Monday Open Thread

Some goodies compiled by TPM.

“I find it interesting that it was back in the 1970s that the swine flu broke out then under another Democrat president Jimmy Carter. And I’m not blaming this on President Obama, I just think it’s an interesting coincidence.”

The last flue pandemic happened in 1976 when Republican Gerald Ford was President, and he didn’t have anything to do with the pandemic starting either.

“And as a matter of fact, the recession that FDR had to deal with wasn’t as bad as the recession Coolidge had to deal with in the early 20’s,” Bachmann claimed. “Yet the prescription that Coolidge put on that, from history, is lower taxes, lower regulatory burden, and we saw the Roaring 20’s, where we saw markets and growth in the economy like we’d never seen before in the history of the country. FDR applied just the opposite formula — the Hoot-Smalley Act, which was a tremendous burden on tariff restrictions. And then of course, trade barriers, and the regulatory burden, and the tax barriers. That’s what we saw happen under FDR that took a recession, and blew it into a full-scale depression. The American people suffered for almost ten years under that kind of thinking.”

Whoa boy. First, Coolidge did not have a recession to combat on his watch (1923 until 1929). Second, the Smoot-Hawley bill was introduced by Republicans Sen. Reed Smoot of Utah and Rep. Willis Hawley of Oregon, and signed into law by Republican President Herbert Hoover. Third, FDR did not have to deal with a recession, he came into office having to deal with a Depression that started on October 29, 1929, some three years prior during the term of Republican Herbert Hoover. When FDR took office, unemployment had already been at 25% for some time, and he was elected because Hoover had done nothing to fight the Depression.

[w]e also know that the very founders that wrote those documents worked tirelessly until slavery was no more in the United States…I think it is high time that we recognize the contribution of our forbearers who worked tirelessly — men like John Quincy Adams, who would not rest until slavery was extinguished in the country.”

John Quincy Adams was a vocal opponent of slavery, especially during his later years as a mere Congressman (the only former President to ever hold another political office). But the younger Adams was not a founding father. His father was. And the Founders that were the elder John Adams’ peers were not so hot on tirelessly working to extinguish slavery. Indeed, quite the opposite. The Founders compromised on slavery and explicitedly wrote into the founding documents that slaves were less than a man. Further, many of our Founders owned slaves.

“What I love about New Hampshire and what we have in common is our extreme love for liberty. You’re the state where the shot was heard around the world in Lexington and Concord.”

The Battle of Lexington and Concord was in Massachusetts.