Obama press conference: I don’t think there’s any debate in this country that when you have four Americans killed, that’s a problem

8 months since the last presser, and he really didn’t have much to say.

On Petraeus: “By his own assessment, he did not meet the standards that he felt were necessary as the director of CIA with respect to this personal matter that he is now dealing with with his family and with his wife. And it’s on that basis that he tendered his resignation, and it’s on that basis that I accepted it.” Obama is here avoiding saying whether he would have asked for Col. Combover’s resignation. As for those “standards,” and other discussion of Col. C “failing to live up to his own Code,” since the affair took place some time ago and he only resigned when it came out, the Petraeus Code is clearly Don’t Get Caught.

He calls the latest Syrian umbrella group “a legitimate representative of the aspirations of the Syrian people.” Nice that someone found the legitimacy that Assad lost – it’s always in the last place you look.

But we won’t be recognizing them as government-in-exile or arming them (at least not openly): “And you know, one of the things that we have to be on guard about, particularly when we start talking about arming opposition figures, is that we’re not indirectly putting arms in the hands of folks who would do Americans harm or do Israelis harm”. Did you notice what group he conspicuously omitted from that list? Syrians. If intra-Syrian ethnic/sectarian/factional violence is a factor in his decisionmaking process, it seems to have slipped his mind here.

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Today -100: November 14, 1912: Of armistices and revolvers

Armistice in the Balkan War.

Disappointing Sports Headline of the Day -100: “Revolver Shooting Winners.”

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Daily Telegraphy: Ostrich anus edition

There may be a metaphor in here somewhere: “Nadine Dorries entered the jungle promising to bring serious political debate to the masses. Instead, the MP found herself eating lamb’s testicle and ostrich anus on primetime television.”

Also, a retired Anglican bishop is arrested for sexually abusing minors. His name is the Rev. Peter Ball, because of course it is.

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Today -100: November 13, 1912: This wretch has killed me

Spanish Prime Minister José Canalejas is assassinated by an anarchist, as was the custom. Last words: “This wretch has killed me.”

Punch:

George Lansbury, Labour MP (and grandfather of Angela Lansbury), resigns from Parliament in order to stand again in the resulting by-election on the sole issue of women’s suffrage. Since the NYT won’t be following this at all as it develops, I’ll do the whole story in one go. The Labour Party had decided to continue backing the Asquith government, even if the women’s suffrage amendment to the Manhood Suffrage Bill failed (as Asquith intends). Lansbury thought his re-election would leave him free to follow his conscience. But his timing was bad, he didn’t prepare his electorate (the working-class Bow & Bromley section of London) so his resignation just looked mercurial, the Labour Party disowned him, and his sole opponent, Reginald Blair (Tory), didn’t cooperate in making it the straight fight on the suffrage issue Lansbury wanted. Though Blair did use the slogan “No Petticoat Government!”, he mostly fought on other issues. Still, when Lansbury lost, the London Times claimed that on the one occasion the suffrage issue was actually squarely before the (male) voters, it lost. Lansbury continued to fight for women’s suffrage, spending some time in prison in 1913, where he hunger struck and was forcibly fed, and didn’t get back into Parliament until 1922. In 1931 he became leader of a rump Labour Party (the members who didn’t join Ramsay MacDonald (boo hiss)’s coalition National Government).

A large strike in St Petersburg to protest the death sentences imposed on 17 sailors of the Black Fleet for mutiny.

To celebrate the recovery of Tsarevitch Alexei, the Tsar pardons an army private who was sentenced to life imprisonment for stepping out of line to hand the tsar a petition (about what, we do not know).

Austria and Italy are mobilizing their navies and armies, to prevent Serbian troops entering Albania.

Headline of the Day -100: “‘Magic Flute’ to Be Revived.” Sounds like the subject line of a spam email.

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Daily Telegraphy: Boiled eggs and maggots

More news from the world’s leading newspaper.

“The Prince of Wales Does Not Have Seven Eggs for Breakfast, Insists Palace.” The story, which the Royal Family strenuously denies, is that he has seven eggs boiled and labeled according to cooking length, then chooses one of them to eat.

Nadine “Mad Nad” Dorries, a Tory MP since 2005, hitherto mostly known for proposing various forms of anti-abortion legislation, has taken some criticism (and been suspended from the Conservative Party) for taking several weeks off from her job of legislatin’ to appear on I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here. Everyone in the country, including her colleagues, phoned in to vote for her to be buried in a coffin with cockroaches and maggots. It did not go well.

(Update: more British news. In addition to the guy arrested by the Kent police for “malicious telecommunications” for posting a picture of a poppy being set on fire, “In Bristol, a man who skateboarded alongside a Remembrance Sunday parade wearing a pink outfit and horned mask has been charged under the Public Order Act”.)

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Today -100: November 12, 1912: Where the nuts come from

Woodrow Wilson is considering calling a special session of Congress to revamp the tariff system. Otherwise, it will be over a year until Congress meets again.

Ohio discovers that four prisoners that were transferred from the state prison to the state hospital decades ago after being found insane were just left there, although their terms were up as long as 33 years ago. Normally it takes computers to fuck things up that badly.

California’s votes are still being counted and the presidential race has been going back and forth (Spoiler alert: Roosevelt will win, 283,610 to Wilson’s 283,436, with Eugene Debs coming 3rd with 79,201, 11.7% of the vote). The Democrats are trying to have all the votes from LA County thrown out, on the grounds that someone opened the envelope containing the precinct tally books and ballots.

English Actor W. S. Penley, originator of the title role in “Charley’s Aunt,” dies.

Filthy Headline of the Day -100, If You Read It Too Quickly (NYT): “Kaiser Felicitates Greeks.”

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Today -100: November 11, 1912: Of balloonist spies and peculiar donkeys

The Great Powers are telling Bulgaria that its army will absolutely not be permitted to occupy Constantinople (just temporarily, until peace negotiations are completed, the Bulgars/Bulgarians are saying, getting rather ahead of themselves).

Headline of the Day -100 (NYT front page): “Balloonist Held as Spy.” An American blown off course wound up in Russia. He was held five days.

Headline of the Day -100 That I Didn’t Feel It Necessary to Click On (LAT): “Chinese Donkeys Are Peculiar.”

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Today -100: November 10, 1912: Of independence, judicial recall, parades, and hemophiliacs

President Taft intends to work for the rest of his term (which ends next March) and afterwards fighting against independence for the Philippines (which the Democrat platform called for). Not exactly Jimmy Carter, is what I’m saying. He’s especially worried that an independent Philippines would confiscate land owned by missionaries.

Taft, you may recall, vetoed statehood for Arizona until the provision for popular recall of judges was removed from the constitution. But in this week’s election, Arizonans voted to put it back in.

A suffrage parade marches down Fifth Avenue in New York City at night, with orange lanterns, in celebration of the four new suffrage states (actually three: everyone still thinks women’s suffrage passed in Michigan).

LAT cartoon, 11/19/12:

The Russian monarchy admits that Tsarevitch Alexei is a hemophiliac.

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Today -100: November 9, 1912: You have no right to come here and talk about chrysanthemums

Greek troops capture Salonika, which surrenders without a fight.

Headline of the Day -100 (LAT): “Bulgars Merely Laugh At Turks’ Holy War.” The sheikh-Ul-Islam declares a jihad (a word which the LAT, which spells it Jehad, expected its readers to understand without having it defined for them). The head of the Islamic faith in Turkey, the sheikh says that the Christians called it a holy war first. Which is true.

In the Balkan War, French-manufactured artillery has been working better than German.

The US sends two warships to the region, just in case the Turks get any crazy ideas about massacring American missionaries.

Austria is trying to impose conditions on Serbia carving new territory for itself from the Ottoman Empire, including permanent friendly relations and a customs union, which Serbia considers as intended to make it a vassal state, which, yes, was the idea.

Austria, Italy and Germany are agreed on the creation of an independent Albanian state, which would wreck Serbia’s plans to acquire Adriatic ports. They don’t want any of the victorious Balkan states getting too big. The term for this strategy is, of course, balkanization.

A rare North Dakota lynching, a man (presumably white, since otherwise the NYT & LAT would have said) who murdered his wife and father-in-law. “The shooting is said to have been the result of family trouble.”

British suffragettes disrupt a speech being given by President of the Local Government Board John Burns at a chrysanthemum show in Battersea, one saying, “Mr. Burns, you have no right to come here and talk about chrysanthemums.”

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Today -100: November 8, 1912: Of waddling mates, hangings, ports, and rugs

Thanks to the addition of a Bull Mooser to his congressional race, Nicholas Longworth, Roosevelt’s son-in-law, loses his seat to a Democrat. That’ll be one awkward Thanksgiving.

Now that the election’s over, the burning question is: who will be Taft’s running mate (and I can’t believe I haven’t thought of using the term “waddling mate” until right this second)? Vice President Sherman died, but there needs to be a Republican candidate for veep to receive those 8 electoral votes. The front-runner for the thankless job is Gov. Hadley of Missouri.

Oregon will celebrate the election with a mass execution of 5 or 7 men on December 13 (since the voters turned down the governor’s proposal to end capital punishment).

Serbia says it wants three of the Ottoman Empire’s Adriatic ports when the Empire’s European territory is divvied up, and doesn’t care what happens with Constantinople.

But how, the average New York Times reader is no doubt asking themself, does all this affect the price of Turkish rugs? Not much so far, the paper reassures those average readers, especially since the war is confined to the European provinces.

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California props

I’ve update my recommendations post with the results and a few comments.

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Today -100: November 7, 1912: The time has come now to do a lot of thinking

Woodrow Wilson won’t be giving out any statements. “The time has come now to do a lot of thinking.” He will take a long vacation in Bermuda but will not yet resign as governor of New Jersey (this election gave the D’s a majority in the State Senate that will be sworn in January; before then, his replacement would be a Republican).

Taft says he will go home to Cincinnati and resume his legal practice. He says Wilson will face a Congress filled with new, untried men who have come to believe in “histrionic publicity.”

Women’s suffrage was on the ballot in 5 states, succeeding in Kansas (NYT headline: “Kansas Women Win; Men Apathetic”), Arizona and Oregon, but failing in Michigan (narrowly), and in Wisconsin, where “the Teutonic and Scandinavian sections” of the male electorate were strongly opposed. That’s 9 suffrage states total.

West Virginia votes itself dry; Colorado refuses to do so, but does pass a measure to build a railroad tunnel through the Rocky Mountains.

Oregon rejects a referendum to abolish hanging.

William Sulzer, the surprise nominee of the NY Democratic convention for governor just one month ago, wins.

I predict a long and successful career as governor for Mr. Sulzer.

The Bronx secedes from NY, forming its own county. NYT: “The Bronx has been bunkoed.”

Bulgaria’s secret weapon in the Balkan War: searchlights, which allow them to attack at night.

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Wisconsin

elects the first ever United States senator named Tammy.

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In other election news

The British bookmaker Ladbrokes has suspended betting on the outcome of the race to be next archbishop of Canterbury because a sudden run of bets suggests that the decision has already been made and insiders are trying to cash on. The Church of England, ladies and gentlemen!

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Today -100: November 6, 1912: As Vermont goes, so goes Utah

Woodrow Wilson wins 41% of the vote nationally, Roosevelt 27%, Taft 23%, and Socialist Eugene Debs 6% (almost a million votes). Wilson won 40 states, TR 6, Taft won Utah & Vermont (and Vermont just barely).

Debs got more votes than Taft in Arizona, California (where Taft wasn’t on the ballot and fewer than 4,000 people wrote in his name), Florida, Louisiana, and Nevada.

Wilson won with far fewer votes than William Jennings Bryan got in 1908. But he will have the largest electoral college victory (435 to TR’s 88 and Taft’s 8) since Grant beat a dead guy 40 years ago.

In Congress, the Democrats take 291 seats, up from 230, the Progressives (who ran, er, I’m not sure how many candidates, but they managed to run full congressional slates in only 14 states) get 9, Republicans 134. And D’s have taken enough state legislatures (even traditionally Republican New Hampshire and Massachusetts) that they will also now have a majority in the Senate.

The powerful Republican House Speaker until two years ago, Uncle Joe Cannon, loses his seat (Illinois).

Victor Berger, the only Socialist member of the US Congress, loses his seat (Wisconsin).

The income tax amendment to the US Constitution has been ratified by 34 states, needing just 2 more. Evidently Louisiana and Ohio ratified a while back but failed to tell anyone and no one noticed. 4 state legislatures have rejected the amendment: New Hampshire, Utah, Connecticut and Rhode Island.

The British Parliament votes down an amendment for women’s suffrage in the Irish Home Rule Bill. Many shop windows are broken in protest. Proportional representation is also rejected.

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YJYR?

Paul Ryan tweeted this picture:

Today -100: November 5, 1912: Of platforms, emperors, protestant teachers of piety, religion and morality, corsets, and triplets

Roosevelt gets up on a platform to give a speech in Mineola, NY; the platform collapses. TR is unhurt, though a water pitcher spills on him. TR, now speaking from an inclined plane, says “I assure you that the Progressive platform won’t break down.”

Because he was laid up after the assassination attempt, Roosevelt never got to register to vote. Gov. Hiram Johnson, his running mate, was too busy campaigning outside of California to register either.

Reports say that when Turkey is defeated, King Ferdinand of Bulgaria intends to name himself Emperor of the Balkans.

New Hampshire’s tenth Constitutional Convention rejects striking out the words “Protestant” & “rightly grounded on evangelical principles” from the provision authorizing towns, parishes, religious societies and bodies corporate, to hire “public protestant teachers of piety, religion and morality.” After a bunch of attempts before and after 1912, the words were finally removed in 1968.

This is not the first one of these I’ve reported recently: Joseph Hennella, a professional female impersonator, dies after collapsing onstage. Cause of death: a too tightly laced corset.

Headline of the Day -100 (NYT): “Baltimore is Disabled.” A ship, not the city, whatever you may have seen on “The Wire.”

A couple in Denison, Texas have triplets, who they name William Howard Taft Kyler, Theodore Roosevelt Kyler and Woodrow Wilson Kyler.

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Bill Clinton is always looking for people who can “do the job”

Bill Clinton says the military is now “less racist, less sexist and less homophobic, and we’re just looking for people who can do the job.”

Good, because we’d hate to have the job of killing foreigners sullied by racism, sexism and homophobia.

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Today -100: November 4, 1912: Of boss-ridden and privilege-controlled parties, mosques, the glory of war, and underwear trades

In one of his last pre-election speeches, Roosevelt says the Democratic and Republican parties are “boss-ridden and privilege-controlled” and “wedded to the dead issues of a vanished past, and they show not the slightest conception of the needs of the day or the steps now urgently necessary to take if grave disaster to the Nation in the future is to be avoided.” How times have changed, eh?

Roosevelt urges people to read the Progressive Party platform. President Taft says that that platform “attack[s] the existing Constitution of the country”.

And Woodrow Wilson hits his head when his car hits a bump in the road.

The Turks continue to lose battles and land as well as officers, who are being executed for losing battles and land.

The Germans, who trained the Turkish army, are looking sheepish.

The NYT suggests that the main goal of the Bulgarians is to turn the Church of St. Sophia from a mosque back to a Christian church (a millennium ago some Bulgarians were really impressed by the church and converted from paganism on the spot, or something)(and when Constantinople fell, the walls swallowed up a janissary who was threatening a priest, and a Voice said that a regenerated nation – which obviously means Bulgaria – would once again control the Church)(today it’s a museum).

Headline of the Day -100 (LAT): “Glory of War for Filipinos. West Point Opens Gates to Orientals.”

Fashion Headline of the Day -100: “Underwear Trade Active.”

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Today -100: November 3, 1912: Of a spirit of the courtesy and real democracy that you don’t often see in political meetings

Note: the NYT Index went down while I was doing the reading for this post and didn’t come back up for a couple of weeks (it’s still not fucking working right). I switched to ProQuest during that period, so there will be no links for the next 10 posts.

Theodore Roosevelt says that the presence of women in the election campaign has made a great difference. For example, at his speech in Madison Square Garden, there was no rowdyism or hooliganism, “and there seemed to be a spirit of the courtesy and real democracy that you don’t often see in political meetings.”

The pope refuses to endorse any of the US presidential candidates.

Russia expels the artist Leon Bakst (do you know his work? he made some interesting paintings) from St Petersburg, because he’s a Jew.

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