Ralph Northam yearbook page shows men in blackface and KKK robe

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A question NO ONE has answered:

How was this NEVER unearthed by opposition researchers in all of Northam's years in politics or in the general election for Governor?

It blows my mind that this could have remained sealed up for this long. Gillespie's folks would have been beating down doors for this information.

It really doesn't add up. Something fishy is afoot.

Fishy afoot? Huh?

This is what perplexes me too. What happened, why didn't they find this and release it pre election? Was there a hand shake agreement not to release these types of things from both sides? So many questions. I have actually worked with opposition researchers before, in another state, and they combed through the candidates past so thoroughly they knew if his/her granddaddy did something bad.

I mean, the EVMS yearbook looks like it was a opposition researchers dream, until it was banned in *2013* because students posed in Confederate uniforms in front of the battle flag.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As Larry Sabato from the UVA Center on Politics said on WTOP -- HOW was this yearbook not discovered in all of his previous campaigns??????? Sabato said the foundation of opposition research is going through yearbooks of the opposing candidate and "checking the box" that it was done. I simply do not know how Northam's racist past was not previously uncovered.

He is disgusting and should resign immediately.

Oh hon. Bless your heart.

Republicans have been holding onto this for some time. They went nuts over his support of abortion at 40 weeks and decided it was his time to go.

They are sitting back with their popcorn watching dems cannibalize themselves.

You don't have to be a jerk with your "bless your heart." I am seriously asking what Larry Sabato was asking. You think I'm a Republican?

I am seriously asking because I do not know how this yearbook think hasn't come up in all of his prior campaigns. If the Republicans were holding onto this, don't you think they would have released it right before the Governor's election?

Hon....amirite?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Northam should have realized no one can see under a KKK hood, and categorically denied he was in the picture. He could have brazened that out.

Now he’s going to have to destroy Fairfax. Don’t get me wrong, I hate the betrayal Northam pulled with the abortion stunt last week. But Fairfax would be ten times worse. The last thing we need is an unelected Governor getting three years and THEN run for re-election. That’s completely unfair.

Smartest thing Northam can do now is throw his organization’s weight behind anyone peddling allegations against Fairfax. If he can submarine Fairfax, then it would be a Republican speaker who would elevate to Governor.

That’s a win-win. Either Northam and Fairfax are punching bags to smear all Democrat candidates. Or we get our man into the Governor’s mansion as a hedge against losing either one or both houses of the General Assembly.

We should hold our nose and secretly ally with Northam to own the Democrats, as “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”.

What are you blathering about? The next in line of succession is the Attorney General who is a Democrat.

What if this is some House of Cards master plan and that blog also has something on Herring is waiting for Northam and Fairfax to be out to publish it.

Yep. I’m pretty sure the Dems are getting HAD right now. Our extreme righteousness is a weakness, and it’s making us vulnerable, not stronger. Something to think about.

+1

Democrats just played themselves.

They just assumed that he’d immediately resign. If he doesn’t, they look weak and now have an alienated rogue governor with a chip on his shoulder with nothing left to lose. He could end up turning on them. And even if he does resign, the Lt. governor has been accused of sexual assault.

Democrats need to be smarter and get out of their bubble.

This.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As Larry Sabato from the UVA Center on Politics said on WTOP -- HOW was this yearbook not discovered in all of his previous campaigns??????? Sabato said the foundation of opposition research is going through yearbooks of the opposing candidate and "checking the box" that it was done. I simply do not know how Northam's racist past was not previously uncovered.

He is disgusting and should resign immediately.

Oh hon. Bless your heart.

Republicans have been holding onto this for some time. They went nuts over his support of abortion at 40 weeks and decided it was his time to go.

They are sitting back with their popcorn watching dems cannibalize themselves.

You don't have to be a jerk with your "bless your heart." I am seriously asking what Larry Sabato was asking. You think I'm a Republican?

I am seriously asking because I do not know how this yearbook think hasn't come up in all of his prior campaigns. If the Republicans were holding onto this, don't you think they would have released it right before the Governor's election?

Hon....amirite?

Not only that, but the GOP were making hay on Northam's abortion comments (bordering on infanticide.) Kathy Tran is the one who should be grateful for the relevation of the yearbook. She was the villain last week--and, now, no one is talking about her unfortunate testimony.

[Anonymous]

A good article that may make you think. This is just a portion. The whole article is excellent.
And, I am a Republican.

Perhaps just a few years ago, Northam’s apology and Saslaw’s defence would have been enough for the governor to be able to move on. We have all done things we’re not proud of in the past, and our most offensive and obnoxious moments do not encapsulate our lives. But given an American elite culture that is regressing to a secular version of old puritanical norms, whereby sinners are branded for life and there are political points to be scored for casting them into hellfire, it is not surprising that Northam was immediately deluged with calls to resign.

Presidential contenders such as Kamala Harris and Julian Castro called on Northam to step down. MoveOn.org—an organization based on the concept of forgiveness, which urges people to “move on” and not dwell on past misdemeanours —called for Northam to step down because “there are no excuses for such a racist display.” As every hour passes, more progressive activists and Democratic politicians are pushing to remove Northam from the governor’s office.

Yet there is a curious dissonance between the message activists are promoting—that an offensive gesture from 35 years ago should permanently end a man’s career in politics—and their campaign around America’s system of mass incarceration. When it comes to criminal-justice reform, progressives are preaching that the aim of the system should be rehabilitation, not punishment, and that criminal behaviour is forged by social influences, rather than the result of bad choices by flawed individuals. They preach a Christian message of hating the sin but loving the sinner.

I agree with that, and I consider myself in the same camp as Robert Sapolsky, a leading neurobiologist who has argued that our free will is limited if not nonexistent, and therefore we should not hate or loathe people who commit antisocial or immoral behaviour. Instead, we should try to understand the natural processes that lead to that behaviour.

But elite progressives apply this logic only on a selective basis. A year ago, for instance, the left-wing outlet I used to work for, The Intercept, published a lengthy sympathetic piece about a convicted murderer’s run for city council. The man in question knifed another man to death, and spent close to two decades behind bars. The author of that article wrote that “his experiences certainly make him an important candidate, able to connect with the thousands who have been isolated and defined by previous misdeeds of theirs or others—especially in the city’s minority communities, which as elsewhere are disproportionately impacted by the system.”

But when it comes to issues of racial offence, the publication’s editorial line—like that of much of the Left—holds expressions of bigotry to be a sort of permanent stain; as if those who committed them have revealed themselves to be demons in human form, incapable of reform. Northam must go.

https://quillette.com/2019/02/02/the-ralph-northam-scandal-betrays-the-lefts-hypocrisy-on-forgiveness-and-rehabilitation/

[Anonymous]

I'm quite positive he was set up by Republicans. They doctored the yearbook and put out the photo. Has anyone seen the real yearbook?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm quite positive he was set up by Republicans. They doctored the yearbook and put out the photo. Has anyone seen the real yearbook?

I understand that the Virginia Pilot went to the medical school library to see the yearbook.

The only excuse I can come up with for the lack of oppo research on this is that I would never have thought that a medical school would even have a yearbook. I went to grad school and remember nothing about a yearbook.

I mean--who edits the medical school yearbook--who would have the time or interest? Was it maybe the work of a vendor?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm quite positive he was set up by Republicans. They doctored the yearbook and put out the photo. Has anyone seen the real yearbook?

I understand that the Virginia Pilot went to the medical school library to see the yearbook.

The only excuse I can come up with for the lack of oppo research on this is that I would never have thought that a medical school would even have a yearbook. I went to grad school and remember nothing about a yearbook.

I mean--who edits the medical school yearbook--who would have the time or interest? Was it maybe the work of a vendor?

We had a yearbook in our medical school. We were asked to submit a few personal pictures to be put on our page so I find it extremely doubtful that northam didn't know about that picture. (Unless it was submitted by someone else and got mixed onto his page)

[Anonymous]

So, Dems, how is Northam supposed to make amends and start on the road to redemption, as most of you are calling for him to do? Is that not what he has been doing, as a pediatrician and as a public servant, for decades? If he resigned today, how would he begin the process of redeeming himself for racist mistake 30+ years ago? Get a job at the NAACP? Volunteer with Black Lives Matter? What does that look like to you?

[Anonymous]

Thanks for posting the quillette link. Interesting points to consider.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So, Dems, how is Northam supposed to make amends and start on the road to redemption, as most of you are calling for him to do? Is that not what he has been doing, as a pediatrician and as a public servant, for decades? If he resigned today, how would he begin the process of redeeming himself for racist mistake 30+ years ago? Get a job at the NAACP? Volunteer with Black Lives Matter? What does that look like to you?

The article I linked on the previous page had this .... and it is very pertinent to your comment.

One of the few liberal leaders who has not explicitly called on Northam to resign is the Reverend William Barber, a prominent pastor and left-wing activist in North Carolina. “Some are calling for the [governor] to resign [and] that’s their right,” he tweeted. “I don’t know what the [Governor] has done over the years in word, deed [and] policy to make amends for his past.” (He also tweeted that “the worst racism is policy & structural racism”).

That last line is important. As obnoxious, offensive and racist as it is to dress up in a Klan hood and don blackface, these are symbolic acts. When you offend someone, it is worth apologizing, as Northam did. But Northam did not promote or pursue policy decisions to harm the lives of African Americans. In fact, he has done the opposite. Under his tenure, Virginia finally expanded the Medicaid program as promised under the Affordable Care Act, opening up health care to 400,000 low-income Virginians. Around a third of those who benefit from Medicaid expansion are African Americans.

[Anonymous]

I know everyone says the blackface was taboo even back then but that is absolutely not true. The movie Soul Man came out in the late 80's and the Ted Danson/Whoopi incident happened in 93. I think the KKK outfit is actually more out of line.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So, Dems, how is Northam supposed to make amends and start on the road to redemption, as most of you are calling for him to do? Is that not what he has been doing, as a pediatrician and as a public servant, for decades? If he resigned today, how would he begin the process of redeeming himself for racist mistake 30+ years ago? Get a job at the NAACP? Volunteer with Black Lives Matter? What does that look like to you?

The article I linked on the previous page had this .... and it is very pertinent to your comment.

One of the few liberal leaders who has not explicitly called on Northam to resign is the Reverend William Barber, a prominent pastor and left-wing activist in North Carolina. “Some are calling for the [governor] to resign [and] that’s their right,” he tweeted. “I don’t know what the [Governor] has done over the years in word, deed [and] policy to make amends for his past.” (He also tweeted that “the worst racism is policy & structural racism”).

That last line is important. As obnoxious, offensive and racist as it is to dress up in a Klan hood and don blackface, these are symbolic acts. When you offend someone, it is worth apologizing, as Northam did. But Northam did not promote or pursue policy decisions to harm the lives of African Americans. In fact, he has done the opposite. Under his tenure, Virginia finally expanded the Medicaid program as promised under the Affordable Care Act, opening up health care to 400,000 low-income Virginians. Around a third of those who benefit from Medicaid expansion are African Americans.

Why don't Democrats think this is worth something? Why is he being treated as such a liability nonetheless?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thanks for posting the quillette link. Interesting points to consider.

You are welcome. I hope everyone just takes a breath and reads it. It is well written, very thought provoking, and should be given to all politicians.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So, Dems, how is Northam supposed to make amends and start on the road to redemption, as most of you are calling for him to do? Is that not what he has been doing, as a pediatrician and as a public servant, for decades? If he resigned today, how would he begin the process of redeeming himself for racist mistake 30+ years ago? Get a job at the NAACP? Volunteer with Black Lives Matter? What does that look like to you?

The article I linked on the previous page had this .... and it is very pertinent to your comment.

One of the few liberal leaders who has not explicitly called on Northam to resign is the Reverend William Barber, a prominent pastor and left-wing activist in North Carolina. “Some are calling for the [governor] to resign [and] that’s their right,” he tweeted. “I don’t know what the [Governor] has done over the years in word, deed [and] policy to make amends for his past.” (He also tweeted that “the worst racism is policy & structural racism”).

That last line is important. As obnoxious, offensive and racist as it is to dress up in a Klan hood and don blackface, these are symbolic acts. When you offend someone, it is worth apologizing, as Northam did. But Northam did not promote or pursue policy decisions to harm the lives of African Americans. In fact, he has done the opposite. Under his tenure, Virginia finally expanded the Medicaid program as promised under the Affordable Care Act, opening up health care to 400,000 low-income Virginians. Around a third of those who benefit from Medicaid expansion are African Americans.

Why don't Democrats think this is worth something? Why is he being treated as such a liability nonetheless?

I don't know. It seems doing something perceived as "racist" is a worse crime than actual murder (as per the article).