Today -100: September 19, 1912: Of in-touch candidates, airships, and dead mules

Election 1912 Headline of the Day -100: “West Finds Wilson in Touch With Life.” Evidently he’s not a cold scholar after all (spoiler alert: yes he is). Woodrow Wilson, campaigning in Minnesota, is doing the Romney thing of trying to connect to regular voters. He said the best response to Roosevelt’s idea of tight regulation of trusts is “Rats.” NYT: “When he added ‘Let Roosevelt tell it to the marines,’ the crowd became decidedly hilarious.”

Wilson speaks warmly of President Taft’s integrity and patriotism; “If he has got into bad company it is no fault of his, because he didn’t choose the company; it was there beforehand. And if he has taken their advice it has been because they were nearest to him, and he didn’t hear anybody else. That is why I would rather have the advice of a crowd like this than the advice of a Cabinet.” That is a nicely done takedown of the chubby chief executive.

Military Headline of the Day -100: “Navy Unafraid of Airships.” Even the newest battleships will not be equipped with anti-aircraft guns or protection against aerial bombs. Rear Admiral Twining thinks ordinary rifles are sufficient protection against planes and airships.

On the other hand, the British army had to abandon army maneuvers because aerial scouting made the implementation of strategic plans impossible.

The Army convenes a board of inquiry consisting of five officers to investigate which of two cavalry horses kicked a mule to death.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Romney and the Dependents of Doom

Romney went on Fox today in yet more damage control. He says he’s not really writing off the 47% (except on his taxes, ha!): “we go after every group we can to get votes.” Interesting that he thinks of voters as “groups.”

He says, more in sorrow than in anger, that he just won’t be able to get the votes of “those that are dependent upon government,” which is not a condescending way to describe people collecting entitlements at all.

He says his policies will give people “the privilege of higher incomes that allow them to be paying taxes,” as opposed to those with the privilege of super-high incomes that allow them to pay no taxes.

He repeated the bit about the 47% who “pay no tax” not responding to his message about lowering taxes. That’s nonsense, because this line of his has always been a, for lack of a better term, double dog whistle. See, the rich people hearing that line know that he shares their contempt for the poors, while the lower class all know that they do, in fact, pay taxes (there’s a reason Mitt leaves off “income” before “tax”), so Mitt must be talking about someone else, you know, those people.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: September 18, 1912: Of dead cocks, moral mandates, turned heads, gentleman burglars, small bills, and pink lemonade

Campaigning in Tuscon, Theodore Roosevelt calls Taft “a dead cock in the pit”.

The US has issued a public note to the Nicaraguan government and rebels, saying that the latter are very naughty boys and that “the United States has a moral mandate to exert its influence for the preservation of the general peace of Central America, which is seriously menaced by the present uprising”. The US’s purpose, it says, is to foster true constitutional government and free elections. This it justifies under the Washington Conventions of 1907, which the Central American nations took as banning them supporting rebellion in other countries, not as giving the US a “moral mandate” to suppress internal rebellions militarily.

Cardinal Gibbons, the Archbishop of Baltimore, says that if women had the vote, “there is a probability that on the slightest provocation she would seek divorce. ... It might have the effect of turning their heads.”

Alphonse Bertillon, the French cop who introduced the collection of detailed description of criminals through measurements (anthropometry), which is what they had before fingerprints, says there is no such thing as a “gentleman burglar.”

New American paper currency will soon be issued, reduced in size by 1/3 (to the present size).

The Dutch Socialist Party organizes a (banned) demonstration for universal (male and female) suffrage to coincide with the opening of Parliament. The police “repulsed them with bare swords,” which may be a euphemism; it certainly sounds like a euphemism.

Obituary of the Day -100: Henry “Bunk” Allen, inventor of pink lemonade.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

The worst thing about Romney’s remarks

and the three-question press conference slash damage control session tonight, in which he said he was just talking about “process” at the fundraiser, was how he consistently states that people’s voting behaviour will be based entirely on their personal economic self-interest, not on their ideals, not on the public good. It’s a very impoverished view of democracy, viewing people’s relationship with their government as a strictly financial interaction.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Distractions

WaPo headline: “Romney Campaign Faces Distractions.” Is Romney speaking honestly distracting from Romney lying?

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Wait...

was Romney disparaging people who expect free stuff... at a fundraiser?

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

It’s amazing how many times we get to say

all right, TODAY is the day Romney lost the election.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: September 17, 1912: But then, they saw that coming

Scotland Yard bans advertising by palmists and crystal-ball gazers.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: September 16, 1912: Of red flags

Providence, RI police fight with IWW demonstrators who refuse to take down a red flag.

Remember the war between Italy and the Ottoman Empire over Libya? Officially still going on, although I don’t think anyone’s been killing anyone for some time. Unofficial negotiations just broke down. Italy was proposing that Turkey declare its Libyan provinces independent, whereupon Italy would immediately annex them. That’s Italy’s idea of a compromise.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: September 15, 1912: Of outworn academic doctrine and splits

Oh dear, Roosevelt is playing the egg-head card against Woodrow Wilson. A few days ago, Wilson criticized the Bull Moosers and TR’s plans to increase the power and size of government to match the increase in power and size of corporations. Wilson said that the “history of liberty is a history of the limitation of governmental power” and “As to the monopolies, which Mr. Roosevelt proposes to legalize and to welcome... I do not look forward with pleasure to the time when the juggernauts are licensed and driven by commissioners of the United States.” [I may have quotes from 2 different recent speeches there.] TR calls this “a bit of outworn academic doctrine which was kept in the school room and the professorial study for a generation after it had been abandoned by all who had had experience of actual life.” Also, liberty equaled limitation of government power when there were kings, not when power is held (ha!) by the people.

I suppose it’s inevitable that the anti-intellectual card would be played against the former president of Princeton, but by Roosevelt? TR wrote more books and articles than Wilson ever did, on a wider variety of subjects, including history, zoology, ornithology, literature (here he is on Dante), and certainly read more (Wilson was a slow reader) and in more languages (he was a big fan of German poetry). TR was no great thinker, but if you compare him to recent “smart” presidents like Clinton and Obama, his range of intellectual interests was much greater.

California holds county party conventions. At many of the Republican ones, Taft supporters bolt to hold separate conventions, including Los Angeles, Bakersfield, Riverside, etc.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

A lot of things that aren’t accurate

Yesterday (but airing today), George Stephanopoulos interviewed Romney.

Walking slightly back his attack on the tweets by the US embassy in Cairo, he now suggests the problem isn’t that they were issued after the attack on the embassy as he first falsely claimed, but that they “stayed up on their website for, I think, 14-15 hours.” So he’s complaining that while mobs were attacking the embassy, the embassy staff wasn’t editing its Twitter account.

He suggests that he said the statement (tweet) was “inappropriate” (I seem to recall that the actual word he used was “disgraceful”) and that the White House also thought it was “inappropriate” (although he initially attributed it to “the Obama administration,” which by the transitive property states that the White House condemned itself, in total agreement with Romney’s condemnation of it. Who said there’s no agreement in politics any more?

Mittens repeats the word “inappropriate” over and over (including “not appropriate,” 9 times during the interview), and can I just say how annoying I find the use of that condescending, nanny-scold word by pretty much fucking everyone?

He says that Obama’s comment that Romney “shoots first and aims later” is just “politics.” As opposed to whatever it is he thinks he’s been doing.

He says he never intends to see Ed Wood’s Life of Brian and “the idea of using something that some people consider sacred and then parading that out a negative way is...” wait for it.... “simply inappropriate and wrong.” And fuck you Trey Parker and Matt Stone.

He thinks people should never offend other peoples’ faiths. As opposed to knocking at their doors at dinner time to tell them that their religion is wrong and would you like a free copy of the Book of Mormon.

He wants “to bring Egypt closer to us. I think it’s important for them to understand that it’s an advantage to have a close relationship with the United States”. Just ask Mubarak, the dictator we armed and help keep in power for decades. Egypt, he says, “is the heart of the Arab world.” Except for not being Arabs. And he wants to keep them as an ally, by which he means, “I would do virtually everything in my power to make sure they understand what the requirements are to remain an ally of the United States”. Funny how the “requirements” are all on one side.

Asked what his “red line” would be for Iran (another country for whom the requirements are all on one side), he says “Well, my red line is Iran may not have a nuclear weapon. It is...” wait for it... “inappropriate for them to have the capacity to terrorize the world.” UnfitMitt (© Watertiger, I think) doesn’t seem to understand what everyone else means by red lines in this context, which is the steps well shy of having a nuclear weapon (centrifuges, enrichment to a certain level, etc) that would cause us to attack.

He says he wouldn’t reappoint Ben Bernanke. Of course Bernanke’s term doesn’t expire until 2014, so that could get a little awkward.

He won’t raise taxes on middle-income people, which he helpfully defines for us as “$200,000 to $250,000 and less.”

He refuses to say which deductions he’d eliminate because “I’ve found that you have to work with the people across the aisle. ... So if I’d have come out and said, ‘Here this is my bill. This is the way I want it,’ you’d never get it done. You lay out your principles.” So he’s laying out principles rather than a plan, except he earlier referred to it as “my plan... my tax plan... my plan”.

Little George brings up a stupid poll question ABC asked, “Who would you rather have dinner with?” No one wants to have dinner with Mittens, probably because they find unicorn meat to be too gamey. George asks what dinner would be like at the Romney home, and evidently it involves his grandchildren climbing all over you and throwing food across the table, like anyone believes Mittens would tolerate that sort of behaviour for a minute. But note that in his attempt to make himself more likeable, he doesn’t say a thing about himself but about the genetically perfect clone-babies.

What will Obama do to him during the debates? “Well I think he’s going to say a lot of things that aren’t accurate. ... But I think the challenge that I’ll have in the debate is that the president tends to, how shall I say it...” Yes, Mitt, how will you say it? “...to say things that aren’t true.”

During debates, Ann is always in the front row, “I look and see her. Typically, her eyes are down. She’s more nervous in the debates than I am.” And certainly not from shame at all.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: September 14, 1912: Of happy wilsons, claims, seppukus (if that is the correct plural), scandals, and forcible bathing

Headline of the Day -100: “Wilson Boyishly Happy.” A major squabble between him and NY Gov. John Dix, who he denounces as a tool of Tammany, which is fair enough.

Mexico rejects the Manning & Mackintosh claim, but they don’t explain what it’s about either. I suspect no one really knows.

Count Nogi Maresuke, a general in the Imperial Japanese Army and former governor-general of Taiwan, commits seppuku to coincide with the funeral of the emperor. The same emperor had refused him permission to kill himself in atonement for the loss of life during the siege of Port Arthur during the Russo-Japanese War. Nogi’s wife also kills herself.

Nogi will now pass into history as some sort of super-bushido, the epitome of Japanese military somethingorother. Not sure what this makes his wife.

The US State Department is not quite sure how to respond to a patriotic ritual suicide. Condolences? Congratulations?

Unhelpful Headline of the Day -100: “Scandal Attacks English Statesman.” Specifically, “a prominent and much-hated leader.” The article goes on for some length but fails to name him (Lloyd George?)

Last month, the British Medical Journal had an article by several pro-suffrage doctors which denied the British governments claim that the forcible feeding of hunger-striking suffrage prisoners was not dangerous and painful. Today, the Lancet responds by publishing a parody of that report by a Dr. Charles Mercier. Evidently finding hilarious and unbelievable the idea that forcible feeding fails in its objective of providing adequate nutrition, his article is entitled “Preliminary Report on the Forcible Bathing of Prisoners,” which purports to find that dirt actually adheres more readily to the forcibly bathed etc etc. Hilarious.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: September 13, 1912: Of majors and federation all round

A Charles C. Young is believed to be the first black major in the US Army (and the only black graduate of West Point). He is the military attaché to Liberia.

In what the London Times describes as his “annual visit to his constituents in Dundee”, Winston Churchill proposes several local English parliaments, “federation all round.” Much heckling of the speech by suffragettes. Actually, you can pretty much take that as read for any speech by any cabinet minister for the next two years.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

I don’t think that we ever hesitate

Twitt Romney spoke this morning (always a mistake).

ESPECIALLY ANN: “OH, I’M STILL MARRIED TO THAT DOUCHE: “Americans woke up this morning with tragic news”.

He refers to the “attack in our embassy in Benghazi,” suggesting he’s still not paying much attention to the actual facts (it was the consulate).

JUST IN CASE YOU WERE WONDERING IF AMERICA WILL TOLERATE ATTACKS AGAINST OUR CITIZENS AND OUR EMBASSIES (AND CONSULATES): “America will not tolerate attacks against our citizens and our embassies.”

WHAT HE HAVE CONFIDENCE IN: “We have confidence in our cause of America.”

SPEAKING OF STANDING BY STATEMENTS... “I also believe the administration was wrong to stand by a statement sympathizing with those who had breached our embassy in Egypt instead of condemning their actions.” This is a Dubya-like inability to admit having gotten even the tiniest thing just the tiniest bit wrong.

DUNNO, I’M NOT A MORNING PERSON MYSELF: “It’s never too early for The United States government to condemn attacks on Americans and to defend our values.”

SPEAKING OF SPINNING OUT OF CONTROL... “America leadership is necessary to ensure that events in the region don’t spin out of control.”

THAT’S A LONG FUCKING SPRING: “Over the last several years we’ve stood witness to an Arab Spring...”

SEE IF YOU CAN SPOT THE KEY WORD IN THIS NEXT BIT: “...that presents an opportunity for a more peaceful and prosperous region but it also possess the potential for peril if the voices of extremism and violence are allowed to control the course of events.” The key word is “allowed.” By us.


SO HE’S AGAINST SEASONS NOW: “We must strive to ensure that the Arab Spring does not become an Arab Winter.”

Then he condemned the US embassy in Egypt for its tweet against Ed Wood’s Life of Brian. They “stand in apology for our values. ...An apology for America’s values is never the right course.” To be fair, stupid, offensive films kind of are our values. He later called the embassy’s or possibly the administration’s statements on the film “disgraceful.”

Did he maybe just a little jump the gun yesterday, speaking before he had all the facts? “I don’t think that we ever hesitate when we see something which is a violation of our principles.”


HEY, HIS FOREIGN POLICY HAS THREE BRANCHES. JUST IN CASE YOU DIDN’T THINK IT HAD BRANCHES AND WAS JUST A BUNCH OF SLOGANS: “I think president Obama has demonstrated a lack of clarity as to the foreign policy. My foreign policy has three fundamental branches. First, confidence in our cause, a recognition that the principles America was based upon are not something we shrink from or apologize for. That we stand for those principles. The second is clarity in our purpose, which is that when we have a foreign policy objective we describe it honestly and clearly to the American people, to Congress and to the people of the world. And number three is resolve in our might.”

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

The first response of the United States must be outrage

Romney on the killings of the ambassador to Libya and others: “When our grounds are being attacked, being breached, the first response of the United States must be outrage.”

Evidently, as the rest of his remarks indicate, the first response of the United States must be outrage against Barack Obama.

Prick.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

What all the fuss is about

Here’s the 14-excruciatly-bad-minutes-long trailer for the movie about Mohamed that’s causing all the rioting. Sort of an Ed Wood’s Life of Brian. The movie that dares to ask the question, was the Prophet Mohamed a top or a bottom?

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: September 12, 1912: Of Balkans, and missing suffragettes

Bulgaria is threatening to go to war with Turkey unless Macedonia is given autonomy.

British suffragette leader Christabel Pankhurst has surfaced in Paris, from where she will general the Women’s Social and Political Union. She can’t be extradited because the charges against her are political, not criminal.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: September 11, 1912: Of lynchings, janitors, old soldiers, and corsets

A mob in Cumming, Georgia lynches a black man.

The US allows Mexico to send troops through US territory to fight rebels in Sonora.

It’s illegal in California for schools to hire Japanese janitors, according to the LAT.

With a retirement, there remains but one Civil War veteran on active service in the US Army, Col. John Clem (he was a 13-year-old drummer boy when the war ended).

Headline of the Day -100: “Corsets Fatal to Him.” An English amateur actor dies of asphyxia.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: September 10, 1912: Of interventions, contributions, and winstons

Taking the hint from all that intervention talk, Mexican President Madero diverts troops away from fighting the rebels to go protect Americans in the north.

The DNC releases the list of its contributors. Corporations are not allowed to contribute.

The Bull Moose Party will run Winston Churchill for governor of New Hampshire. Not that Winston Churchill, some other Winston Churchill, a novelist, no relation. So we’re meant to believe another Mr. and Mrs. Churchill randomly named their kid Winston. Fine, that’s totally believable.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: September 9, 1912: Of intervention, Romneys, and legs

There is increasing talk of the US intervening in Mexico.

The Senate sub-committee on Mexico hears from the head of the now abandoned Mormon colony in Mexico (one Junius Romney, Mitt’s grand-dad) that the Mexican rebels want the US to intervene in the revolution, and that rebels are demanding Americans in Mexico surrender their arms.

Heartwarming Story of the Day -100: Peter Waltar of Wilkesbarre, PA, was run down by a trolley and his left leg amputated. And who was in the very next hospital bed? His son, who had been in some sort of freight train accident and had just had both legs amputated.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.