The number one British album today in 1965 was “The Rolling Stones No. 2”:
The number one single on both sides of the Atlantic today in 1965:
The number one single today in 1982 …
… from the number one album, the J. Geils Band’s “Freeze Frame”:
The Washington Post has suddenly taken a big interest in Virginia state politics, because …
RICHMOND — The state Capitol hit a new level of chaos Monday as Gov. Ralph Northam (D) asked staffers to stand by as he decided his fate, while the man who would succeed him, Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax (D), denied a sexual assault allegation that appeared on a conservative website.
Northam gathered Cabinet members and staffers Monday to apologize for the pain caused by a racist photo on his 1984 medical school yearbook page and told them he was still weighing options, according to several people who attended.
The governor urged staffers not to quit and promised to decide his fate soon, but how soon was left unsaid, according to three people familiar with what transpired, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to decribe a private meeting. It could take days, according to one person familiar with his thinking.
Northam is trying to assemble evidence to prove that he was not in that racist photo and is exploring whether he has enough support in the government to continue to be effective, according to several people who have spoken with the governor. Feedback from constituents has begun to shift, becoming more positive, one person said.
Sen. Richard H. Stuart (R-King George), Northam’s closest friend in the legislature, who has been in contact with the governor throughout the crisis, said Monday night that Northam was not giving up.
“I know people are speculating that Ralph is going to resign and still considering it, but I can tell you he is not going anywhere,” he said. “He’s dug in, and he is going to fight this thing out.”
Elected officials from both parties stood by their calls that Northam must go, but the way forward became cloudier Monday with the incendiary charges against Fairfax. The lieutenant governor vehemently denied the claim that he sexually assaulted a woman in 2004, a report that was posted on the same website that revealed the photo from Northam’s yearbook Friday.
“She was very much into a consensual encounter,” Fairfax said about the 2004 incident. “Everything was 100 percent consensual. And now, years later, we have a totally fabricated story out of the blue to attack me once I was in politics.”
Fairfax, 39, called it an attempt to damage him.
“Does anybody think it’s any coincidence that on the eve of my potentially being elevated, this uncorroborated smear comes up?” he said. “You don’t have to be cynical, you don’t have to understand politics, to understand when someone’s trying to manipulate a process to harm someone’s character without any basis whatsoever.”
He would not say whether he believes that Northam should step down.
“I believe the governor has to make a decision in the best interest of the commonwealth of Virginia,” Fairfax said, adding that he had not spoken with Northam in “a couple of days.”
Swarms of journalists from national news outlets shouted questions at Fairfax in the Capitol rotunda as what had seemed like a death watch for Northam’s political career morphed into a political circus. Amid the clamor, delegates and senators hunkered down at either end of the building on what was already the busiest day of the legislative year, grinding through hundreds of bills before a Tuesday deadline to act.
“We have to stay focused,” said Del. Eileen Filler-Corn (D-Fairfax), the House minority leader. “We’ve got 350-something bills to move.” That included tuning out the furor over Fairfax. “Really, I haven’t had time to follow that right now, I’m just focused on the floor,” she said.
While Northam was quickly and intensely criticized for the photo, lawmakers were less certain how to react to the Fairfax allegations, which came with no hard evidence.
“I have no comment on the Justin thing. He denies it, so I don’t know what else to think at this moment,” said Sen. Barbara A. Favola (D-Arlington).
“There were only two people present” at the time of the encounter between Fairfax and his accuser, said Sen. Adam P. Ebbin (D-Alexandria). “The lieutenant governor has said that the version of events that has been described is not what occurred.”
Ebbin added that the allegations against Fairfax have not affected his belief that Northam should immediately resign, saying anxiety among Democrats is growing as Northam continues to hold out.
“The longer the governor is in place without the confidence of the legislature, then you can see a lack of stability occurring,” Ebbin said. “It’s important that we have a governor who’s focused on the business of the state and a citizenry that is supportive of our governor.”
Only a week ago, the Democrats had momentum during an election year when all 140 seats in the legislature are on the ballot in November and Republicans hold razor-thin majorities in both chambers.
Northam, Fairfax and state Attorney General Mark R. Herring (D) have been popular statewide — and Northam, in particular, has been respected by members of both parties. He worked with GOP leadership last year to expand Medicaid to 400,000 low-income residents; has achieved bipartisan agreement for criminal justice reform, permanent funding for Metro and coal-ash cleanup; and landed the biggest economic development coup in recent history: 25,000 jobs tied to Amazon’s HQ2 in Arlington.
On Monday, lawmakers were filling idle time between votes with speculation about various succession scenarios should Northam step down, and if Fairfax faced a similar fate.
There were even rumors that Northam’s office was behind the leak of the Fairfax allegations to try and slow the rush for resignation.
The Collective PAC, which has supported Fairfax and other black candidates around the country, accused “Northam’s team and advisors” of spreading unspecified “lies” about the lieutenant governor. It offered no evidence when making that claim in a tweetSunday.
Northam spokeswoman Ofirah Yheskel dismissed that claim. “There was no involvement from the governor’s team in this allegation surfacing,” Yheskel said.
Fairfax also discounted the charge about Northam.
“I have no indication in that regard,” he said in a second media scrum Monday afternoon.
When someone mentioned another scenario — that Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney, who is said to aspire to statewide office, had links to someone who brought the woman’s charges to light — Fairfax said, “You’re great reporters, and you’ll get to digging, and you’ll get to make some connections.”
Asked whether Stoney facilitated or encouraged the leak of the sexual assault allegation, his spokesman Jim Nolan said: “This insinuation is 100 percent not true. Period.”
During a brief recess of the House of Delegates, some legislators stepped outside for a breather, trading barbs with staffers or Capitol police.
Del. Tim Hugo (R-Fairfax) called the sequence of events that began Friday “like a Hollywood movie.”
“You couldn’t write this,” he said, cheerfully.
Whether or not Northam will step down is still anybody’s guess, he said, adding, “Let’s see how the day ends.”
The crisis actually began last Wednesday when Northam, a pediatric neurologist, defended a Democratic delegate’s late-term-abortion bill. His words in a WTOP radio interview led critics on social media to brand him a “baby killer.” Then, Friday afternoon, the racist photo surfaced.
Despite initially taking responsibility for the photo, which shows one person in blackface and another in Ku Klux Klan robes, and appears on his personal page in the Eastern Virginia Medical School yearbook, Northam now says the picture is not of him.
He is surrounded by a close circle of advisers and supporters — including the first lady, Pam Northam — who are encouraging him to clear his name and working to gather information to explain the picture.
Those close to him say Northam, who served as president of the Honor Court during his senior year at VMI, froze up when first confronted with the photo and was stunned by the swift condemnation from across the state and the nation. He felt compelled to apologize by the end of the day Friday, they said.
But that night, he said he didn’t remember dressing that way and became convinced that the image wasn’t of him, these people said. The prospect of resigning in shame over something he is certain he did not do was unpalatable to him — especially in an era when other political figures, such as President Trump, transgress so openly and with no apparent consequence. Even former Virginia governor Robert F. McDonnell (R) served out his term knowing he was under federal investigation for corruption charges. McDonnell was found guilty but later had his conviction overturned on appeal.
But in his nationally televised press conference on Saturday, Northam admitted darkening his face with shoe polish to imitate Michael Jackson at a dance contest in 1984 – an episode that many public officials have said disqualifies Northam from holding the governor’s chair.
“Regardless of the veracity of the photograph, the governor’s lost the confidence of the people and cannot effectively govern,” House Speaker Kirk Cox (R-Colonial Heights) said to reporters Monday. He renewed his call for Northam, 59, to step down, but expressed “hesitation” about the possibility that the legislature would try to force him out.
“I think there’s a rightful hesitation about removal from office,” Cox said. “Obviously you have to consider that to some degree you’re overturning an election. I think the constitutional provisions are very specific . . . it really does call for mental or physical incapacitation.… And obviously impeachment, that’s a very high standard.”
Since the photo became public Friday, nearly every political ally in state and national political circles has called on him to step down.
The drumbeat spread to the state’s public universities. The College of William & Mary on Monday announced that Northam would not attend Friday’s inauguration of new president Katherine Rowe, saying in a statement that “the Governor’s presence would fundamentally disrupt the sense of campus unity we aspire to and hope for with this event.”
University of Virginia President James Ryan issued a statement Sunday suggesting that Northam should resign, saying that if a leader’s “trust is lost, for whatever reason, it is exceedingly difficult to continue to lead. It seems we have reached that point.”
In contrast, Wisconsin now has a governor who appears to be totally lost (see Foxconn), and a lieutenant governor who has interesting woman issues too that would have gotten a Republican or white male legislator crucified.
The number one single today in 1966:
The number one single today in 1983:
Today in 2006, the Rolling Stones played during the halftime of the Super Bowl:
The Milwaukee Business Journal:
Foxconn Technology Group on Friday said it will build an LCD screen fabrication facility in Mount Pleasant, a move that was put into question after reports earlier this week of the company reconsidering its plans.
The company said the decision came after “productive discussions between the White House and the company, and after a personal conversation between President Donald J. Trump and Chairman Terry Gou.” That Gen 6 plant will fabricate smaller, high-resolution LCD screens than the company had originally planned to make in its Mount Pleasant plant.
Reports from Reuters and Japanese news publication Nikkei Asian Review had called into question whether Foxconn would be fabricating any LCD screens in Wisconsin at all. The company earlier this week committed to building packaging plants, assembly facilities and research centers over the next 18 months in Mount Pleasant. But it fell short of committing to the Gen 6 fabrication plant to make TFT, or “thin-film-transistor” screens.
“Our decision is also based on a recent comprehensive and systematic evaluation to help determine the best fit for our Wisconsin project among TFT technologies,” Foxconn’s written statement Friday announced. “We have undertaken the evaluation while simultaneously seeking to broaden our investment across Wisconsin far beyond our original plans to ensure the company, our workforce, the local community, and the state of Wisconsin will be positioned for long-term success.”
That fabrication plant could break ground over the next 18 months, according to a Friday statement from Racine County, the village of Mount Pleasant and the Racine County Economic Development Corp. The company in April is expected to hold open houses regarding its upcoming construction plans.
Foxconn’s announcement ends a week where the firm’s Wisconsin plans attracted extreme scrutiny. A Reuters story on Tuesday raised speculation that Foxconn may not manufacture in Wisconsin at all, a point the company refuted.
Tim Sheehy, president of the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce, described it as watching “a Twitter world collide with a dynamic, global business decision.”
Foxconn’s strategy in Wisconsin has evolved over the past six months, which is in keeping with the company’s reputation of being flexible and responsive to market conditions.
Foxconn first announced last year it was backing off from plans for a Gen 10.5 facility in Wisconsin to make very large LCD screens. Instead, the Gen 6 plant will produce small to mid-sized displays that would be used in televisions and by automakers.
“Over the last year at least, the capacity for the large LCD screen manufacturing in China has grown exponentially, and the cost has been cut in half,” Sheehy said.
The actual fabrication of screens in Wisconsin is significant. The company is building Gen 10.5 plants in China, but such operations don’t exist in the United States. Fabricating the screens, versus assembling products around the finished LCD displays, was expected to attract a new supply chain of manufacturers to Foxconn’s plant.
Sheehy said there is value to Foxconn’s research and development operations planned for Wisconsin, but the fabrication plant creates “an opportunity for supply chain and a more robust capital investment.”
Contractors over the last several months have leveled an estimated 3-million-square-foot plot of land near Interstate 94 in Mount Pleasant that was intended for the fabrication facility. That facility is to be the centerpiece of a larger manufacturing and technology campus Foxconn is developing.
That campus will also include extensive research and development operations to explore new applications of Foxconn’s technology in health care and other arenas. Foxconn earlier this week also planned to build a data center and rapid prototyping center at its Mount Pleasant campus.
The number one single on both sides of the Atlantic today in 1965:
The number one British album today in 1967 was “The Monkees”:
The number one single on both sides of the Atlantic today in 1978:
Today in 1959, a few hours after their concert at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa, Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson got on a Beechcraft Bonanza in Mason City, Iowa, to fly to Fargo, N.D., for a concert in Moorhead, Minn.
The trio, along with Dion and the Belmonts, were part of the Winter Dance Party Tour, a 24-city tour over three weeks, with its ridiculously scheduled tour dates connected by bus.
Said bus, whose heater broke early in the tour, froze in below-zero temperatures two nights earlier between the scheduled concert in the Duluth, Minn., National Guard Armory, and the next scheduled location, the Riverside Ballroom in Green Bay.
Holly’s drummer had to be hospitalized with frostbite in his feet, and Valens also became ill. The tour got to Green Bay, but its scheduled concert in Appleton that evening was canceled.
After the concert in Clear Lake, Holly decided to rent an airplane. Holly’s bass player, Waylon Jennings, gave his seat to the Big Bopper because he was sick, and Valens won a coin flip with Holly’s guitarist, Tommy Allsup. Dion DiMucci chose not to take a seat because the $36 cost equaled his parents’ monthly rent.
As he was leaving, Holly told Jennings, “I hope your ol’ bus freezes up,” to which Jennings replied, “Well, I hope your ol’ plane crashes!”
Shortly after the 12:55 a.m. takeoff, the plane crashed, instantly killing Holly, Valens, the Big Bopper and the pilot.
The scheduled concert that evening went on, with organizers recruiting a 15-year-old, Robert Velline, and his band the Shadows. Bobby Vee went on to have a good career. So did a teenager in the audience, Robert Zimmerman of Hibbing, Minn., who became known a few years later as Bob Dylan.
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The number one single today in 1968:
The number one single today in 1973:
The number one album today in 1979 was the Blues Brothers’ “Briefcase Full of Blues”:
Birthdays begin with one of Dion’s Belmonts, Angelo D’Aleo:
Dennis Edwards of the Temptations:
Eric Haydock played bass for the Hollies:
Dave Davies of the Kinks:
Two-hit wonder Melanie Safka:
Tony Butler played bass for Big Country:
Lol Tolhurst played keyboards for the Cure:
Who is Richie Kotzen? You know him as Mr. Big, whose career really wasn’t, having one hit:
First, to continue a decades-long tradition: It’s a great day for groundhogs. Unless they see their shadow and predict six more weeks of winter, in which case they should be turned into ground groundhog.
(Back when I had radio ambitions, I came up with the idea of having a live remote from Sun Prairie where Jimmy the Groundhog would see his shadow and predict six more weeks of winter, then return to the station, only to dramatically go back to Sun Prairie to breathlessly report that someone assassinated Jimmy the Groundhog. It would work with Punxsutawney Phil too.)
Today in 1959, Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and the Big Bopper all appeared at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa.
That would be their final concert appearance because of what happened after the concert.
The steady loss of local newspapers and journalists across the country contributes to the nation’s political polarization, a new study has found.
With fewer opportunities to find out about local politicians, citizens are more likely to turn to national sources like cable news and apply their feelings about national politics to people running for the town council or state legislature, according to research published in the Journal of Communication.
The result is much less “split ticket” voting, or people whose ballot includes votes for people of different parties. In 1992, 37 percent of states with Senate races elected a senator from a different party than the presidential candidate the state supported. In 2016, for the first time in a century, no state did that, the study found.
“The voting behavior was more polarized, less likely to include split ticket voting, if a newspaper had died in the community,” said Johanna Dunaway, a communications professor at Texas A&M University, who conducted the research with colleagues from Colorado State and Louisiana State universities.
Researchers reached that conclusion by comparing voting data from 66 communities where newspapers have closed in the past two decades to 77 areas where local newspapers continue to operate, she said.
“We have this loss of engagement at the local level,” she said.
The struggling news industry has seen some 1,800 newspapers shut down since 2004, the vast majority of them community weeklies, said Penelope Muse Abernathy, a University of North Carolina professor who studies the contraction. Many larger daily newspapers that have remained open have effectively become ghosts, with much smaller staffs that are unable to offer the breadth of coverage they once did. About 7,100 newspapers remain.
Researchers are only beginning to measure the public impact of such losses. Among the other findings is less voter participation among news-deprived citizens in “off-year” elections where local offices are decided, Abernathy said. Another study suggested a link to increased government spending in communities where “watchdog” journalists have disappeared, she said.
Dunaway said voters in communities without newspapers are more likely to be influenced by national labels — if they like Republicans like President Donald Trump, for example, that approval will probably extend to Republicans lower on the ballot.
The diminished news sources also alter politicians’ strategies, Dunaway said.
“They have to rely on party ‘brand names’ and are less about ‘how I can do best for my district,’” she said.
Southwest Wisconsin, where Presteblog World Headquarters is located, presently has two Democratic Congressmen, but has had Republicans in both houses of the Legislature nearly all the time since the Civil War. Ripon, the previous home of Presteblog World Headquarters, might be even more Republican than that in terms of state legislative representation, and it sits in a Congressional district that has had overwhelmingly Republican representation for decades. In each area there is basically one weekly newspaper per market, but the great consolidation of newspapers ended in the 1960s, and representation hasn’t changed very much in those years.
Today in 1949, RCA released the first 45-rpm record.
The seven-inch size of the 45, compared with the bigger 78, allowed the development of jukeboxes.
The number one single today in 1964:
The number one single today in 1969:
I have decided to create a new verb: “to Covington,” which means to jump to conclusions about a particular thing well before even most of the facts are in. It comes from, of course, the Covington incident.
George Mitchell explains:
The lesson I try to keep in mind recalls the immediate reaction — almost all of it wrong — regarding the March for Life incident involving students from a Catholic high school in Kentucky.
Trying to keep an open mind, it will be helpful to read factual analyses that one hopes will be forthcoming from public sources such as the Legislative Fiscal Bureau and private researchers at the Wisconsin Policy Forum.
It is entirely possible, as Democrats today gleefully proclaim, that Wisconsin was snared by a gigantic bait and switch. The most substantive support I have seen for that position is a statement attributed to Foxconn that the market has dramatically switched in the last 18 months. Really? All of a sudden it makes no sense to manufacture here what they said they would make?
Alternatively, the structure of the state’s contract with Foxconn might mean that both the benefits to the state and its costs are proportionally lessened. This will be true if the pledges were correct that the bulk of taxpayer subsidies were/are linked to tangible results.
I would have voted for the Foxconn “deal.” I considered it a risky big bet that was worth taking. I am prepared, once more facts are available, to acknowledge an error in judgment. Or, the truth might support a view that the potential of Foxconn still is a net benefit for Wisconsin. We don’t know enough yet to decide.
Three Racine County officials felt the need to correct yesterday’s hysterical media reports:
To date, Foxconn has invested over $200 million in Wisconsin. We have seen much of this
locally – including Foxconn’s investment in more than $100 million in construction contracts
that have transformed the project site, the completion of the first 120,000 square foot
building on the campus and the entire 3 million square foot pad that will serve as the base
for the next phase of construction, which will begin in Spring 2019.Contrary to what was reported by Reuters, Foxconn reiterated to us, today, its commitment
to building an advanced manufacturing operation in Wisconsin, in addition to its commitment
to create 13,000 jobs and invest $10 billion in Racine County. As Foxconn has previously
shared, they are evaluating exactly which type of TFT technology will be manufactured in
Wisconsin but are proceeding with construction on related manufacturing, assembly and
research facilities on the site in 2019.We understand that Foxconn must be nimble in responding to market changes to ensure the
long-term success of their Wisconsin operations. We fully expect that Foxconn will meet its
obligations to the State, County and Village.Both the local and state development agreements are legally binding and include strong
protections for taxpayers. The state agreement, which was largely based on job creation,
ensures that Foxconn only receives state tax credits if it meets or exceeds its targeted hiring
amounts in any given year.The local development agreement stipulates that, if, for any reason, Foxconn’s investment
on the campus falls short, the company remains obligated to support a minimum valuation
for the project of $1.4 billion, which will more than pay for all public improvements and
development costs for the project.
The Milwaukee Business Journal, which unlike most media knows something about business, adds:
Top Foxconn Technology Group executive Louis Wooreconfirmed for Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers and Milwaukee-area economic development officials Wednesday that the company is proceeding with its $10 billion project in Racine County while dismissing as inaccurate a Wednesday story from Reuters news service.
Woo made big news in Wisconsin via the Reuters report that the Taiwanese technology firm is reconsidering whether to produce LCD video screens there at all. Woo, who is special assistant to Foxconn founder and CEO Terry Gou, was quoted by Reuters as saying Foxconn may shelve plans for an assembly plant in Mount Pleasant and that “in Wisconsin, we’re not building a factory.”
Leaders of the Milwaukee 7 regional economic development group, which played an instrumental role in recruiting Foxconn, “were totally taken aback by the Reuters story,” said co-chairman Gale Klappa, who also is chairman and CEO of WEC Energy Group in Milwaukee. Klappa said he and Tim Sheehy, president of the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce, emailed Woo Wednesday morning for a response to the Reuters article.
The information in the Reuters article was “completely inconsistent” with what Foxconn representatives have been communicating to the Milwaukee 7 about the Mount Pleasant project, Klappa said. Woo’s response eliminated Klappa’s concerns, as the Foxconn executive said he was quoted out of context, Klappa told the Milwaukee Business Journal.
A spokesperson for Reuters and Woo could not immediately be reached for comment.
Klappa said Woo told him and Sheehy that the company has not changed its commitment to expand in Wisconsin and still plans to hire up to 13,000 employees.
Klappa said Woo also called Evers Wednesday morning to give Evers assurances that the Reuters story does not represent the company’s plans.
Evers’ office issued a statement at 12:10 p.m. Wednesday from Wisconsin Department of Administration Secretary-designee Joel Brennan in response to the Reuters article.
“The administration is in regular, weekly communication with senior leadership at Foxconn; however, we were surprised to learn about this development,” Brennan said.
Some of the information in the Reuters story has been previously reported, Brennan noted. Other details about the continuing evolution of this project “will require further review and evaluation by our team,” Brennan said.
“Our team has been in contact with Foxconn since learning this news and will continue to monitor the project to ensure the company delivers on its promises to the people of Wisconsin,” Brennan said.
The Evers administration will continue to commit time, resources and personnel “to ensure that the interests of Wisconsin workers and taxpayers are protected and promoted by our approach to the Foxconn project,” Brennan said.
Evers told the Milwaukee Business Journal in January that he had held discussions in person and on the phone with Woo and Foxconn executive Alan Yeung in an effort to open lines of communication. The company is eligible for billions of dollars in state tax credits, depending on its total hiring and capital expenditures.
The Wisconsin Economic Development Corp., which administers the state’s contract with Foxconn, issued a statement Wednesday afternoon that the contract “provides the company the flexibility to make these business decisions, and at the same time, protects Wisconsin’s taxpayers.”
“Over the past 45 years, Foxconn’s success has been based on the company’s ability to foresee and adapt to technological advancements,” WEDC said. “Foxconn’s long-term success both globally and within Wisconsin is centered around the alignment of its business model with ever-changing global economic conditions, including evolving customer demands.”
Woo did reiterate his remarks from recent months that the company’s employment needs for its planned $10 billion campus in Mount Pleasant would likely require more engineers than assembly workers, which is a reversal from the company’s initial plans.
Klappa pointed out that Woo’s email said the company is rethinking what technology it will build in Wisconsin due to “the changing dynamics of the economy the past two years.”
Foxconn will proceed with six components of the Mount Pleasant project over the next 18 months, Woo said in the email, according to Klappa. They are:
• A liquid crystal module packaging plant;
• A high-precision molding factory;
• A system integration assembly facility;
• A rapid prototyping center;
• A research-and-development center;
• A high-performance data center; and
• A town center to support employees in Mount Pleasant.
The Reuters story also states that “a company source” said Foxconn would employ about 1,000 workers by 2020 rather than the initial plan to employee 5,200.
Klappa said Woo’s email did not specifically address that point. However, Klappa said he believes Woo’s assurances.
“Frankly, given Louis’ comments on the overall accuracy of the story, I’m dubious about anything” in the article, Klappa said.
Steve Prestegard.com: The Presteblog 