Obama press conference: And so I make no apologies

Obama and Turkey’s prime minister held a press conference outside in the rain, but did they bring enough umbrella-toting marines for everyone? No they did not.



SITUATION NORMAL... “I want to note the Prime Minister’s efforts to normalize relations with Israel.”

BECAUSE OBAMA IS ALL ABOUT MAKING PROGRESS ON A TWO-STATE SOLUTION, IN EVERY WAY EXCEPT ACTUALLY MAKING PROGRESS ON A TWO-STATE SOLUTION: “This will benefit both the Turkish and Israeli people and can also help us make progress on a two-state solution, including an independent Palestinian state.”

NEEDY: “We both agree that Assad needs to go. He needs to transfer power to a transitional body.” Christ I hate that formulation: Obama treating his personal preferences as things the rest of the world “needs” to do. The presidential God-complex.



On IRSgate: “I can assure you that I certainly did not know anything about the IG report before the IG report had been leaked through the press. Typically, the IG reports are not supposed to be widely distributed or shared.” So he’s bitching about leaks – and no doubt reading the emails of the entire press corps to find out who’s responsible – while admitting he wouldn’t even know about these abuses of power for which he is ultimately responsible without the leak.

SEPARATE BUT EQUAL OUTRAGE: “it doesn’t matter whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican, you should be equally outraged at even the prospect that the IRS might not be acting with the kind of complete neutrality that we expect.” Except for class neutrality: obviously we all expect the IRS to continue to focus its enforcement efforts much more on poor people than rich people.



Asked about the trawl through AP phone records, Obama uses the words National Security as often as he can. Of course this is a “pending case,” so he can’t comment about it specifically, he says, but he can strongly suggest that AP reporters Hate Our Troops: “Leaks related to national security can put people at risk. They can put men and women in uniform that I’ve sent into the battlefield at risk. They can put some of our intelligence officers, who are in various, dangerous situations that are easily compromised, at risk. ... And so I make no apologies, and I don’t think the American people would expect me as Commander-in-Chief not to be concerned about information that might compromise their missions or might get them killed.” And so the National Security State speaks, now and forever, world without end.

In the very next sentence he praises the free press and the open flow of information, at least in, you know, theory, and the need to “strike that balance properly,” because Barack Obama is always all about striking balances. So he supports a Media Shield Law that would require judges to allow exactly such fishing expeditions through news agencies’ records if the administration says it’s necessary for “national security.” I’m not sure what the point of having a judge in the process even is, since they wouldn’t be allowed to question such a designation.

Oh, and he has complete confidence in Eric Holder.



He says that Syrian President Assad “lost legitimacy when he started firing on his own people and killing his own people”. He still doesn’t say when Assad acquired legitimacy. By the way, did you know that the Chicago police shot 57 people last year, 50 of whom were black? Just saying.

(I’d have given you a national figure but, huh, the federal government doesn’t seem to compile that data. Funny, that.)

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Today -100: May 16, 1913: The whiskey constables are useless

South Carolina Gov. Coleman Blease fires all 100 whiskey constables after a state Supreme Court decision legalizes the importation into the state of booze for personal use.

The grand jury in Chicago is investigating Charles De Alvandros, lawyer/clairvoyant/con artist. As a fake lawyer, he referred clients to himself, wearing a disguise, as a clairvoyant with remarkable insight into the affairs the client had disclosed to the lawyer, if you follow.

There are more strikes going on than I’m even attempting to keep up with, with more ominous developments – dynamite going missing, attempted train derailings, etc. So this may be my only mention of the barbers’ strike in NYC: there is a barbers’ strike in NYC. There’s also a strike by iron miners in Wharton, NJ. Women and children have supposedly been attacking deputies because they know the cops have been ordered not to shoot. So the local sheriff and judge want the military sent in to shoot the women and children. But a general, I assume of the state militia, is disinclined to do so because a detective agency hired by the mineowners says it can break the strike in four days. Oh good.

French aviator Marcel Brindejonc des Moulinais sets a speed record by flying in just 20 minutes from Calais to Dover, where he was arrested for breaking the new law against foreigners landing in Britain without a permit.

Headline of the Day -100: “Wilson Puts Check on Rumors of War.” With Japan. Over California’s racist Alien Land Act.

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Today -100: May 15, 1913: We hope this is not a poor widow’s house

In Britain, someone sent a mail bomb to the magistrate who has presided over many trials of suffragettes. It did not explode. And fires were started at a house and a church. Found at the unoccupied house, the message, “We hope this is not a poor widow’s house.” Boys have been leaving fake bombs in various places as pranks, because hilarious.

An international force has arrived to occupy Scutari until the Albanians get their little country organized.

Evidently China came to a secret agreement with Russia to give up Outer Mongolia to it.

The US Navy seems to have lost/had stolen plans for the electrical systems of the latest battleship (or “superdreadnought” as they call it, which would be an awesome name for an Edwardian superhero). The Burns Detective Agency is looking into it.

Nevada executes one Andrija Mircovich for the murder of a former state senator. Mircovich is the first person ever executed by automatic rifles, because they couldn’t find any people willing to shoot him.

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That can’t be Halal

There’s a video on the web of a Syrian rebel commander cutting the heart out of a government soldier and taking a big juicy bite out of it.

This will only make John McCain love the rebels all the more.

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Today -100: May 14, 1913: Of the smokeless power of love, goat lymphs, censorship, and alien land

At a meeting for the centenary of the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the War of 1812, Secretary of State Bryan exercises his wit in the interests of diplomacy, saying that the best battleship is... friendship. “Its compass is the heart, its shells carry good will; its missiles are projected by the smokeless power of love; its Captain is the Prince of Peace.” Beat that, John Kerry!

William Lorimer, who was US senator from Illinois until he was expelled in 1912 for having gotten his seat through bribery, is now revealed to be behind a fake mail-order tuberculosis cure (a lymph taken from goats).

The British Labour Party’s publishing house says that it will take over the publication of The Suffragette as a matter of principle, namely opposition to the government’s attempt to pre-censor the newspaper.

A Paterson jury convicts IWW organizer Patrick Quinlan of inciting a meeting to attack scabs, after a hung jury last week. A bunch of cops testified that he made the speech, a bunch of IWWers and a reporter that he never spoke at all. At the second trial, Quinlan did not use some anarchist witnesses who made a poor impression at the first trial when they replied no to the prosecution asking whether they believed in country, law or God. Quinlan could be sentenced to 7 years.

California Gov. Hiram Johnson responds to Sec of State Bryan with a letter explaining why he won’t veto the racist Alien Land Act, but without actually explaining it. He refers to “a very grave problem, little understood in the East” (meaning the East Coast of the US, not Asia), but fails to say what there is about a, let’s face it, rather small number of Japanese buying farmland, that constitutes a very grave problem.

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Today -100: May 13, 1913: I hope we have seen the last great war

At a conference celebrating the centennial of the Treaty of Ghent and 100 years of peace with Britain (I assume there are big plans currently for the bicentennial?), Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan says there will be no war while he is secretary of state, and no war “so long as I live. I hope we have seen the last great war.”

The Carlsbad, New Mexico Chamber of Commerce says that if California doesn’t want Japanese farmers, it does.

Headline of the Day -100: “Foreign Pulp Men Win.”

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Today -100: May 12, 1913: Misdirected sex is a national tragedy

Mexico: Constitutionalists execute 25 Federal soldiers by firing squad.

Woodrow Wilson seems to have moved away from his initial position that California’s proposed Alien Land Act is a matter of state’s racist rights, and asks Gov. Hiram Johnson to delay or veto it (Secretary of State Bryan had suggested a referendum, to delay it until 1914). If Johnson does this, Wilson promises to negotiate with Japan to, I don’t know, get it to stop its citizens buying land in California, like it voluntarily agreed to restrict emigration a few years ago.

Mrs. Arthur Dodge, President of the National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage says that the suffrage movement is “a sex disturbance” born of
“straining after artificial happiness and unnatural enjoyment which indicates an unsettled and an unsatisfactory state of mind.” She says that the costumes of the women in the NYC women’s suffrage parade relied on their sex to appeal to men. If women go out to work on political causes, “the home may be crucified by the ballot”. She links the suffrage movement with immodesty in dress, looseness in conversation and impropriety in dancing. “Misdirected Government is a bad thing, so bad that the men of this country can be relied on to correct it whenever necessary, but misdirected sex is a national tragedy, which, if it is not checked, will degenerate the race.”

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Today -100: May 11, 1913: Of Sheldons, cigarettes, dueling, dynamite, and menschenschlachthauser

Horace Olin Young, Republican member of Congress for Michigan for the last ten years, resigns. In the 1912 election, the name of his Progressive opponent William MacDonald was incorrectly rendered on the Ontonagon County ballot as Sheldon William MacDonald, and 458 votes for “Sheldon” were thrown out, giving the election to Young. Young felt that MacDonald was the choice of the majority of electors and does the right thing. In August, the House Committee on Elections will award the seat to MacDonald, who will lose the 1914 election.

Pennsylvania passes a law banning the sale of cigarettes to minors under 21. Minors caught with cancer sticks must say who gave or sold them to them or face the juvenile court (if under 16) or a fine or imprisonment (if over).

The Duc de Cazes has sent a letter to society folk in Paris and to members of clubs and sporting societies, asking them to shut up about their duels, which have been attracting large audiences recently, so they don’t, you know, ruin it for everyone.

Headline of the Day -100: “Dynamite Destroys Town.” Uniontown, Pennsylvania. A coal town, thus the dynamite. I suspect they’re exaggerating a little about the town being destroyed.

The German government suppresses Wilhelm Lamszus’s book The Human Slaughter-House: Scenes from the War that is Sure to Come (Menschenschlachthaus; trust the Germans to have a word for human slaughter-house), although only after it had already become a best-seller. Evidently Lamszus thinks the next war will be mechanized and brutal, which is just crazy talk.

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Today -100: May 10, 1913: Of rumbles, the root of our free institutions, and amateur theatrics

Under the martial law which Gov. Hatfield declared in West Virginia because of the coal strike, he has ordered the military to seize several newspapers and their employees held without trial, including our Name of the Day -100, Elmer Rumble, reporter for The Socialist and Labor Star. Let me repeat that: Elmer Rumble, reporter for The Socialist and Labor Star.

The speaker of the House of Representatives orders Charles Glover, president of the Riggs National Bank, to be arrested and brought before the bar of the House for slapping the face of Thetus Sims (D-Tenn.), who had attacked him in a speech in Congress. They explained to Glover that the ability of members of Congress to say whatever they want, including slandering businessmen, is “at the very root of our free institutions.”

The NYT fails to name the play being performed by a local lodge in Sharon, PA, when the heroine fainted and “In the excitement, Frederick McIntyre, who played the villain, accidentally shot himself in the left hand with a revolver. The show ended abruptly.”

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Today -100: May 9, 1913: Of recognition, and long suits

The House passes a tariff bill, and a newly constitutional graduated income tax, in case you were wondering why I haven’t written anything about what Congress has been doing for the last few weeks.

Victoriano Huerta, dictator of Mexico, is threatening that if the US doesn’t recognize his regime (Britain just did), he won’t recognize the US either and will de-ambassadorize (that’s a word, right?) US Amb. Henry Wilson. Funnily enough, Woodrow Wilson would love to replace the other Wilson, who he quite rightly doesn’t trust, but has refrained because of precisely this problem that there’s no one to whom the replacement could present his credentials.

The city of NY finally settles a lawsuit stemming from the burning down of the Hotel Allerton during the Draft Riots almost fifty years before. The 88-year-old who brought the suit will get $7,300.

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Today -100: May 8, 1913: Of amendments, 4th-class postmasters, and hooting anarchists

The 17th Amendment is re-ratified, after the Wisconsin Legislature passes the correct version.

Pres. Wilson orders all 4th-class postmasters to take a competitive civil service exam to keep their jobs. In other words, he’s trying to get rid of Taft’s patronage appointments.

A supposed British suffragist plot to blow up St. Paul’s is foiled.

Headline of the Day -100: “Paris Anarchists Hoot King Alfonso.”

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In case you were wondering whether rape is patriotic, it’s totally not

Asked about sexual assault in the military: “And if it’s happening inside our military, then whoever carries it out is betraying the uniform that they’re wearing. And they may consider themselves patriots, but when you engage in this kind of behavior that’s not patriotic -- it’s a crime.” So that clears that up.

“And for those who are in uniform who have experienced sexual assault, I want them to hear directly from their Commander-In-Chief that I’ve got their backs.” That probably could have been better phrased.

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Sophistication and precision

Peter King (Know Nothing Party-NY) says that the Boston bombers couldn’t possibly have been acting alone: “It’s very difficult to believe that these two could have carried out this level of attack with this level of sophistication and precision acting by themselves, either without training from overseas or having at least facilitators here at home.”

You can see King’s why thinks this: King isn’t smart enough to wipe his own ass with any level of sophistication or precision acting by himself without training from overseas or at least facilitators at home.

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Today -100: May 7, 1913: Of the interdependence of the sexes on one another, and strikes

The British Parliament rejects the women’s suffrage bill by 47 votes. Many will blame militant suffragette tactics for this, and not without reason, but the desire of Irish Nationalist MPs not to disrupt the Liberal government or force a new election before Home Rule is enacted is arguably more important. Prime Minister Asquith, arguing against the Dickinson Bill, says there would be a decline of courtesy and chivalry “and the interdependence of the sexes on one another”. He also says that this issue was not before the electorate at the last general election, though since the Liberal and Tory parties are both split on the issue, it’s impossible for a general election to turn on the public’s views on suffrage (the argument that the government did not have an electoral mandate to enact a social change which did not divide on party lines was also made in 2013 against gay marriage).

Syracuse police shoot to kill (in the words of the police chief’s orders) at mostly Italian striking building laborers who attacked negro scabs.

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Today -100: May 6, 1913: Of amendments, isolated orders, silent stares, and hats in Parliament

The 17th Amendment, for the popular election of US senators, is unratified, because Wisconsin accidentally ratified the wrong draft.

Montenegro yields to the Great Powers (and to the threat of Austria and maybe Italy sending in troops), and will evacuate Scutari.

Arizona is working on its own racist land law.

A federal district court judge in Washington State rules that a high-caste Hindu from India is an Aryan, a “free white person,” under the law and thus is eligible for naturalization. Ahkay Kumar Mozumdar, a yogi who plans to teach what the NYT calls “ancient nonsense for which the present has little use and the future none,” thus becomes the first Indian to become an American citizen.

Paterson’s silk strike is now a general strike, enforced with violence and staring: “Their method of gaining recruits was that of collecting in a large body around a gang of laborers and staring silently.” The Wobblies will totally kick your ass in a staring contest.

While Women’s Social and Political Union leaders are in court in one part of London (the prosecutor claims that the WSPU is responsible for broken windows in 700 to 800 premises, and damage to 560 letter boxes and 8,400 letters), elsewhere Parliament debates a bill to enfranchise some women (house occupiers or wives of house occupiers, over the age of 25). Liberal Unionist MP Rowland Hunt brings up the important issues: “If you once give votes to women they could undoubtedly sit in this House. You could not prevent it, and whether rightly or wrongly they could be War Ministers or anything else. There would be nothing to prevent them being Speaker. We might have to address the Chair as ‘Mrs. Speaker, Ma’am,’ for all we could tell. ... There are obvious disadvantages about having women in Parliament. I do not know what is going to be done about their hats. Are they going to wear hats or not going to wear hats? If you ordered them not to wear hats, you might be absolutely certain that they would insist on wearing them. How is a poor little man to get on with a couple of women wearing enormous hats in front of him?” How indeed.

Helen Keller is a militant suffragette, supporting window-breaking etc, because she believes women’s suffrage will lead to socialism.

However, Carrie Chapman Catt, former (and future) president of the National American Woman’s Suffrage Association, who is on a visit to Britain, says that American suffragists won’t adopt militant methods: “Your movement resembles a battle; ours a process of evolution. Yours is picturesque and very tragic; ours is commonplace and sure.”

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Today -100: May 5, 1913: Of London mobs

Headline of the Day -100: “London Mob Riots for Free Speech.” I knew there was something about London mobs that I liked. The Free Speech Defense League organizes a meeting in Trafalgar Square against the government’s attempt to ban suffrage meetings in public spaces. The fight started when Socialists tried to speak on one side of the Nelson Monument at the same time as the organizers’ speakers (including Labour MP Keir Hardie and Women’s Freedom League president Charlotte Despard) were speaking on the other side, and were pulled down by police. A general fight ensued, as was the custom.

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Today -100: May 4, 1913: No Government Ever Yielded a Right Unless Bullied Into It

Something called the National Democratic Fair Play Association of the United States is formed. What constitutes democratic fair play, you ask? Segregating the civil service and preventing the hiring of negroes in the future. At the Association’s first mass meeting, a letter is read from an anonymous Southern white woman employed by the General Land Office who was forced, forced, to take dictation from negroes. “I became so nervous it almost shattered my reason.” Almost.

There is a women’s suffrage parade on 5th Avenue, NYC. The National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage actually hired “experts” to count the marchers (experts in counting, one assumes), and claims there were only 9,613.

Signs included: “More Ballots; Less Bullets”, “Government is Housekeeping and Homekeeping,” “To Create Sex Antagonism Is an Unwise Precedent,” “Let the People Rule; Women Are People,” “Hasn’t Your Wife Brains Enough to Vote?”, “No Government Ever Yielded a Right Unless Bullied Into It.”

The NYT congratulates the marchers – “they marched well, they looked well” – and says that while it opposes women’s suffrage, it congratulates American suffragists on not being like the English militants.

Maj. John Finley, Governor of the Southern Zone of the Philippines, arrives in Constantinople to ask for Turkish help in subduing the Moros (he is supposedly acting as ambassador of the Moro people, not as a rep of the US government. Hah). He wants the Sheik-ul-Islam to tell the Moros that allegiance to US colonial rule is compatible with their religion, and that it is against the Koran to kill Christians and drink alcohol. The US is even offering to pay for Muslim missionaries to go to the Philippines.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is hauled into court by a neighbor who claims his collie, whose name I could not discover, had killed some of the neighbor’s sheep. Doyle acted as his own lawyer and neatly broke down the stories of the witnesses against the dog (the story quotes some of the cross-examination, which is very Perry Masonish).

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Today -100: May 3, 1913: Of recognition, suffrage, and polo ponies

The US recognizes the Chinese Republic, the first nation to do so.

The Florida legislature votes down women’s suffrage.

Headline of the Day -100: “English Polo Ponies Sail.” Oh, they’re good.

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And I want my cut (so to speak)

It’s only a matter of time before someone turns this cannibalism-in-Jamestown thing into a movie called Puritans vs. Zombies.

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Today -100: May 2, 1913: Let Greed Not Feed on Need

The Brooklyn Institute rejects the offer of “To the Highest Bidder,” a 1906 painting by Harry Roseland of two slaves, mother and daughter, at an antebellum slave auction, because it “tends to keep alive memories that had better be forgotten.” Oprah owns it now.

The Daily Mirror (UK) claims that there’s a suffragette plan to burn down London.

They do burn down a stable, leaving a placard reading “Votes! Votes! Votes! Beware!”, which I suppose is a good motto for the WSPU’s current strategy.

The Common Cause, the newspaper of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies, the non-militant British organization, complains, “Militancy has introduced into the Suffrage movement elements of revenge, of contempt for others, of unreason, of deafness to honest and considered criticism, which in a movement that stands for peace and justice and humanity, are tragic.”

Montenegro, which seized Scutari last week after a six-month siege, is now preparing the city for a new siege by Austria. Poor Scutari.

The NYT notes that yesterday’s NYC May Day parade was the first in a years not to coincide with a major strike; “the paraders had to import some 110 children of Paterson silk strikers from New Jersey to give concrete embodiment to the woes of the workers.” (Lexicological note: this is before the term “the concrete embodiment of workers’ woes” in New Jersey came to refer to union leaders being buried in the foundations of thruway overpasses).

(click on photo for full-length)

Banners & placards at the parade included: “The Unionized Needle is Mightier Than the Sword,” “We Want a Square Deal and No Triangle Disasters” and “Let Greed Not Feed on Need.” Very Dr. Seuss, that one. The Bakers and Confectioners’ Union baked a giant cake.

Everett Pepperrell Wheeler, prominent lawyer, author, and failed candidate for NY governor in 1894, is forming a men’s anti-women’s-suffrage organization, although he has thought better of calling it the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Women (the “cruelty” consisting of forcing them to suffer “the burden of political activity”).

Ten companies of the Georgia state militia are mobilized to prevent the lynching of Leo Frank, the Jewish “carpetbagger” superintendent of the National Pencil Company of Atlanta, and Newt Lee, a black night watchman, both arrested after Mary Phagan, a 13-year-old employee of the company, is found murdered.

NY Gov. William Sulzer’s bill for direct primaries fails, and Sulzer is pissed off: “The vote in the Senate yesterday expressed nothing except what the people know – that the Senate of the State of New York is not a free agency. The Senators did not discuss the merits of the Direct Primary bill. They amused themselves by criticizing the Governor ... both political parties caucused to defeat a bill to carry out the solemn pledges of their platforms.” Opponents say that in fighting Tammany, Sulzer is using its methods of intimidation and patronage to influence the Legislature (but less successfully).


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It’s just never enough for those people, is it?

Actual AP headline: “Guantanamo Strike Still on Despite New Obama Vow.”

That would be the “vow” (a word Obama did not use) to “re-engage with Congress to try to make the case that this is not something that’s in the best interests of the American people.” I don’t know what more they could ask for.

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Today -100: May 1, 1913: Raided!

British police (74 of them!) raid the Women’s Social and Political Union hq, arresting six leaders and seizing the suffrage organization’s papers (which no law actually authorizes them to do). Director of Public Prosecutions (and winner of Name of the Day -100) Sir Archibald Bodkin threatens any printer who prints The Suffragette, saying “That organ must be put a stop to.” He even threatens to go after its subscribers. (Spoiler alert: The Suffragette won’t miss a single weekly issue before World War I starts, not even tomorrow’s. The front page of tomorrow’s issue will feature the single word: RAIDED!)

What asshole wrote that NYT article? It says the Cat and Mouse Act is “turning the laugh against hunger strikers”.

In Mexico, Federal troops evacuate Juarez under pressure from the Constitutionalists.

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Barack Obama and the Permission Structure of Doom

Obama held one of his increasingly rare press conferences today.

A SLOWLY UNFOLDING DISASTER: “on Syria, I think it’s important to understand that for several years now what we’ve been seeing is a slowly unfolding disaster for the Syrian people, and this is not a situation in which we’ve been simply bystanders to what’s been happening.” True: we’ve been supplying one side with exactly enough assistance to keep the situation at a bloody stalemate.

See if you can find the very Washington D.C. word in this sentence: “My policy from the beginning has been President Assad had lost credibility; that he attacked his own people, has killed his own people, unleashed a military against innocent civilians; and that the only way to bring stability and peace to Syria is going to be for Assad to step down and -- and to move forward on a political transition.” Only politicians would say that a value judgement like “Assad has lost credibility” or a statement of fact like “Assad has killed his own people” is his “policy.”

If Syria used chemical weapons it would be “a game changer” because “when you use these kinds of weapons, you have the potential of killing massive numbers of people in the most inhumane way possible”. Because if the United States stands for one thing above all others, it is killing massive numbers of people in the most humane way possible.

If it’s any help in establishing the official US definition of “humane,” yesterday a Gitmo spokesmodel said, “we will continue to treat each person humanely,” by which he meant forcibly feeding hunger-striking prisoners.

THE SYRIAN GOVERNMENT IS KILLING ITS PEOPLE WITH WHAT NOW? “and the proliferation risks are so significant that we don’t want that genie out of the bottle.”

AS OPPOSED TO ALL THE GOVERNMENTS THAT CARE MORE ABOUT THE WELL-BEING OF THEIR PEOPLE THAN ABOUT STAYING IN POWER. THE MANY, MANY GOVERNMENTS THAT CARE MORE ABOUT THE WELL-BEING OF THEIR PEOPLE THAN ABOUT STAYING IN POWER. “But even if chemical weapons were not being used in Syria, we’d still be thinking about tens of thousands of people, innocent civilians, women, children, who’ve been killed by a regime that’s more concerned about staying in power than it is about the well-being of its people.”

IF WE DON’T JOG, THE TERRORISTS WIN: “There are joggers right now, I guarantee you, all throughout Boston and Cambridge and Watertown.”



THEN WHY DID YOU FUCKING AGREE TO IT? “Congress responded to the short-term problems of flight delays by giving us the option of shifting money that’s designed to repair and improve airports over the long term to fix the short-term problem, well, that’s not a solution. So essentially, what we’ve done is we’ve said, in order to avoid delays this summer, we’re going to ensure delays for the next two or three decades.”

On whether he has “juice” in Congress: “But, you know, Jonathan, you seem to suggest that somehow, these folks over there have no responsibilities and that my job is to somehow get them to behave. That’s their job. They are elected, members of Congress are elected in order to do what’s right for their constituencies and for the American people.” So THAT’s why members of Congress are elected. I’ve been wondering that for years.

WHO SAYS WE DON’T BUILD ANYTHING ANYMORE? “And we’re going to try to do everything we can to create a permission structure for them to be able to do what’s going to be best for the country.” He thinks Republican congresscritters would do what’s going to be best for the country if only they had a permission structure, isn’t that just adorable?



GREAT MOMENTS IN MORAL OUTRAGE: “I think it is critical for us to understand that Guantanamo is not necessary to keep America safe.” And what is he going to do about it? “I’m going to re-engage with Congress to try to make the case that this is not something that’s in the best interests of the American people.”

NOT SUSTAINABLE: “And it’s not sustainable. I mean, the notion that we’re going to continue to keep over a hundred individuals in a no man’s land in perpetuity, even at a time when we’ve wound down the war in Iraq, we’re winding down the war in Afghanistan, we’re having success defeating al-Qaida core, we’ve kept the pressure up on all these transnational terrorist networks, when we’ve transferred detention authority in Afghanistan – the idea that we would still maintain forever a group of individuals who have not been tried -- that is contrary to who we are, it is contrary to our interests, and it needs to stop.” Context is fucking irrelevant to this argument. Guantanamo was wrong and unconstitutional even when we hadn’t “wound down” the war in Iraq, whether or not we are defeating “Al Qaida core.”

That said, while he’s busily re-engaging with Congress, the force-feeding of prisoners will continue: “Well, I don’t -- I don’t want these individuals to die. Obviously, the Pentagon is trying to manage the situation as best as they can.” Manage the situation, yeah, that’s one term for it. Torture would be another. Violation of human rights would be yet another.

He crows about getting the application form for the medical exchanges from 21 pages down to 3. “We’re using a really tiny font size,” he said.

Asked about Jason Collins, because of course he is, Obama says that even though Collins is gay, he can “bang with Shaq” and “deliver a hard foul.” I’ll bet he can, I’ll bet he can.

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Today -100: April 30, 1913: Of alien land

Secretary of State Bryan’s conference with California legislators aimed at persuading them to postpone passage of the racist Alien Land Bill ended late at night, and three minutes later the State Senate convened and guess what they did...

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Today -100: April 29, 1913: Of alien land, poets, and angry Churchills

Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan meets in a closed-door session with the California Legislature and Gov. Hiram Johnson to ask them to delay the anti-Japanese Alien Land Bill, maybe appoint a commission or let the feds negotiate a treaty with Japan (a treaty to restrict the rights of its citizens abroad, really?), or apply the law to all aliens, not just ones “ineligible for citizenship.”

In Congress, Rep. Thomas Sisson (D-Miss.) says the US should, if necessary, go to war with Japan to protect California’s right to pass racist legislation. He says to exempt aliens from laws would give them greater privileges than American citizens. Which sounded nonsensical to me at first, but I think he’s saying that Asian non-citizens can be legally discriminated against on account of their race because non-white Americans can be legally discriminated against on account of theirs, and fair (or in this case unfair) is fair.

Journalist John Reed (you know, Warren Beatty in Reds) is arrested for refusing the orders of a cop to move it along when he was chatting with three strikers in Paterson, NJ. Asked in court what his business is, he says poet. He gets 20 days.

Bulgaria has evidently fought several battles with its former allies Serbia and Greece. Meanwhile, Montenegrin troops (with Serb backing) are taking up positions in preparation for a likely attack by Austria.

Headline of the Day -100: “Churchill Very Angry.” At being called to testify before the parliamentary committee on the Marconi scandal.

I just imagined Winston Churchill intoning, “You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry” in a Winston Churchill voice and then turning into Hulk Winston. Awesome.

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Today -100: April 28, 1913: Of Scutaris, and kings

Austria is sending 10,000 troops to force Montenegro to evacuate Scutari.

So Albania may get Scutari after all. But what it still doesn’t have is a king, and it’s put the Help Wanted sign out. Various European powers support various princelings from various Germanic and Scandinavian states for the job. The Albanians have offered the crown to Philippe d’Orléans, the Duke of of Montpensier, son of the French king deposed in 1848, but he turns them down. Austria would like to give it to Ismail Kemal Bey, who spent his life alternating between positions in the Ottoman government and living in exile before hitching his star to Albanian nationalism (Kemal will later irritably reject the idea of offering the throne to Teddy Roosevelt). Montenegro is attempting to install Essad Pasha, the commander of the Ottoman troops in Scutari who surrendered the city to Montenegro, which now begins to look rather suspicious. He declares himself king, to little effect. The NYT calls him “a native chieftain of the type that earned for the Albanians a reputation for barbaric simplicity, approaching savagery.”

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Today -100: April 27, 1913: Of degraded navies, shortcuts, and haircuts

Headline of the Day -100: “Opium Degrading the French Navy.”

I prefer to think that the French Navy is degrading opium.

300 soldiers from the Mexican Federal forces arrived in El Paso, intending to pass through US territory and re-enter Mexico at Juarez. Instead, the governor of Texas had them arrested. They are now being held at Fort Bliss until someone decides what to do with them.

Tonsorial Headline of the Day -100: “ASQUITH HAS A HAIRCUT.; News Recorded In London -- And They Complain About Our Papers!”

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Today -100: April 26, 1913: Of horses, unlawful assemblages, priests in cars, and dry canals

The lower house of the NY Legislature has evidently recently voted to ban the use of horses to pull street cars, and the NYT has an editorial about how wonderful horses are, because the NYT editorial page, then as now, is run by 12-year-old girls. “Happily for the glory of the horse he must survive in warfare”.

The Paterson silk-workers’ strike: the NJ grand jury indicts the IWW leaders, including Big Bill Haywood and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, on charges ranging from “unlawful assemblage” to disorderly conduct to inciting riot and preaching anarchy.

The Catholic Bishop of Treves forbids priests owning automobiles or even riding in them, as being contrary to proper priestly modesty.

The US’s Panama Canal Zone colony will ban saloons and the selling of alcohol from July.

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A Texas-sized party

The George W. Bush (Snicker) Presidential Library was dedicated today, and yes, that (Snicker) is part of the official title. All the living former presidents were there, some with teeth gritted more tightly than others.


Put your right hand on your heart, George. No, your other right.

Obama was there, which marks the first and last time a black man will visit the George W. Bush (Snicker) Presidential Library, and he gave a little speech.

WE’RE GOING TO TRY TO GET CARTER HAMMERED: “This is a Texas-sized party.”

A DIORAMA OF SHAME: “When all the living former presidents are together, it’s also a special day for our democracy.”

NEITHER OF WHICH WERE SPELLED CORRECTLY: “The first thing I found in that desk the day I took office was a letter from George, and one that demonstrated his compassion and generosity.”

WHICH JUST MAKES IT THAT MUCH SADDER: “And what I know is true about President Bush, and I hope my successor will say about me, is that we love this country and we do our best.”

ALTHOUGH THE HAGUE WOULD LIKE TO GIVE IT A SHOT: “Now, in the past, President Bush has said it’s impossible to pass judgment on his presidency while he’s still alive.”

TWO WORDS: FLIGHT SUIT. “He doesn’t put on any pretenses.”

UM, NO, BARACK. “He is a good man.”

Trying to hint at some sort of relevance to the present day, he talked about Bush’s “commitment to reaching across the aisle”. Yeah, if there’s one thing Bush is remembered for, it’s his commitment to reaching across the aisle. Obama has two examples: immigration reform, which didn’t happen, and No Child Left Behind, which was crap.

---

And Bush also gave a speech.

SHARED LAUGHTER AT HOW PIG IGNORANT HE IS: “There was a time in my life when I wasn’t likely to be found at a library, much less found one. [laughter]”

YEAH, UNLIKE THAT LAZY OLD FART CARTER: “I am very grateful to President Obama and Michelle for making this trip. [applause] Unlike the other Presidents here, he’s actually got a job. [laughter]”

THAT WORD, HISTORY, I DO NOT THINK IT MEANS WHAT YOU THINK IT MEANS: “History is going to show that I served with great people; a talented, dedicated, intelligent team of men and women who love our nation as much as I do.”

WOW, YOU’RE GOING TO BLAME HIM FOR THAT, I MEAN HE’S SITTING RIGHT THERE, DUDE: “Dad taught me how to be a President, before that he showed me how to be a man.”

Evidently, future generations are going to learn in this library “That we expanded freedom at home by raising standards at schools and lowering taxes for everybody. That we liberated nations from dictatorship and freed people from AIDS.” Freed people from AIDS?

And now, the GEORGE W. BUSH MEMORIAL CAPTION CONTEST:

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Today -100: April 25, 1913: No political party can make me a political hypocrite

Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan calls in a bunch of foreign ambassadors to explain his plan for a cooling-off period and a thorough investigation of inter-nation disputes by a joint commission before the start of any war. However, he wants this done through bilateral treaties, not by creating any “peace league” of civilized nations.

President Wilson’s daughter Margaret says women’s suffrage is not necessary.

California Gov. Hiram Johnson says it is within the state’s “legal power and its moral right” to discriminate against Japanese people. He points out that the state constitution has been bigoted since 1879 when it called “the presence of foreigners, ineligible to become citizens... dangerous to the well-being of the State”. And he points out that it was the federal government that made Japanese and Chinese people ineligible to become citizens in the first place.

Carlos McClatchey of the Sacramento Bee explains in a letter to the NYT that the Japanese can never be assimilated, including through inter-marriage, that they lack morality – why, prostitution is “no bar to marriage” for them – and they are tricky and unreliable in money matters. One such trick is to buy a piece of farmland, after which the Jap can buy all the land around it “for a song, for no white people will live next to Japanese”. If not remedied, he says, in 50 years California will be Japanese.

Austria tells the other Great Powers that if they don’t get Montenegro’s troops out of Scutari, it bloody well will.

After the Mexican Chamber of Deputies refuses to set a date for new elections, citing the continued, you know, civil war, Gen. Felix Díaz withdraws as candidate for president.

The Woolworth Building opens. At 55 floors and 792 feet, it’s the tallest building in the world after the Eiffel Tower (and will be until the Empire State Building opens). The signal for the building to be lit was sent by Woodrow Wilson, pushing a button in D.C. The skyscraper was paid for entirely by F.W. Woolworth, with no mortgage.

NY Gov. Sulzer, who has been trying to get the Legislature to pass a bill for direct primaries, thus eliminating Tammany-dominated conventions, vetoes a bill to make some changes to the primary laws, saying it was “enacted in bad faith; wholly fraudulent,” a violation of the D party’s pledges, and so on. “No political party can make me a political hypocrite.” His tone is rather pissing off legislators.

The Cat and Mouse Bill passes Parliament. The Standard claims to have unearthed a suffragette plot to kidnap the son of Mr. Justice Lush, burn Harrow, and blow up the house of Reginald Blair, MP. The evidence: someone in a train overheard two women discussing the plot.

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Today -100: April 24, 1913: Of mines, scutaris, alien land bills, and more Little Dorrits

A coal mine in Pennsylvania blows up, killing 120 or so miners, mostly by asphyxiation. Coal mines are fun.

Montenegro, the only Balkan ally not to have signed an armistice with Turkey, captures Scutari after a six-month siege, defying the many threats of the Great Powers (especially Austria).

Secretary of State Bryan is heading to California to try to persuade legislators to ban Japanese from owning land in a way that doesn’t offend Japan (Wilson’s first response was that this was a state’s rights issue, but Japan has made it clear that it’s a question of the treaty rights enjoyed by its citizens). The Japanese ambassador denies reports that he threatened that Japan will go to war with the US if this bill passes.

The woman who was the model for Charles Dickens’s Little Dorrit has died. Thing is, I saw that exact same story 2½ years ago, about another person. How many Little Dorrits were there?

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Today -100: April 23, 1913: Of general strikes and lost planes

The Belgian general strike has more or less succeeded. The government, which had said it wouldn’t give in, does, at least to the extent of appointing a commission on extending the vote.

A German military airplane accidentally strays into France, again.

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Today -100: April 22, 1913: Of pauses, strikes, cat & mice, alien land bills, mad dogs & princesses, and maniacs

Secretary of state Bryan is working on a proposal for all countries to delay any future wars for 6-month or 1-year cooling-off period. His plan includes a no-fair-building-up-your-military-during-the-cooling-off-period provision that makes it even more unrealistic than it already is.

The Paterson, NJ silk strike is now in its 9th week, and the owners have been bringing in AFL organizers to counter the leadership of the Wobblies. The two labor groups are now happily denouncing each other and breaking up each other’s meetings, as was the custom.

The British Parliament passes the Cat and Mouse Act, whose purpose is supposed to be to deal with hunger-striking prisoners without resorting to forcible feeding, but the government refuses to accept an amendment banning forcible feeding.

The California Legislature is still mulling over various anti-Japanese land bills, but Gov. Hiram Johnson, an alleged progressive, doesn’t know what all the fuss is about: “Californians are unable to understand why an act admittedly within the jurisdiction of the California Legislature, like the passage of an alien land bill, creates tumult, confusion, and criticism, and why this local act of undoubted right becomes an international question.” Oo, oo, I totally know the answer to this one. Johnson points out that Arizona, Washington, Illinois, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Missouri, Kentucky and Texas all have similar laws.

Royal Headline of the Day -100: “Mad Dog Bit Princess.” The princess is Princess Maria Immaculata, sister-in-law of the king of Saxony, and the dog is her own lapdog, which has been behaving oddly. She gets the rabies vaccination.

Other Royal Headline of the Day -100: “MANIAC NEAR KING GEORGE.; Swallows Half a Sovereign and Tries to Jump Through Window.” Actually, that’s all there is to the story (well, he also tried to swallow his glasses).

Um, the sovereign is a £1 coin.

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Today -100: April 21, 1913: Are we in Russia?

As mentioned, the British home secretary has banned women’s suffrage meetings in Hyde Park and other public spaces because they were leading to riots. Turns out, the British public likes bans on public meetings even less than it likes suffragettes, so Hyde Park was just as turbulent yesterday -100 (Sunday), with cries of “Are we in Russia?” The London Times thinks they resent losing their Sunday “sport” of hassle-the-suffragette.

60 IWW activists arrive in Grand Junction, CO, march to police hq and demand food. 16 of them then went to a restaurant, ordered food and refused to pay. Posses are being organized.

Isadora Duncan says she will quit the stage and become a nurse (her two children both just died in a car accident).

In France, the anarchist auto bandit gang members are guillotined (publicly, as was the custom). One of them was pardoned and exiled for life to Devil’s Island. There’s a nice write-up at Executed Today.

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Today -100: April 20, 1913: No court can tell me what to do

Featured in the NYT Sunday Magazine: “Famous French Duelist Defends ‘Affairs of Honor.’”

Belgian suffrage strike Day 6, still mostly peaceful.

Gov. Coleman Blease of South Carolina ignores a writ of habeas corpus, because “no court can tell me what to do,” and hands two fugitives wanted in New York for financial swindles over to NY detectives, suggesting they get their prisoners out of the state quickly, which they did, with the sheriff trying to serve the writ in hot pursuit in a high-speed car chase for the border.

The US Senate Woman Suffrage Committee hears from anti-suffragists. In the audience was “Dr. Mary Walker, who has the statutory right to wear trousers”. The only woman ever to win the Congressional Medal of Honor, and all anyone ever wants to talk about is the trousers (for example, this 1974 biography, “Dr. Mary Walker: The Little Lady in Pants.” Sigh.) A letter from Kate Douglas Wiggin, author of Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, is read to the committee: “I would have woman strong enough to keep just a trifle in the background; the limelight never makes anything strong.” A letter from Mary Elliot Seawell, another author, writes that a constitutional amendment would also allow negro women to vote. Which would be bad.

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Simple answers to stupid questions

Former Pakistani dictator Musharraf is finally arrested. He puts out a video in which he asks, “Why I am being stopped from pursuing politics in Pakistan. Is it because I brought progress to Pakistan and added to its security?”

No. No it isn’t.

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Today -100: April 19, 1913: Of sugar, alien land, and the military-industrial complex

Now that Bulgaria and Turkey have a truce, the Bulgarian Army will attempt to take Monastir from its erstwhile ally Serbia.

Some things never change: the US consumes 1/5 of the world’s sugar, a greater per capita consumption than any other country.

The NYT blames the outrage in Japan against California’s proposed racist land law on the yellow press. Ha ha.

German Socialist leader MP Karl Liebknecht accuses German military contractors of providing anti-German material to chauvinist French newspapers to stir up international discord. He also says they are illicitly acquiring military secrets in order to held win contracts. This is definitely true: Krupps will cop to it tomorrow -100).

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Today -100: April 18, 1913: Of general strikes, law-abiding and industrious races, and popped balloons

The Belgian suffrage general strike is now up to 400,000, half the male working population. Strikers are sending their children to Germany, presumably on trains, which will stop functioning soon when the country runs out of coal. My favorite detail: “A company of strikers in Brussels is being taken by professors on educational visits to the museums.”

Sen. John Works (R-CA) proposes a bill to ban D.C. newspapers publishing the details of crimes, accidents and tragedies. Or, as they call it in D.C., Congress.

In a letter to the NYT, Cleveland G. Allen, a black journalist, complains that Woodrow Wilson got black people’s votes under false pretenses, and is now giving the few positions in the federal government formerly held by blacks to whites. The NYT responds: “The negroes of the United States are doing very well. Thanks to the leadership of men like Booker T. Washington they have become a law-abiding and industrious race and their interests are not centered in politics or office-holding. ... If President Wilson is doing precisely what Mr. Allen accuses him of doing, he will meet no protest from men like Dr. Washington, who have the interests of the race at heart.” It goes on to quote approvingly Elihu Root’s belief that granting negroes the vote was a mistake.

Sixty of the 100 imprisoned IWW members in Denver jail begin a hunger strike.

NY Gov. Sulzer is trying to get the Legislature to pass a bill for direct primaries and abolish Tammany-dominated (on the Democratic side, obviously) conventions.

A French army balloon explodes. Oh the humanité.

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Today -100: April 17, 1913: I am insulted. Protect me!

The Belgian manhood suffrage strike continues to grow, to 300,000+. It’s day, 3 I think, and has been peaceful.

Some Germans visiting a casino in Nancy, France a few days ago were berated by some French students, and the German newspapers haven’t shut up about it since. The indignities supposedly inflicted on the tourists have only grown in the telling, in the German press anyway, while remaining on the level of youthful hijinks in the French press – “four or five young men surrounded the Germans, singing ‘You shall not have Alsace-Lorraine.’ One of the Germans went up to an official and said: ‘I am insulted. Protect me!’”

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Today -100: April 16, 1913: Of sore winners, arson, alien land, and two-cent lunches

The winners of the (not quite over yet) Balkan War are less and less unified. Bulgaria is happy to accept the Powers’ proposed terms, but Serbia wants more territory – a lot more territory – than the treaty the allies made before the war accorded it, and Montenegro is insisting on keeping Scutari, refusing monetary compensation (from whom?) for it.

British suffragettes burn down a house belonging to Arthur Philip Du Cros, anti-suffrage Tory MP and founder of Dunlop Rubber Company.

The home secretary bans suffragette meetings in Hyde Park and other public spaces in London on public order grounds. So the thugs who attack those meetings win.

The lower house of the California Legislature passes the Alien Land Bill 60-15. They’ve made it ostensibly non-racial by banning land ownership by aliens unless they declare their intention to become citizens, an option which is barred to Japanese by racist federal citizenship laws. If such aliens hold land more than a year after the bill passes (or in the future if an alien inherits land), the state can seize it.

Headline of the Day -100: “Two-Cent Luncheon Delights Roosevelt.” He had bean soup and an egg sandwich at a public school.

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Today -100: April 15, 1913: Of arson trusts, general strikes, and mongolians

The Chicago Grand Jury says that arson in that city has been “organized into a perfect system” carried on by insurance adjusters, an “arson trust,” as they describe it.

Sports Name of the Day -100: there is a boxer who calls himself Kid Ghetto.

The general strike for suffrage in Belgium is spreading.

Headline of the Day -100: “Six Hundred Quit the I.W.W.” Well, not so much “quit” as submit to extortion. Here’s the article, datelined North Providence, RI, in its entirety: “After renouncing their connections with the Industrial Workers of the World and signing an agreement not to join the organization again under penalty of dismissal, the 600 operatives at the Esmond Blanket Mills returned to work to-day.”

Japan plans to appeal California’s proposed Alien Land Bill to the Supreme Court. Adorably, they think they’ll win by proving that Japanese are not of Mongolian origin. Because that’s why Californians hate Japanese people: it’s all just a wacky ethnological misunderstanding.

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Today -100: April 14, 1913: Of assassination attempts, canters, and butts

An anarchist shoots at Spain’s King Alfonso, as was the custom. Three shots, all missed. Spanish anarchists were notoriously crappy shots, probably. The king rode back to his palace on a horse that had been wounded by one of the shots, so he was clearly a douche.

Headline of the Day -100: “BRYAN'S HORSE ARRIVES.; Secretary Plans Canters in Capital.” That’s what was wrong with Hillary Clinton: she never cantered in the capital.

Butt Headline of the Day -100: “TAFT PRAISES MAJOR BUTT.” (Titanic 1 year anniversary).

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Today -100: April 13, 1913: Folded arms and not raised fists

New York state bans discrimination by hotels, theaters, music halls bath houses, barber shops, etc on the basis of race, color or creed, with fines of $100 to $500 and/or imprisonment up to 90 days.

The NYT has an article about the first issue of The New Statesman that somehow neglects to mention the magazine’s name. The Times does quote one of George Bernard Shaw’s articles, on the Marconi scandal: “We are an incorrigibly intemperate and ridiculous people in our cups of virtuous indignation. We are a nation of governesses.”

Emmeline Pankhurst is released from prison, nine days into her three-year prison term. The NYT criticizes the British government’s “feeble policy.” Mrs. Pankhurst is “stronger than the Home Office and the whole Liberal Government.” The New Statesman (possibly Shaw again) says of forcible feeding, “The fact that Mrs. Pankhurst can make [Home Secretary Reginald McKenna] unpopular by dying on his hands does not give him a right to add one ounce to the weight of her sentence.”



Headline That Sounds Dirty But Really Isn’t of the Day -100: “Still Pounding Scutari.”

Belgium is preparing for a general strike tomorrow for universal suffrage (or universal male suffrage, depending on which article you read). According to the Socialists’ posters, “This is a strike of folded arms and not of raised fists.” Currently, the vote is held by males over 25, with extra votes if they own property, have university degrees, work for the government, are married or a widower with children (max. 3 votes each). 60% of voters have 1 vote, 25% 2, and 15% 3. The current Catholic Party government would not have been elected without plural voting.

Nebraska bans marriages between a white person and anyone with 1/8th or more of black, Japanese or Chinese blood. Presumably blacks and Asians can inter-marry, because the Nebraska Legislature doesn’t care about the “purity” of any race but one. Native Americans were originally included in the bill, but were later removed; I don’t know why.

John B. Henderson, the former US senator (1862-9) from Missouri who wrote the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery, dies at age 86.

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Today -100: April 12, 1913: Of hunger strikes, rag-tags, and sailors

Day 9 of Emmeline Pankhurst’s hunger strike. Holloway Prison officials are not forcibly feeding her – they don’t dare – but instead try to tempt her with much nicer food than the usual prison fare. Steak, chops, custard pudding, cocoa...

Suffragettes set fire to the grandstand of the cricket grounds at Tunbridge Wells. And break the windows of a Daily Standard editor. And are destroying fire alarms in London. Among other things. Oh, and one of them phoned the king on his private phone number. He hung up.

Misleading Headline of the Day -100: “Industrial Workers Quit.” Actually, IWW organizers fled from a posse organized by the Grand Junction, Colorado city government following a mass meeting demanding that the sheriff drive the Wobblies out of town. The LAT’s headline is “I.W.W. Rag-Tag Shoved Along.”

Three American sailors are killed in Guaymas, Mexico, possibly by the police chief, while they were drunkenly partying on shore leave.

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Today -100: April 11, 1913: Of train crashes, sherlocks, and blockades

A train is wrecked in Mexico, killing 20, because the passengers, afraid of rebels, insisted that the train speed up.

Name of the Day -100: Pres. Wilson appoints as postmaster for Baltimore one Sherlock Swann.

The Powers are now blockading Montenegro’s coast.

This won’t be in the papers, but the Cabinet discussed plans to segregate federal workers. There was no opposition.

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Today -100: April 10, 1913: Bye bye Montenegro?

Pres. Wilson refuses to interfere with a bill being considered by the California Legislature to ban Japanese people owning property (state’s rights, you know; if the feds stopped racial discrimination in one state, who knows where it would all end).

Montenegro is threatening that if the Great Powers use force to prevent it annexing land the Powers want for an Albanian state, King Nicholas will abdicate and Montenegro will merge with Serbia.

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Wherein Obama approvingly utters a phrase that embodies much that is wrong with America

Last week: “There doesn’t have to be a conflict between protecting our citizens and protecting our Second Amendment rights. I’ve got stacks of letters in my office from proud gun owners...”

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