Today should be a national holiday. That is because this group first entered the music charts today in 1969, getting three or four chart spots lower than its title:
That was the same day the number one single predicted life 556 years in the future:
Today in 1975, the Bee Gees hit number one, even though they were just just just …
Two anniversaries today demonstrate the fickle nature of the pop charts. This is the number one song today in 1960:
Three years later, the Kingsmen released “Louie Louie.” Some radio stations refused to play it because they claimed it was obscene. Which is ridiculous, because the lyrics were not obscene, merely incomprehensible:
Today in 1969, while the Beatles were wrapping up work on “Abbey Road,” they shot the album cover:
Some might argue that this program today in 1955 started the rock and roll era:
I have a hard time believing the Beatles needed any help getting to number one, including today in 1965:
That was in Britain. On this side of the Atlantic, today’s number one pop song:
Released today in 1967:
Today in 1965, the Beatles sought “Help” in purchasing an album:
Two years later, Beatles manager Brian Epstein tried to help quell the worldwide furor over John Lennon’s “bigger than Jesus” comment:
“The quote which John Lennon made to a London columnist has been quoted and misrepresented entirely out of context of the article, which was in fact highly complimentary to Lennon as a person. … Lennon didn’t mean to boast about the Beatles’ fame. He meant to point out that the Beatles’ effect appeared to be a more immediate one upon, certainly, the younger generation. John is deeply concerned and regrets that people with certain religious beliefs should have been offended.”
First, a non-rock anniversary: Today is the 95th anniversary of the first broadcasted baseball game, on KDKA in Pittsburgh: Harold Arlen described Pittsburgh’s 8–0 win over Philadelphia.
Speaking of Philadelphia … today in 1957, ABC-TV picked up WFIL-TV’s “American Bandstand” …
… though ABC interrupted it in the middle for “The Mickey Mouse Club.”
Today in 1966, the Beatles recorded “Yellow Submarine” …
… and “Eleanor Rigby” …
… which were part of their “Revolver” album, released one year to the day later.
Today in 1957, the Everly Brothers performed on CBS-TV’s Ed Sullivan Shew …
… performing a song about a couple who falls asleep on a date, making others assume that they spent the night together when they didn’t. The song was banned in some markets.
Today in 1958, Billboard magazine combined its five charts measuring record sales, jukebox plays and radio airplay to the Hot 100. And the first Hot 100 number one was …
Today in 1967, a 16-year-old girl stowed away on the Monkees’ flight from Minneapolis to St. Louis. The girl’s father accused the Monkees of transporting a minor across state lines, presumably for immoral purposes.
Today in 1970, Beach Boy Dennis Wilson married his second wife.
Possibly connected: Jim Morrison of the Doors was arrested for public drunkenness after being found passed out on the front steps of a house.
I was amused by this report in the Washington Post about how black women in D.C. are getting gun permits and learning how to shoot. According to the Post, black women represent “a fast-growing group of gun owners.” A black woman who trains some of them to shoot says the increase in females who want her instruction is “over 1,000 percent recently.”
The Post spins this development as a reaction to church shootings, the shooting at that Illinois parade, the one at the Buffalo grocery store, Trayvon Martin, and even “the insurrection.”
But the odds of these women being shot in any of those contexts are miniscule compared to the odds of being attacked in one’s neighborhood by an ordinary criminal who, in all likelihood, is black.
Towards the end of its report, the Post gets to the point:
Black women are unsafe. . .Violence against Black women and girls shot up nearly 34 percent in 2020 amid an overall spike in homicides, to about 8 deaths per 100,000 — a rate more than twice that for White women, at about 3 per 100,000, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data. Five Black females — women and girls — were killed every day in 2020.
The handful of mass shootings, the shooting of Trayvon Martin (a male), and the “insurrection” (in which no black women were killed) contributed essentially nothing to these statistics.
The Post blames “America,” saying it has let black women down. A more realistic view is that the left-liberals who run cities like D.C., most of whom are black, have let blacks down by abandoning common sense measures that in the past curbed violent crime — proactive policing, serious anti-crime prosecutors, stiff sentences, etc.
These leaders have willfully failed to keep city streets even moderately safe. Black women are responding sensibly. They are engaging in self help by arming themselves.
The crime rate against women would drop significantly if male perpetrators got shot in their attempt to rob, rape or kill their intended victim. The recidivism rate of a bad guy bleeding out in the street will be zero.
“Lost, Not Stolen” is a new 72‐page report from a group of prominent conservative legal and political figures that knocks down some of the more frequently heard claims from Donald Trump and allies that the 2020 election was stolen or illegitimate. Their “unequivocal” conclusion is that Trump lost; in fact, they find no credible evidence that fraud changed the outcome even in a single precinct, let alone in any state.
Most of the report consists of a state‐by‐state refutation of claims circulated about voting results in Arizona and Georgia (six claims apiece), Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Note that the last‐named of these states has already been the subject of a useful report from the right‐leaning Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, which I wrote about here, and that Republican authorities in states like Georgia have also carried out extensive audits and reviews regarding those states’ votes.
The new report’s signers include three prominent retired federal judges (Thomas Griffith, Mike McConnell, Michael Luttig), former Solicitor General Ted Olson, Republican election lawyer Ben Ginsberg, former senators John Danforth and Gordon Smith, and longtime Congressional staff chief David Hoppe. I should mention that I have known three of these figures at various times over decades (McConnell, Ted Olson, Hoppe) and admired each for their insight, analytical skills, and dedication to principle.
There is no defensible case that Trump won the 2020 election. “We urge our fellow conservatives to cease obsessing over the results of the 2020 election, and to focus instead on presenting candidates and ideas that offer a positive vision for overcoming our current difficulties and bringing greater peace, prosperity, and liberty to our nation.”
Cato adjunct scholar Ilya Somin has more on the report, and Price St. Clair at the Dispatch traces its origins over a year and a half of work. Let’s hope it finds a wide audience.
Whether or not Republicans believe Trump lost (because of Trump’s own fault), it’s imperative they act that way. Too much of the GOP fails to grasp that most voters — including the people Republicans need to vote for them in November and in November 2024 — do not believe the 2020 election was stolen from Trump. Continuing in Trump’s thrall is a good way to lose elections.
Today in 1963, two years and one day after the Beatles started as the house band for the Cavern Club in Liverpool, the Beatles performed there for the last time.
Three years later, the South African government banned Beatles records due to John Lennon’s infamous “bigger than Jesus” comment.
Five years later and one year removed from the Beatles, Paul McCartney formed Wings.
We know who is not the pro-business candidate for governor. That is the governor mentioned by M.D. Kittle in February:
Tech titan Intel Corp. chose Ohio over Wisconsin as the future home of its $20 billion semiconductor manufacturing complex —an economic boon for the Buckeye State that Intel promises will bring thousands of high-paying jobs.
Does Wisconsin’s big loss have something to do with its big government governor? In his three-plus years in office, Gov. Tony Evers is as advertised: an anti-business, tax-and-spend liberal who broke Wisconsin’s biggest economic development contract to score political points.
“One of his (Gov. Evers) first orders of business was taking down all of the ‘Open for Business” signs around the state,” a legislative aid for Republican leadership said, referring to Evers’ decision to remove the signs his predecessor, Republican Gov. Scott Walker had placed at Wisconsin’s state lines. Instead, Evers put up signs bearing his name.
He’s clobbered business early and often.
Despite unprecedented state surpluses, Evers has proposed more than $2 billion in tax hikes in his two biennial budget plans. He wanted to gut the popular manufacturing and agriculture tax credit that economic experts say has been a game-changer in job creation. Intel certainly would have been a leading recipient of the credits.
Scott Manley, executive vice president for Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, said Evers’ attack on manufacturers must raise red flags with companies like Intel.
“Instead of looking at a very low tax liability under the manufacturing and ag tax credit, you have a governor who wants to eliminate that tax credit and boost us up to one of the highest tax rates in the country,” Manley said. “That doesn’t help when you’re making a 30-, 40-year investment in a place. You’re definitely looking at taxes over the long term. Right now we have a governor who says, we want to tax you to the max.”
At the outset of the pandemic in 2020, Evers locked down much of the state, ordering thousands of businesses closed and sending hundreds of thousands of workers to the unemployment line. His administration then extended the stay-at-home order even as businesses pleaded that they were on the brink of permanently closing. When employers asked him to do the one thing in his power to ease a worker shortage crisis, he refused. Then he vetoed a bill that would have ended federal subsidies that kept unemployed workers out of the workforce.
Wisconsin reportedly was a front-runner for the Intel project, The planned complex is expected to cover nearly 1,000 acres and employ 3,000 workers on average earning $135,000 a year. Intel is looking at a total long-term investment of $100 billion, with thousands more jobs.
According to Biz Times, Wisconsin offered 471 acres of land owned by the village of Mount Pleasant, next to Foxconn, and an additional 400 acres of privately-owned land.
But Ohio was the “entire package,” Intel’s Keyvan Esfanjani said.
“Ohio comes to the top, the talent pool, the infrastructure, the regulatory environment and the team,” Esfanjani told Statehouse News Bureau.
Sources say Intel was impressed with what Mount Pleasant-area officials had to offer.
“I think all the representatives from the Mount Pleasant area worked so hard to create a great environment,” said state Sen. Van Wanggaard (R-Racine). “I think we did everything we could to show them” the area was a “good fit.”
Intel was less than impressed with Evers and his economic development team, sources tell Empower Wisconsin.
Economic development officials and community leaders have complained about the lack of communication and urgency in the administration and Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. Biz Times reported Evers’ team offered an incentive package that was “in accordance with Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation guidelines.” Biz Times Editor Andrew Weiland estimated the package at approximately $2.2 billion, based on a $20 billion capital investment.
But there seemed to be a communication breakdown in between.
“It seems to me we would have heard a little more out of the governor’s office,” Wanggaard said. “I don’t know if they were excited about bringing this type of business to the Foxconn area because that would give you-know-who (former President Trump, a Republican) a win.”
Trump was a big player and an even bigger cheerleader for the Foxconn deal in Racine County.
Wanggaard said he hopes Evers, a Democrat, and his team kept politics out of negotiations.
Evers seemed to make clear he wasn’t going to do a Foxconn-style deal. Of course not. Evers campaigned against the economic development deal former Gov. Scott Walker helped broker with the technology giant. In fact, Evers’ first campaign ad in his 2018 race against Walker attacked the Foxconn deal.
That project has yet to pan out the way its proponents have hoped. Foxconn originally had planned a $10 billion campus employing as many as 13,000 people in the production of advanced liquid crystal display panels. The state incentives package was worth $2.85 billion. While Evers and critics of the deal claim Foxconn has taken Wisconsin taxpayers for a ride, the company only received tax credits based on the jobs it created and the capital it invested.
Foxconn Technology Group recently qualified for tax credits for the first time. The Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. verified the company had created 579 jobs and had made a capital investment of $266 million at its Mount Pleasant complex. Foxconn qualified for $2.2 million in job creation tax credit and more than $26 million in capital investment tax credits.
Despite the contract stipulations, Evers effectively tore up the agreement and renegotiated a new contract with Foxconn.
“When I ran to be governor, I made a promise to work with Foxconn to cut a better deal for our state—the last deal didn’t work for Wisconsin, and that doesn’t work for me,” Evers said in a press release at the time. “Today I’m delivering on that promise with an agreement that treats Foxconn like any other business…”
In changing the terms, Evers told Foxconn and the world that Wisconsin state contracts are no good, Manley said. That has a chilling effect on business development.
“Businesses are going to be very hesitant to make very large investments in a state where the current governor is unwilling to honor the agreement made by the prior governor,” Manley said. “If you want to be serious about attracting investment in the state, you have to be willing to honor your word.
“Evers campaigned on the idea that he was going to essentially tear up the Foxconn agreement. That has real-world consequences.”
The governor’s anti-business practices haven’t gone unnoticed.
Wisconsin last year dropped seven spots to 22nd in Chief Executive magazine’s annual Best & Worst States For Business rankings. The Badger State has fallen eight spots since Evers has been in office. Chief Executive each March hundreds of CEOs of U.S. companies.
Under Walker, Wisconsin rose from 41st in the ranking in 2010, the year before Walker took office, to No. 10 in 2017.
“Businesses need certainty, they need the rule of law. They need contracts to be honored,” WMC’s Manley said, adding that states that break deals get a “bad reputation” among site locators and businesses poised to relocate or expand.
But is the pro-business candidate the business owner, or not?
Several top Republican donors and business leaders, including retired Bradley Foundation President Mike Grebe and major GOP donor/businessman Fred Young, are challenging the national Club for Growth for its deceptive ad against Rebecca Kleefisch, saying that Tim Michels lacks Kleefisch’s “unwavering conviction” to conservative principles.
The donors noted: “Here are the facts: Tim Michels has a detailed history of supporting questionable economic policies with his company. Michels led or was a member of three different organizations which tried to raise Wisconsin’s gas tax. Michels was president of a group that lobbied against a bill banning illegal immigrants from working on projects paid by taxpayer-funded contracts. Furthermore, Michels Corporation was part of a group whose sole focus was opposing right to work and prevailing wage repeal. His company even fired an employee for refusing to pay union dues. These are not the free-market, competition-driven principles that The Club for Growth has historically championed.”
[Note: Wisconsin Right Now was the first in Wisconsin media to break the story that Michels Corp fired an employee for refusing to pay union dues. We were also the first to break the stories on the organizations/gas tax issue and the illegal immigrant bill.]
It’s impossible to trace who is funding the national Club for Growth ads (although a source close to conservative donor Richard Uihlen says he’s not funding them). They’re clearly designed to destroy Kleefisch in the Aug. 9 gubernatorial primary.
Michels is the other leading contender. Wispolitics is reporting that the Club for Growth made a $1.3 million ad buy in the race. Their first ad attacked Kleefisch for her work on a women’s suffrage group; her work making trade job videos for a group that pushed Walker’s reforms; and her overseas trade missions to find new markets for Wisconsin farmers.
Here is the donors’ letter in full:
“Dear Club for Growth Leadership,
As you may be aware, we represent a collection of Wisconsin supporters and financial backers to The Club for Growth. We have supported The Club because of its strong stance on the principles of freedom, lower taxes, reducing government waste, regulatory reform, and expanding school choice. We’ve been proud of the efforts by The Club to elect conservative candidates across the nation who share these principles. That is, until now.
To say we are deeply concerned and disappointed in The Club’s decision to launch negative and false attacks ads against former Lt. Governor Rebecca Kleefisch would be an understatement. It’s also a decision that has led us to question whether to provide any future support. Under the administration of Scott Walker and Rebecca Kleefisch, Wisconsin led the nation in conservative reforms and experienced one of the most prosperous eras in our state’s history.
Rebecca Kleefisch not only exemplifies these conservative principles, she is the only candidate for governor who has never wavered in her conviction and defense of the principles even when faced with the strongest of opposition. To suggest that former Lt. Governor Kleefisch is anything other than a proven conservative reformer is not only a lie, but a disservice to Wisconsin’s conservative movement as a whole. This is why we are so surprised by The Club’s decision to attack Rebecca. Based on various conversations we have had with The Club, it is our understanding the organization is acutely aware, and previously never in question, of Rebecca’s conservative credentials.
Furthermore, it has become increasingly evident throughout this campaign that her opponent Tim Michels does not have the same breadth of experience and unwavering conviction to these conservative principles. Repeated gaffes by the Michels campaign have also demonstrated it lacks the competency and talent demanded to win a competitive statewide race in Wisconsin.
Without doubt, Michels’ campaign is in need of outside help. Sadly, however, it appears The Club for Growth has cast aside its proud record of adherence to conservative ideals and integrity in an attempt to save Michels’ campaign by tearing down Rebecca Kleefisch.
Here are the facts: Tim Michels has a detailed history of supporting questionable economic policies with his company. Michels led or was a member of three different organizations which tried to raise Wisconsin’s gas tax. Michels was president of a group that lobbied against a bill banning illegal immigrants from working on projects paid by taxpayer-funded contracts. Furthermore, Michels Corporation was part of a group whose sole focus was opposing right to work and prevailing wage repeal. His company even fired an employee for refusing to pay union dues. These are not the free-market, competition-driven principles that The Club for Growth has historically championed.
In contrast, Rebecca Kleefisch has never backed down from these principles. Protesters swarmed the Capitol to try and stop Rebecca and Governor Scott Walker from enacting reform to balance the budget, but Rebecca didn’t waver. She didn’t back down when roadbuilders ran ads trying to scare the Walker/Kleefisch administration into raising the gas tax. She stood on principle. When protesters again showed up at the State Capitol to protest right to work legislation, Rebecca Kleefisch proudly stood alongside Scott Walker when he signed the worker freedom bill into law.
To us, there is no question about who conservatives should vote for on Tuesday, August 9th — and that’s Rebecca Kleefisch. We cannot risk voting for a gubernatorial candidate who won’t even commit in writing to vetoing any net tax increases or forced unionization policies.”
Steve Prestegard.com: The Presteblog 