Category: News

We learn in this week segment of Up‘s “What We Know Now” with host Steve Kornacki that Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton signed marriage equality passed by the Demcratic held state legislature. Also, Jason Richwine resigned from the Heritage Foundation after revelations about his doctoral dissertation. In the aftermath, Pablo Pantoja, the director of the RNC Florida Hispanic Outreach, resigned and became a Democrat.

Democratic nominee for the vacant Senate seat in Massachusetts, Ed Markey dis-invited  former Georgia Democratic congressman Ben Jones from a fundraising event over Jones’ support of the displaying the Confederate flag public events.

According to Public Policy Polling, hipsters are no longer “in.”

Telling us what they have learned this week are Steve’s guests: Patricia Ireland, former President of the National Organization for Women; Anu Bhagwati, executive director and co-founder, Service Women’s Action Network; Goldie Taylor, MSNBC contributor, managing editor, The Goldie Taylor Project; and Jessica Hinves, former U.S. Air Force member, board member of Protect Our Defenders (a group that works to being attention to military sexual assault).

Minnesota Legalizes Gay Marriage: Gov. Mark Dayton Signs Bill Into Law

from Huffington Post

Minnesota officially became the 12th U.S. state to approve same-sex marriage May 14 when Gov. Mark Dayton appeared before a jubilant crowd to sign a marriage equality bill into law.  [..]

Dayton’s signature came just a day after the state Senate approved it with a 37-30 vote, the Associated Press reported.

“Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness should certainly include the right to marry the person you love,” he noted.

Echoing those sentiments was State Rep. Karen Clark and Sen. Scott Dibble, who are both openly gay.

Jason Richwine Resigns From Heritage Foundation After Dissertation Controversy

by Luke Johnson, Huffington Post

Jason Richwine, the co-author of a Heritage Foundation report on immigration who came under fire this week for arguing in his Harvard dissertation that Hispanic immigrants to the U.S. have substantially lower IQs than whites, resigned Friday. [..]

The report put the cost of immigration reform at a whopping $6.3 trillion. Though Heritage’s 2007 report was one of the reasons an earlier immigration bill failed, the 2013 report was widely mocked, even by Republicans the foundation hoped would support it.

Harvard accepted Richwine’s 2009 dissertation for a doctorate in public policy. In it, he spoke of the “growing Hispanic underclass.”[

Pablo Pantoja Turns Democrat: RNC Florida Hispanic Director Cites GOP ‘Intolerance’ In Making Party Switch

by Chris Gentilviso, Huffington Post

Less than two months after the Republican National Committee announced a multi-million dollar campaign to improve minority outreach, one of its state Hispanic directors is leaving the Republican Party altogether.

In a letter released by The Florida Nation on Monday, RNC State Director Of Florida Outreach Pablo Pantoja announced that he is changing his political affiliation to the Democratic Party.

“It doesn’t take much to see the culture of intolerance surrounding the Republican Party today,” he wrote. “I have wondered before about the seemingly harsh undertones about immigrants and others. Look no further; a well-known organization recently confirms the intolerance of that which seems different or strange to them.”

Ed Markey Disinvites Ben Jones From Campaign Appearance Over Confederate Flag Beliefs

by Pam Lavender, Huffington Post

Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) disinvited former Georgia Democratic congressman Ben Jones from a fundraising event after learning of Jones’ support for the Confederate flag. [..]

Jones defended the Confederate flag as a symbol of Southern culture in 2012 when NASCAR canceled plans to have professional golfer Bubba Watson drive the General Lee — the car from “The Dukes of Hazzard” which features a Confederate flag on its roof — at Phoenix International Raceway. Jones called the cancellation of the event “an extraordinary insult to rural Southerners.”

Hipsters trail in the polls but survey’s worth called into question

by Adam Gabbatt, The Guardian

Public Policy Polling claimed 42% of Americans viewed hipsters unfavourably but methodology and purpose of poll questioned

A US polling company claimed on Monday that a shocking 42% of Americans have an unfavourable opinion about hipsters – in a telephone poll conducted among people who only have landlines.

Public Policy Polling was widely mocked for its survey, both for the frivolity of the poll, and for using a methodology that seemed guaranteed to produce the result that emerged.

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

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May 18 is the 138th day of the year (139th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 227 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1917, U.S. Congress passes Selective Service Act.

Some six weeks after the United States formally entered the First World War, the U.S Congress passes the Selective Service Act on May 18, 1917, giving the U.S. president the power to draft soldiers.

When he went before Congress on April 2, 1917, to deliver his war message, President Woodrow Wilson had pledged all of his nation’s considerable material resources to help the Allies-France, Britain, Russia and Italy-defeat the Central Powers. What the Allies desperately needed, however, were fresh troops to relieve their exhausted men on the battlefields of the Western Front, and these the U.S. was not immediately able to provide. Despite Wilson’s effort to improve military preparedness over the course of 1916, at the time of Congress’s war declaration the U.S. had only a small army of volunteers-some 100,000 men-that was in no way trained or equipped for the kind of fighting that was going on in Europe.

To remedy this situation, Wilson pushed the government to adopt military conscription, which he argued was the most democratic form of enlistment. To that end, Congress passed the Selective Service Act, which Wilson signed into law on May 18, 1917. The act required all men in the U.S. between the ages of 21 and 30 to register for military service. Within a few months, some 10 million men across the country had registered in response to the military draft.

The World War I Draft

During World War I there were three registrations.

   The first, on June 5, 1917, was for all men between the ages of 21 and 31.

   The second, on June 5, 1918, registered those who attained age 21 after June 5, 1917. A supplemental registration, included in the second registration, was held on August 24, 1918, for those becoming 21 years old after June 5, 1918.

   The third registration was held on September 12, 1918, for men age 18 through 45.

After the signing of the armistice of November 11, 1918, the activities of the Selective Service System were rapidly curtailed. On March 31, 1919, all local, district, and medical advisory boards were closed, and on May 21, 1919, the last state headquarters closed operations. The Provost Marshal General was relieved from duty on July 15, 1919, thereby finally terminating the activities of the Selective Service System of World War I.

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

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May 17 is the 137th day of the year (138th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 228 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1954, in a major civil rights victory, the U.S. Supreme Court hands down an unanimous decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, ruling that racial segregation in public educational facilities is unconstitutional. The historic decision, which brought an end to federal tolerance of racial segregation, specifically dealt with Linda Brown, a young African American girl who had been denied admission to her local elementary school in Topeka, Kansas, because of the color of her skin.

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court that declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students unconstitutional. The decision overturned the Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1896 which allowed state-sponsored segregation. Handed down on May 17, 1954, the Warren Court’s unanimous (9-0) decision stated that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” As a result, de jure racial segregation was ruled a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. This ruling paved the way for integration and the civil rights movement.

Supreme Court Review

The case of Brown v. Board of Education as heard before the Supreme Court combined five cases: Brown itself, Briggs v. Elliott (filed in South Carolina), Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County (filed in Virginia), Gebhart v. Belton (filed in Delaware), and Bolling v. Sharpe (filed in Washington D.C.).

All were NAACP-sponsored cases. The Davis case, the only case of the five originating from a student protest, began when sixteen-year-old Barbara Rose Johns organized and led a 450-student walkout of Moton High School.

The Kansas case was unique among the group in that there was no contention of gross inferiority of the segregated schools’ physical plant, curriculum, or staff. The district court found substantial equality as to all such factors. The Delaware case was unique in that the District Court judge in Gebhart ordered that the black students be admitted to the white high school due to the substantial harm of segregation and the differences that made the schools separate but not equal. The NAACP’s chief counsel, Thurgood Marshall, who was later appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1967, argued the case before the Supreme Court for the plaintiffs. Assistant attorney general Paul Wilson, later distinguished emeritus professor of law at the University of Kansas, conducted the state’s ambivalent defense in his first appellate trial.

Unanimous Opinion and Key Holding

In spring 1953 the Court heard the case but was unable to decide the issue and asked to rehear the case in fall 1953, with special attention to whether the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause prohibited the operation of separate public schools for whites and blacks.

The case was being reargued at the behest of Associate Justice Felix Frankfurter, who used re-argument as a stalling tactic, to allow the Court to gather a unanimous consensus around a Brown opinion that would outlaw segregation. Chief Justice Vinson had been a key stumbling block. The justices in support of desegregation spent much effort convincing those who initially dissented to join a unanimous opinion. Even though the legal effect would be same for a majority versus unanimous decision, it was felt that it was vital to not have a dissent which could be relied upon by opponents of desegregation as a legitimizing counterargument.

Conference notes and draft decisions illustrate the division of opinions before the decision was issued. Justices Douglas, Black, Burton, and Minton were predisposed to overturn Plessy. Fred M. Vinson noted that Congress had not issued desegregation legislation; Stanley F. Reed discussed incomplete cultural assimilation and states’ rights and was inclined to the view that segregation worked to the benefit of the African-American community; Tom C. Clark wrote that “we had led the states on to think segregation is OK and we should let them work it out.” Felix Frankfurter and Robert H. Jackson disapproved of segregation, but were also opposed to judicial activism and expressed concerns about the proposed decision’s enforceability. After Vinson died in September 1953, President Dwight D. Eisenhower appointed Earl Warren as Chief Justice. Warren had supported the integration of Mexican-American students in California school systems following Mendez v. Westminster.

While all but one justice personally rejected segregation, the self-restraint faction questioned whether the Constitution gave the Court the power to order its end. The activist faction believed the Fourteenth Amendment did give the necessary authority and were pushing to go ahead. Warren, who held only a recess appointment, held his tongue until the Senate, dominated by southerners, confirmed his appointment.

Warren convened a meeting of the justices, and presented to them the simple argument that the only reason to sustain segregation was an honest belief in the inferiority of Negroes. Warren further submitted that the Court must overrule Plessy to maintain its legitimacy as an institution of liberty, and it must do so unanimously to avoid massive Southern resistance. He began to build a unanimous opinion.

Although most justices were immediately convinced, Warren spent some time after this famous speech convincing everyone to sign onto the opinion. Justices Robert Jackson and Stanley Reed finally decided to drop their dissent to what was by then an opinion backed by all the others. The final decision was unanimous. Warren drafted the basic opinion and kept circulating and revising it until he had an opinion endorsed by all the members of the Court.

Holding

The key holding of the Court was that, even if segregated black and white schools were of equal quality in facilities and teachers, segregation by itself was harmful to black students and unconstitutional. They found that a significant psychological and social disadvantage was given to black children from the nature of segregation itself, drawing on research conducted by Kenneth Clark assisted by June Shagaloff. This aspect was vital because the question was not whether the schools were “equal”, which under Plessy they nominally should have been, but whether the doctrine of separate was constitutional. The justices answered with a strong “no”:

   Does segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race, even though the physical facilities and other “tangible” factors may be equal, deprive the children of the minority group of equal educational opportunities? We believe that it does… Segregation of white and colored children in public schools has a detrimental effect upon the colored children. The impact is greater when it has the sanction of the law, for the policy of separating the races is usually interpreted as denoting the inferiority of the negro group. A sense of inferiority affects the motivation of a child to learn. Segregation with the sanction of law, therefore, has a tendency to [retard] the educational and mental development of negro children and to deprive them of some of the benefits they would receive in a racial[ly] integrated school system… We conclude that, in the field of public education, the doctrine of “separate but equal” has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. Therefore, we hold that the plaintiffs and others similarly situated for whom the actions have been brought are, by reason of the segregation complained of, deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment.

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

The main purpose our blogging is to communicate our ideas, opinions, and stories both fact and fiction. The best part about the the blogs is information that we might not find in our local news, even if we read it online. Sharing that information is important, especially if it educates, sparks conversation and new ideas. We have all found places that are our favorites that we read everyday, not everyone’s are the same. The Internet is a vast place. Unlike “Punting the Pundits which focuses on opinion pieces mostly from the mainstream media and the larger news web sites, “Around the Blogosphere” will focus more on the medium to smaller blogs and articles written by some of the anonymous and not so anonymous writers and links to some of the smaller pieces that don’t make it to “Pundits” by Krugman, Baker, etc.

We encourage you to share your finds with us. It is important that we all stay as well informed as we can.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

This is an Open Thread.

Today at Corrente, we have lambert with a question about his garden and an interesting chart from Bonddad:

• Gardendote of the Day 2013-05-16
• Political risk increased when conditions improve, not when they are at their worst

and from libbyliberal:

• Obama, the F-word, & the Criminalization of News-Gathering

Dean Baker is going on vacation but for he left he gave us something to chew on:

• How Much Money Do You Need to Get an Op-ed in the Washington Post?
• There Are No More Bangladeshes

Gaius Publius on the climate at Americablog:

• Atmospheric CO2 at highest levels in 3 million years

From the Electronic Frontier Foundation, news on the next round of talks on the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement (TPP):

• Secretive TPP Talks Re-Commence in Lima, Peru: They Can Shut Us Out, But They Can’t Shut Us Up
  
  by Maira Sutton
• We Beat Them to Lima: Opening a New Front Against Secret IP Treaties
  
  by Danny O’Brien

At emptywheel:

• The Internet Didn’t Kill the Middle Class; Laxity and Apathy Did
  
  by Rayne
• hat Is the Attrition Rate for Afghan Special Operations Forces?
  
  by Jim White

At FDL’s The Dissenter, Kevin Gosztola:

• The Obama Administration’s Propensity for Chilling News Sources

and Jon Walker at FDL Action:

• More Signs Obama Will Likely Approve Keystone XL
• We Just Have to Take Holder’s Word That He Recused Himself From AP Case
• At Least Washington Isn’t Talking About the Grand Bargain Anymore

At RH Reality Check:

• Why Is El Salvador Letting a Woman Die?
  
  by Marianne Møllmann, Amnesty International
• Yes, Abortion Is a Women’s Issue, and Yes, More Male Allies Are Welcome
  
  by Erin Matson, Editor at Large, RH Reality Check

Contributor Jaye Raye at Voices on the Square has a on going series on unions and human rights:

• Hellraisers Journal: Our food and child labor, USA.

Charles P. Pierce on grifter Michelle Rhee, climate change and Missouri at Esquire’s Politics Blog:

• The Continental Grift
• Because It’s There, Just Less Of It Than There Was
• Missouri Goes Crazy

Atrios named Michael Kinsley his Wanker of the day and Charles Pierce thinks he needs to shut up. Take a hint, Mike.

And the last words from Atrios: Deficit Panic

The real deficit panic is about the possibility that it might go away, making it slightly more difficult to engage in a program of poors kicking.

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

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May 16 is the 136th day of the year (137th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 229 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1868, the U.S. Senate votes against impeaching President Andrew Johnson and acquits him of committing “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

In February 1868, the House of Representatives charged Johnson with 11 articles of impeachment for vague “high crimes and misdemeanors.” (For comparison, in 1998, President Bill Clinton was charged with two articles of impeachment for obstruction of justice during an investigation into his inappropriate sexual behavior in the White House Oval Office. In 1974, Nixon faced three charges for his involvement in the Watergate scandal.) The main issue in Johnson’s trial was his staunch resistance to implementing Congress’ Civil War Reconstruction policies. The War Department was the federal agency responsible for carrying out Reconstruction programs in the war-ravaged southern states and when Johnson fired the agency’s head, Edwin Stanton, Congress retaliated with calls for his impeachment.

Of the 11 counts, several went to the core of the conflict between Johnson and Congress. The House charged Johnson with illegally removing the secretary of war from office and for violating several Reconstruction Acts. The House also accused the president of hurling slanderous “inflammatory and scandalous harangues” against Congressional members. On February 24, the House passed all 11 articles of impeachment and the process moved into a Senate trial.

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

The main purpose our blogging is to communicate our ideas, opinions, and stories both fact and fiction. The best part about the the blogs is information that we might not find in our local news, even if we read it online. Sharing that information is important, especially if it educates, sparks conversation and new ideas. We have all found places that are our favorites that we read everyday, not everyone’s are the same. The Internet is a vast place. Unlike “Punting the Pundits which focuses on opinion pieces mostly from the mainstream media and the larger news web sites, “Around the Blogosphere” will focus more on the medium to smaller blogs and articles written by some of the anonymous and not so anonymous writers and links to some of the smaller pieces that don’t make it to “Pundits” by Krugman, Baker, etc.

We encourage you to share your finds with us. It is important that we all stay as well informed as we can.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

This is an Open Thread.

There is something going on other that the “Three Gates.”

From our friends at Corrente, economics contributor, letsgetitdone:

• Mr. President, End Debt Ceiling Hostage-taking for Good!

and a note from lambert about the outage at FDL that has been off line since yesterday. We are keeping out fingers crossed that Jane gets her server issues resolved soon. You can follow Jane’s tweets here for the latest on the site.

At AMERICAblog, from John Aravosis:

• Minnesota to become 12th state to legalize gay marriage
• Benghazi bombshell: Email supporting GOP “conspiracy” theory is fake

(I know I said no “gates” but it’s John)

and from Gaius Publius:

• Keith Ellison: “I don’t care what party you’re in. I’m in the Social Security party.”

David Dayen writing at New Republic, tells us how smarter shareholders are becoming activists and are about to claim their biggest “scalp”:

• Guerillas in the Boardroom

At his blog, Beat the Press, Dean Baker:

• Credit Rating Agencies Likely to Evade Dodd-Frank Provision to End Conflict of Interest
• Trade Deficits and the Dollar

From CounterPunch:

• The End of QE?
  
  by Mike Whitney
• The Elusive Minimum Wage
  
  by David Macaray
• The Real Gatsby
  
  by David Rosen

From the gang at Crooks and Liars:

• RNC Hispanic Outreach Chief Quits, Registers as Democrat
  
  By Susie Madrak
• Sen. Franken to Speak at SEC Roundtable on Credit Rating Industry Reform
  
  By Heather
• The 182 Percent Loan: How Installment Lenders Put Borrowers in a World of Hurt
  
  by  Paul Kiel, ProPublica

From the contributors at Grist:

• Vermont House passes GMO-labeling law by John Upton
• Occupy the Farm movement rises again, hours after being raided
  
  by John Upton
• London may soon be drinking recycled sewage
  
  by Sarah Laskow

Mike Konszal at The Next New Deal:

• Beta: Universal Basic Income Calculator

At New Economic Perspectives, Dan Kervick:

• Money, Taxes and What We Can Afford

The last words from Charles P. Pierce on The Clan of the Red Beanie and Responsible Gun Ownership.

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

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May 15 is the 135th day of the year (136th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 230 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1776, the Virginia Convention instructs its Continental Congress delegation to propose a resolution of independence from Great Britain, paving the way for the United States Declaration of Independence.

The Virginia Conventions were a series of five political meetings in the Colony of Virginiaduring the American Revolution. Because the House of Burgesses had been dissolved in 1774 by Royal Governor Lord Dunmore, the conventions served as a revolutionary provisional government until the establishment of the independent Commonwealth of Virginia in 1776.

The fifth convention began May 6, 1776 and met in Williamsburg. On May 15, the convention declared independence from Britain and adopted a set of three momentous resolutions: one calling for a declaration of rights for Virginia, one calling for establishment of a republican constitution, and a third calling for federal relations with whichever other colonies would have them and alliance with whichever foreign countries would have them. It also instructed its delegates to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia to declare independence. Virginia’s congressional delegation was thus the only one under unconditional positive instructions to declare independence; Virginia was already independent, and so its convention did not want their state, in the words of Benjamin Franklin, to “hang separately.” According to James Madison’s correspondence for that day, Williamsburg residents marked the occasion by taking down the Union Jack from over the colonial capitol and running up a continental union flag.

On June 7, Richard Henry Lee, one of Virginia’s delegates to Congress, carried out these instructions and proposed independence in the language the convention had commanded him to use: that “these colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states.” This paved the way for the American Declaration of Independence, which also reflected the idea that not one nation, but thirteen free and independent states were aborning on the east coast of North America.

The convention amended, and on June 12 adopted, George Mason‘s Declaration of Rights, a precursor to the United States Bill of Rights. On June 29, the convention approved the first Constitution of Virginia, which was also the first written constitution adopted by the people’s representatives in the history of the world. The convention chose Patrick Henry as the first governor of the new Commonwealth of Virginia, and he was inaugurated on June 29, 1776. Thus, Virginia had a functioning, permanent, republican constitution before July 4, 1776 — uniquely among the thirteen American colonies.

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

May 14 is the 134th day of the year (135th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 231 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1796, Edward Jenner, an English country doctor from Gloucestershire, administers the world’s first vaccination as a preventive treatment for smallpox, a disease that had killed millions of people over the centuries.

Edward Anthony Jenner (17 May 1749 – 26 January 1823) was an English scientist who studied his natural surroundings in Berkeley, Gloucestershire. Jenner is widely credited as the pioneer of smallpox vaccine, and is sometimes referred to as the “Father of Immunology”; his works have been said to have “saved more lives than the work of any other man”.

Smallpox

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu witnessed the Ottoman Empire practice of variolation during her 1716-1718 sojourn in Istanbul, where her husband was the British ambassador. She brought the idea back to Britain. Voltaire, a few years later, recorded that 60% of people caught smallpox, with 20% of the population dying of it. In the years following 1770 there were at least six people in England and Germany (Sevel, Jensen, Jesty 1774, Rendell, Plett 1791) who had successfully tested the possibility of using the cowpox vaccine as an immunization for smallpox in humans. For example, Dorset farmer Benjamin Jesty had successfully vaccinated and presumably induced immunity in his wife and two children with cowpox during a smallpox epidemic in 1774, but it was not until Jenner’s work some twenty years later that the procedure became widely understood. Indeed, Jenner may have been aware of Jesty’s procedures and success.

Jenner’s Initial Theory:

The initial source of infection was a disease of horses, called “the grease”, and that this was transferred to cows by farm workers, transformed, and then manifested as cowpox.

Noting the common observation that milkmaids did not generally get smallpox, Jenner theorized that the pus in the blisters which milkmaids received from cowpox (a disease similar to smallpox, but much less virulent) protected the milkmaids from smallpox. He may have had the advantage of hearing stories of Benjamin Jesty and others who deliberately arranged cowpox infection of their families, and then noticed a reduced smallpox risk in those families.

On 14 May 1796, Jenner tested his hypothesis by inoculating James Phipps, a young boy of 8 years (the son of Jenner’s gardener), with material from the cowpox blisters of the hand of Sarah Nelmes, a milkmaid who had caught cowpox from a cow called Blossom, whose hide hangs on the wall of the library at St George’s medical school (now in Tooting). Blossom’s hide commemorates one of the school’s most renowned alumni. Phipps was the 17th case described in Jenner’s first paper on vaccination.

Jenner inoculated Phipps with cowpox pus in both arms on the same day. The inoculation was accomplished by scraping the pus from Nelmes’ blisters onto a piece of wood then transferring this to Phipps’ arms. This produced a fever and some uneasiness but no great illness. Later, he injected Phipps with variolous material, which would have been the routine attempt to produce immunity at that time. No disease had followed. Jenner reported that later the boy was again challenged with variolous material and again showed no sign of infection.

Known:

Smallpox is more dangerous than variolation and cowpox less dangerous than variolation.

Hypothesis:

Infection with cowpox gives immunity to smallpox.

Test:

If variolation after infection with cowpox fails to produce a smallpox infection, immunity to smallpox has been achieved.

Consequence:

Immunity to smallpox can be induced much more safely than by variolation.

Ronald Hopkins states: “Jenner’s unique contribution was not that he inoculated a few persons with cowpox, but that he then proved they were immune to smallpox. Moreover, he demonstrated that the protective cowpox could be effectively inoculated from person to person, not just directly from cattle. In addition he tested his theory on a series of 23 subjects. This aspect of his research method increased the validity of his evidence.

He continued his research and reported it to the Royal Society, who did not publish the initial report. After improvement and further work, he published a report of twenty-three cases. Some of his conclusions were correct, and some erroneous – modern microbiological and microscopic methods would make this easier to repeat. The medical establishment, as cautious then as now, considered his findings for some time before accepting them. Eventually vaccination was accepted, and in 1840 the British government banned variolation – the use of smallpox itself – and provided vaccination – using cowpox – free of charge. (See Vaccination acts). The success of his discovery soon began to spread around Europe and as an example was used en masse in the Spanish Balmis Expedition a three year mission to the Americas led by Dr Francisco Javier de Balmis with the aim of giving thousands the smallpox vaccine. The expedtition was successful and Jenner wrote, “I don’t imagine the annals of history furnish an example of philanthropy so noble, so extensive as this.”

Jenner’s continuing work on vaccination prevented his continuing his ordinary medical practice. He was supported by his colleagues and the King in petitioning Parliament and was granted £10,000 for his work on vaccination. In 1806 he was granted another £20,000 for his continuing work.

Legacy

In 1979, the World Health Organization declared smallpox an eradicated disease. This was the result of coordinated public health efforts by many people, but vaccination was an essential component. And although it was declared eradicated, some samples still remain in laboratories in Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia in the United States, and State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology VECTOR in Koltsovo, Novosibirsk Oblast, Russia.

The importance of his work does not stop there. His vaccine also laid the groundwork for modern-day discoveries in immunology, and the field he began may someday lead to cures for arthritis, AIDS, and many other diseases of the time.

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

The main purpose our blogging is to communicate our ideas, opinions, and stories both fact and fiction. The best part about the the blogs is information that we might not find in our local news, even if we read it online. Sharing that information is important, especially if it educates, sparks conversation and new ideas. We have all found places that are our favorites that we read everyday, not everyone’s are the same. The Internet is a vast place. Unlike “Punting the Pundits which focuses on opinion pieces mostly from the mainstream media and the larger news web sites, “Around the Blogosphere” will focus more on the medium to smaller blogs and articles written by some of the anonymous and not so anonymous writers and links to some of the smaller pieces that don’t make it to “Pundits” by Krugman, Baker, etc.

We encourage you to share your finds with us. It is important that we all stay as well informed as we can.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

This is an Open Thread.

From Atrios, the scandal you won’t hear of today, or any other day:

Gaius Publius at Americablog, tells us how to become an activist by asking a question:

• Henry Waxman will support Chained CPI in trade for “things we want”

But just what is it that “we want”?

At Corrente, lambert‘s litany of the Obamacare Cluster F**k continues:

• ObamaCare Clusterfuck: Kremlinology
• ObamaCare Clusterfuck: Is Ross Douthat dumb enough to be a “progressive”?
• ObamaCare Clusterfuck: The IRS scandal and the ObamaCare “eligibility engine”

Patrick Cockburn, Counterpunch, gives a history of the similarities of Syria and Iraq:

• History Lessons the West Refuses to Learn

Also at Counterpunch, Binoy Kampmark on the effect of drone attacks on US/Pakistan relations:

• Stopping the Drones

On the failing American health care system, and Obama’s FHFA nominee Mel Watts, Yves Smith at naked capitalism:

• Coming Corporate Control of Medicine Will Throw Patients Under the Bus
• Mel Watt, Nominee to Head FHFA, Opposes Administration by Voting to Deregulate Derivatives

From Voices on the Square, contributors Cassiodurus and JayeRaye:

• Socialism is like total equality y’know.
• Hellraisers Journal: Big Bill Haywood exposes “The Rip in the Silk Industry.”

Jeralyn Merritt at TalkLeft, gives a peak at Dzokhar Tsarnaev’s conditions of confinement and the cost of a death penalty prosecution of Aurora Theater Shooting defendant James Holmes:

• Details on Dzokhar Tsarnaev’s Solitary Confinement
• The Cost of James Holmes Death Penalty Prosecution

From Grist, Sarah Laskow bursts a healthy fast food myth:

• Sorry, Jared, Subway food can be just as bad for you as McDonald’s

and from Sarah Miller, what could be eating your house:

• Hand-sized, house-eating snails show up in Texas

Charles P. Pierce in his wry wit at Esquire’s Politics Bog sums up the latest obsessions of the Sunday talking heads and the latest in the bizarre world of Rand Paul:

• What Are The Gobshites Saying These Days?
• Somebody Hit Bill Keller’s Knee With A Hammer
• Rand Paul’s Big Weekend

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

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May 13 is the 133rd day of the year (134th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 232 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1846, the United States declared war on Mexico in a dispute over Texas. The U.S. Congress overwhelmingly votes in favor of President James K. Polk‘s request.

The Mexican-American War (or Mexican War) was an armed conflict between the United States and Mexico from 1846 to 1848 in the wake of the 1845 U.S. annexation of Texas, which Mexico considered part of its territory despite the 1836 Texas Revolution.

Origins of the war

The Mexican government had long warned the United States that annexation would mean war. Because the Mexican congress had refused to recognize Texan independence, Mexico saw Texas as a rebellious territory that would be retaken. Britain and France, which recognized the independence of Texas, repeatedly tried to dissuade Mexico from declaring war. When Texas joined the U.S. as a state in 1845, the Mexican government broke diplomatic relations with the U.S.

The Texan claim to the Rio Grande boundary had been omitted from the annexation resolution to help secure passage after the annexation treaty failed in the Senate. President Polk claimed the Rio Grande boundary, and this provoked a dispute with Mexico. In June 1845, Polk sent General Zachary Taylor to Texas, and by October 3,500 Americans were on the Nueces River, prepared to defend Texas from a Mexican invasion. Polk wanted to protect the border and also coveted the continent clear to the Pacific Ocean. Polk had instructed the Pacific naval squadron to seize the California ports if Mexico declared war while staying on good terms with the inhabitants. At the same time he wrote to Thomas Larkin, the American consul in Monterey, disclaiming American ambitions but offering to support independence from Mexico or voluntary accession to the U.S., and warning that a British or French takeover would be opposed.

To end another war-scare (Fifty-Four Forty or Fight) with Britain over Oregon Country, Polk signed the Oregon Treaty dividing the territory, angering northern Democrats who felt he was prioritizing Southern expansion over Northern expansion.

In the winter of 1845-46, the federally commissioned explorer John C. Fremont and a group of armed men appeared in California. After telling the Mexican governor and Larkin he was merely buying supplies on the way to Oregon, he instead entered the populated area of California and visited Santa Cruz and the Salinas Valley, explaining he had been looking for a seaside home for his mother. The Mexican authorities became alarmed and ordered him to leave. Fremont responded by building a fort on Gavilan Peak and raising the American flag. Larkin sent word that his actions were counterproductive. Fremont left California in March but returned to California and assisted the Bear Flag Revolt in Sonoma, where many American immigrants stated that they were playing “the Texas game” and declared California’s independence from Mexico.

On November 10, 1845, Polk sent John Slidell, a secret representative, to Mexico City with an offer of $25 million ($632,500,000 today) for the Rio Grande border in Texas and Mexico’s provinces of Alta California and Santa Fe de Nuevo Mexico. U.S. expansionists wanted California to thwart British ambitions in the area and to gain a port on the Pacific Ocean. Polk authorized Slidell to forgive the $3 million ($76 million today) owed to U.S. citizens for damages caused by the Mexican War of Independence and pay another $25 to $30 million ($633 million to $759 million today) in exchange for the two territories.

Mexico was not inclined nor able to negotiate. In 1846 alone, the presidency changed hands four times, the war ministry six times, and the finance ministry sixteen times. However, Mexican public opinion and all political factions agreed that selling the territories to the United States would tarnish the national honor. Mexicans who opposed direct conflict with the United States, including President José Joaquin de Herrera, were viewed as traitors. Military opponents of de Herrera, supported by populist newspapers, considered Slidell’s presence in Mexico City an insult. When de Herrera considered receiving Slidell to settle the problem of Texas annexation peacefully, he was accused of treason and deposed. After a more nationalistic government under General Mariano Paredes y Arrillaga came to power, it publicly reaffirmed Mexico’s claim to Texas; Slidell, convinced that Mexico should be “chastised”, returned to the U.S.

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

Click on images to enlarge

May 12 is the 132nd day of the year (133rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 233 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1937, George Denis Patrick Carlin was born in the Bronx. He was raised by his mother in Morningside Heights which he and his friends called “White Harlem” because it sounded tougher. He was raised Irish Catholic and educated in Catholic schools. He often ran away from home. After joining the Air Force while stationed in Louisiana, Carlin became a DJ in Shreveport starting on his long career in entertainment. Carlin rose to fame during the 60’s and 70’s, generating the most controversy with his famous “Seven Dirty Words”:

Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, Cocksucker, Motherfucker, and Tits. Those are the heavy seven. Those are the ones that’ll infect your soul, curve your spine and keep the country from winning the war.

His arrest and the subsequent FCC rulings ended up in the Supreme Court which upheld the right of the FCC to regulate the public airways. In the ruling it called the routine “indecent but not obscene”.

In 1961, Carlin was also present in the audience the night that Lenny Bruce was arrested in San Fransisco for obscenity. He was arrested, as well, after the police, who were questioning the audience, asked Carlin for ID. He said he didn’t have any because he didn’t believe in government-issued ID’s.

We all know the rest. His popularity as a comic and “commentarian” on politics, religion and social issues made him a popular guest on late night talk shows. His death in  June 22, 2008 saddened many. He left behind his second wife, Sally Wade, whom he married after his first wife Brenda died of liver cancer in 1997. He left a daughter by his first marriage, Kelly.

Happy Birthday, George, you are missed.

In his “What We Know Now” segment, Up host Steve Kornacki notes that Sen Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) is proposing legislation that is aimed at lowering the rate students pay on their loans to the same rate that banks get when borrowing from the Federal Reserve. Steve is joined by his guests Jared Bernstein, former economic advisor to V.P. Joe Biden; Sarah Kliff, health policy reporter for The Washington Post; Perry Bacon, Jr., TheGrio.com and MSNBC contributor; and former Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-PA), now MSNBC contributor, to discuss what they have learned this past week.

Elizabeth Warren: Student Loans Should Have Same Rate Big Banks Get

by Ryan Grim and Will Wrigley, Huffington Post

WASHINGTON — Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) unveiled her first bill Wednesday, designed to set student loan interest rates at the same level the Federal Reserve offers to big banks.

With some student loan rates set to double on July 1 — from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent — Warren’s bill would reduce student loan interest rates to 0.75 percent, opening the Fed’s discount window to students.

“Every single day, this country invests in big banks by lending them money at near-zero rates,” Warren told The Huffington Post. “We should make the same kind of investment lending money to students, who are trying to get an education.”

Working Families Flexibility Act Passes House Over Opposition Of Democrats, Labor

by Dave Jamieson, Huffington Post

WASHINGTON — As part of their efforts to rebrand the GOP as a more caring party, House Republicans passed a hotly debated bill Wednesday that would loosen federal overtime laws, allowing for “comp” time instead of pay for private-sector employees who work more than 40 hours in a week.

Although GOP legislators made a strong public-relations push for the bill as worker-friendly legislation, the measure is not expected to go anywhere in the Democrat-controlled Senate, and the White House said Monday that the president would be advised to veto such legislation on the grounds that it would weaken protections in the Fair Labor Standards Act.

Pentagon: Estimated 26,000 Sexual Assaults In Military Last Year

by Hayes Brown, Think Progress

Just one day after the Air Force’s chief of sexual assault prevention was arrested for sexual assault himself, a new Pentagon report shows a sharp increase in the estimated number of assaults in the military annually.

The report from the Department of Defense’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office for Fiscal Year 2012 found a 6 percent rise in reported assaults over the last year, for a total of 3,374. But much more troubling is the estimated number of sexual assault incidents that were never officially reported. In last year’s report, there were an estimated 19,000 instances, but this year the number has jumped to an unprecedented 26,000 instances of assault, leaving thousands unreported.

Environmentalists seize on Biden’s Keystone XL remarks to launch new attack

by Juliet Eilperin, The Washington Post

Environmentalists have seized on a comment Vice President Biden made while working a rope line in Columbia, S.C., on Friday, in which he told an activist he is “in the minority” within the administration when it comes to opposing the Keystone XL pipeline.

Elaine Cooper, who serves on the executive committee of the Sierra Club’s South Caroline chapter, said in an interview Wednesday that Biden shared his thoughts with her during Rep. James Clyburn’s (D-S.C.) annual fish fry.

Buzzfeed first reported the vice president’s remarks late Tuesday, based on an e-mail a colleague of Cooper had sent to fellow environmentalists.