This must be some definition of honorable with which I was not previously familiar

Sgt Frank Wuterich, the only person involved in the Haditha Massacre the military managed to convict of anything, if not actually put in prison, has been given a general discharge under honorable conditions from the Marine Corps.

He gets to keep all his veterans benefits, because of course he does.

Today -100: February 23, 1912: The fight is on and I am stripped to the buff

Teddy Roosevelt is rumored to have told an Ohio politician who asked him about maybe possibly running for president again: “My hat is in the ring. The fight is on and I am stripped to the buff.”

There’s a taxicab drivers’ strike in Paris. Strikers have been leaving bombs in taxis, blowing up 20 so far.

Headline of the Day -100: “Fruit Man Attacks Court.”

(Update: Let’s pair that one – or should I say pear that? – no, no I shouldn’t – with a headline from tomorrow -100’s paper: “Butter Men Try to Stop Inquiry.”)

Republican Debate #20: Oh, look at him talking about these things

Transcript, part 1, 2, 3, 4.

CNN asked those of us watching at home to rise for the National Anthem. I did not, and surprisingly was not struck down by lightning bolts from Uncle Jesus and/or Uncle Sam.

BE VEWWY VEWWY QUIET: The CNN intro calls Ron Paul “the delegate hunter.”

HEH HEH, HE SAID BOTTOM: In their opening statements, Santorum says he wants to “include everybody from the bottom up,” because it’s always nice to start a debate off with a good snigger.

(Update: searching the transcript, I find that Santorum said Ron Paul is in the bottom half of Republicans by conservative voting record, he used the phrase “bottom line” 3 times, and no one else used the word bottom at all. Hmmm.)


MASTER OF HIS DOMAIN: Romney says the promise that if you worked hard, went to school and learned the values of America, you’d be rich and secure has been broken by Obama. Bad Obama, bad! Then he (mis)quotes George Costanza (when they’re applauding, stop) (I see Romney as more of an Elaine, what do you think?).

Gingrich promises $2.50 a gallon gasoline.

Ron Paul explains that the reason his commercial says that Rick Santorum is a fake is because Rick Santorum is a fake. Santorum offers to let Paul touch him.

SANTORUM: I’m real, John. I’m real.

PAUL: Congratulations.

SANTORUM: Thank you.

Paul: foreign aid goes to “all our enemies.”

For the second time, Romney says that if businesses don’t balance their budgets, they go out of business. Hey, have you noticed that that doesn’t happen with nations,* so that maybe that analogy is flawed?

*except Greece.

Santorum admits he was an “earmarker,” defends it by saying the government’s budget priorities aren’t always right and he had to redress them in Congress. And he would ban earmarks. Mittens says he didn’t follow that. Mittens admits he asked for earmarks for the Olympics, defends it by saying it’s traditional. And he would ban earmarks. Also, too, the bridge to nowhere.


Mittens keeps mentioning the Olympics, because surely Americans’ love of luge and bobsledding will propel him straight into the White House.

Gingrich’s attempts to smile avuncularly are astonishingly creepy.

Romney says Obama “gave” the auto companies to the UAW. Gingrich says the bailout was “an unprecedented violation of 200 years of bankruptcy law by Barack Obama to pay off the UAW”.

Paul: “I opt for the free market in defense of liberty. That's what we need in this country.”

GINGRICH ALWAYS WANTS TO BE CLEAR: Gingrich to moderator John King: “But I just want to point out, you did not once in the 2008 campaign, not once did anybody in the elite media ask why Barack Obama voted in favor of legalizing infanticide. OK? So let’s be clear here.”


LOOK AT HIM. LOOK AT HIM!!! Asked about his opposition to contraception, Santorum complains about children raised out of wedlock, which would obviously cease to happen if we outlawed Planned Parenthood, or something. “The left gets all upset. ‘Oh, look at him talking about these things.’”

DON’T BLAME THE PILLS. Ron Paul says it’s not the pills (i.e., The Pill) that create immorality, “I think the immorality creates the problem of wanting to use the pills. So you don’t blame the pills.” He invokes the NRA slogan “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” So I guess pills don’t fuck people, sluts do. Or something. At any right, libertarian Ron Paul is no more in favor of women having sexual autonomy than anyone else on that stage.

Romney also hates out-of-wedlock births, which are especially high “among certain ethnic groups.”

Romney denies that the Catholic Church in Massachusetts was ever forced to provide Morning After pills to rape victims, that’s just crazy talk.

THE POWER OF FORCE: Gingrich says that’s not what he heard, and this just shows the problem with government providing services: “you inevitably move towards tyranny, because the government has the power of force.” Astonishing (well, no it isn’t, not at this stage in the degeneration of our political discourse) that Gingrich could talk about the power of force in this scenario and not be referring to that used by the rapist, whose victim Gingrich is trying to force to carry his baby, because otherwise you’d have tyranny.

See in this scenario, the Republicans see the Catholic Church as the real victim, not the rape victim.

Everyone talks about how they hate Planned Parenthood. As well as planned parenthood.


WHO KNEW? This is new: Romney says we once have Obamacare because Arlen Specter voted for it, and Arlen Specter (“the pro-choice senator of Pennsylvania”) was only re-elected because Santorum supported him, so Obamacare is all Santorum’s fault. “So don’t look at me. Take a look in the mirror.”

Gingrich would move half of Homeland Security personnel to the border with Mexico.

Someone was wondering who would be the first to talk about the threat of Hezbollah in Latin America. It was Romney.

Gingrich denies that Iran is a rational actor. And that if Israel, which presumably is a rational actor, wants to bomb Iran... (I put in the ellipses because he didn’t finish the sentence).

Gingrich: “I’m inclined to believe dictators.” Well, Santorum’s inclined to believe the voices in his head, so...

VOTE FOR OBAMA AND THE WORLD BURNS: Twitt Romney says Obama shouldn’t have removed Eastern European Star Wars sites without getting Russia to support “crippling sanctions” against Iran in exchange. And Obama shouldn’t oppose Israel taking military action against Iran. And we should take military action against Iran. If Obama is elected, Iran will have nukes “and some day, nuclear weaponry will be used. If I am president, that will not happen. If we reelect Barack Obama, it will happen.”

Santorum: Syria and Iran is an axis. And Obama is “afraid to stand up to Iran.”

The first thing Gingrich would do to deal with Syria would be drilling on federal lands and offshore and eliminating the EPA.

Gingrich and Romney say we should get our good buddies in the Middle East to arm the Syrian opposition.

Gingrich: “This is an administration which, as long as you’re America’s enemy, you’re safe. You know, the only people you’ve got to worry about is if you’re an American ally.”


I’LL BET HE DID, I’LL BET HE DID: Santorum voted for No Child Left Behind in the Senate even though it was against his principles, to “take one for the team,” even though he was always picked last for the team, I mean every single time. But he made a mistake and will never support education again in any way, shape or form. Also, he’s “a home schooling father of seven,” so for god’s sake give me a job so I can get away from the little fuckers.

Romney just wants to screw the teachers’ unions.

Gingrich says teachers’ unions don’t care about the kids. And something about schools teaching self-esteem.

(Somewhere in there, but it seems to be missing from the transcript, the candidates were asked to summarize themselves in one word, Gingrich said cheerful, Romney said sneezy, Santorum said dopey, and Paul said sleepy. Actually, Romney said resolute, although if you don’t like that word he’ll come up with another one.)


What’s the biggest misconception about you?

Paul: That I’m a hobbit That I can’t win. Why there was this one poll one time in Iowa that showed that I could maybe win.

Gingrich ignored the question. Romney did the same, except King called him on it. Romney: “You know, you get to ask the questions want, I get to give the answers I want” “Fair enough,” King responds. No, not really, but those words tell you everything you need to know about cable news.

Santorum says his campaign shows he’s “someone who can do a lot with a little.” The fact that he has a lot of children also shows that.

He has a tiny penis, is what I’m saying.

Actually, he is a tiny penis, is what I’m saying.

What’s your one-word summary?

Today -100: February 22, 1912: Of martians, recalls, and duels

Headline of the Day -100: “What Martians Are Like.” Edmond Perrier, the director of the French Botanical Society, says they’re tall, like Scandinavians, but twice the size of human beings, with big noses and white hair and thin legs and no necks.

Addressing the Ohio constitutional convention, Theodore Roosevelt endorses the recall of judges (as well as other progressive causes such as the initiative, referendum, and direct election of senators and presidential electors), flatly disagreeing with the view that “the American people are not fitted for popular government, and that it is necessary to keep the judiciary ‘independent of the majority of the people.’” Just like Newt Gingrich! Though he does not say it, everyone knows that keeping the judiciary independent of the majority the people is a strongly held view of President Taft, who vetoed statehood for Arizona until it removed a provision for judicial recall from its constitution. TR, however, says that “it is both absurd and degrading to make a fetish of a judge or of any one else.” Of course, Scarlett Johansson hadn’t been invented yet. He gives as an example of the sort of judicial behaviour the people should be able to reverse by referendum the recent NY court of appeals decision striking down a workmen’s compensation act. He’s saying, basically, that the final say on the proper interpretation of the Constitution should belong to the people.

The NYT declares that by this speech, Roosevelt has removed himself from the Republican Party. The editorial declares him a dangerous radical.

The commander of the Palatine Guard at the Vatican, a nephew of the late Pope Leo XIII, challenges Prince Alberi to a duel. The pope sends him a letter telling him to knock it off.

Today -100: February 20, 1912: Of justices, corruption, lynchings, and republican forms of government

President Taft nominates Mahlon Pitney to fill the vacant Supreme Court position. Pitney is a former congresscritter, a former justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court, and is currently Chancellor of New Jersey, whatever that means. He was also the great-grandfather of actor Christopher Reeve.

Sen. Isaac Stephenson (R-Wisc) is exonerated by a Senate committee of a charge of winning his seat through corruption. The minority report, however, signed by 2 Republicans and 2 Democrats, notes that he spent $107,793 on his 1908 campaign and that the state legislators who supported him also spent large sums, saying (actually quoting the majority report), “Such expenditures were in violation of the fundamental principles underlying our system of Government, which contemplated the selection of candidates by the electors and not the selection of electors by the candidate.” How quaint.

Secretary of State Knox has decided not to go to Colombia after all.

A Shelby, Tenn. mob keeps trying to lynch three black men accused of killing a railroad cop who “had tried to quiet boisterous negroes in the ‘Jim Crow’ car.” In two separate attacks, the mob has killed one of the men and wounded the others.

The Supreme Court, in a case brought by the Pacific States Telegraph and Telephone Company, refuses to declare the provisions in the Oregon constitution for initiatives and referenda unconstitutional, although its ruling is on jurisdictional grounds, saying it is up to Congress to decide if they violate the Constitutional guarantee of a republican form of government.

Today -100: February 19, 1912: Of ignorant heathen masses, and dis-invitations

Mexican President Madero asks the Permanent Committee of Congress to suspend the free press. It says no.

A letter in the NYT from one “G.B.R.,” which is mentioned in an editorial which suggests that G.B.R. is someone famous, says the US can’t recognize the republic in China, that is, “the ignorant, heathen mass of China,” without calling into question its refusal to give independence to “the more intelligent Christian” Filipinos, which G.B.R. doesn’t want to do.

In response to Secretary of State Knox’s plans to visit Latin America, the Colombian ambassador says that Knox can fuck off. Still pissed off about the whole Panama thing, evidently.

Endowed

Oh fer... this is gonna be a Republican thing now, isn’t it?

At another point, as Santorum was talking about the Constitution, he uttered the words, “And endowed by –”

“Their creator!” the crowd shouted back, giving Santorum a standing ovation.

Today -100: February 18, 1912: Of the pleasures of joy riding

The NYT makes fun of a new California law taking away “one of the pleasures of ‘joy riding’” by making it a felony to have an accident while driving an automobile while drunk. However, a superior court judge has ruled the law unconstitutional because it discriminates between vehicles (i.e., it is not illegal to drive a horse-drawn wagon drunk). The case has been appealed to the CA Supreme Court.

Today -100: February 17, 1912: Of cavalries, queues, and warships

Congress votes to reduce the cavalry from 15 regiments to 10, and to increase the term of enlistment in the Army from its current 3 years to 5. The military and the Taft administration opposed both measures.

New Chinese president Yuan cuts off his pigtail.

The NYT says that the purpose of Secretary of State Philander Knox’s trip to Latin America will be “to bring about an understanding with Mexico and impress on the Mexican people the friendliness of this Government toward their republic. It is the belief that this may be best accomplished by sending the American Secretary of State in a warship with full honors as a special ambassador of peace and good-will.” Because nothing says peace and good-will like a warship.

The Parable of the Kosher Deli

One of the witnesses at Darrell Issa’s Sausage Fest Committee today was the Bishop of Bridgeort, representing the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. He recounted for the committee what he called “The Parable of the Kosher Deli.” In it, “once upon a time” a law mandated that any business serving food had to serve pork, including kosher delicatessens, which pisses off the Orthodox Jews but “those who support the mandate respond, ‘But pork is good for you. It is, after all, the other white meat.’ Other supporters add, ‘So many Jews eat pork, and those who don’t should just get with the times.’ Still others say, ‘Those Orthodox are just trying to impose their beliefs on everyone else.’”

What’s hilarious is that he goes on and on about this pork thing, without ever mentioning women or contraception. Here’s a bit more:

the question generated by a government mandate is whether the government will impose its belief that eating pork is good on objecting Orthodox Jews. Meanwhile, there is no imposition at all on the freedom of those who want to eat pork. That is, they are subject to no government interference at all in their choice to eat pork, and pork is ubiquitous and cheap, available at the overwhelming majority of restaurants and grocers. Indeed, some pork producers and retailers, and even the government itself, are so eager to promote the eating of pork, that they sometimes give pork away for free. In this context, the question is this: can a customer come to a kosher deli, demand to be served a ham sandwich, and if refused, bring down severe government sanction on the deli. In a nation committed to religious liberty and diversity, the answer, of course, is no.

The answer to a deeply stupid question, that is.

Today -100: February 16, 1912: Of presidents and forts

Sun Yat-Sen resigns as provisional president of China; National Assembly elects Yuan Shi-Kai.

A Turkish fort fires on a British cruiser, mistaking it for Italian. Oops.

Today -100: February 15, 1912: 48

Arizona is now a state. Evidently, the official national flag still has only 46 stars, because they only inaugurate new flags on July 4ths. George W.P. “Old Walrus” Hunt (D) is inaugurated as the state’s first governor.

41 people associated with the International Association of Bridge and Structural Iron Workers are arrested for complicity in a “vast dynamite conspiracy.” Many more have been indicted but not yet taken into custody.

The Georgia Republican Convention meets, and systematically excludes all Roosevelt supporters. c.300 of the 500 delegates were African-American (the delegates selected to be sent to the national Republican Convention, instructed to vote for Taft first, last and always, will be half white and half black).

The big mill strike in Lawrence, which I guess I haven’t written much about, is ending, and the employers are black-listing all their Italian workers.

Percival Roberts, Jr., a director of the US Steel Corp., tells the Congressional investigating committee that his workers actually prefer 12-hour days. Why, you can hardly find any workers willing to take up 10-hour jobs.

I know it was you, Barack. You broke my heart. You broke my heart.

Obama and his li’l friend Al Pacino at the White House yesterday. But what are they saying? CAPTION CONTEST!

Today -100: February 14, 1912: Of missed wars, whuppin’s, and canals

Headline of the Day -100: “Europe Just Misses a War.” The LA Times reports that a war recently almost broke out between France and Italy. After Italy seized Turks on a French steamer (that only sounds kinky), a French destroyer approached Italian fortifications in Sardinia “with an air of defiance.” The Italians fired blank shots across its bows and it retreated, as is traditional.

Midland, Texas: During a trial of some sort, a commissioner called the judge a liar, the judge announced that the court was adjourned until he’d “whipped” the commissioner, he did so, reconvened the court, and fined himself for fighting. Texas!

Tourists have been flocking to Panama to see the Canal before it’s filled with water next year.

Today -100: February 13, 1912: Of miscegenation, New York from above, perpetual motion, abdications, and political emotionalists or neurotics

Germany bans interracial marriage in its Samoan Island colonies.

Frank Coffyn flies over NY in the first attempt to film the city from the air. He and his cameraman weren’t up long, because it was really cold, and he plans to try again, so I’m not entirely sure if this footage (8½ minutes) is from today -100, but it is from Coffyn in 1912.



Disappointing Headline of the Day -100: “Perpetual Motion Victim.” Hans Edgar Friese spent all his money trying to invent a perpetual motion machine, which fails to work, then kills wife and himself.

China’s Boy-Emperor Pu-Yi abdicates in an edict which asks the question, “How can we oppose the desires of millions for the glory of one family?” How indeed.

New Chinese president Sun Yat-Sen is an American citizen, born in Hawaii. But where’s the birth certificate?

President Taft, speaking to the Republican Club dinner at the Waldorf (before going on to another dinner at the Dry Goods Association, because he’s President Fucking Taft and he will eat just as many dinners as he damn well pleases). He complains about the Progressive calls for initiative, referendum and recall, “the effort to make the selection of candidates, the enactment of legislation, and the decisions of courts to depend on the momentary passions of a people necessarily indifferently informed as the issues presented”. But, hey, vote for me in November, indifferently informed people! “Such extremists are not progressives – they are political emotionalists or neurotics”.

The rebellion in Chihuahua is reportedly defeated.

Today -100: February 12, 1912: Of electrocutions, bucks, and undesirable Hungarians

The Maryland Legislature is considering a bill to change the method of execution from hanging to electrocution, but the warden of the state pen suggests chloroforming prisoners to death.

The Treasury Dept. plans to start printing the money using power printing-presses. The unions are fighting these plans.

The governor (self-proclaimed) of rebel Chihuahua state, Aurelanio Gonzales, says “Mexico must rise en masse and resist the invaders.” He means the United States, which hasn’t actually invaded but is mobilizing troops on the border.

Gov. Woodrow Wilson is having some difficulty getting Hungarian-Americans behind his presidential campaign, due to a passage in his History of the American People describing Hungarian immigrants as a “coarse crew, bred in unwholesome squalor,” “less desirable than the excluded Chinese.” Wilson writes a letter of apology, which seems to say that he likes Hungary, just not Hungarians, or something.

Followers of this feature might be interested in a BBC radio program, available here for the next 6 or 7 days, about the British suffragettes of the Edwardian period, featuring interviews of suffragettes recorded in the 1970s by historian Brian Harrison (1 hour).

Today -100: February 11, 1912: Of blacklists, warplanes, accessions, and Futurists

Hearings on the steel monopoly are told that the steel trust kept a blacklist of union members, and that during a strike in 1909, the American Tinplate Company (a subsidiary of US Steel) advertised for Syrians, Poles and Romanians to work as scabs. The man whose job was to recruit these foreign laborers explained that he always tries to meet the wishes of employers. “I wouldn’t send an Irishman to a brewery, because he would probably be turned down.”

Frank Coffyn, the Wright Company aviator currently instructing US Army aviators in the use of Wright planes in Georgia, says there is no military need to fly above one mile, which should be high enough to keep them out of artillery and bullet range. But he does doubt that dropping bombs from planes can be accurate enough to be useful at that height. He says, “I believe that some day aeroplanes will fight aeroplanes and that there will be machines that may be called aeroplane destroyers, and maybe some day, still farther away, aeroplane-aeroplane-destroyers”. Dare to dream, Frank, dare to dream.

Arizona will soon be the 48th state, but when? There was talk of doing it on Lincoln’s birthday, but Taft will be out of D.C. and unavailable to sign the proclamation that day. And they want to avoid the 13th as unlucky (it’s not even a Friday). So they’re thinking about Valentine’s Day, which also happens to be the 50th anniversary of the day AZ was declared a Territory of the Confederate States of America.

A big exhibition of Futurist art, or, as the NYT puts it “‘art,’” opens in Paris. "The pictures bear such titles as ‘The Street Entering a House,’ ‘Those Who go,’ and ‘Those Who Remain,’ but no case has yet been reported of a visitor establishing a connection between the picture and the title attached to it.”

Today -100: February 10, 1912: Of state religions

The Japanese government has called a conference to decide on a national religion for Japan.

Cardboard Khomeini comes again

Don’t know how I missed this, but last week, for the 33rd anniversary of the Iranian Revolution, they paraded cardboard cutouts of the Ayatollah Khomeini along the route he took on his return from exile. This is the greatest thing ever.

Today -100: February 9, 1912: Of suffrage, escapes from Belfast, and slapstick

The Virginia Legislature votes down women’s suffrage. One representative, a Mr. Love, said he wanted women to remain in their present high realm and not have to mingle with negroes at the polls on election day.

Churchill gave his home rule speech in Belfast and was not torn apart by Unionists, although he was hit in the face with a flag by a suffragette. Then he escaped by a special train two hours before his announced departure time, because why take chances.

Headline of the Day -100 (LAT): “Pie Knocks Out Bandit.” A robber tried to stick up a restaurant in Denver. He told the night manager, coming out of the kitchen with hot custard pies in each hand, “Hold up your hands.” She said, “I won’t drop these pies for any villain like you.” He told her, “I don’t care what you do with the pies, but don’t move.” So she threw one of them at his face. Life back then really was exactly like it’s portrayed in silent films.

A note to liberals

who support Guantanamo and killing people with drones: you are not liberals. That is all.

Today -100: February 8, 1912: No hurry indeed

President Taft drops 8th Circuit judge William Cather Hook from consideration for the vacant Supreme Court seat. He had pretty much made up his mind for Hook but opposition arose because of his upholding of Jim Crow laws in Oklahoma.

Kaiser Wilhelm gave the traditional opening speech to the newly elected Reichstag. Unlike in Britain, they have to come to him in his palace to hear it. But the Socialists, one-fourth of the MPs, didn’t. Willy demanded a bigger army and a bigger navy.

It is reported that Germany’s war contingency plans call for sending all 50 military airplanes on a bombing raid on Paris the minute war is declared.

Headline of the Day -100: “No Hurry to Talk Peace.” The 3rd Peace Conference has been re-scheduled for 1915.

Turkey orders the closing of all Italian institutions in Turkey, including banks, insurance companies and an orphanage.

The Russian Duma asks the minister of interior why he illegally ordered newspapers not to write anything about Rasputin and why he seized those two newspapers for doing so. Also, a bishop and an abbot who Rasputin doesn’t like were ordered into exile.

Condescending Racist Headline of the Day -100: “Chinaman a Journalist Now. Anyway, He Has a Degree from the University of Missouri That Says So.” And a job as a, you know, journalist. Hin Wong, raised in Hawaii, plans to move to China (where he will indeed be a journalist until his death in Hong Kong in 1939).

Obama and the Marshmallow Cannon of Doom

Caption contest.

Today -100: February 7, 1912: Of cunnels, mad monks, darts, and spies

Minstrely Headline of the Day -100 (LA Times): “Georgia Whites for Taft. Negroes are for ‘Cunnel.’” It seems there were competing Taft & Roosevelt primaries for the state Republican convention, which will in turn elect delegates to the national convention. And while whites support Taft, blacks support what it took me a minute to realize was dialect for The Colonel (as TR liked to be called).

Florida Republicans will send competing Taft/Roosevelt delegations to the national convention, which will have to sort it out. The majority of delegates, pro-Cunnel, stormed out after the temporary chairman (a pro-Taft negro, as it happens, although the NYT notes that the black delegates were pro-TR) issued a series of rulings against them. They then organized separately to name their own delegation (Florida, like a lot of states, doesn’t have presidential primaries).

A couple of Russian newspapers are seized for saying bad things about Rasputin.

The French have invented a “terrible air weapon,” a 6-inch long “dynamite dart,” not actually dynamite, just a heavy dart that can be dropped on enemy soldiers from airplanes.

There is finally an armistice in the Chinese Revolution, but negotiations continue. The Empress Dowager is demanding the continued use of imperial titles, with commoners to continue showing the proper regal homage, the imperial family to retain its palaces and the Imperial Guard, paid for by the public, etc.

More in the spy wars: Brits are angered that one of their spies, Bertrand Stewart (actually a lawyer who thought he’d like to play at spies, but he did so with MI6’s bemused knowledge; a German agent lured him into the country by promising to sell him secret documents, then arrested him), is sentenced to 3½ years. The British press is suggesting that the evidence in the secret trial was too weak (it wasn’t) and the sentence is too severe. His father, however, expresses nothing but respect for the “judgment of the Supreme Court of an enlightened and friendly country,” while saying that his son’s actions “are no proof at all of anti-German feeling among the people of England. They merely show that ‘young men will be young men’” (Bertie is 39). Germany released him early, in 1913, in plenty of time to get killed in action in France one month into the Great War.

Today -100: February 6, 1912: Of bad barbers, time-outs, and turkey trots

Front Page Headline of the Day -100: “GOV. WILSON A BAD BARBER.; On Eve of Stumping Tour He Cuts His Lip While Shaving.”

The La Follette campaign seems to be shutting down, and Fightin’ Bob himself will take a few weeks’ rest.

The “turkey trot” has reached London, although stripped of the features found so objectionable in certain parts of New York society, but the London Times pronounces the dance “abominably ugly.”

Today -100: February 5, 1912: Of parachutes and censorship

Franz Reichalt, an Austrian tailor whose hobby was making experimental parachutes, got permission to test his latest from the Eiffel Tower, although he was supposed to use a dummy. Instead, he did the jump himself. He will be missed.

Utah Gov. William Spry is demanding the suppression of movies depicting Mormons.

Today -100: February 4, 1912: Problems

The NYT catches up to Robert La Follette’s melt-down, noting “Newspaper reports did not convey any idea of what really happened”. Fightin’ Bob needs a rest, his friends say. Also, he told the newspaper publishers that they are doing a crappy job, serving the interests of big business and no longer bothering to educate public opinion.

With rebellion increasing in Juarez, Taft warns against anyone shooting across the border into the US, and orders the mobilization of 15,000 troops along the border, with a view to maybe invading Mexico to enforce the no-shooting rule.

In Britain, the Women’s Industrial Union is trying to discover the cause of the “servant problem.” Evidently it’s that people don’t like being treated like servants.

Speaking of problems, the University of Virginia has received a grant for a fellowship “for the study of the negro.” The fellow will “prepare a paper on some aspect of the negro problem.” Like “servant problem” in the previous story, “negro problem” is a term that comes up pretty regularly and is never defined, although needless to say the people reading the NYT were not interested in the problems affecting servants and negroes, just in the problems caused by servants and negroes.

Today -100: February 3, 1912: I believe in women’s suffrage wherever they want it

The NYT covers the speeches by politicians at the banquet of the Periodical Publishers’ Association of America, but misses the big story, which came after the paper’s deadline.  It covers Woodrow Wilson’s speech but gives a scant three sentences to that of Robert La Follette, who basically destroyed his presidential chances, such as they were, with a Rick Perry-esque performance, but longer.  More than two hours long, in fact, rambling, repetitive (literally: he re-read certain paragraphs several times without noticing) and possibly drunken.  To be fair, he a) had recently had food poisoning and b) was worried about his daughter, who had a major operation scheduled for the next day, but the speech made many people think he was in the middle of a nervous breakdown, and Progressives switched their support to Roosevelt in droves.

The Association held a straw vote, which seems a rather unprofessional thing for publishers to do.  TR won.

First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill will come to Belfast soon to give a Home Rule speech.  It is expected that he will be met by 60 to 80,000 armed men – 30,000 will have revolvers and many will have clubs – one foot longer than the ones the police have.

A British submarine sinks with all hands (13 of them) off the Isle of Wight after being in a collision with the appropriately named gunboat Hazard.

Roosevelt writes an editorial in Outlook supporting women’s suffrage, sort of.  (It can be read here [pdf, 5 pages]).  He wants women-only statewide referenda on women’s suffrage to decide the issue: “I believe in women’s suffrage wherever they want it.  Where they do not want it the suffrage should not be forced upon them.”  He doesn’t think it’s a big deal either way: “I do not regard the movement as anything like as important as either its extreme friends of extreme opponents think.  It is so much less important than many other reforms that I have never been able to take a very heated interest in it.”  And most of the women with whom he associates oppose suffrage “precisely because they approach life from the standpoint of duty.”  And women are much more important as wives and mothers, which suffrage must not change.  “No woman will ever be developed who will stand above the highest and finest of the wives and mothers of today and of the yesterdays.  The exercise of suffrage can never be the most important of women’s rights or women’s duties.  The vital need for women, as for men, is to war against vice, and frivolity, and cold selfishness, and timid shrinking from necessary risk and effort.”

We either believe in markets or we don’t

Yesterday Rick Santorum (who has an ill/dying child himself), after sneering at people for complaining about the high prices of drugs when they pay $900 for an iPod, and they just want health care for free, told a mother whose son depends on a million-dollar-a-year drug that  “He’s alive today because drug companies provide care. And if they didn’t think they could make money providing that drug, that drug wouldn’t be here. ... Fact is, we need companies to have incentives to make drugs. If they don’t have incentives, they won’t make those drugs. We either believe in markets or we don’t.”

This gives me an excuse to bring up Eflornithine again. That’s a drug that’s effective against sleeping sickness, but the pharmaceutical company that owned the patent stopped manufacturing it in the mid-1990s because they weren’t seeing enough of those “incentives” Santorum touts, as is the case with drugs treating diseases that affect small numbers of people or, in this case, large numbers of poor people in sub-Saharan Africa.

There was a happy ending for the Africans, though. Eflornithine also treats unwanted facial hair in rich white women, and that’s a market Big Pharma knows how to market to, so it went back into production.

Drugs can also be problematic from the capitalist point of view if they’re too successful. In 2006, Genentech blocked the use of colon cancer drug Avastin for blindness because it was successful in such low quantities that it cost only $42 a dose, whereas the no-more-effective drug in common use for macular degeneration cost $1,600 a dose.

We either believe in markets or we don’t.

Today -100: February 2, 1912: Of planes, operas, and term limits

In another first in the history of warfare, Capt. Monte, an Italian aviator, is shot by Libyans while he was dropping bombs on them from above. He was able to get his plane, which was also shot up, back to base.

Juarez is in revolt against the Madero government, and names Emilio Gomez as provisional president.

The German police ban the performance in Berlin of Otto Neitzel’s opera “Barbarina” because one of the characters is Frederick the Great (1712-86).

France plans to keep employing the existing Moroccan officials in its new colony, excuse me, protectorate, but they will be “advised and supervised” by French officials.

Rep. James Slayden (D-Texas) introduces a resolution against presidents running for a third time (i.e., Theodore Roosevelt).

Or, you know, precisely the opposite, which is kind of the problem

Ha’aretz: “The United States criticized a recently declared Israeli plan to subsidize construction in several West Bank settlements on Tuesday, with a top U.S. official calling the move ‘unconstructive.’”

Today -100: February 1, 1912: Of Panamans, abdications, and hoboes

Headline of the Day -100: “Panamans Hoot Colombia.” Evidently the residents of the brand-new country of Panama were called Panamans then.

The boy-emperor of China has finally abdicated (disagreements among the revolutionaries led the imperials to stall for a while, hoping to avoid abdication).

The state of Pennsylvania indicts three more of last August’s Coatesville lynch mob, despite previous acquittals. This time, they plan on a change of venue.

The national hobo convention is scheduled for Cincinnati. Which is not best pleased.

I want you to remember when our White House reflected the best of who we are, not the worst of what Europe has become

Romney victory speech in Florida.

SO I LOANED HIM ONE OF MY SEVERAL MANSIONS. HAH! JUST KIDDING. “In the last ten days, I met a father who was terrified that this would be the last night his family would sleep in the only home his son has ever known.”

MAYBE THERE SHOULD BE A MORATORIUM ON QUOTING HISTORICAL FIGURES WHO WOULD HAVE DESPISED YOU WITH A RED-HOT PASSION: “In another era of American crisis, Thomas Paine is reported to have said..” [i.e., Paine never actually said this] “...‘Lead, follow, or get out of the way.’” I believe Paine had Romney in mind (he was just that foresighted) when he wrote: “It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may so express it, that mental lying has produced in society. When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime.” (Age of Reason)

SOMEONE SIT ROMNEY DOWN IN FRONT OF A “HOW A BILL BECOMES A LAW” FILMSTRIP: “He forced through Obamacare; I will repeal it.”

IT’S ALLITERATIVE, SO IT MUST BE TRUE: “Like his colleagues in the faculty lounge who think they know better, President Obama demonizes and denigrates almost every sector of our economy.” What sector has he missed? Do tell the White House so he can get right on with that demonizin’ and denigrating’.

BY NOT TRAMPLING ON WOMEN’S RIGHTS, YOU MEAN: “President Obama orders religious organizations to violate their conscience”.

IT’S ASSONANT, SO IT MUST BE TRUE: “President Obama has adopted a strategy of appeasement and apology.”

IT’S ALLITERATIVE... AH, YOU GET THE IDEA: “If you believe the disappointments of the last few years are a detour, not our destiny, then I am asking for your vote.”

WE’RE “SPECIAL”: “I’m asking each of you to remember how special it is to be an American.”

SO YOU’RE SAYING THAT MICHELLE STOPPED SHAVING HER PITS? “I want you to remember when our White House reflected the best of who we are, not the worst of what Europe has become.”

I think that there’s a perception somehow that we’re just sending in a whole bunch of strikes willy-nilly

Yesterday, Obama answered questions on Google+. The White House website still has no transcript; the Bushies were much better about this sort of thing.

He was asked about drones and acknowledged for the first time that the US is bombing people in Pakistan.

NEITHER WILLY NOR NILLY: “I think that there’s a perception somehow that we’re just sending in a whole bunch of strikes willy-nilly,” he said, deploying the sort of folksiness we haven’t heard in government statements about killing foreigners since Rumsfeld.

DEFINE “HUGE”: “Drones have not caused a huge number of civilian casualties,” he said, deploying the sort of dismissiveness about civilian casualties that we haven’t heard... well, actually government statements have always been dismissive about civilian casualties.

OH, THERE’S A LIST, WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL US THERE’S A LIST: “This is a targeted, focused effort at people who are on a list of active terrorists who are trying to go in and harm Americans, hit American facilities, American bases, and so on.” Did he mention there’s a list?

DRONE LEASHES: “It is important for everybody to understand that this thing is kept on a very tight leash.”

He explained that using flying robots to kill people in Pakistan was really all about respecting Pakistan’s sovereignty: “But understand that probably our ability to respect the sovereignty of other countries and to limit our incursions into somebody else’s territory is enhanced by the fact that we are able to pinpoint strike on al Qaeda operatives in a place where the capacities of that military in that country may not be able to get them. For us to be able to get them in another way would involve probably a lot more intrusive military actions than the one that we’re already engaging in.” Obviously the possibility of just not killing people in Pakistan is off the table; that’s just crazy talk.

Today -100: January 31, 1912: We are progressive in the sense that we are making progress all the time

Taft, evidently finally tired of all the criticism he’s receiving from within the Republican Party, makes a speech at the Columbus Glee Club denouncing Progressives, or rather declaring that the old-line Republicans are quite progressive enough, without “chasing chimeras and... unsettling the foundations of government merely to indulge in the fancies of hope.” “We are progressive in the sense that we are making progress all the time. But we are not progressive if that means the overturning of the Constitution and all the guarantees of life, liberty, and property, and all the checks on the momentary passion of the people.”

A negro is lynched in Cordele, Georgia, for supposedly assaulting a white girl.

Today -100: January 30, 1912: Of playboys and lawyers

Chicago’s Common Council (the city council, I guess) orders the play “The Playboy of the Western World” banned (there was a lot of heckling and stink bombs and such when it opened in NY last year).

Clarence Darrow is indicted for allegedly bribing a juror in the McNamara brothers’ case.

Today -100: January 29, 1912: Of nurses, dead generals, and Whigs

Italy seizes more Red Crescent nurses on the way to Libya, from a French steamer. One might begin to think that denying medical care was an intentional policy of some sort.

Not a good week for Ecuadoran military presidents. This time, José Eloy Alfaro, general and president 1895-1902 and 1906-11, who was arrested earlier in the month after a failed coup attempt, is killed by a mob that broke into his prison, along with his brother, who had been minister of war, and a few more generals.

The first woman to register to vote in Lake County, California, is 104 years old. She registers as a Whig.

Today -100: January 28, 1912: Of veterans, sacrifice cults, flying machines, and annoyed Italians

The last Civil War veterans still in the military are about to retire.

First NYT mention, I think, of a “Sacrifice Cult” in Louisiana, which has killed 26 people (five families). Victims and killers are all black, so I guess it’s not really news. (Update: the LA Times Jan. 30 issue says that no one has been arrested because no one is willing to talk about the cult, which is evidently a voodoo thing.)

The French military will purchase 328 flying machines (including dirigibles, I guess), because they heard Germany plans to do the same.

Headline of the Day -100: “Peace Pleas Annoy Italy.”

Republican Debate: You have to be realistic in your indignation / Trapped in a linguistics situation

Yeah, yeah, I’m late. And I couldn’t decide which quote to use in the post title.

Transcript.

PEOPLE COME TO THIS COUNTRY. First up: immigration! Santorum: “We are a country of laws. People come to this country. My grandfather came to this country because he wanted to come to a country that respected him.” Although it was his grandson who really made a name for himself.

He continues, “I’m someone who believes that - that we need immigration. We are not replacing ourselves.” More frothy mixture!

Gingrich: “I don’t think grandmothers and grandfathers will self-deport.”

Romney explains the self-deportation thing. People wouldn’t be able to find work (unless they worked off the books, exposing them to even more exploitation and abuse)(or were forced to turn to crime)(but those things would never happen, so, finding themselves completely broke, they’d catch a plane, one of those free ones, back to their country of origin).


Gingrich: “grandmothers and grandfathers aren’t going to be successfully deported. We’re not - we as a nation are not going to walk into some family - and by the way, they’re going to end up in a church, which will declare them a sanctuary.”



I PREFER TO BE INDIGNANT IN MY REALISM: Gingrich: “We’re not going - and I think you have to be realistic in your indignation. I want to control the border. I want English to be the official language of government. I want us to have a lot of changes.”

SKILL AND VITALITY AND VIBRANCE: Mittens says Gingrich calling him the most anti-immigrant candidate (in an ad) is “simply inexcusable.” After all, his father was born in Mexico (and never learned a word of Spanish, like everyone in the Mormon colony)(which is like a Moon colony, but blander)(and the cheese is Velveeta instead of green cheese). He says “I want people to come to America with skill and vitality and vibrance.” I don’t know what there is about the Republican nomination process that would make him think America needs to import skill and vitality and vibrance.

TRAPPED IN A LINGUISTICS SITUATION (WORST LIFETIME MOVIE EVER): Romney says he never saw his own ad and doubts it’s his ad, saying that Gingrich called Spanish the language of the ghetto, which Gingrich says he didn’t say (he did) but “my point was, no one should be trapped in a linguistics situation where they can’t go out and get a job and they can’t go out and work.”

Ron Paul calls for trade with Cuba.

NO MEANS NO: Paul: “Unfortunately, sometimes we slip up on our standards and we go around the world and we try to force ourselves on others.”


“NECESSARILY”? Paul: “I don’t think the nations in South America and Central America necessarily want us to come down there and dictate which government they should have.”

Santorum says Obama sided with Castro and Chavez in supporting President Zelaya of Honduras during the completely justified 2009 coup. (If you need a reminder, read my posts about the coup. Obama gave the mildest of tut tuts, never said that Zelaya should be allowed to return.)

Wolf seems to have done some googling during the commercial break and says that “language of the ghetto ad” was indeed one of Romney’s and he even did the “and I approved this ad” thing and everything.

IS THAT HOW MORMONS SAY SOMEONE FARTS A LOT? Romney on Gingrich working for Freddie Mac: “we should have had a whistle-blower and not horn-tooter.”


Then there’s the rich-guys-comparing-their-portfolios section of the debate. Gingrich reveals that Romney (gasp, horror) used to own shares in Fannie & Freddie (that always sounds like characters in a Jeeves & Wooster story to me) and Goldman Sachs. Romney says his trustee bought those and they were mutual funds and bonds, not stocks, which is really just like a US savings bond, and that Gingrich (gasp, horror) also has investments in Fannie & Freddie.

IN THIS SCENARIO, NOTE THAT GINGRICH IS NOT THE GIANT ELEPHANT: Gingrich: “compare my investments with his is like comparing a tiny mouse with a giant elephant.”

What do you think of this, Ron Paul? “That - that subject really doesn’t interest me a whole lot.”

But Paul says Fannie & Freddie “should have been auctioned off right after the crash came.” Yes, sell off government assets at their lowest possible valuation.


Gingrich says Blitzer asking him whether he’s satisfied with Romney’s disclosure of last year’s tax returns is “a nonsense question.” Dude, you’re the one who kept bringing it up the last couple of debates. He continues, “Look, how about if the four of us agree for the rest of the evening, we’ll actually talk about issues that relate to governing America?” There are few sights in American politics as absurd as that of Newton Gingrich pretending to seize the high moral ground.


THERE’S A TIME AND A PLACE: Blitzer quotes Gingrich’s own words on Romney’s tax returns back to him. Gingrich: “I did. And I’m perfectly happy to say that on an interview on some TV show. But this is a national debate”. Romney: “Wouldn’t it be nice if people didn’t make accusations somewhere else that they weren’t willing to defend here?” There are few sights in American politics as absurd as that of Twitt Romney pretending to seize the high moral ground.

Romney says his having had a Swiss bank account is not at all suspicious, his trustee was just diversifying his investments. And “Speaker, you’ve indicated that somehow I don’t earn that money. I have earned the money that I have. I didn’t inherit it. ... I’m proud of being successful.”

Santorum says we shouldn’t tax the rich because trickle down blah blah blah.

MAYBE IT’S NOT A SOLUTION, BUT IT WOULD BE FUN TO HEAR THEM SQUEAL: Ron Paul wants to get rid of the 16th Amendment, because if you have income taxes you can afford a welfare state (“and if you have a welfare state, no matter whether the welfare state is designed to help the poor, you know, the welfare system helps the wealthy”) and policing the world. Says Reagan taxed too much, the fucking liberal. Taxing the rich “is not a solution.”

Blitzer: Ron Paul, you’re really old; are you going to die soon? Paul: “I’m willing to challenge any of these gentlemen up here to a 25-mile bike ride any time of the day in the heat of Texas.” Noon, Gingrich, bike shorts, slightly too-small bicycle. MAKE THIS HAPPEN!

Then Paul warns Blitzer that “there are laws against age discrimination, so if you push this too much, you better be careful.” See, there is a type of discrimination he’s in favor of the state trying to prevent. Who knew?


MOST PHALLIC ROCKET? Romney would not build a moon colony because it would be too expensive. Gingrich says we could do it by offering prizes.

He wants an American on the moon “before the Chinese get there,” adding, “I mean, have you seen how tacky most Chinese restaurants are?” But his program “would probably end up being 90 percent private sector,” so it would all be done by Chinese child labor anyway.

HE LIKES FIRING PEOPLE: Romney: “If I had a business executive come to me and say they wanted to spend a few hundred billion dollars to put a colony on the moon, I’d say, ‘You’re fired.’” And, by implication, Romney just fired Gingrich.

Ron Paul would send some politicians to the moon, ha ha. Possibly on a bike.

A woman says she’s unemployed and can’t afford insurance. Ron Paul this is the fault of Medicare. Because it raises the cost of health care by making it possible for more people to actually get it. Demand and supply, you know. Moron.

AN OPEN RELATIONSHIP: Gingrich wrote a book which “calls for you and your doctor and your pharmacist and your hospital have a relationship.”

JUST LIKE BARACK OBAMA: Then follows the 53rd iteration of Romney being forced to explain Romneycare while Santorum snipes at him – “And you have a pre-existing condition clause in yours, just like Barack Obama.” Romney denies that Romneycare is a government-run plan, then accuses Obamacare of being a government-run plan. Paul repeats that back in the good old days there was no Medicare or Medicaid, and everybody lived forever and rode bikes in the heat of Texas all day and night.


Which Hispanic would you put in your cabinet? Santorum sucks up to Marco Rubio. Gingrich more or less says that Rubio would be his running mate. He & Romney are able to name several Hispanics they like, Paul is not (I guess they don’t have any in Texas).

Why would your wife be the bestest First Lady ever? Ron Paul: she wrote a cookbook. Romney says his wife battled breast cancer and MS, a degenerative disease, “successfully.” Gingrich says all 3 of the candidates’ wives who are present today would be terrific first ladies, and I can’t think of a single joke to make about that. He says that Callista plays the French horn (I’ll bet she does, I’ll bet she does). Santorum says that his wife was a neo-natal intensive care nurse and then a lawyer and then married him and “gave that up” to have lots and lots of babies, like Jesus intended. And she wrote a book on manners.

THE ROMNEYBOT ATTACK MACHINE 3000: Gingrich: “Well, it’s increasingly interesting to watch the Romney attack machine coordinate things.”

OF COURSE NOT; THEY’RE IN THE CLOSET: Paul: “And people - I don’t think they see a Jihadist under the bed every night.”

Cuba. Oh, I think you can pretty much guess what they all said.

Middle East. Romney: “the Israelis would be happy to have a two-state solution. It’s the Palestinians who don’t want a two-state solution. They want to eliminate the state of Israel.” Obama saying that the 1967 borders are the starting point of negotiations is “throw[ing] Israel under the bus”. Gingrich repeats that Palestinians were “invented” in the late 1970s (he’s a historian, you know), possibly cloned from sweat taken from Arafat’s keffiyeh, and that peace negotiations are “war by another form” and he’d move the US embassy to Jerusalem.


What, Santorum isn’t going to be asked about the Middle East? I’ll bet he’d be hilarious.

Santorum won’t take a position on Puerto Rico statehood.

How would your religious beliefs affect your actions? Ron Paul. They wouldn’t. Romney would seek the guidance of Providence, Rhode Island, for some reason. Gingrich says he’s running to oppose the war against religion by the secular elite. Both Romney & Santorum bring up the Declaration of Independence, which evidently “described the relationship between God and man” (Romney).


UM, YEAH. Romney: “This is not just an average election.”

Gingrich’s campaign iS for “every American... who prefers the Declaration of Independence to Saul Alinsky”.

Santorum says Gingrich & Mittens both “bought into the global warming hoax”.

Today -100: January 27, 1912: The peace of the world is now assured

Manchester, CT, gives a pauper a wooden leg, stamped “This leg is the property of the town of Manchester, loaned to William Armstrong, and is not to be hocked, sold, or exchanged without a majority vote of the Board of Selectmen.” Because one selectman had complained that people with wooden legs often hock them.

General Pedro Montero, proclaimed president of Ecuador by the army less than a month ago, is shot, beheaded, and burned by a mob, as is traditional.

According to Karl Liebknecht, the strength of the Social Democrats (SPD) in the new German Reichstag means “the peace of the world is now assured”. Phew.

Headline of the Day -100 (LA Times): “The Famine in China: Nobody Much Interested in It so the President [Taft] Makes a Special Plea for Funds.”

Caption contest