I couldn’t avoid doing a Weiner joke forever

Today, Twitt Romney announced for the presidency at a family farm, “where he invited supporters and media to a ‘Cookout With Mitt and Ann.’”

Meanwhile, Anthony Weiner invited supporters and media to a... oh, you’re way ahead of me, aren’t you?

Today -100: June 2, 1911: Of respectable saloon keepers, Tubman, and sacrilege

The Women’s Christian Temperance Union tries to get the principal of the Frances Willard Public School in Chicago, which is named after the WCTU founder, fired for saying that “a respectable saloon keeper is just as respectable as a respectable banker.” They say that for Ms Reed to keep her job would be “an insult directed at the organization and at womanhood in general.” The school board does not fire her, but does direct that in future principals and teachers should “refrain from making public any comparison likely to incur ill-will or hatred between classes of citizens as regards religion, race, nationality, or occupation.”

Harriet Tubman, aged 89, is destitute and has to enter a home for old black people that was founded a few years before with donations from Tubman herself.

The NY Legislature passes a bill banning plays (including those performed privately) from having “a living character representing the Deity.”

Imprimatur

The Supreme Court rules 8-0 that Abdullah al-Kidd can’t sue then-Attorney General John Ashcroft for misusing the material witness statute to imprison him for reasons that had nothing to do with him being a material witness to anything.

In a concurring opinion, Sotomayor wrote, “Nothing in the majority’s opinion today should be read as placing this court’s imprimatur on the actions taken by the government against al-Kidd.”

Unless you count making it impossible for him to receive any sort of redress for those actions, and doing nothing that would prevent governments in the future locking up anyone they want to without evidence or trial.

Today -100: June 1, 1911: Of retiring dictators, titanics (titanix?), palaces, and veterans

Former-President-For-Life Porfirio Díaz gets on a boat and takes his leave of Mexico. His final words on shore: “I shall die in Mexico,” adding, “or, you know, maybe France. Whatever.” In a little speech before that to some loyalist soldiers, he said that the new government would be forced to use his methods – repression, violence, general assholery, that sort of thing – to maintain peace. One of those soldiers was Gen. Victoriano Huerta, so we know one person at least took Díaz’s words to heart.

Eek. NYT Index Typo of the Day: “WOMEN FIGHT SUFFRAGE BILL; Ask Connecticut mouse to Reject One Passed by Senate.”

Headline of the Day -100: “The Titanic Launched.”

Someone has blown up the presidential palace (and a fort) in Nicaragua, killing over 100 people. Believed to be a plot by supporters of former prez Estrada.

The Commissioner of Pensions rules that Louise Bliss is not a veteran and did not, as she has often claimed, dress as a man and fight in the Civil War. So no pension for her.

Today -100: May 31, 1911: I want to make all the stronger nations ask us not to hurt them

Woodrow Wilson, in North Carolina, when asked about a possible presidential run, says “It is too far off to talk about.”

A Mexican is lynched in Barstow, Texas for shouting “Viva Díaz!” during a celebration of the success of the Revolution.

Ray Harroun wins the first Indianapolis 500, driving a Marmon Wasp (the very one pictured below), winning around $15,000. He drove the 500 miles at an average speed of 74 mph. Harroun’s great innovation, used here for the first time in an automobile, was the rear-view mirror; his was the only car not to have a mechanic passenger to keep a watch on the road behind. There was one fatality, the driver of a car whose front wheels fell off and was thrown 20 feet – no one had invented the seat belt.


It was Memorial Day, which in those days was of course strictly about the Civil War (which I notice the NYT doesn’t initial cap). Compare and contrast: President Taft gave a speech at Arlington arguing that the US should “strain ever nerve... to avoid war in the future.” And just as Americans as individuals have (mostly) “progressed” away from fighting duels over insults to their honor, so nations should “refuse to go to war for an insult” and instead “submit to the arbitrament of a peaceful tribunal”. Teddy Roosevelt, on the other hand, addressing Civil War veterans at Grant’s Tomb: “I took part in a little war which came after your big war. It was all the war there was, and it was not our fault that there wasn’t war enough to go around.” He doesn’t support arbitration, especially over the Monroe Doctrine or Asiatic immigration, and he does support a big navy: “I don’t want to put myself in the position of having to ask strong nations not to hurt us. I want to make all the stronger nations ask us not to hurt them”.

News you missed this weekend (but not that much)

The king of Sweden denies he’s ever been in a strip club. Which means he’s totally been in a strip club.

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Top news on Fox News: “Is Obama Chewing Gum at Joplin Memorial Service?”

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From the BBC: “Police in southern Bangladesh say a woman cut off a man’s penis during an alleged attempt to rape her and took it to a police station as evidence.” Said a police spokesmodel: “As far as I am aware, this is the first time that a woman has brought a severed penis to the police station as evidence.”

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Also from the Beeb: “Severed Head of Patron Saint of Genital Disease on Sale.” That’s St. Vitalis of Assisi. “He died in 1370, and word of his sanctity soon spread due to reports of numerous miracles performed on those with bladder and genital disorders.” “The Holy Cross Monastery, a Benedictine order in Rostrevor, County Down, did not even know who St Vitalis was, and after an internet search, declined to comment further on the matter of his or anyone else’s severed head.”

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I’m conflicted. As fun as it would be to watch Michele Bachmann run for president, to do so she’d have to forego running for the Senate and I was looking forward to her debates with Al Franken.

To be clear, that was a picture of St. Vitalis of Assisi, not St. Michele of Minnesota. Although I understand Ms. Bachmann has also performed numerous miracles on those with bladder and genital disorders.

Name of the Day

From the world football scandal I couldn’t care less about but which has been dominating the BBC the last few days: Fifa president Sepp Blatter.

Are we entirely sure that name wasn’t dreamt up by Douglas Adams?

Wikipedia provides us this tidbit about Mr. Blatter: “In the early 1970s, Blatter was elected president of the World Society of Friends of Suspenders, an organisation which tried to stop women replacing suspender belts with pantyhose.”

Today -100: May 30, 1911: Of Gilbert, tobacco trusts, cows, and warplanes

W.S. Gilbert, of Gilbert & Sullivan, drowns after suffering a heart attack while attempting to save a young woman in a lake. He was 74.

The Supreme Court rules that the Tobacco Trust must be dissolved.

Pope Pius X publishes an encyclical attacking the Portuguese government for suppressing Catholicism.

Coincidentally, no doubt, a monarchist plot against the Portuguese government is discovered, and dispersed by the military.

Headline of the Day -100: “Biplane Strikes Cow.”

The Lake Mohonk peace conference adopts a resolution for an international agreement banning the use of airships in warfare. The NYT agrees.

Today -100: May 29, 1911: Of castles, making eyes, and Methodists & prohibition

Dancers Vernon and Irene Castle marry.

At Cornell during Spring Days, it is traditional for the law students to “arrest” people on false charges and extort money from them for fun and profit. One Henry Koch of Brooklyn arrests Governor John A. Dix on a charge of making eyes at the girls. Dix objects, but the arrest is supported Cornell’s president. The “Court of Injustice” fines Dix $1.

The Methodist Church asks Texas Governor Oscar Branch Colquitt to resign because he opposes prohibition. He refuses, saying prohibition is a political issue not a religious one and is not part of the Confession of Faith, so the church should butt out.

Ratko and Skip and Hank

To answer a question I asked last week: 2004, Serbia stopped paying Ratko Mladic’s pension in 2004. He wants it reinstated.

Mladic’s son is named Darko. It’s like that family wants to turn out generation after generation of Bond villains.

At the other extreme, this week, on HBO’s movie “Too Big to Fail,” I heard the happiest, funnest name ever: Skip McGee, of Lehman Brothers. Hey, everyone, it’s Skip McGee! they must say every time he walks in a room. Mladic would have turned out very differently if his parents had named him Skip.

William Hurt was pretty good as Henry Paulson but his... face... didn’t quite match up.

Today -100: May 28, 1911: Of opium and trains

Britain and China sign a treaty to end the opium trade by 1917.

An attack on the train taking Porfirio Díaz out of Mexico forever is fought off. Asked why he thought the attack occurred, Francisco Madero said, “Oh, I suppose they did not have much love for him.”

Today -100: May 27, 1911: Of passports

Former President-for-Life Díaz sneaks out of Mexico. He is believed to be headed for Madrid. Madero resigns as self-proclaimed provisional president.

Russia reverses policy, will allow Jews with American passports to enter Russia. I’m not sure why this finally happened now (-100).

Picky

Ratko Mladic has finally been arrested. My favorite Mladic stories:

On July 11, 1995, as Serb troops were surrounding Srebrenica, Mladic summoned the Dutch UN commander & officers to watch a pig being killed, and said that’s how he’d treat people like those protected by Dutch peacekeepers.

And he did.

After the massacre, however, he denied that Serb forces had raped Muslims because “we are too picky.”

Does anyone know if the Serb military ever stopped paying his pension? I know they still were 9 years after his war crimes indictment.

Today -100: May 26, 1911: Of air battles and resignations

The ill-fated Paris-Madrid air race, which kicked off with a plane falling on the French prime minister and killing the war minister, sees what the NYT calls “the first recorded battle of the air”, when an eagle attacks one of the pilots, who shoots at it. It carries off his cap. At least that’s his tall tale (the pilot’s, not the eagle’s), and he’s sticking with it.

Porfirio Díaz resigns. His letter of resignation reads in part: “The Mexican people, who generously covered me with honors, who proclaimed me as their leader during the international war” and so on for a bit, “that same people, Sir, has revolted in armed military bands, stating that my presence in the exercise of the supreme executive power is the cause of this insurrection. I do not know of any fact imputable to me which could have caused this social phenomenon, but permitting, though not admitting, that I may be unwittingly culpable, such a possibility makes me the least able to reason out and decide my own culpability.”

Part of the deal ending the Mexican Revolution (well, this phase of it, but they weren’t to know that) was that Maderists would take charge of half the states. In Coahuila, this has come up against the Legislature, which refuses to vote Venustiano Carranza (the future president of Mexico) in as governor. Madero threatens a coup in the state.

Madero also plans to have his forces cooperate with federals in crushing the socialist utopia established in Baja.

Obama-Cameron press conference: Momentum!

Obama held a press conference in London with huge-foreheaded British Prime Minister David Cameron.


Asked if the US will continue military operations in Libya until Qaddafi is overthrow/killed, Obama said, “we are strongly committed to seeing the job through, making sure that, at minimum, Qaddafi doesn’t have the capacity to send in a bunch of thugs to murder innocent civilians and to threaten them.” That’s the minimum? What’s the maximum? He also opposes an “artificial timeline” for withdrawal. Do you think he hears himself when he comes out with George Bush’s greatest hits like that and is horrified by what he’s become? Me neither.

I don’t think I’ve noticed this before, but Obama seems to have a strong belief in something he calls momentum. He talks here, as he has in the past, about breaking the Taliban’s momentum, and says of Qaddafi, “I believe that we have built enough momentum that as long as we sustain the course that we’re on, that he is ultimately going to step down.” But what does “momentum” mean in practical terms, and how does breaking it or sustaining it actually achieve these miraculous results?

Something similar pops up in a later answer to a question about Netanyahu’s description of the Palestinian demand for a right of return as a “fantasy.” He says that if the Israelis and Palestinians just start talking about future borders and Israeli (but I guess not Palestinian) security, “they can start seeing on the horizon the possibility of a peace deal, they will then be in a position to have a -- what would be a very difficult conversation about refugees and about Jerusalem.” So he’s depending on momentum to roll right through a resolution of those issues.


HE’S THE REMINDERER: “So, as much as it’s important for the United States, as Israel’s closest friend and partner, to remind them of the urgency of achieving peace, I don’t want the Palestinians to forget that they have obligations as well.”

He again says that the Palestinian government “tak[ing] the United Nations route rather than the path of sitting down and talking with the Israelis is a mistake” which “will not achieve their stated goal of achieving a Palestinian state.” First, it’s not an either/or. Second, if it would be so ineffectual, why is he so vehemently opposed to it? He hasn’t actually come out and described any harm that would be done by recognition.

Today -100: May 25, 1911: Of provisional presidents, interim presidents, and presidents for life

The Mexican interior minister asks Madero for help from the rebel forces to conquer “bandits and thieves.” Madero says no.

Demonstrations in Mexico City because Mubarak Díaz still hasn’t tendered his resignation as expected.

Madero, though still evidently calling himself the provisional president of Mexico, actually plans to let Francisco de la Barra succeed Díaz and organize elections, which Madero of course intends to win “if the people want me.” Catholics are beginning to organize a party to oppose him (Madero “has Protestant leanings,” whatever that means).

(Update: see Executed Today for a typically excellent post on the mother-and-son lynching of Laura and Lawrence Nelson in Okemah, Oklahoma.)

Netanyahu’s speech to Congress: Israel is what is right about the Middle East

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (an anagram of Junta By Inane He-Man)(h/t Dave Barry) gave an address to Congress today. But did he bring a nice coffee cake?

IF THE SECOND PART OF THIS IS TRUE, THAT WOULD JUST BE SO VERY SAD: “Israel has no better friend than America, and America has no better friend than Israel.”

WHEN? WHEN HAVE WE STOOD TOGETHER TO DEFEND DEMOCRACY OR ADVANCE PEACE? WHEN? “We stand together to defend democracy. We stand together to advance peace. We stand together to fight terrorism.”

If I were a rich man, Ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba deedle deedle dum.
NETANYAHU IS MR. SUBTLE, ISN’T HE? “Congratulations, America. Congratulations, Mr. President. You got bin Laden. Good riddance.”

WELL, IT’S AN ANCHOR OF SOMETHING ALL RIGHT: “In an unstable Middle East, Israel is the one anchor of stability.”

ON TOP OF ANOTHER NATION: “My friends, you don’t have to -- you don’t need to do nation-building in Israel. We’re already built.”

IN A WORLD...: “In a region where women are stoned, gays are hanged, Christians are persecuted, Israel stands out. It is different.” A brave move, coming out against women being stoned and gays hanged. Bibi risks alienating his Republican supporters.

ENJOY: “Of the 300 million Arabs in the Middle East and North Africa, only Israel’s Arab citizens enjoy real democratic rights.”

A BASIC TRUTH: “This startling fact reveals a basic truth: Israel is not what is wrong with about the Middle East; Israel is what is right about the Middle East.”

What is wrong about the Middle East, of course, is Iran, and he went on about that for a bit, and how Iran would totally nuke D.C. if it had nukes.

HE MENTIONED THE HOLOCAUST! DRINK! “Less than seven decades after 6 million Jews were murdered, Iran’s leaders deny the Holocaust of the Jewish people, while calling for the annihilation of the Jewish state.”

All day long I’d biddy biddy bum, If I were a wealthy man.
I AM OUTRAGED AT THE OUTRAGE AT THE LACK OF OUTRAGE! “Now, there’s something that makes the outrage even greater. And you know what that is? It’s the lack of outrage.”

ALSO, THAT THEY’RE NOT VERY GOOD AT SPORTS: “Now, as for Israel, if history has taught the Jewish people anything, it is that we must take calls for our destruction seriously.”

PAINFUL COMPROMISES: “I’m willing to make painful compromises to achieve this historic peace... Now, this is not easy for me. It’s not easy because I recognize that in a genuine peace, we’ll be required to give up parts of the ancestral Jewish homeland. And you have to understand this: In Judea and Samaria, the Jewish people are not foreign occupiers. We’re not the British in India. We’re not the Belgians in the Congo.” You might be confused into thinking that they’re foreign occupiers because of the 44 years of occupation. It’s like an optical illusion or something.

SO HELPFUL: “We’ve helped, on our side, we’ve helped the Palestinian economic growth by removing hundreds of barriers and roadblocks to the free flow of goods and people”. Of course we’re the ones put those barriers and roadblocks in place, but hey.

INSERT YOUR OWN OBVIOUS JOKE HERE: “The Palestinian economy is booming.”

I wouldn’t have to work hard. Ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba deedle deedle dum.
He goes on about the generosity of the Israelis. Every Israeli prime minister since the Oslo Accords were signed has been willing to pretend to be willing to establish a Palestinian state, with certain... conditions... but “so far the Palestinians have been unwilling to accept a Palestinian state if it meant accepting a Jewish state alongside it. You see, our conflict has never been about the establishment of a Palestinian state. It’s always been about the existence of the Jewish state. ... It’s time for President Abbas to stand before his people and say, ‘I will accept a Jewish state.’”

GENEROUS: “Now, the precise delineation of those borders must be negotiated. We’ll be generous about the size of the future Palestinian state.” Generous with stolen land.

VERY FIRM: “but we’ll be very firm on where we put the border with it.” And on what side of the border Palestinian refugees will be from the land from which they were expelled. And who gets Jerusalem.

WHAT YOU KNOW VERY WELL: “But you know very well that in the Middle East the only peace that will hold is a peace you can defend.”

BUT I THOUGHT THE ONLY PEACE THAT WILL HOLD IS A PEACE YOU CAN DEFEND? “So it’s therefore vital, absolutely vital, that a Palestinian state be fully demilitarized.”

Although he thought it was very important for Palestinians to recognize “a Jewish state” before anything else happens, it’s also very important for the UN not to recognize a Palestinian state. “Peace can only be achieved around the negotiating table. The Palestinian attempt to impose a settlement through the United Nations will not bring peace. It should be forcefully opposed by all those who want to see this conflict end.”

“But peace can only be negotiated with partners committed to peace, and Hamas is not a partner for peace.”

“So I say to President Abbas, ‘Tear up your pact with Hamas, sit down and negotiate, make peace with the Jewish state. And if you do, I promise you this: Israel will not be the last country to welcome a Palestinian state as the new member of the United Nations. It will be the first to do so.’” So he will recognize a Palestinian state as long as he can dictate who runs it.

If I were a biddy biddy rich, Yidle-diddle-didle-didle man.

Brown v. Plata: Antonin Scalia and the Intimidating Muscles of Doom

In Brown v. Plata, the Supreme Court upheld (5-4) a federal court order that California start releasing prisoners to alleviate unconstitutionally icky (i.e., care that “fall[s] below the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society”) prison conditions, especially inadequate medical and mental health treatment. Let’s look at Scalia’s dissent (pdf, dissent begins on page 59), joined by Thomas, shall we?

Scalia drops any pretense to be a neutral arbiter of the law, explicitly calling for a desired outcome to shape legal interpretation: “There comes before us, now and then, a case whose proper outcome is so clearly indicated by tradition and common sense, that its decision ought to shape the law, rather than vice versa. One would think that, before allowing the decree of a federal district court to release 46,000 convicted felons, this Court would bend every effort to read the law in such a way as to avoid that outrageous result.” Bend every effort. Read the law in such a way.

Scalia objects strenuously to that whole “evolving standards of decency” thing, because he sees it as giving undue interpretative power to judges, and since he is against evolution, standards, and decency.

He denies that there should ever have been a class-action suit, because merely being a patient in a horrendously inadequate system doesn’t necessarily mean that your treatment was horrendously inadequate and your 8th Amendment rights violated (the “theory of systemic unconstitutionality”). Scalia argues that the lower court’s remedy, large-scale prison releases, is not narrowly drawn, as he thinks it should be, to deal only with those specific cases where the horrendously inadequate system provided horrendously inadequate care, while leaving the horrendously inadequate system intact. He grudgingly admits that a prisoner denied constitutionally required medical treatment might – might – be ordered released, but sees no reason to alter a system that will inevitably and predictably deprive prisoners of constitutionally required medical treatment.

And the majority of the 46,000 prisoners that would be released aren’t even part of the class: “Most of them will not be prisoners with medical conditions or severe mental illness...” Of course the California prison system’s facilities are also incapable of determining which prisoners even have medical conditions or severe mental illnesses. “...and many will undoubtedly be fine physical specimens who have developed intimidating muscles pumping iron in the prison gym.” Fat Tony is very intimidated by the thought of fine physical specimens with muscles formed by pumping iron in the prison gym. And a little excited. And a little ashamed that he’s a little excited. And a little excited that he’s a little ashamed.

Scalia suggests that the majority opinion’s rather anodyne and routine reminder to the 9th Circuit that its release order might be modified is a “ceremonial washing of the hands” to absolve the Supremes of responsibility for the awesome wave of bloodshed Scalia anticipates. For some reason the Nostradamus of the bench is able to see into the future and predict that releasing prisoners will result in injury and death, but not that subjecting prisoners to inadequate medical and mental health facilities will result, as the majority opinion says, in an inmate dying needlessly every 6 or 7 days.

(Alito, in a dissent joined by Roberts, admits “past instances in which particular prisoners received shockingly deficient medical care” – without bringing himself to admit that a system that hasn’t changed will produce more such instances in the future – but says that “such anecdotal evidence cannot be given undue weight in assessing the current state of the California system.” After all, the California prison system’s population is “larger than that of many medium-sized cities” and many people in medium-sized cities also have crappy medical care. So that’s okay then.)

Today -100: May 24, 1911: Of chimps, libraries, big bills, lynchings, and crippled naps

President Taft goes to the Bronx Zoo and shakes hand with a chimpanzee named Baldy. Baldy’s keeper, who is 180 pounds, says the chimp can lift him off his feet. “Every one looked expectantly at President Taft, wondering if he would offer to let the chimpanzee lift him. ‘Indeed?’ is as far, however as the President would commit himself.”

Taft is not only in the city to meet chimps but to open the new New York Public Library because, he says, the opening of a library reaching 8,000,000 is a matter of national importance. It will be the first and only public library in New York to open on Sundays. The $29 million library has an electrical plant as large as that of the city of Stockholm. Unlike in the great majority of libraries, the stacks will be open to most people, rather than patrons having to wait for someone to bring their books to them.

An 18-year-old messenger for a stock exchange company is convicted of grand larceny by a jury which did not believe that he “lost” a $10,000 bill.

A black man, Jim Sweat, who killed a judge and his (negro) cook in Gallatin, Tenn., is lynched by a mob of “the leading citizens of the town”. They stamped him almost to death, then hung him. Interestingly, only three years before, Sweat had murdered a (presumably black) servant who refused his invitation to a dance, but was sentenced to only one year and served only a little of that before receiving a pardon due to testimonials to his good character from prominent (i.e., white) citizens, including the judge he later killed.

Headline of the Day -100: “Badly Crippled Naps Beaten.” (Really, why did anyone think Naps was a good name for a baseball team?)

Today -100: May 23, 1911: Of counter-revolutions

There are rumors of a planned counter-revolution in Portugal.