POLITICS: METAMORPHOSIS: 🤥🤥🤥🤥🤥How Ralph Northam Morphed Into A “Trump-Style” Liar Before Our Eyes — Resign Now, Ralph, Before You Inflict Even Further Harm On Our Commonwealth & Our Nation!

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/02/ralph-northam-is-lying.html

William Saletin writes in Slate:

Ralph Northam, the governor of Virginia, swears he’s telling the truth. On Friday, Northam confessed to appearing in a racist photo in a 1984 yearbook. On Saturday, after Democrats called on him to resign, he reversed himself and said it was a case of mistaken identity. “I will stand and live by my word,” Northam told reporters at an afternoon press conference. He quoted the honor code of his alma mater, the Virginia Military Institute: “A cadet shall not lie, cheat, steal, or tolerate those who do.”

I don’t know whether Northam is one of the people in the photo. But I do know he’s been lying in his responses to this story. The evidence is in his own words. Let’s take his denials, one by one.

1. He believed right away that he wasn’t in the picture. The photo appears in the yearbook of Eastern Virginia Medical School, where Northam was a student. It seems to have been taken at a party, and it appears on a page that bears Northam’s name, alongside what are clearly pictures of him. It shows one person in blackface and another in a Ku Klux Klan hood and robes. The two people are hard to identify. In a written statement that Northam read aloud at his press conference, he asserted that when he was first shown the photo, “I believed then and now that I am not either of the people in that photo.”

That denial contradicts Northam’s previous statements. The photo was initially posted on a conservative website, Big League Politics, on Friday afternoon. Reporters confirmed that it was in the yearbook. Around 6 p.m., Northam issued a statement acknowledging that it was “a photograph of me.” He apologized for “the decision I made to appear as I did in this photo.” Two hours later, he released a video statement in which he apologized for “my past actions,” “the decisions I made,” and “the harm my behavior caused.” Northam’s Friday statements, like his Saturday statement, were scripted, so he couldn’t have misspoken. Either he believed on Friday that he wasn’t in the photo—in which case his Friday statements were false—or he didn’t, in which case his Saturday statement was false.

Northam also told the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus that he was in the picture. According to three lawmakers, the governor confirmed in a Friday-night meeting with the caucus that he was in the photo. “Last night, from his mouth to my ear, he apologized to me for the mistake that he made,” Sen. Louise Lucas, a member of the caucus, reported on Saturday. Did Northam mislead the caucus? Or is he misleading everyone else now?

2. He knew he couldn’t have done it. This is a stronger denial, based on Northam’s moral certainty that he isn’t the sort of person who could have worn such costumes. At the press conference, he claimed that when he first saw the photo, “My first impression, actually, [was] that this couldn’t be me.” In fact, it was more than impression. “There is no way that I have ever been in a KKK uniform,” he declared. “I am not the person in that uniform. And I am not the person [in blackface] to the right.”

But if Northam was that certain of his innocence, why didn’t he say so on Friday? When he was asked at the press conference, he pleaded, “I didn’t know at the time.” He claimed to have confessed initially because “based on the evidence presented to me at the time, the most likely explanation [was] that it was indeed me in the photo.” He added, “It has taken time for me to make sure that it’s not me.”

3. He could tell just by looking at the photo. “It is definitely not me. I can tell by looking at it,” Northam told reporters on Saturday. Later, he repeated, “If one looks at the picture, it’s not my picture.” That’s not consistent with the governor’s confessions of guilt or his confessions of uncertainty. The picture was the first piece of information he had. If it was sufficient to exonerate him, why didn’t he say so? When a reporter posed that question at the press conference, all Northam could say was, “I didn’t study it as well as I should.”

That’s just not credible. What changed between Friday night and Saturday morning wasn’t Northam sitting up late with a magnifying glass. It was two other things. First, based on the governor’s initial confessions, a wave of Democrats, including the Virginia Democratic Party and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, announced that he should resign. Second, Northam contacted his former medical school classmates. At the press conference, he said they told him they had “never seen me in any outfit like that.” He also said he had asked a former classmate, “Is there a possibility, you think, that someone could have put a photo on the wrong page?” Northam said that this classmate told him photos had been misplaced “on numerous pages in this very yearbook. … Photos laid out on a table. One could mistakenly get put on the wrong page. This happened numerous times in this yearbook. And I suspect that’s what happened in this case.”

Northam presented these conversations with his classmates as evidence of his innocence.
And maybe that’s what they’ll turn out to be. But for now, they’re just evidence that he checked to see whether anyone in his class might have information that could support the case against him. Nobody remembers him wearing anything like the costumes in that picture. He has also found a witness who could testify that pictures were sometimes misplaced. So what Northam knows now—but didn’t know on Friday night—was that if he denies he’s in that photo, he might be able to get away with it.

I hope Northam isn’t in that picture. But one way or the other, he’s been lying.

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Sorry, Ralph, but forgiveness and redemption have to be earned, not demanded! And, lying, making a spectacle of yourself and our state, and insulting our intelligence with lies, contradictions, and obvious evasions aren’t a good start.  Go now, before the Legislature has to act to remove you. You have become Donald Trump. And, that’s not a good thing for Virginia or our nation

PWS

02-03-19

RALPH NORTHAM MUST GO! NOW!

No excuses, no delays, the best and only thing that Northam can do for the people of Virginia and for himself is to resign, get out of the political arena, and use his medical skills to promote social justice and improve the lives of all Virginians.

Every additional minute that he remains in office demeans and embarrasses the state and the office for which he was elected, while continuing to insult African-Americans and humane values everywhere.

Resign now! Call Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax and pass him the helm tonight. Don’t make us go through the painful and unnecessary circus of removing you.

PWS

02-01-19

 

POLITICS: TRUMPISM LOSES IN VIRGINIA! — GOP’S INJECTION OF ANTI-IMMIGRANT THEME & WHITE IDENTITY POLITICS REBUFFED — TRUMP’S BOORISH REACTION! — “Bathroom Bob” Also Goes Down!

In a sharp rebuke of President Trump’s brand of divisive, hate-promoting, anti-immigrant, white identity politics, Virginia voters backed Democrats for all three of the hotly contested statewide offices.

Democrat Lt. Governor Ralph Northam bested GOP challenger Ed Gillespie for Governor. The nearly 9-point margin of victory exceeded most polls which showed Gillespie running closer to Northam. Northam’s victory was also a further put-down of racist provocateur Corey Stewart who ran a reprehensible campaign against Gillespie in the GOP primary and boasted that he had forced Gillespie to move closer to his his White Nationalist, anti-immigrant, anti-Hispanic agenda.

Democrat Justin Fairfax defeated State Senator Jill Vogel to succeed Northam as Lt. Governor, thus becoming the second African-American to hold statewide office in the Commonwealth.

Incumbent Democrat Attorney General Mark Herring beat John Adams to retain his position.

The low point of Gillespie’s campaign was undoubtedly his bogus attempt to link Northam to the MS-13 criminal gang — a “Trump type tactic” that obviously failed.

Then, in an amazingly inappropriate and totally boorish move, Trump proceeded to blame Gillespie for losing the election by not being “Trump-like enough” — ignoring the “drag effect” of Trump’s own unpopular Presidency and the backfiring of the White Nationalist pitch promoted by Trump, Bannon, and others. Really, is there even a smidgen of grace or self-reflection in this Dude?

In other good news, the embarrassing, reactionary, hate-mongering, homophobic GOP State Delegate Robert “Bathroom Bob” Marshall was sent into a long overdue retirement by Democrat Danica Roem, who smashed him by 9 percentage points.

Roem, who will become the first transgender legislator in Virginia history, and reportedly the first openly transgender elected legislator in the US, impressed voters in her district by sticking to local issues like traffic congestion rather than engaging BB in his never-ending culture wars (for example, Marshall refused to debate Roem and dissed her by publicly referring to her as “he” — what a total slimeball).

”Bathroom Bob” gained national notoriety earlier this year by introducing a bill intended to humiliate transgender individuals — particularly vulnerable students — by denying them the use of bathrooms corresponding to their current sex. Some of the ludicrous comments by BB’s supporters trying to put Roem down — and having nothing to do with real issues facing the district — show just what a “sicko” this guy is and how he “brings out the worst” in some others.  Good riddance!

All in all, Virginia voters did the right thing by striking a note of decency and commitment to our Constitutional form of government — moving forward to better things rather than trying to turn back the clock to a troubled (and in the case of Bathroom Bob downright ugly) past.

PWS

11-08-17