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Obama spoke to the press at 6 pm Friday.
IN OTHER WORDS: He noted that the deal he was offering cut more discretionary spending and raised less in taxes than the Gang of Six Plan. “In other words, this was an extraordinarily fair deal.” Fair in what sense? “If it was unbalanced, it was unbalanced in the direction of not enough revenue.” If it was unbalanced.
Yeah, I know, I’m not even commenting, I’m just repeating his own words in stunned disbelief. Even if – if – you accept that he has to compromise 90% of his position to get anything done, does he have to praise every deal as if it were actually good? I mean, “an extraordinarily fair deal”?
WHAT THEY’RE GOING TO HAVE TO EXPLAIN: “I told Speaker Boehner, I’ve told Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, I’ve told Harry Reid, and I’ve told Mitch McConnell I want them here at 11:00 a.m. tomorrow. We have run out of time. And they are going to have to explain to me how it is that we are going to avoid default.”
AS THE BISHOP SAID TO THE ACTRESS: “my expectation was that Speaker Boehner was going to be willing to go to his caucus and ask them to do the tough thing but the right thing.” On what past record was that expectation based?
THEY’RE JUST NOT THAT INTO YOU: “I’ve been left at the altar now a couple of times.”
COCAINE AND HOOKERS (PAID FOR BY LOBBYISTS): “And I think that one of the questions that the Republican Party is going to have to ask itself is can they say yes to anything?” I’d be making more creepy jokes here, but Obama is already saying that he wants Boehner to fuck him in almost as many words.
WITH THE COCAINE AND HOOKERS: “And so then the question becomes, where’s the leadership?”
THAT’S A TRICK QUESTION, RIGHT? “Or, alternatively, how serious are you actually about debt and deficit reduction? Or do you simply want it as a campaign ploy going into the next election?”
WHAT HE CANNOT BELIEVE: “I am confident simply because I cannot believe that Congress would end up being that irresponsible that they would not send a package that avoids a self-inflicted wound to the economy at a time when things are so difficult.” It’s statements like that that make George Bush look like a keen-eyed realist by comparison.
Then there’s this exchange, in which Obama explained that it is always necessary for him to give in to the Tea Partyers:
Q: Mr. President, can you explain why you were offering a deal that was more generous than the Gang of Six, which you seemed to be embracing on Tuesday when you were here?
OBAMA: Because what had become apparent was that Speaker Boehner had some difficulty in his caucus. There are a group of his caucus that actually think default would be okay and have said that they would not vote for increasing the debt ceiling under any circumstances. And so I understand how they get themselves stirred up and the sharp ideological lines that they’ve drawn. And ultimately, my responsibility is to make sure that we avoid extraordinary difficulties to American people and American businesses.
See, it’s his “responsibility” to surrender to people who will not vote to increase the debt ceiling under any circumstances.
BECAUSE NOTHING SAYS SERIOUS LIKE SLASHING BENEFITS TO THE POOR, DISABLED, SICK AND ELDERLY: “So when Norah asked or somebody else asked why was I willing to go along with a deal that wasn’t optimal from my perspective, it was because even if I didn’t think the deal was perfect, at least it would show that this place is serious”.
Considering that before I got around to reading the transcript, I was hearing how angry Obama was, all that “can they say yes to anything” talk indicates that he’s most angry that no one seems to be willing to accept his surrender.
A referendum in Texas on state-wide prohibition is running very close. The southern part of the state voted wet, the north dry. Night riders, fearing negroes would vote against prohibition, warned them against voting. And yes, “warned” includes whipping and shooting.
The city of Paris strikes a blow against “statue mania,” banning the erection of new statues for a period of ten years.
Germany has put forward various demands it wants in exchange for removing its gunboat from Moroccan waters, including a large swathe of the French Congo to be tacked onto its colony of Kameroon. British chancellor of the exchequer David Lloyd George makes a speech (the Mansion House speech, if you’re following along in a Stuff That Lead Up to World War I book) about the importance of Britain not losing its influence in the world, an influence which has been “invaluable for the cause of human liberty” and has “more than once in the past redeemed Continental nations, who are sometimes too apt to forget that service...” Stoopid redeemed Continental nations “...but if a situation were to be enforced upon us in which peace could only be preserved by the surrender of the great and beneficent position that Great Britain has won by centuries of heroism and achievement – by allowing Great Britain to be treated where her interests were vitally affected as if she were of no account in the cabinet of nations – then I say emphatically that peace at that price would be a humiliation intolerable for a great country like ours to endure.” Yup, that was pretty emphatic, all right. This is the British government publicly warning Germany that it will stand by France, a situation that may arise again in the future.
Congress passes the Canadian tariff reciprocity treaty, 53-27. Woo hoo. Now it’s up to Canada, where it’s more vital, in that the treaty would tie Canada’s economy closer to the US’s while loosening its economic dependence on the rest of the Empire.
This morning, Obama did a “town hall” at the township of the University of Maryland.
THE STAMP WILL, OF COURSE, BE MADE IN CHINA: “I want Congress to send me a set of trade deals that would allow our businesses to sell more products in countries in Asia and South America that are stamped with the words, ‘Made in America.’”
AMERICANS ARE JUST TOO FAT TO RUN OUT WITHOUT PAYING THE TAB: “Basically, there’s some people out there who argue we’re not going to raise the debt ceiling any more. And the problem is, effectively what that’s saying is we’re not going to pay some of our bills. Well, the United States of America does not run out without paying the tab.”
AMERICANS CHOSE WHAT NOW? “In 2010, Americans chose a divided government, but they didn’t choose a dysfunctional government.” They chose a government run by dysfunctional people – big difference.
Oh, and they didn’t “choose” a divided government.
On using the 14th Amendment to raise the debt ceiling: “I have talked to my lawyers. They do not -- they are not persuaded that that is a winning argument.” Why not? And are these the same lawyers who said you could start a war in Libya or kill people anywhere in the world on your personal authority?
He gave his new favorite example of how “this notion that somehow if you’re responsible and you compromise, that somehow you’re giving up your convictions -- that’s absolutely not true”: the Emancipation Proclamation, in which Lincoln was willing to keep slaves in the North in bondage “because he thought it was necessary in terms of advancing the goals of preserving the Union and winning the war.” Indeed, Obama has the Proclamation hanging in the Oval Office, I guess because it’s such a great example of looking like you’re doing something but not actually doing anything. “So, you know what, if Abraham Lincoln could make some compromises as part of governance, then surely we can make some compromises when it comes to handling our budget.”
So Obama is now coming out firmly in favor of compromising over slavery, because leaving some people in shackles is responsible and definitely not “somehow... giving up your convictions”. You don’t even want to know what the next “Grand Compromise” Obama offers the Republicans is going to be.
AP: “Poll: Chavez’s Cancer Not Affecting Popularity.”
No, cancer is still pretty unpopular.
The “Apres Mois” affair continues in Paris, with playwright Henri Bernstein fighting two duels this week, the first with royalist journalist Gustave Tery (pistols, no one hit, although Bernstein nearly bagged a press photographer), the second with royalist editor Leon Daudet (two exchanges of shots, no one hit, then rapiers, a couple of wounds, then “The duelists left the ground without shaking hands,” although one of those wounds was on Daudet’s wrist).
Headline of the Day -100: “Mayor Ends Hopes of Hollow Tile Men.” So now they are without hope, hollow, and made of tile. So sad.
New York movie theaters will show color motion pictures of George V’s coronation.
Other entertainments available in 1911: a Minnesota – side show, I think – featured a 6-year-old boy locked in a cage with seven unfriendly hyenas. Fun for the whole family.
I read this story only by chance. I was skimming the page and the word “clown” caught my eye: Frank Wacrous of Newark, a wire-drawer, stole $3,200 worth of platinum from the vault of the refining firm where he worked. He snuck it out in his underwear (not all at once)(is that 80 ounces of platinum in your underwear, or are you just happy to see me?), then picked a fight with his boss so he’d be fired before the theft was noticed. He moved to Coatesville, PA, where, naturally, he used his riches to set up a sideshow. A private detective infiltrated the sideshow by taking a job as a clown and wormed his way into Wacrous’s confidence, convincing him that he was not only a clown but also a burglar. Wacrous then brought him into a scheme to shoot the night watchmen at the refining plant and blow up the vault (presumably after robbing it, but the article doesn’t say). At this point the private dick brought in the cops and Wacrous and two accomplices were arrested.
The American ambassador to Cuba assures that nation that the US has not the least intention of intervening militarily in it.
The Indy reports that the CIA is training covert “special units” of Afghans. Traditionally, “special units” trained by the CIA are more accurately called “death squads.”
The Murdochs testify to Parliament and everyone makes Burns & Smithers jokes. Synergy!
Everyone is also making jokes about Murdoch visiting Cameron by the back door. I made that joke a week ago, and I’m darned proud of it.
Rupert certainly played the “old man who couldn’t possibly be held responsible” angle, right down to the suit that some tailor was paid a fortune to make two sizes too large for him.
Murdoch’s opening statement: “I hope our contribution to Britain will one day also be recognised.” Now that would have been the moment to hit him with a pie.
Murdoch had already said it’s “the most humble day of my life,” so why did they arrest the guy who tried to feed him humble pie?
Quote of the Day, James Murdoch: “But it’s difficult to say that the company should have been told something if it’s not known that a thing was a known fact to be told.” So true.
Jimmy also said that he was “as surprised as you are” that the PI/hacker’s legal fees were paid by News International. Meaning that no one was the tiniest bit surprised.
Name of the Day: News of the World chief reporter Neville Thurlbeck.
NYC women’s suffragists are propagandizing through a suffrage lunch cart at Fordham Square, offering suffrage sandwiches and suffrage lemonade. It’s supposed to make people see the connection between women’s suffrage and the cost of living, or something.
Lyons, France’s city council plans a tax on bachelors, the money raised to be used for impoverished families with lots of children.
Judge Wilbur of Los Angeles rules that pedestrians need not look in three directions before crossing the street.
The center of population for the United States, according to the 1910 census, was just outside Unionville, Indiana, having moved 31 miles west since 1900. By the 2010 census it had moved further west to Plato, Missouri. I can’t be bothered to figure the distance between Unionville and Plato, but Google Maps says it would take 7 hours and 22 minutes to drive it.
(Update: an Indiana University professor located the 1911 center of population precisely. There was nothing there but a rattlesnake. Which he killed.)
The Senate passes a campaign finance bill, providing for complete publicity of contributions and a spending limit of 10 per voter and $10,000 for Senate (senators were still elected by state legislatures, but there were non-binding primaries in many states) and $5,000 for the House.
Headline and Wuss of the Day -100: “Insect Bite Halts Wedding.” The bite in question being on the knee of the Episcopal bishop who was supposed to officiate. Evidently he’s been incapacitated by this bite for weeks.
Just one comment about Arizona State Senator Lori Klein pointing a loaded gun at a reporter: someone who refers to walking around with a lethal firearm as “packing heat” should on no account be allowed to do so.
Socialists are now in charge of the city government of Berkeley. I know! In large part through the efforts of young radicals at the university. I know! However, the elected socialists have been fighting amongst themselves – I know! – over the distribution of patronage positions. (Update: the LA Times of 7/10/11 says that new Socialist Mayor Stitt Wilson is refusing to give his party leaders an undated resignation to be used at their convenience, so they are already threatening to recall him.)
Headline of the Day -100: “Bombs Excite Pasadena.” I should think. Someone left a couple of bombs in a basket in front of the home of a retired dental-instrument manufacturer.
A movie actor, Albert Brighton (not listed in IMDB), drowned last week while filming a movie. There are already ads for the film: “Film actor’s sensational fight for life. Hair-raising act shown in detail before and during the fatal plunge, in which Al Brighton lost his life to make drowning scene realistic. A marvelous picture film, containing 41 scenes, 1,000 feet of film, and in which 100 actors are employed. The noted picture player plunges to his death while hundreds applaud his death struggles, appreciating, as they thought, his usual great efforts to make a scene real. Order now.” Hair-raising may not be the best choice of words: one of the men trying to save Brighton grabbed him by the hair, which, being a toupee, came off. He did not surface again.
Headline of the Day -100: “Wrestles With False Hair.” Part of an endless series of stories since the passage of the Payne-Aldrich Tariff in 1909 in which the Treasury categorizes various imported products to determine the tariff to be paid on them. In this case, the law specifies that “drawn” hair is subject to a 20% duty while “raw” hair may be imported free, so the Treasury is busy determining which is which. “One section of the Treasury offices looks like an Indian camp after the visit of a scalping party.”
An article about the income tax amendment mentions parenthetically that of 15 state legislatures which have yet to vote on it, 9 are out of session until 1913.
A couple of French dukes sue because Louis XV gave their ancestor rights to a box at the Opéra Comique with a room behind it, a separate staircase and a private entrance, but since the reconstruction of the opera house in 1887, they’ve had only the box. The court (which evidently hasn’t heard of the abolition of aristocratic privileges during the French Revolution) awards them $2,000 in damages, but won’t order that the building’s entire facade be rebuilt to accommodate them.
More upper-upper-class French people news: with divorce rising (and fewer people shunning divorced women from polite society) but with French divorce proceedings pretty secretive, the question has arisen of whether and how one should announce one’s divorce in the pre-Facebook age. If you send out divorce cards, do you say “Monsieur and Madame X regret to announce,” when you obviously regrette rien, or “Monsieur and Madame X have the pleasure of announcing,” which some find frivolous? “Monsieur and Madame X have the honor”? The younger set dislike “The court has declared a divorce between Monsieur and Madame X” because it’s legalistic instead of sentimental. And what about the recipient: do you send congratulations or condolences?
Candidates to join the Elks will no longer have to ride the goat. That’s a euphemism for... oh, wait, for riding a goat.
Politically Correct Headline of the Day -100 (LA Times): “YELLOW PERIL IS IMMINENT.; FLOOD OF CHINESE MARCHING ON LOS ANGELES; Plague-stricken Contrabands Are Crossing the Line, and Four Hundred Waiting at Ensenada.”
Headline of the Day -100: “Burglar Caught, Disgusted.” Said the burglar, as he was led by police out of the home of an electrical engineer who had choked him into submission, “Richmond Hill is the worst place I ever saw. If I robbed every house in the place I wouldn’t get more than 25 cents.” In burglary as in real estate, it’s location location location.
Hillary Clinton announces in Istanbul that the US now recognizes the Libyan Transitional National Council “as the legitimate governing authority for Libya... In contrast, the United States views the Qadhafi regime as no longer having legitimate authority in Libya.” Still no definition of the process by which legitimacy is conferred or withdrawn, despite the fact that US foreign policy seems to be based on our ability to discern and measure the magical property of legitimacy without having to resort to anything as old-fashioned as an election. We shall be handing over billions of dollars of assets belonging to the regime which no longer has legitimate authority and handing it to the one that has acquired it.
She added that Syrian President Asad “has lost his legitimacy in the eyes of his people because of the brutality of their crackdown”.
Obama press conferences are like buses: you wait forever and then three arrive right behind each other. Today, another.
WHAT WE HAVE A CHANCE TO DO: “We have a chance to stabilize America’s finances for a decade, for 15 years, or 20 years, if we’re wiling to seize the moment.” Because nothing creates stability like giving in to Republican demands.
WHAT HE IS WILLING TO DO: “And I have already said I am willing to take down domestic spending to the lowest percentage of our overall economy since Dwight Eisenhower.”
THAT’S WHAT SHE SAID: “Now, let me acknowledge what everybody understands: It is hard to do a big package.”
THAT’S WHAT SHE SAID: “So I am still pushing for us to achieve a big deal.”
He spent a bit of time explaining that polls, including Republican polls, show that the American people, including Republicans, want a deficit package to include tax increases (or “revenues,” as Obama calls them) in a “balanced approach.” Then he says, “And I’ve already taken some heat from my party for being willing to compromise. My expectation and hope is, is that everybody, in the coming days, is going to be willing to compromise.” (Really, that’s your expectation? Have you met Eric Cantor?) So why is the only heat he’s talking about the heat coming from “my party”?
We don’t need a balanced budget amendment: “what we need to do is to do our jobs.”
OBAMA HAS A VERY COMPLICATED RELATIONSHIP WITH LAYER CAKES: “I think about this like a layer cake. You can do the bare minimum and then you can make some progressively harder decisions to solve the problem more and more.”
On Eric Cantor’s snit-fest, but without mentioning Cantor by name: “I think this notion that things got ugly is just not true. ... The American people are not interested in the reality TV aspects of who said what and did somebody’s feelings get hurt. They’re interested in solving the budget problem and the deficit and the debt.” Has he ever met the American people?
AIN’T IT THE TRUTH: “The bottom line is that this is not an issue of salesmanship to the American people; the American people are sold. The American people are sold.” And the Chinese have the receipt.
WE? YOU DON’T SEEM TO HAVE ANY TROUBLE FUCKING OVER THE PEOPLE WHO VOTED FOR YOU: “We simply need to make these tough choices and be willing to take on our bases.” In fact, he can’t even remember which rhetorical flourishes belong to which parties, and a minute later comes out against “job-killing tax cuts.”
PHEW: “Contrary to what some folks say, we’re not Greece, we’re not Portugal.”
DARE TO DREAM: “With respect to Senator McConnell’s plan, as I said, I think it is a -- it is constructive to say that if Washington operates as usual and can’t get anything done, let’s at least avert Armageddon.”
AND THE PEOPLE WHO VOTED FOR ME CAN EAT A BAG OF DICKS: “The proposal that I was discussing with Speaker Boehner fell squarely in line with what most Republican voters think we should do.”
I NEVER READ MY REVIEWS: “I generally don’t watch what is said about me on cable. I generally don’t read what’s said about me, even in The Hill.” Wouldn’t it be funny if he really had no idea what his enemies are saying about him, and only found about it after he retired?
MOSTLY, IT INVOLVES GETTING RID OF ALL THAT PAPER: “I’ve got reams of paper and printouts and spreadsheets on my desk, and so we know how we can create a package that solves the deficits and debt for a significant period of time.”
WHAT’S OBAMA’S DEFINITION OF “PROGRESSIVE,” ANYWAY? “And so that’s where I’d have a selling job, Chuck, is trying to sell some of our party that if you are a progressive, you should be concerned about debt and deficit just as much as if you’re a conservative.” No, no you shouldn’t be. (Also, of course, conservatives are not really concerned about debt and the deficit.)
“And the reason is because if the only thing we’re talking about over the next year, two years, five years, is debt and deficits, then it’s very hard to start talking about how do we make investments in community colleges so that our kids are trained, how do we actually rebuild $2 trillion worth of crumbling infrastructure.” You know what else would stop that being the only thing we’re talking about over the next year, 2 years, 5 years? If the president of the United States talked about something else. “If you care about making investments in our kids and making investments in our infrastructure and making investments in basic research, then you should want our fiscal house in order, so that every time we propose a new initiative somebody doesn’t just throw up their hands and say, ‘Ah, more big spending, more government.’” Yes, that would totally stop somebody doing that.
Women suffragists were told they couldn’t give suffrage speeches in Hollenbeck Park in Los Angeles (there is a city ordinance against the discussion of political questions in public parks). So they sang their speeches.
Britain and Japan renew their treaty of alliance, but Britain insists on dropping the clause by which it was obliged to join Japan in any war between the US and Japan. In a telling Freudian slip, the LA Times refers to this as a “racial change.”
Good gracious, Donald Rumsfeld was searched by the TSA yesterday at O’Hare.
CAPTION CONTEST.
The NYT is opposed to a constitutional amendment allowing a national income tax (the future 16th Amendment), which it considers, not without reason, an attempt by the rest of the country to screw New York (before the 16th, the Constitution specified that any direct taxes had to be apportioned among the states according to population). The Times quotes an unnamed Arkansas advocate of the amendment who says that for every dollar paid by Ark., NY would pay $1,000 and a NY assemblyman who believes NY would pay 1/6 of the amount raised by a national income tax. Such people assume that Congress would only tax the rich, of whom NY had (and has) rather more than Arkansas. The NY state Assembly disagreed, voting its support of the amendment by a bare majority.
Politically Correct Headline of the Day -100 (LA Times): “Chinks Head for the Border.” “Contraband” Chinese are arriving from Mexico.
Yes, I have started adding in a little coverage from the LAT, though probably without links.
The NY Assembly passes a bill to allow local referendums on allowing baseball on Sundays. Assemblyman McCue said blue laws against Sunday sports do more to fill the prisons and insane asylums than do saloons.
The NY Senate defeats women’s suffrage by a single vote.
The NY Legislature authorizes the formation in NYC of a wholly negro regiment of the National Guard.
The US Senate abolishes a number of federal positions, including one held by Jefferson Davis’s old negro bodyguard, Jim Jones, who’s been out sick for the last 2 years. His position is restored after a kerfuffle in which Sen. Heyburn (R-Idaho) says he’ll support retention of Jones because of his past service to the Senate, but not for his loyalty to an “infamous cause.” Hilarity ensued.
Thomas Jolliff, a British-born miner in Renton, Washington, is denied US citizenship after saying that in event of a strike, he would obey his union rather than the courts. When the judge told him he would be barred from citizenship, Jolliff said he changed his mind. Will have to wait to September while his case is investigated.
Headline of the Day -100: “Congressman Afire.” In the House of Representatives, a box of matches in the pocket of Rep. Frank Willis (R-Ohio) burst into flame. Several other congresscritters put him out.
