Monday Morning News and Views

A light dusting of snow

Good Morning Conflucians! It’s a shocking 19 degrees here in the Boston area, and we have snow on the ground. I don’t like this one bit.

Today is Pearl Harbor Day. The LA Times has a story on the discovery of a Japanese mini-submarine that may have participated in the attack that took place on December 7, 1941–68 years ago.

Five mini-subs were to participate in the strike, but four were scuttled, destroyed or run aground without being a factor in the attack. The fate of the fifth has remained a mystery. But a variety of new evidence suggests that the fifth fired its two 800-pound torpedoes, most likely at the battleships West Virginia and Oklahoma, capsizing the latter. A day later, researchers think, the mini-sub’s crew scuttled it in nearby West Loch.
[....]

The two-man, 80-foot-long sub in question does not have a name of its own. Each of the five subs in the attack was carried by a conventional submarine and took its name from the mother boat. It is thus called the I-16-tou — tou being Japanese for boat. Powered by a 600-horsepower electric motor, the sub could reach underwater speeds of 19 knots, twice as fast as many of the U.S. subs of the day.

Mary Duarte Tafolla, 91, of San Antonio remembers the day vividly. She was in the hospital, having given birth to a baby girl two days earlier. When she heard the bombs going off, she thought it was an earthquake.

When the nurses kept running around frantically with their eyes filled with tears, and the doctors were nowhere to be found, Tafolla, then 23, knew something was wrong. “I asked, ‘What happened?’ But the nurses would just sniff into their handkerchiefs and say, ‘It’s just — uh — Army maneuvers’ and disappear.”

The daughter of Spanish immigrants who came to the islands in 1912 to work as laborers in pineapple plantations, the Hawaii native knew something was amiss on the usually laid-back island of Oahu. By that night, things were even stranger. Her doctor had not checked in on her, none of her eight siblings, friends or parents had come to visit, and the nurses were doing their hospital room visits in the dark, carrying flashlights.

Luckily, Tafolla’s husband, who was in the Navy, was out at sea when the Japanese attacked and he also survived.

“When I got to San Antonio, to live with my in-laws, the newspaper reporter came and put my picture in the paper. But the newspaper also gave my address out.”

She recalls that the saddest part for her was the series of visitors and families who came to the Tafolla family door to ask desperately, “‘Did you know my son? Did you see my son?’”

“So many died. I was lucky. My husband, my baby and me. We came out of it healthy and in one piece. It was a huge blessing,” she said.

In more current news, many outlets are reporting that when President Obama met with Democratic Senators, he had nothing to say about a public option in the insurance company bailout health care reform bill.

Huffpo: Obama Silent On Public Option In Speech To Senators

As President Obama finished his speech to the Democratic caucus in the Capitol’s Mansfield Room on Sunday afternoon, Joe Lieberman made his way over to Harry Reid.

The independent who still caucuses with Democrats wanted to point something out to the Majority Leader: Obama didn’t mention the public option.

He also didn’t talk about the amendments that would restrict women’s ability to get abortions and other kinds of reproductive health care.

The Hill: Obama meets Dems without addressing divisive issues; negotiations continue

Obama didn’t take questions from the senators or mention the two issues now dividing Senate Democrats and preventing passage of the bill: a government-run insurance plan and restrictions on federal funds for abortion. But Democrats said that Obama’s remarks gave them a boost as they try to strike compromises to get the 60 votes needed to pass the bill.

That’s leadership we can believe in! {snark}

In contrast, Bill Clinton is showing some real leadership today by providing some support to Massachusetts Senate candidate Martha Coakley despite the fact that most Democratic politicians have backed her opponent Michael Capuano. Chris Cillizza of the WaPo seems somewhat disapproving.

Clinton says that Coakley “will go to Washington to fight every day to create good jobs with good benefits and to get health reform with a strong public option.” Clinton’s support is consistent with his recent pattern of rewarding political loyalty — Coakley was an early endorser of then Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential bid. Bill Clinton is the most high profile endorser to make his preference known in the special and his support of Coakley may well be aimed at stifling any last minute momentum for Rep. Mike Capuano who was endorsed by former Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis and Massachusetts Rep. Ed Markey over the past week.

In other news, the climate change summit begins in Copenhagen today. The New York Times reports Climate Talks Open With Calls for Urgent Action

A much-anticipated global meeting of nearly 200 nations — all seeking what has so far been elusive common ground on the issue of climate change — got under way here on Monday with an impassioned airing of what leaders here called the political and moral imperatives at hand.

“The clock has ticked down to zero,” said the United Nations’ climate chief, Yvo de Boer. “After two years of negotiation, the time has come to deliver.”

In a column titled “An Affordable Truth,” Paul Krugman says he’s optimistic about the climate talks.

Maybe I’m naïve, but I’m feeling optimistic about the climate talks starting in Copenhagen on Monday. President Obama now plans to address the conference on its last day, which suggests that the White House expects real progress. It’s also encouraging to see developing countries — including China, the world’s largest emitter of carbon dioxide — agreeing, at least in principle, that they need to be part of the solution.

What are you reading this morning? Please post links in the comments and…

HAVE A MARVELOUS MONDAY!!!!
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