Today -100: September 30, 1910: Of four hundred and fifty sad-eyed men

The NYT today is officially the gossipy mother of every Republican politician, with headlines such as “GAYNOR BUSY ON ’PHONE.; Talks the Whole Evening, Perhaps to Somebody in Rochester” and “Roosevelt Early to Bed.”

The prosecution of Oklahoma Governor Haskell for fraud in the purchase of federal lands is dropped abruptly. A recent circuit court ruling had created a statute of limitations of only three years, and this particular criminal enterprise began in 1902.

The New York Democratic convention has opened, under the firm control of Tammany Hall. “The convention session meant nothing. The real convention was in Mr. [Boss Charles] Murphy’s room at the Whitcomb”. While “Four hundred and fifty sad-eyed men [were] wondering whom they were to nominate for Governor of New York”, Murphy has yet to decide which of 14 possible candidates will run in the elections – which are just 5½ weeks away. NYC’s assassinated-but-not-dead-yet Mayor Gaynor, now almost recovered enough to return to work, is the only really popular choice and therefore Murphy’s, despite his independence from Tammany control, but he has said in a public letter that he definitely absolutely does not want it and would not accept the nomination.

Today -100: September 29, 1910: Of Stimson and fallen kings

Very much under Roosevelt’s direction (for example he, rather than the delegates as custom dictated, named committee members), the NY Republican convention nominates Henry L. Stimson (yes, the later secretary of war under Taft, secretary of state under Hoover and secretary of war again under FDR) for governor (you’ll recall that the popular Republican governor Charles Evans Hughes is heading for the Supreme Court in a few days). The NYT criticizes TR for “advocating direct nominations in the forenoon and dictating nominations in the afternoon”. They kind of have a point.

Headline of the Day -100: “King Had to Fall Down.” Italian King Victor Emmanuel was inspecting planes at an aerodrome when someone who didn’t see him started up a plane, which started towards the monarch. He and the Count of Milan had to throw themselves to the ground; the plane just cleared them.

California gubernatorial debate: They’re fooling around with a lot of fat

The first debate between eMeg and former Governor Moonbeam took place at UC Davis (Motto: Come for the dachshund races, stay for the, er...) tonight.

Whitman says putting Brown in charge of the budget is “like putting Count Dracula in charge of the blood bank.” Which was an old, unfunny joke when Dracula was still alive (1431–1476).

She sort of looks like a crucifix here, no?
Brown says “we’re all going to have to sacrifice.” Meaning college students and young people who won’t be able to afford to be college students because he’ll be increasing state university fees. “But I’d say those at the top, those at the commanding heights of our economy, should tuck in their belts first.” Tuck their belts into what? Does Jerry Brown not know how belts work?

Brown was asked if he’d run for president again: “if I were younger you know I would.” So he’s saying he’s too old to be president but not too old to be governor.

My prostate is like this big
Brown went on and on (as old guys will do) about why it’d be good to have an old guy as governor: “If everybody in state service worked as long as I have, the pension system would be overfunded by 50 percent, OK, and work until 72. By the way, if you elect me governor, I will not collect until I’m 76. And by my second term, I’ll be 80. So I’m the best pension buy California has ever seen.” I believe that’s his new motto.

Brown says he’d be more effective than the last time he was governor because he’s married now: “I come home at night. I don’t try to close down the bars in Sacramento like I used to do when I was governor of California.” At his age, he closes down the early bird specials.

Brown: “I pledge to the people of this state I will faithfully carry out our law on executions and I’ll do it with compassion but I’ll do it with great fidelity to the rule of law.” “Compassionate” executions. Must be what they taught him at that Jesuit seminary.

By the way, as attorney general Brown is desperately trying to get an execution under his belt, or whatever he uses to hold up his pants, before the election, but a federal judge halted Thursday’s scheduled execution because he’s not convinced that the lethal injection chemicals wouldn’t allow the executee to feel great pain while being paralyzed so it wouldn’t show. And all of the state’s sodium thiopental reaches its expiration date Friday.

Whitman attacked him for appointing Rose Bird to the state supreme court and said: “Jerry has a long, 40-year record of being quite liberal on crime.” And he once shot a guy, just to watch him die.

Brown: “We can cut. They’re fooling around with a lot of fat.” Boy, that’s an image I did not need in my head.

Jazz hands!
Whitman: “No company should put a call center in Phoenix, Arizona, they should put it in Fresno or Stockton.” The, um, call-out to Fresno is because last week she said Fresno “looks like Detroit. It’s awful.” Which is something we can all agree on. I believe that’s actually the city motto.

Whitman on not voting for all those decades: “I apologize to everyone in California.”

Whitman: “I don’t think you can buy elections. I think Californians are too smart.” She means that unions can’t buy elections, not that ultra-rich dilettantes can’t buy elections.

Whitman: “This state is in an enormous mess.” I believe that’s actually the new state motto.

Jazz hands!

No Apology Out of Butt

Follow-up: Last Tuesday our Headline of the Day (from the BBC) was “England Demand Apology From Butt.” Today: “Butt Makes No Apology to England.”

Today -100: September 28, 1910: Of cholera and conventions

100,000 of “the better classes” have fled the cholera outbreak in Naples.

The NY Republican Party convention votes Roosevelt in as temporary chairman, defeating VP Sherman, overturning a decision made at an advance committee meeting in August, from which several members had stayed away because they were told nothing important was going to happen. But the indirect primaries spoke (how it worked was that New York Republicans voted for delegates to this convention; the convention will choose the candidates for governor, congress, etc; one of the planks Roosevelt wants is direct primaries, but the convention is still divided on that issue), and progressive delegates outnumber Old Guard ones (567-445 on the chairman vote). Therefore, in the NYT’s words, “the Old Guard turned its State Convention over to Theodore Roosevelt this afternoon, body, soul, and breeches.” Oh, it’s that sort of convention.

TR’s speech called for a “war against dishonesty.”

Today -100: September 27, 1910: Everyone loves a parade

Oklahoma Gov. Charles Haskell (the new state’s first governor) is on trial for conspiracy to defraud the government in the sale of Creek Indian land, which he and his associates bought under false names for next to nothing.

The New York Republican convention opens tomorrow. TR is there, and Vice President Sherman, and everyone is in a spectacularly nasty mood. Fun.

On the corner of 3rd Avenue and 137th Street in NYC, a recently released mental patient, “wearing a black slouch hat bound around with a tasseled cord of gilt braid,” ordered some little boys to “fall in.” They did and so began a parade that grew continually, more boys joining it as it marched up the street. A cop commanded the leader to follow him to the police station. “Only if my regiment follows me,” he said, and so they did, though when they arrived at the station house, the killjoy cop dispersed the regiment.

Today -100: September 26, 1910: Of cholera

Officials in Naples, Italy finally admit that there is cholera in the city. One case. In fact, 80 have died of the disease.

Of course he did

Thomas Friedman column: “I was recently at a Washington Nationals baseball game. While waiting for a hot dog, I overheard the conversation behind me...”

You won’t have Balls to kick around anymore

Not that it matters, since Blair and Brown have made Labour unelectable for a generation, but the Labour leadership contest took place today at the Labour Party conference. To the disappointment of every British headline writer, Ed Balls was eliminated in the third round of voting, but Ed Miliband was finally able to vanquish his older brother David, who was ahead of him in votes in each of the first three rounds. Awkward!

“You’re Fredo.” “No, you’re Fredo.”

This blog predicted David Miliband’s failure two years ago when he was photographed with a banana.



Ed Miliband is 40, has only been in Parliament five years. Like many European politicians, he is not married to his partner, with whom he has a child. When do you suppose that will be possible in puritan America?

Nov. 2010 California proposition recommendations

(Update: results added, in purple. Will add exact numbers when available.)

Prop. 19. Legalizes marijuana for those 21 and older. Well, you’re either in favor of legalization or you aren’t, and if you consider marijuana more harmless than, say, tequila, and legalization a good way to bring revenue to state and local governments, redirect police and prison resources to real criminals, and strike at the power of the cartels and gangs, then Prop. 19 is a start. That said, implementation will be a mess, not only because pot will still be illegal at the federal level but also because Prop. 19 won’t really kill the illegal drug trade: people under 21 will still be buying, and the local governments that have put so many obstacles in the path of medical marijuana certainly won’t be more welcoming to recreational use, which means they either won’t permit commercial production and distribution or they’ll put such high taxes on it that people will continue going to the same old dealers.

The No ballot pamphlet argument suggests that 19 will increase car accidents because it sets no standards for determining when someone is driving under the influence of marijuana. Hey, district attorneys who wrote that argument, I’m pretty sure those would be exactly the same standards as we use right now.

Vote yes on 19, dudes, and stock up on some munchies.

Loses (54%), because the olds out-voted the yoots. It'll be interesting to see if this is one of those social issues that trends permissive over time, like gay marriage, or if people will always get wary of the demon weed when they get older.

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Props. 20 & 27. Redistricting. Again. And we have competing “evil twin” props.

Prop. 20 would give the job of drawing Congressional districts to the citizens’ commission created by Prop. 11 in 2008. I was against that one at the time because it created an insanely convoluted system to select a bunch of anonymous, unaccountable individuals to perform one of the most vital tasks in our democracy and for having quotas based on political party, thus “enshrin[ing] the two parties at the heart of the redistricting process... trying to pre-determine the outcomes of elections.” Click here for my 2008 argument against Prop. 11, which applies doubly to this extension of its reach. The commission is still in the process of being selected by state auditors, using who knows what criteria, so it’s too early to say what sort of a job they’ll do, although we do know that most of the volunteers were white.

The requirement that districts not break up “communities of interest,” which is defined as “shared interests... common to an urban area, a rural area, an industrial area, or an agricultural area, and those common to areas in which the people share similar living standards, use the same transportation facilities, have similar work opportunities,” would ensure that this all winds up in the courts, since class-segregated Congressional districts arguably violate the 14th Amendment even if class didn’t function as a proxy for race, which it does.

No on 20.

Wins easily (61.5%).

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Prop. 21. An $18 surcharge on non-commercial vehicles to support state parks and beaches; free admission to parks for the owners of those vehicles. On principle, I dislike hypothecated taxes, where a tax on one thing is dedicated to some unrelated purpose. The appropriate car tax and the appropriate budget for state parks are unrelated to each other and should be decided by – don’t laugh – the Legislature. Such decisions are kind of what they’re there for (in case you were wondering what they’re there for)(I know I was). Moreover, heavy users of the parks should not be subsidized, eliminating higher admission charges during peak times would create over-crowding, and state services should be supported by the progressive income tax so that the rich pay their fair share. Please lobby your legislators to do that, but vote no on 21.

Loses big time (57.8%). Not a good year to be asking voters to reach into their pockets.

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Prop. 22 bans the state government “borrowing” money from local governments and transportation projects. The No argument suggests alarmingly that this would cause schools to close and then burn down because all the fire departments would be closed, or something like that, because the budget process is so messed up it can’t function without stealing from local governments. Fix the broken budget process; don’t bankrupt the cities. Yes on 22.

Yes, 60.8%.

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Prop. 23 suspends air pollution and greenhouse gas laws when the state unemployment rate is over 5.5%. So Valero and Tesoro, the primary funders of this prop (which paid that young women who tried to get me to sign the petition for this prop by claiming it did the exact opposite), wants to close down its California refineries and import dirtier gasoline made in states with less stringent air pollution laws. It’s about the most greedy corporate-backed proposition I’ve seen since... that PG&E one in June. It would make pollution worse and do nothing to decrease unemployment. (Note to the Calif. secretary of state: the Yes argument shouldn’t have been allowed to use the false term “global warming tax.”) Vote No. And boycott Valero.

No, 61%. Valero et al thought they could convince people environmental regs cost them their jobs, the people just saw greedy polluters.

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Prop. 24 changes the way large multi-state businesses are taxed, closing recently created loopholes. Yes.

Loses big, 58.5%. Voters see a confusing technical prop, they vote no on general principles.

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Prop. 25 changes the current 2/3 vote required in the Legislature to pass a budget to a simple majority. But retains 2/3 for taxes, which I guess is the only way this thing could get passed, but which would therefore be only a partial fix for the broken budgetary system, leaving it hostage to a minority, which would still be encouraged in their obstructionism. Still, I would have supported it as a half-way measure, but they just had to add that childish faux-populist bit taking away the pay and travel & living expenses of every legislator each day the budget is late. That is precisely the same thing, morally speaking, as offering legislators a bribe in a brown paper bag in a parking garage: it is an economic incentive to vote a certain way. Any politician this would work on is not worthy of holding public office. It would put a coercive weapon in the hands of obstructionist wealthy legislators to use against any of their brethren who might actually need their pay. Do we really want to drive out of politics everyone who isn’t a multi-millionaire? I would love to change the 2/3 provision, but the pay-docking provision is a deal-breaker. No.

Yes, by a healthy margin (54.8%), which rather surprises me, especially with all the lying about it really being about raising taxes.

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Prop. 26. State fees would require a 2/3 vote in the Legislature, and local ones would require 2/3 in a referendum. Evidently some people think California doesn’t have enough gridlock in the Legislature now, that the budget process runs just too smoothly, so let’s require a 2/3 vote to, for example, raise entrance fees at state parks or increase restaurant inspection fees to keep up with costs, and let’s require expensive local elections on charging fees to businesses that sell alcohol. Mostly, though, this is really about the fees paid by businesses to pay for, for example, cleaning up pollution or oil spills they cause (Chevron is the largest funder of the pro-26 campaign). Those businesses hope that if they yell TAX TAX TAX loud enough, voters will be scared that there’s a conspiracy to subject them to “hidden taxes” if 26 isn’t passed. No on 26, another step in making California completely ungovernable.

Yes, 52.6%. When they saw which way the wind was blowing on 23, the oil companies switched their money into promoting this one, with commercials that were at the very least deceptive. We'll come to regret this (while at the same time somehow absolving ourselves of all responsibility for having voted for it)

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Prop. 27. Redistricting. If both 27 and 20 win, only the one with the most votes goes into effect. 27 repeals 2008’s Prop. 11, abolishing the citizens’ commission, making the Legislature again responsible for drawing up districts for all offices, and putting the maps up to the voters.

The authors decided to go all budget-populist and laughably call 27 the “Financial Accountability in Redistricting (FAIR!) Act,” focusing on 27’s least important provision, which restricts the money spent on the redistricting process to $2.5 million, which 1) saves a couple million dollars, big deal, 2) is too little for a fairly complex enterprise, 3) will be more than made up for by the cost of putting the maps on the ballot.

Okay, I hate the Prop. 11 citizens commission and want it killed, but I have some major problems with 27: 1) That $2.5m limit. 2) Districts are supposed to be contiguous and not divide cities or those darned “communities of interest” (here not defined at all), but are also supposed to contain precisely the same number of voters, literally deviating by no more than 1 voter, which is silly. 3) It’s pretty much up to the Legislature (I checked the prop’s language) whether there will be separate referenda for the congressional, state senate, assembly and board of equalization districts or whether it’ll be just one combined referendum. Since the referendum is the only check on gerrymandering by the Legislature, this is not a minor detail. 4) There is nothing in the prop about what happens if the voters reject a map. 5) I can’t tell when the referendum(s) are supposed to be held, but I’m assuming it would have to be in November 2011, a low-turnout off-year election, to be ready in time for 2012.

I’m conflicted. I would like the ill-conceived citizens’ commission abolished, but this is a pretty flawed alternative. On balance I’ll probably vote yes on 27, but I won’t be very happy about it.

No, 59.7%. No one trusts legislators to draw their own districts, and the whole thing felt like a sneaky trick.

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Comments, questions, rebuttals, praise, ill-informed abuse, mockery of the California initiative process, and votes on which prop is the most cynical abuse of the process are welcome in comments.

Negative impact

Military censors pictures of American soldiers (the ones about to be court-martialed for the sport-killing of Afghans) posing with dead Afghans, holding up their heads. A colonel seems to think it would have a “negative impact on the reputation of the armed forces.”

Today -100: September 25, 1910: Of exiles, sensation-seeking, and pet moo-cows

Nicaragua’s Estrada government (that’s the general, who is now president, not his brother, who was president for a few days last month; there were I believe 2 different presidents in between) sticks a bunch of the opposition Liberals on a ship bound for Panama.

TR will be in St Louis at the time of an air meet, but declined an offer to go up in a plane, suggesting that he might be accused of sensation-seeking.

In an interview, Woodrow Wilson accuses the Republicans of using the tariff “less and less as a means of protection – more and more as a means of patronage,” behind which trusts have conspired to raise prices.

Headline of the Day -100: “Will Take Cow to Taft.” The person who will take the cow to Taft is Jim Torrey, an 8th (!) cousin of Taft’s, and the cow is named Pauline Wayne, who will replace the Taft family’s late, lamented pet cow Mooley.

The Pledge to America (just like the Pledge of Allegiance but without Richard Stands)

The Republican Party leadership assembled, as is traditional, at the Tart Lumber Company (“Everything to Build Anything”), to solemnly issue a Pledge to America. It is as unserious a political document as has ever been put forth by a major political party at a major lumber company “Supplying Northern Virginia builders with quality lumber building materials and hardware since 1951”) in American history.

John Boehner is built out of quality building materials and hardware

It begins by denying the legitimacy of the American government. It’s worth quoting at length:

In a self-governing society, the only bulwark against the power of the state is the consent of the governed, and regarding the policies of the current government, the governed do not consent. An unchecked executive, a compliant legislature, and an overreaching judiciary have combined to thwart the will of the people and overturn their votes and their values, striking down long-standing laws and institutions and scorning the deepest beliefs of the American people. An arrogant and out-of-touch government of self-appointed elites makes decisions, issues mandates, and enacts laws without accepting or requesting the input of the many.

That paragraph accusing the majority party of being a dictatorship is followed in the very next sentence by a complaint about “a polarizing political environment”.

Was there a coup that didn’t make it into the papers, when those elites “self-appointed” themselves, possibly while we were all distracted by the World Cup? If the R’s can state as a fact that the elected (but unchecked) executive and the elected (but compliant) legislature are thwarting the will of the people, they must have some means of determining the will of the people that’s superior to democratic elections, and I can’t wait to hear what that is. Magic 8 Ball? Sarah Palin’s Twitter feed? If elections are now discredited as a means of ascertaining the will of the people, why should an election won by the R’s be accorded any greater legitimacy?

OH, I THINK IT CAN: “The need for urgent action to repair our economy and reclaim our government for the people cannot be overstated.”

They pledge to honor the “original intent” of the Constitution, especially the 10th Amendment.

PRIVATE? YOU MEAN THE MASONS, DON’T YOU? “We pledge to honor families, traditional marriage, life, and the private and faith-based organizations that form the core of our American values.”

WHISPER? OH, YOU’VE GOT THE VOLUME ON THE TV YOU’RE WATCHING FOX NEWS ON SET AT 2 AGAIN, DON’T YOU? “Voices in and out of government whisper that our standing as the world’s leader of democracy and economic growth is ending.”

CHENEY SECRET ENERGY TASK FORCE, RING ANY BELLS? “What’s worse, the most important decisions are made behind closed doors, where a flurry of backroom deals has supplanted the will of the people.”

They say they have a plan to “create jobs, end economic uncertainty... end the attack on free enterprise”. Did no one tell them that the essence of the free enterprise system is economic uncertainty?

They will stop job-killing policies and the job-killing agenda, job-killing tax increases, the job-killing health care plan, and job-killing mandates. They really like the adjective “job-killing,” is what I’m saying.

They also really like the adjective “common-sense,” as in “We must put common-sense limits on the growth of government”. Of course decisions on the growth of government are entirely political decisions, there is no such thing as a “common-sense” size of government. The phrase “common-sense” is intended to put their ideological positions beyond discussion.

THAT’S A BIG IF: “If we’ve learned anything over the last two years, it’s that we cannot spend our way to prosperity.” Unless we buy winning lottery tickets, of course.

Some details: Freeze net hiring of “non-security” federal employees; permanently end bailouts; end taxpayer funding of abortion forever; keep prisoners in Guantanamo forever. Every bill will “contain a citation of Constitutional authority,” and be put up on the web three days before Congress votes. Small businesses can deduct 20% of their income. A congressional vote on any regulation affecting more than $100m in economic activity. Kill Fannie & Freddie. End stimulus spending immediately (which would leave many projects half-finished, Kevin Drum points out).

PRIDE AND DIGNITY? HAVE THESE PEOPLE EVER ACTUALLY HADA JOB? “for our workforce, there is no substitute for the pride and dignity that comes with an honest day’s work and a steady paycheck.”

ALSO, “WHERE’S THE REMOTE?”: “The trillion-dollar ‘stimulus’ spending bill has made ‘where are the jobs?’ a national rallying cry”. That’s a really odd rally.

JUST LIKE GEORGE CLOONEY: “Washington’s out-of-control spending spree needs no introduction.”

THEY PROMISED WHAT NOW? “Instead of putting the brakes on Washington’s spending habits as they promised, President Obama and Democratic Leaders have...”

A FACT-BASED CONVERSATION: “We will have a responsible, fact-based conversation with the American people about the scale of the fiscal challenges we face, and the urgent action that is required to deal with them.” Will have, future tense, because as everyone points out, they aren’t willing to name a single program (except TARP) that they plan to cut.

DAMN THE ‘60s! “Earlier this year, House Republicans launched the YouCut initiative to combat the permissive culture of runaway spending in Congress.” I just love that use of the word permissive.

THE ONE THING THE AMERICAN PEOPLE WANTED: “The American people wanted one thing out of health care reform: lower costs, which President Obama and Democrats in Washington promised, but did not deliver.” Just one thing, lower costs. Not access for the uninsured, not coverage of pre-existing conditions, certainly not single fucking payer.

AND YET THE MINORITY ALWAYS SEEMS TO WIN: “The House of Representatives continues to move further away from its roots as a deliberative body, toward a centralized power structure where the majority does whatever it needs to win at all costs.”

“We will launch a prolonged campaign to transfer power back to the people and ensure they have a say in what goes on in the Congress.” This prolonged campaign will evidently involve... wait for it... a web site. Power... transferred.

They will fight extending Miranda Rights to foreign terrorists.

Missile defense, because, oo, Iran, scary. Sanctions on Iran, which “has declared its determination to acquire a nuclear capability”. That is a true but wilfully misleading statement, which 90% of people will read as saying that Iran has declared a determination to acquire nuclear weapons.

We will “establish operational control” of the border, whatever that means, “and prohibit the Secretaries of the Interior and Agriculture from interfering with Border Patrol enforcement activities on federal lands.” I’m not sure what that means, but I’m going to guess it means that the border fence can violate environmental laws.

A LITTLE SOMETHING FOR JAN BREWER: “We will reaffirm the authority of state and local law enforcement to assist in the enforcement of all federal immigration laws.”

YES, BECAUSE REPUBLICANS WOULD NEVER DO THAT: “We will fight efforts to use a national crisis for political gain.”

Today -100: September 24, 1910: Of assassins and mammies

The Japanese government denies that there was any plot to assassinate the emperor. But a bunch of anarchists have been arrested with bomb-making equipment.

A charter has been applied for for an institute to be established in Athens, Georgia to train young African-Americans in the culinary and domestic arts. It will be called The Black Mammy Memorial Institute.

Today -100: September 23, 1910: Of relics of a barbarous age and the death of Little Dorrit

Henry Neil, Secretary of the National Probation League, says that “if the right hand of fellowship were extended to burglars instead of the kick and threat, the world would be better, the penitentiaries would be emptied in a short time, and there would be no need of lock and key, bolt and bar.” So he’s had all the locks removed from his house, calling them “relics of a barbarous age.” The Times does not give his address (in Illinois, where he later became a judge).

Little Dorrit has died, or at any rate a Mrs. G. M. Hayman, whose family claims that Dickens based the character on her. They also say her brother, a cheerful cripple, was Tiny Tim.

Today -100: September 22, 1910: Of attempted assassinations, at home and abroad

Japan leaks the discovery of a socialist plot to assassinate Emperor Mutsuhito. The plotters will be sentenced to death by a special secret court. Supposedly, this is the only such plot in the last 2,500 years.

US ambassador to Turkey Oscar Straus has dropped plans to visit Russia, evidently because he was unwilling to accept the special passport necessary for him to visit St Petersburg because he is Jewish.

William Randolph Hearst responds to Mayor Gaynor’s accusations that attacks on him in Hearst’s papers resulted in his assassination. Hearst says the shooting must have affected Gaynor’s mind and regrets that “his experience did not abate his evil temper or his lying tongue.” Hearst goes on to make various insinuations about the corrupt forces allegedly behind the campaign to elect Gaynor governor. He ends politely, “I personally will not take advantage of your columns to criticize Mayor Gaynor politically, first because of his illness, and second, because his mental, as well as his moral condition, has eliminated him from political consideration.”

No, Biffy, I expect you to die

It seems like at least 50 people have been suggested as the “real James Bond,” but... Wilfred “Biffy” Dunderdale?

“Dunderdale, Biffy Dunderdale.”

Apologize, Butt!

Headline of the Day (BBC): “England Demand Apology From Butt” (the headline on my feed, not on the linked page). Something about cricket.

Ijaz Butt is probably a perfectly respectable and not at all humorous name in Pakistan.

Today -100: September 21, 1910: Of confabs and lynchings

Taft and TR met a couple of days ago, and talked amiably about whatever. Now TR is denying White House spin that he asked for the meeting, rather than Taft.

For a nice change of pace, some Italians are lynched in Tampa.

Obama town hall: Whacking Wall Street with a stick

Netanyahu wouldn’t extend the settlement “freeze” for something as small as keeping Middle East peace talks going. But he would do it in exchange for the release of the spy Jonathan Pollard.

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Obama held a “town hall” “discussion” in D.C. for CNBC.

HE’S THE REMINDERER: “But the thing I’ve just got to remind people of is the fact that it took us a decade to get into the problem that we’re in right now.”

YEAH THE QUICK FIX THING, LET’S DO THAT: “So there are a lot of plans in place that can make improvement, but it’s slow and steady, as opposed to the kind of quick fix that I think a lot of people would like to see.”

A lot of the questions were about why he hated rich people so much, including one poor woman who had to eat hot dogs and beans to keep her children in private school, and a hedge fund manager who says Wall Street feels like “we’ve been whacked with a stick” by Obama. Half of America didn’t hear any of the rest of the broadcast, just daydreaming happily about Obama whacking a hedge fund manager with a stick. The CNBC guy actually asked if Obama thought that “working for profit is morally inferior to the kind of work you used to do as a community organizer.” Obama says he doesn’t think that, although he so does think that.

GETTING YOUR FOOT IN THE DOOR WHILE YOU’RE TREADING WATER: “Now, as I said before, what we saw happening during 2001 to the time I took office was wages actually declining for middle-class families, people treading water, young people having more trouble getting their foot in the door in terms of businesses.”

IS IT THAT DREAM ABOUT YOU WHACKING A HEDGE FUND MANAGER WITH A STICK? “So if we’re doing all those things, I am confident that the American Dream will continue for the next generation.” And then, pfft.

On the tea party movement: “I think that America has a noble tradition of being healthily skeptical about government. That’s in our DNA, right? I mean, we came in because the folks over on the other side of the Atlantic had been oppressing folks without giving them representation.” Should a black man in America, even one whose ancestors didn’t come over in shackles, be propagating that particular origin story (although people whose ancestors were kept in chains for generations by the legal system might also be said to have a healthy scepticism about government in their DNA)?

WHAT THE CHALLENGE FOR THE TEA PARTY MOVEMENT IS (FINDING A PLACE THAT RENTS OUT FIFES AND DRUMS?): “And so the challenge, I think, for the Tea Party movement is to identify specifically what would you do. It’s not enough just to say, get control of spending. I think it’s important for you to say, I’m willing to cut veterans’ benefits, or I’m willing to cut Medicare or Social Security benefits, or I’m willing to see these taxes go up.”

TELL THAT TO SEN. TOM COBURN: “But you know what, the truth is everybody here probably thinks it’s a pretty good idea that we regulate the food industry, for example, so we don’t get E. coli and salmonella.”

OH GOOD, IT’S ALWAYS GOOD THAT ALL STUPID VIOLENT OPTIONS ARE ON THE TABLE: “We don’t think that a war between Israel and Iran, or military options would be the ideal way to solve this problem. But we are keeping all our options on the table.”

BILL AYRES? REV. WRIGHT? YOUR SECRET MUSLIM PAYMASTERS? “Now, I stay up every night and I wake up every morning thinking about the people who sent me into this job.”

SO WE’RE TOTALLY BONED, IS WHAT YOU’RE SAYING: “I have put forward proposals that are going to require bipartisan cooperation in order for us to get government spending under control.”

And then he went to Philadelphia and bought not one, but two Philly cheese steak sandwiches. The economy is saved!