Today -100: January 18, 1912: Compare and contrast

Taft sends a message to Congress calling for the end of all patronage in the federal bureaucracy, all posts to be filled by merit.

Alternatively, there’s this: Headline of the Day -100: “Lunatics to Run Railroad.” Really. A six-mile stretch from McManus, Louisiana, to the state asylum at Jackson.

Oh, just take her to the vet and have her put down already

Sarah Palin (who’s more or less endorsing Gingrich): “the mistake made in our country four years ago was having a candidate that was not vetted to the degree that he should have been”.

Putting aside the irony of Little Miss Self-Aware complaining about the 2008 vetting process, there’s another irony in Little Miss I Read All the Newspapers basically accusing the United States electorate of ignorance. Also, it’s generally considered bad manners in a democracy to say that the voters made a “mistake.”

Republican Debate: I’m not going to describe all of my great exploits

Transcript.

WHAT, NEVER? NO, NEVER. WHAT, NEVER? WELL, HARDLY EVER. Perry brings up a SC steel mill Bain shut down. Romney blames the Chinese. The WSJ guy brings up a paper company Bain closed. Bain bought it with $5 million of their own money and a lot of debt, then defaulted when the debt crippled what had been a profitable company, and Bain took away $100 million in profits and fees. Romney: “Well, first of all you never want to seen an enterprise go bankrupt.” Never? Because Bain seems to have done very well indeed out of that enterprise going bankrupt.


Romney goes on to explain that Bain also bought another paper company and tried to consolidate the two plants. And by consolidate, he means fire all the unionized workers and offer them jobs in the non-unionized plant. It must take real self-restraint on Romney’s part not to grow a mustache just so that he can twirl it sinisterly when discussing his dastardly plans.

Romney clarified his position: “I don’t think people who have committed violent crimes should be allowed to vote again.”

WAR! Perry said, “The State of Texas is under assault by the federal government. I’m saying also that South Carolina is at war with the federal government and with this administration.” How did that work out for South Carolina last time?

NEWT GINGRICH EXPLAINS HOW TO BECOME EMPLOYABLE: Gingrich says people on unemployment should be forced into job training. At least that’s what will be reported, but what he actually said was “a business-run training program...” (In other words, free labor for corporations) “...to acquire the skills to be employable.” Which assumes that people are unemployed because they are unemployable losers and not because there aren’t any jobs. “Now, the fact is, 99 weeks is an associate degree.” Although under his plan, instead of a degree, you’d get to push a mop or file papers or whatever the “training program” consists of, and at the end get laid off and replaced by more government-provided “uemployables.” “It tells you everything you need to know about the difference between Barack Obama and the five of us, that we actually think work is good.” And he again called Obama “the best food stamp president in American history,” whose goal is “to maximize dependency”. Happy Martin Luther King Day, everybody!

Q: what is the highest federal income tax any American should have to pay? Perry: 7% flat tax. Santorum would have two rates, 10% & 28%. Romney: 25%. Gingrich: flat tax of 15%. Paul: 0.

HE’S HEARD ENOUGH: Will Romney release his tax returns? “time will tell.” “I think I’ve heard enough from folks saying, ‘Let’s see your tax records.’ I have nothing in them that suggests there’s any problem, and I’m happy to do so. I sort of feel like we’re showing a lot of exposure at this point, and if I become our nominee, what’s happened in history is, people have released them in about April of the coming year, and that’s probably what I’d do.” So he’s saying that primary voters don’t deserve that information. I’m also a little confused about whether that’s April of 2012 he’s talking about or 2013 – the “coming year,” he said, and after “I become our nominee,” which won’t happen by April of this year. It’s weird how ill-prepared he is to answer an inevitable question.

A SWEATER-VEST IS ALWAYS A GOOD CHOICE: Santorum attacks Obama for some program aimed at helping at-risk black girls which Sicky says has been banned from propagandizing for marriage. “This administration is deliberately telling organizations that are there to help young girls make good choices, not to tell them what the good choice is.”


Ron Paul says that Martin Luther King would be with him on the drug war thing and the war war thing, which is true, but probably not winning him that many votes among South Carolina Republicans.

Gingrich says it’s not insulting to say that black children should work as janitors in their own schools. Why, he made his daughter do janitorial work at a Baptist church when she was 13, and she learned that “if you worked, you got paid.” And schools can hire 30 black kids for the cost of one NYC school janitor, so they’ll learn that when black kids are forced to work, they get paid crap, and that when adults get paid reasonably well, they’ll be fired and replaced by school children. Happy Martin Luther King Day, everybody!

Paul says the US should have tried to get Pakistan to turn bin Laden over. Everyone jumps on him. Paul, that is, not bin Laden.

AND BY ENEMIES, HE MEANS INDIANS – LOTS AND LOTS OF INDIANS. Gingrich: “Andrew Jackson had a pretty clear-cut idea about America’s enemies: kill them.” He’s a historian, you know.

Paul: “My - my - my point is, if another country does to us what we do others, we’re not going to like it very much. So I would say that maybe we ought to consider a golden rule in - in foreign policy. Don’t do to other nations [BOOING] what we don’t want to have them do to us. So we - we endlessly bomb - we endlessly bomb these countries and then we wonder - wonder why they get upset with us?” I’m pretty sure that booing means the audience wanted other nations to bomb us too.


THE RIGHT THING: Romney: “The right thing for Osama bin Laden was the bullet in the - in the head that he received. That’s the right thing for people who kill American citizens.”

Romney: “The right course for America is to recognize we’re under attack and we’re going to have to take action around the world to protect ourselves, and hopefully we can do it as we did with Osama bin Laden, as opposed to going to war, as we had to do in the case of Iraq.” Had to do? “The right way...to keep us from having to go to those wars is to have a military so strong that no one would ever think of testing it.” How strong is that? We do have nuclear weapons and shit, right?

Romney says it’s wrong to negotiate with the Taliban as long as they’re killing American soldiers. He thinks we should negotiate with the Girl Scouts, because they’re not killing American soldiers. Added bonus: cookies!

Perry said Turkey should be kicked out of NATO because it is “ruled by what many would perceive to be Islamist terrorists.” Of course Rick Perry probably perceives the pope as an Islamist terrorist.

PERRY ALWAYS HEARS GONGS. ALL THE TIME. Perry says to the moderator about Paul, “I was just saying that I thought maybe that the noise that you were looking for was a gong.”


DISDAIN: Perry says that Panetta’s referring to the American soldiers’ urination on dead Afghans as despicable shows “this administration’s disdain all too often for our men and women in uniform.” You know what really shows disdain? Oh, you’re way ahead of me here.

Romney supports indefinite detention, although he admits it “could possibly be abused.” But he’d never abuse that power, so that’s okay then. He even says Obama wouldn’t abuse that power, but then he never says what would actually constitute an abuse of that power, so he may be setting that bar impossibly high, like when Bush said we don’t torture.

BECAUSE NOTHING SAYS “HOPE OF THE EARTH” LIKE A HONKING BIG MILITARY BUDGET: Romney: “We simply cannot continue to cut our Department of Defense budget if we are going to remain the hope of the Earth.”

Romney wants to raise the age of eligibility for Social Security “a year or two.” Gingrich wants to get “the government out of telling you when to retire.”

DELIGHTED: It being South Carolina, where there was suspicion four years ago that Romney didn’t enjoy shooting things as much as a real man does, he was asked whether he’s been keeping up his varmint-hunting. “I’m not going to describe all of my great exploits,” he said (or perhaps that was his explanation for not releasing his tax returns). But he killed a moose – no, wait, an elk! – and some pheasants. “I’m not a serious hunter, but I must admit, I guess I enjoy the sport and when I get invited I’m delighted to be able to go hunting.”


By the way, it’s probably just as well that during the I-love-guns-more-than-you-do portion of the debate, no one brought up the assassination of the guy whose birthday this is.

Gingrich says Mittens’ Super PAC ran ads saying Newt wants to abort adorable Chinese babies. Mittens counter-charges that Gingrich’s Super PAC’s anti-Romney film is “probably the biggest hoax since Bigfoot,” upsetting Ron Paul supporters who believe Bigfoot runs the Fed. He says he wants Super PACs ended. “Wouldn’t it be nice if we could give what they would like to to campaigns?” asks the multi-millionaire.


OH RICK, IF YOU WERE PRESIDENT, YOUR HAND WOULD NEVER BE OFF THE BIBLE: Perry: “And when I’m the president of the United States that border will be locked down and it will be secure by one year from the time I take my hand off the Bible.”

Then they all urinated on Juan Williams, the end.

Today -100: January 17, 1912: Much against its desires

The US chargé d’affaires in Nicaragua evidently asked that the country’s new constitution not be implemented until the new US ambassador arrives, so he can express his opinion on it.

Secretary of State Philander Knox sends a warning to the Cuban government threatening military intervention by the US, “much against its desires,” if they don’t settle the country down. A movement of veterans of the wars of independence against Spain has grown increasingly assertive in its demands (which are basically that the government should be run by veterans of the wars of independence), and members of the active military have been mixing with them despite orders not to. Cuban President Gomez says he thinks there isn’t reason for American intervention, thank you very much.

Scott reaches the South Pole.

Today -100: January 16, 1912: Of secrecy, bayonets, and thunders

The Senate debates in closed session whether to debate the arbitration treaties in secret, but decides to debate them in open session.

The militia charges Lawrence, Massachusetts mill strikers with bayonets, kills one.

NYT Index Typo of the Day: “SAYS ITALY PLANS TO FIGHT AUSTRALIA.” That’s Austria, for crumb’s sake.

Proquest Typo of the Day (LAT story): “GERMANY THUNDERS TRUCK BY SOCIALIST VICTORIES.”

Fact-check of the day

“But neither [Patton nor Churchill] was known to have urinated on human corpses.”

It honestly hadn’t occurred to me that one of the candidates would actually step in to defend pissing on corpses, but if one of them would, yeah, it was always gonna be Rick Perry.

Today -100: January 15, 1912: Mincing around

Raymond Poincaré forms a new French government. He will be both prime minister and foreign minister.

Headline of the Day -100: “More Mince Pie Protests.” The students at Simmons College are allowed it only once a year.

In direct opposition to everything the military stands for

The top US general in Afghanistan, Gen. John R. Allen, said of that video of Marines peeing on dead Afghans that the images “are in direct opposition to everything the military stands for,” adding “first you pee on them, then you shoot them.”

Today -100: January 14, 1912: Of secret talks, obedience, and cranking

The leaking of the fact that there were secret negotiations between France and Germany, which toppled the Caillaux government in France this week, has pissed off Britain, which backed France up as it edged up to war with Germany without having been informed of the talks. Britain is now realizing that it could wind up embroiled in a, to coin a phrase, world war, because its ally is pursuing self-interested policies of which it is kept ignorant.

Germany is rumored to be negotiating to purchase Portugal’s colonies in Africa.

Two British suffragists, Victor Duval and Una Dugdale, got married. The Archbishop of Canterbury sent two priests to monitor the wedding and make sure the word “obey” was included in the marriage vows – although Una refused to repeat that bit after the vicar.

Headline of the Day -100: “Cranking is Dangerous.” 43% of automobile accidents involve the crank kicking back and injuring the autoist, breaking arms and ribs. So self-starters are becoming popular.

“Just like John Kerry”

A month ago, I made a little joke about Romney and Gingrich hiding the shameful secret that they can both speak French. Now Gingrich, who can speak French, puts out an ad making fun of Romney for speaking French. As the French would say, oy vey.

Live and learn, I guess

At the Haditha Massacre court martial of Frank Wuterich, Hector Salinas, asked what he would do differently, besides massacring a bunch of innocent civilians including children and a septuagenarian in a wheelchair, said he would have called in an air strike to level the house with the innocent civilians including children and the septuagenarian in a wheelchair.

Today -100: January 13, 1912: Of fifth columns, war at sea, and socialists

The assistant chief of staff of the Army tells the House Committee on Military Affairs that there are 35,000 former Japanese soldiers living in Hawaii, and that in the event of a war between the US and Japan, they would support Japan.

The war between Italy and Turkey over Libya is still going on, with an exciting new element: a naval battle in the Red Sea (a week ago, actually). As it turns out, the Ottomans suck at fighting wars at sea as bad as they suck at fighting wars on land.

German elections: the Socialists win big in the first round, but mostly at the expense of the center-left parties, so the Conservatives will remain in charge (and much power, including picking the chancellor and his cabinet, is entirely in the hands of the kaiser rather than the Reichstag anyway).

Today -100: January 12, 1912: Of the death penalty, inconsistency, and thrifty negroes

New York Gov. John Dix has come out against the death penalty. There will be a vote in the Legislature shortly.

New Jersey Gov. Woodrow Wilson gives a speech to the National League of Commission Merchants in which he defended inconsistency: “A man who cannot change his mind gives evidence of the most pathetic ignorance.” In other words, yes I wrote about knocking William Jennings Bryan into a cocked hat before and I’m sucking up to him now, deal with it. He also livened up his speech with that staple of political speeches, a darky story (which I didn’t understand, something about an old negro on a train sleeping with his mouth open and someone puts quinine on his tongue and he wakes up and says “Conductor, I’ve done busted my gall.” Maybe you had to be there.)

Condescending Headline of the Day -100 (LAT): “Negroes Becoming Thrifty.” About the spread of negro banks.

Ask a silly question...

From the Haditha Massacre court-martial:

Q: “Why did you shoot the men?”

Corporal (at the time of the Haditha Massacre; of course he’s been promoted to sergeant since his participation in the Haditha Massacre, because of course he has) Sanick Dela Cruz: “Because I wanted to make sure they were dead, sir.”

Quiet rooms?

On NBC today:

Q: Are there no fair questions about the distribution of wealth without it being seen as envy, though?

ROMNEY: I think it’s fine to talk about those things in quiet rooms and discussions about tax policy and the like.

Bathrooms. He means bathrooms, doesn’t he?

This may be a stupid question

but does Mitt Romney actually have health insurance? Did his assumption that you can just “fire” your insurance company when it fails to perform to your satisfaction derive from never having had to deal with one?

On average, health insurance is a bad deal for consumers, obviously, or insurance companies wouldn’t be making profits. We get it because our health care may suddenly become more expensive than that average and more expensive than we can afford. So if a Bill Gates or other mega-millionaire who can easily afford any health care they need for some reason didn’t have their insurance paid for their corporation, simple economic calculation might dictate that they scoff at the idea of forking over premiums to Blue Cross the way the rest of us airily dismiss the Best Buy employee’s query as to whether we’d care to get the extended warranty for that Blu-ray player, because what sort of rubes do they think we are?

I don’t know exactly how much money constitutes “fuck you, Blue Cross” money, but Mittens probably has it. So does he actually health insurance?

The rich are different from you and me. They do not think as we do; they don’t have to.

Today -100: January 11, 1912: Of scandals and fires

Not surprisingly, after the foreign minister resigned rather than lie that French Prime Minister Joseph Caillaux was telling the truth, the government has collapsed.

Didn’t mention it yesterday, but the Equitable Building in NYC burned down. Built in 1870, at 7½ stories it was the first skyscraper. Lots of pictures of the fire here on a blog devoted to pictures of this very building, because there’s a blog for everything, as well there should be.

Caption contest

From Gingrich’s tour of the Sturm, Ruger & Co. factory in New Hampshire last week. Caption the shit out of this puppy.


Bonus pic:

Actually, what he really meant to say was that he likes to set hobos on fire

There are jokes that some people shouldn’t tell, because of who they are. This is why Twitt Romney’s “I like to fire people” line is a problem, despite being basically taken out of context.

For example, George Bush once made a “there’s arsenic in your water glass” joke, ripped off from the movie Erin Brockavitch, evidently not realizing that that gag works when told by someone trying to take dangerous chemicals out of drinking water, like Julia Roberts in the movie, but not from someone who reduced standards on arsenic in drinking water.

In the same way, “I like to fire people” does not sound good when told by someone who has fired thousands of people to audiences that include people who have been on the wrong side of the desk when being fired by someone who looked very much like Mitt Romney and who they strongly suspected was not wearing any pants under that desk, because he really, really liked to fire people, if you know what I mean.

Another problematic Romney line, from one of the weekend debates, “I was happy that [Ted Kennedy] had to take a mortgage out on his house to ultimately defeat me.” It wasn’t just that he was bragging about using his candidacy as an economic weapon, combined with the story about the advice from his father that only rich people should run for office (which seems odder the more I think about it: why would George Romney say that to Mitt, who inherited so much money that he would always be rich, absent a George Bushian level of business incompetence?), it was the assumption that it is always money that wins elections (had to take out a mortgage to ultimately defeat me). How insulting is that to the voters of Massachusetts?

Discriminatory and unnecessary

The 10th Circuit upholds a lower court ruling suspending Oklahoma’s 2010 referendum which banned sharia law as discriminatory and unnecessary, adding, “You know, like Oklahoma itself.”