooms being a good thing is just propaganda by the teachers’ unions. He says as president he will stand up to the national teachers’ unions, which is odd because he just said that we need to get the federal government out of education.
Romney says he “just can’t follow” Perry’s argument that children of undocumented aliens should be educated. He calls it a magnet.
Perry says “if you say that we should not educate children who have come into our state for no other reason than they’ve been brought there by no fault of their own, I don’t think you have a heart,” risking offending the largest constituency in the Republican party, those without hearts.
Romney on Israel: “You don’t allow an inch of space to exist between you and your friends and allies.” Kinky. “The right course -- if you disagree with an ally, you talk about it privately. But in public, you stand shoulder-to-shoulder with your allies.” So foreign policy should be secretive and hypocritical and hidden from the American people. No change there, then.
Oo, a hypothetical, everyone loves a hypothetical: what would you do if the Pakistan’s nuclear weapons fell into the hands of the Taliban. Perry says that he would already have built “a relationship in that region,” which Obama hasn’t. What, military aid and drone attacks aren’t a relationship?
Perry refers to Pakistan as “the Pakistani country.”
Also, he’d sell weapons to India. And Taiwan. Because that would totally help if the Taliban got nukes.
Santorum thinks we should establish relationships with exiled President Musharraf, and then would respond to the hypothetical, which he reinterprets as a Taliban coup in Pakistan, by invading Pakistan and re-installing Musharraf as dictator.
THIS IS MY RIFLE, THIS IS MY GUN: After the famous booing by the audience of the gay soldier, Santorum said: “I would say any type of sexual activity has absolutely no place in the military.” Except jerking off to prisoners of war stacked in naked human pyramids, obviously. “And the fact that they’re making a point to include it as a provision within the military that we are going to recognize a group of people and give them a special privilege to -- to -- and removing ‘don’t ask/don’t tell’ I think tries to inject social policy into the military.” (Heh, he said “inject”). Pretending that gay people don’t exist and ordering them to repress evidence of their sexuality is, I guess, somehow, not injecting social policy into the military. Note that Santorum stalled out when he tried to say what “special privilege” gay people would be getting. He said said that in the future, “we would move forward in conformity with what was happening in the past. Which was, sex is not an issue. It should not be an issue. Leave it alone. Keep it to yourself whether you are heterosexual or homosexual.” (Heh, he said keep “it” to yourself.)
Ron Paul: “nobody can out-do me on respect for life. I’ve spent a lifetime dealing with life.”
Applause line:
WALLACE: Mr. Cain, you are a survivor of stage 4 colon and liver cancer. And you say, if Obamacare had been...
(APPLAUSE)
Given how the audiences at these things have been behaving, I can only assume that they were applauding stage 4 colon and liver cancer.
Bachmann denies ever having said that the HPV vaccine causes retardation. “I didn’t make that claim nor did I make that statement.” She adds that Perry “gave parental rights to a big drug company.”
HOW PERRY WILL ALWAYS ERR: Perry says he “erred on the side of life” and he will always err on the side of life.
WHAT NO OTHER PEOPLE ON EARTH DO: Romney: “We place our hand over our heart during the playing of the national anthem. No other people on Earth do that.”
WAY TO MAKE FUN OF A DUDE WITH ALZHEIMER’S, FROTHY: Santorum: “The last words Ronald Reagan said as president of the United States in his farewell address, he was concerned about the future of our country because we were forgetting who we were, didn’t remember what America was really all about.”
Johnson made a dog shit joke.
Asked who among the other candidates they’d pick as their running mate, Johnson said Paul, Santorum said Gingrich, Gingrich called the question a “Hollywood game,” adding, “I don’t have any idea who I would pick as the vice presidential nominee.” He’s really thought through this whole running-for-president thing, hasn’t he? Perry indulges in some slash fiction: “I don’t know how you would do this, but if you could take Herman Cain and mate him up with Newt Gingrich, I think you would have a couple of really interesting guys to work with.” Um, right. Paul, Romney and Bachmann refuse to answer, or to say who they’d like to see pair up. Huntsman says he’d pick Cain, because they have similar taste in ties (yellow).
Bellicose Headline of the Day -100: “Italian Navy Ready for War.” With Turkey if it refuses to let Italy establish a “protectorate” over Libya (as they did not then call the Ottoman province of Tripoli).
Thomas Edison is enjoying a vacation in Germany. He declares himself feeling much improved. Not so improved is the child his car ran over and killed (the report does not say if he was driving).
At an air show or county fair or something in Troy, Ohio, aviator Frank Miller, who had been reluctant to go up in a malfunctioning airplane, is shamed into it by the crowd calling him a coward. The plane’s engine cut out and then exploded and Miller was “burned to a crisp” mid-air. But at least he wasn’t a coward.
In a speech in Peoria, President Taft admits that he never wanted to be president, he wanted to be chief justice of the Supreme Court. What an odd thing for someone hoping to be re-elected in a year to say out loud.
The Boston Globe (paywall or registration thingy) says that the final straw for Abbas was a letter from the State Department which tried to persuade him not to seek UN recognition by saying that Palestinians had to consider Israel’s security needs and the “demographic changes” since 1967, i.e., the settlements. For some reason, this pissed off the Palestinians.
Canada’s Liberal government loses the elections spectacularly (to the extent that any Canadian election can be described as spectacular), killing the chances of the tariff reciprocity treaty with the United States. I guess Canada didn’t want to be annexed after all. President Taft is surprised and disappointed, and the NYT is downright insulting: “Prejudice and delusion have triumphed in Canada”.
A war engine being tested in Italy exploded, killing 6 people. I really don’t know what a “war engine” might have been, not in 1911 anyway.
The NYT explains that the collision of the Olympic is “distinctly reassuring” about the safety of the big new liners.
The LAT explains its opposition to women’s suffrage: women don’t want it. “Woman has ‘rights,’ cares and burdens enough. Her supreme ‘right’ is the right NOT to vote. ... The Times honors and respects the women of Los Angeles more than those who are trying to lure them from the mellow radiance of the home into the fierce glare of publicity.”
You can read the ballot pamphlet arguments for and against Prop. 8.
Today, Barack Obama spoke to the United Nations General Assembly (you know, the part of the UN where we can’t veto Palestinian statehood).
JUST TWO? I THINK NOT. “I took office at a time of two wars for the United States. Moreover, the violent extremists who drew us into war in the first place -- Osama bin Laden, and his al Qaeda organization -- remained at large.” You’ll notice he had to specify who he meant by “the violent extremists who drew us into war,” lest people think he meant Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc. You will also have noticed that Obama buys into the claim that Al Qaida was somehow responsible for “drawing us into war” in Iraq.
SEVERAL THOUSAND TROOPS STATIONED THERE, LARGE MILITARY BASES, ARMS SALES, YOU KNOW, A NORMAL RELATIONSHIP: “At the end of this year, America’s military operation in Iraq will be over. We will have a normal relationship with a sovereign nation that is a member of the community of nations.”
OBAMA NEVER WANTS US TO BE IN DOUBT: “So let there be no doubt: The tide of war is receding.”
NOT ANTHONY WEINER DEGRADED, BUT, YOU KNOW, DEGRADED: “even as al Qaeda is under more pressure than ever before. Its leadership has been degraded.”
IT’S NOT A SPEECH BY A US PRESIDENT TO THE UN ABOUT PEACE UNLESS HE’S DANCING AROUND SOME CORPSE OR OTHER: “And Osama bin Laden, a man who murdered thousands of people from dozens of countries, will never endanger the peace of the world again.” Thousands of people – personally?
ER, RIGHT, BURIED WITH HIM: “Osama bin Laden is gone, and the idea that change could only come through violence has been buried with him.”
ALSO, COMEDY: “But let us remember: Peace is hard. Peace is hard.”
After mentioning various Middle Eastern countries violently oppressing their peoples – Syria, Yemen, etc – he says “In Bahrain, steps have been taken toward reform and accountability. We’re pleased with that, but more is required.” He neglects to mention that that government too has slaughtered its opponents. And Saudi Arabia slips his mind altogether, for some reason.
DESERVE: “One year ago, I stood at this podium and I called for an independent Palestine. I believed then, and I believe now, that the Palestinian people deserve a state of their own.” There’s a lot of arrogance packed into that word “deserve.”
I FEEL ASSURED. DON’T YOU FEEL ASSURED? “Now, I know that many are frustrated by the lack of progress. I assure you, so am I.”
SO SUCK IT, UNITED NATIONS: “Peace will not come through statements and resolutions at the United Nations”.
THERE’S THAT WORD AGAIN: “Israel deserves recognition. It deserves normal relations with its neighbors.”
HOW THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN DEADLOCK WILL BE BROKEN: “And the deadlock will only be broken when each side learns to stand in the other’s shoes, each side can see the world through the other’s eyes.” Yeah, because the problem is that they don’t understand each other enough, not that they understand each other perfectly. This is the internationalization of Obama’s belief that he can convert Republicans to reasonableness if he only explains things logically to them one more time.
In the odds & bits section of the speech, he talked a bit about nuclear weapons (i.e., Iran), climate change, and said, “we must stand up for the rights of gays and lesbians everywhere,” although he fails to mention by name any country that might be infringing on those rights.
Anthony Comstock (of Comstock Act fame) arraigns a Mrs. Bertha Hussmann for mailing a postcard to her husband which called him a “spitzbub.” Comstock thought she was calling him a thief, which would violate laws against mailing anything of a “defamatory, libelous, and scurrilous character,” but in fact the word better translates from the German as scamp or rascal. Use it in a sentence today.
Last week -100, 2,000 Chinese rebels were slain. You’d think that would be worth more than two sentences in the NYT. You would be wrong.
The White Star liner Olympic, the largest vessel afloat, collides with the HMS Hawke, limps back to Southampton. The NYT blames the Hawke, but an investigation will blame the Olympic and its captain, Edward Smith, for failing to yield the right of way. Smith’s next command will be the Titanic (another link between the collisions of the Olympic and that of the Titanic: the repairs to the Olympic tied up facilities and delayed the launching of the Titanic). 60 millionaires were on board, including Waldorf Astor, who was, um, related in some way to John Jacob Astor IV, who went down on the Titanic.
Rick Perry: “The Obama policy of moral equivalency which gives equal standing to the grievances of Israelis and Palestinians, including the orchestrators of terrorism, is a very dangerous insult.” No one can accuse Perry of giving equal or, you know, any, standing to the grievances of the Palestinians.
Perry opposes a freeze on Israeli settlements on occupied territories, because of course he does.
He added, “As a Christian, I have a clear directive to support Israel.” Directive?
