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Northam Cancels Appearance At Marsden Fundraiser After Protests

Over two months after Virginia Governor Ralph Northam (D) came out with his wholehearted support of a highly controversial late-term abortion bill, his subsequent “infanticide” comments on the matter, and was hit with the release of racist photos from his past, the national media has packed up and left Richmond, but Virginians across the Commonwealth have not forgotten.

In the latest fallout from his scandals, Northam’s appearance at a fundraiser in Northern Virginia for a Democratic state senator ahead of the 2019 elections was cancelled after dozens of protesters showed up.

Last week, it was announced that Northam would be attending a campaign kickoff event for State Senator Dave Marsden (D-Burke) in the legislator’s home district.

Even though Marsden backed widespread calls for the governor to step down from office beginning February 1 in order to allow Virginians heal from the emergence of the shocking, racist photos, he completely flipped on his position to place a stark condemnation on Northam.

Just days after the announcement of the event, the Fairfax County NAACP and the Virginia GOP started to organize a protest as photos reportedly showing the governor appearing in blackface or dressed in KKK robes remain unexplained.

Although the two groups are on different sides of the political aisle, they have found one thing they can agree on: their dislike for Governor Northam.

Less an one hour before Northam was scheduled to appear at the fundraiser, his presence was cancelled due to “safety concerns.”

In a short interview in defense of the embattled governor, NBC 4 reports that Marsden, after having the headliner of his reelection fundraiser drop out because of protesters, still does not see Northam as a liability.

“He’s been an effective leader, and we want to work with him,” Marsden said.

When asked about his blatant flip flop on his call for Northam to resign, Marsden added, “Politics is a tough business…We made a recommendation to the governor that he might step aside…he chose to stay and do what the people elected him to do.”

What Marsden actually means is that in an election year, lawmakers have principles, but if they are not conducive to getting reelected, they can be changed.

Featured News

Pam Northam’s Cotton-Picking Catastrophe

Pam Northam, the wife of embattled Virginia Governor Ralph Northam (D) is now under fire after upsetting an eighth-grade African-American girl during a tour of the Executive Mansion as she was handed a piece of cotton by the First Lady, also asked to imagine being enslaved. The latest racial debacle comes almost one month after the governor reportedly appeared in a racist photo in his 1984 Eastern Virginia Medical School yearbook – either dressed in blackface or wearing Ku Klux Klan robes and hood – but denied doing so.

Questions were also raised about another yearbook photo, this time while Northam was a cadet at the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) in the early 1980s, where his nickname of “Coonman,” a racial epithet, is placed below his head shot.

In the days following, Governor Northam walked back his admission of appearing in the first photo, which included an attempt to moonwalk in front of reporters in a crowded room, and his wife telling him “inappropriate circumstances.”

However, it seems the Commonwealth’s First Lady did not heed her own advice amid the loathsome beginning of the racial “reconciliation tour.” Last week, the first stop at Virginia Union University (VUU) had to be cancelled due to widespread student backlash and subsequent calls for him to step down from office.

Nevertheless, another instance of racial insensitivity has led to the governor’s scandal being spread to his wife.

“The Governor and Mrs. Northam have asked the residents of the Commonwealth to forgive them for their racially insensitive past actions,” wrote Leah Dozier Walker, who oversees the Office of Equity and Community Engagement at the Virginia Department of Education. “But the actions of Mrs. Northam, just last week, do not lead me to believe that this Governor’s office has taken seriously the harm and hurt they have caused African-Americans in Virginia or that they are deserving of our forgiveness,” she added in her February 25 letter to Virginia lawmakers and the office of the governor.

On February 21, the Northams hosted a gathering at the Executive Mansion in downtown Richmond of approximately 100 youths who had served as State Senate pages during this year’s legislative session. Pam Northam took groups of pages on a tour through the building – built in 1813 by slave labor and is the oldest active governor’s residence in country – and in the kitchen, she held up samples of cotton and tobacco to a group of about 20 children and described the enslaved workers who picked it.

“Mrs. Northam then asked these three pages (the only African-American pages in the program) if they could imagine what it must have been like to pick cotton all day,” Walker wrote. “I can not for the life of me understand why the First Lady would single out the African-American pages for this — or — why she would ask them such an insensitive question.”

The governor’s office said the First Lady handed the cotton to whomever was nearby, both African-American and Caucasian pages, and wanted everyone to note the “sharpness” of the cotton boll and imagine how uncomfortable it would have been to handle all day.

In a letter written by Walker’s daughter addressed to Pam Northam, the young girl said she did not take the cotton, but her friend did.

“It made her very uncomfortable,” the girl wrote. “I will give you the benefit of the doubt, because you gave it to some other pages.”

“But you followed this up by asking: ‘Can you imagine being an enslaved person, and having to pick this all day?’ which didn’t help the damage you had done,” the girl added in her letter to Pam Northam.

While the First Lady offered the cotton to all of the pages in attendance over multiple tours, the situation shows a gross negligence of understanding the environment surrounding Virginia’s executive branch over the entirety of February, which is also, quite ironically, Black History Month.

“I regret that I have upset anyone,” Pam Northam said in a statement from the governor’s spokeswoman, Ofirah Yheskel.

Although Governor Northam has committed to dedicating the remainder of his term in office, which ends January 2022, to “racial equity” and “healing,” the calls for his resignation are far-reaching. After the latest development, it seems that not much thought is being taken into account for whatever “healing” the governor and his family are attempting to promote.

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Former Gov. McAuliffe Quiets Calls For Resignations In Virginia’s Executive Branch

As all three political leaders of Virginia’s Democrat-led executive branch have dealt with racial and sexual scandals over the past two weeks, it seems that not only Attorney General Mark Herring (D), but also Governor Ralph Northam (D) may get off scot-free for appearing in racist photos. After a week of rapprochement of protests in front of the Executive Mansion in downtown Richmond and universal calls from his own party for his resignation, former Governor Terry McAuliffe (D) is also backing down his charge for Northam to leave office.

McAuliffe, a presumed 2020 Democratic presidential contender, appeared on CBS‘s “Face the Nation” to speak about the controversies in the Commonwealth, meanwhile peddling his new book “Beyond Charlottesville: Taking a Stand Against White Nationalism,” which is about how “Virginia and the country continue to deal with racism.”

While hitting off the segment with his new book, McAuliffe did not say a word about resignations, seemingly accepting Northam’s extraordinarily vague plan to redeem his image and his governorship with a “focus on race and equity.”

“I think he’s made a decision he’s going to stay in,” McAuliffe said of Northam, who was his own lieutenant governor while he was in charge of the Commonwealth until January 2018. McAuliffe added, “but the way that Ralph survives and brings Virginia back together, he’s got to lean in on these very important issues.”

Nevertheless, as Northam launches his “listening tour” throughout the Commonwealth to learn more about “race, history, and white privilege,” and other obvious things he apparently never knew, Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax (D) is also dealing with a deepening sexual assault scandal that has his staffers jumping ship and his part-time law firm employer suspending him.

Currently, Fairfax is battling back against two accusers, one who said he sexually assaulted her in 2004, and one who said he raped her while in college in 2000.

Dr. Vanessa Tyson, a Scripps College professor, has alleged that Fairfax sexually assaulted her at the 2004 Boston Democratic National Convention. In her statement published by the New York Times, Dr. Tyson said she came forward after the news of Fairfax’s likely elevation to the top political position in Virginia as the governor is embroiled in racial controversy, because it “flooded” her with “painful memories, bringing back feelings of grief, shame, and anger that stemmed from an incident with Mr. Fairfax.”

Meredith Wilson, a student at Duke University in 2000, while Fairfax also attended the North Carolina college, came forth days later with allegations that she was raped by Fairfax in a “premeditated and aggressive” fashion.

Fairfax has called the accusations “false and unsubstantiated,” a “totally fabricated story,” and “demonstrably false.” The lieutenant governor has also accused staffers of embattled Governor Northam for leaking the sexual assault allegations and engaging in a “vicious and coordinated smear campaign” to derail his pathway to the governor’s office.

When news of the second sexual assault allegation broke, McAuliffe wasted no time in calling for Fairfax’s “immediate” resignation on Twitter.

“The allegations against Justin Fairfax are serious and credible. It is clear to me that he can no longer effectively serve the people of Virginia as Lieutenant Governor. I call for his immediate resignation,” he said.

However, McAuliffe is now quieting his own requests and demanding an investigation into the allegations.

Commenting on the situation, McAuliffe said, “Very serious allegations have been made. They need to be investigated…So we will go through that process.”

Showing a willingness to investigate the alleged crimes, Virginia House of Delegates Speaker Kirk Cox (R-Colonial Heights) has said any inquiry must be bipartisan and “very deliberate.” However, House Democrats have blocked any probe by the General Assembly from moving forward, scuttling last week’s impeachment push by Delegate Patrick Hope (D-Arlington).

Regardless, McAuliffe’s remarks on Sunday suggest that Democratic leaders are coming around to accepting the scandalous status quo in Richmond. It could be that the party faithful have realized that a Republican would be in line for the governorship if all three in the executive branch resigned, or that, considering they came out and denounced Northam, Fairfax, and Herring, they feel they can remain in a position of moral high ground on issues of race, gender, and social justice.

Despite the situation looking more and more like a political double standard, Virginia’s top-three elected Democrats may end up holding on to their positions for the time being. Whether any of the three can go on to win higher offices still remains to be seen.

The other lurking question facing Virginia Democrats is whether the tainted triumvirate hurts the party as it looks to take control of both houses of the General Assembly in November’s elections, following its 15-seat gain in the House of Delegates in 2017. With a one-member majority in both the House and Senate, the longer the scandals roll on, the more dissatisfied the Democratic base could become, losing excitement at the ballot box.

Featured News

Gaslighting Governor Northam Blames ‘White Privilege’ For Racist Photos

As embattled Virginia Governor Ralph Northam (D) attempts to rehabilitate his image in the week and a half since his extraordinary racial controversy began, he continues to show the Commonwealth and the nation at-large that he can no longer effectively govern. During an interview with Gayle King on “CBS This Morning” that aired Monday, not only did Northam call African slaves brought to colonial Virginia “indentured servants,” but now chalks up his racist photos to “white privilege.”

The fallout comes after a photo was released depicting Northam dressed either in blackface or in a Ku Klux Klan robe and hood in his 1984 Eastern Virginia Medical School yearbook. Shortly after the photo went viral, Northam confirmed that it was him depicted in the photo, but would not say which one he was dressed as – a man in blackface, or a man wearing KKK robes.

That night, he published a video statement explaining his remorse.

“I am deeply sorry. I cannot change the decisions I made, nor can I undo the harm my behavior caused then and today. But, I accept responsibility for my past actions, and I am ready to do the hard work of regaining your trust,” he said.

However, at a very odd press conference the following day, he walked back his admission, claiming that he was not in the photo, but then told a tale of when he did appear in blackface at a 1984 dance contest in San Antonio, Texas, dressed as Michael Jackson. Northam said he had “shoe polish” on his “cheeks” as a part of the costume.

“I have always liked Michael Jackson,” he said, noting that he did win the contest. He added that he “learned to do the moonwalk.”

The governor, after being asked by a reporter if he could still moonwalk, then grinned and looked to his right and left to find room to attempt to show off his dance. His wife, Pam, then said to him “inappropriate circumstances” as he was surrounded by a crowd of stunned reporters.

Dodging widespread calls for his resignation, protests in front of the Executive Mansion in Richmond, and even disappearing from the public eye for a few days, he then began his “I’m sorry” tour to explain his actions and announce that he will take on the responsibility of racial reconciliator for the remainder of his term, which ends in January 2022.

During the interview, King asked Northam, “what have you learned that you didn’t know before.”

“Well, several things, starting with I was born in white privilege and that has implications to it and it is much different the way a white person such as myself is treated in this country,” he said.

“Did you not know that you were born into white privilege?” King asked, interrupting the governor.

“I knew I was, Ms. King, but I didn’t realize, really, the powerful implications of that,” Northam explained. “And again, talking to a lot of friends, that has come crystally clear to me this week. I’ve also learned why the use of blackface is so offensive. And yes, I knew it in the past, but reality has really set in.”

When asked whether or not he knew appearing in blackface was offensive in the past, Northam said that he believes “we’re all on a learning curve.”

“Certainly, Ms. King, I am not the same person now at age 59 that I was back in my early 20s,” he added. “This is a week that has been very eye-opening to me.”

Therefore, Governor Northam did not know it was offensive to don blackface. Not only did he not know it was offensive in 1984, but he apparently did not know it is still offensive in 2019.

It is quite tough to actually analyze the entire situation that has embroiled Virginia’s governor. When it comes to “crisis communications 101,” Northam has written the complete annotated anthology of what not to say and what not to do.

To recap: he admitted to appearing in a racist photo, did not say if he was either dressed as a cartoonish blackface character or in the uniform of a white supremacy group, he then recanted saying that was not him in the photo, he changed his story, he told reporters he won a dance contest dressed in blackface as Michael Jackson, he almost moonwalked in front of national reporters, his wife told him not to moonwalk, he showed off his historical ineptness, and then chalked this all up to white privilege.

Questioning Virginians’ sanity for his own mistakes? If gaslighting needed a clear definition – here it is.

Furthermore, the question that has still yet to be fully answered is why Northam admitted to being the photo in the first place. In another part of the interview, he said he did it out of “shock” when seeing the photo, but that answer leaves a lot to be desired.

As well, his nickname while a cadet at the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) in the early 1980s was “Coonman,” a racial epithet. Why would he be called that unless it had a meaning?

Why wasn’t he asked about that in the CBS interview?

What is truly unbelievable, rather, what is truly fiction-turned-fact, is that literally every person in his own party is calling for him to resign, which is actually quite a conservative statement. There is most likely not one current elected Democratic office holder who has said he should stay in office.

To give a bit of perspective on that, let’s be honest here.

One can find a Democrat to support anything: Venezuela’s Maduro, Syria’s Assad, boycotting In-N-Out Burger, taxing cow farts, infanticide, blaming plastic straws for climate change, removing troops from Guam because the island will “tip over,” anything. But, there is not one Democrat supporting him on this.

Every day governor Northam remains in office is another day the Commonwealth of Virginia continues to be a punchline for skits on “Saturday Night Live,” a comedic comparison to the political process, and an erosion of the “Virginia Way.”

He needs to leave, immediately.

Featured News

Fairfax Scandal Deepens As Staffers Resign, Accusers Look To Testify

Although Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax (D) presided over the Virginia State Senate during Monday’s session on Bank Street in Richmond, the effects of his scandal have deepened as four of his aides have resigned amid the sexual assault controversy. Currently, Fairfax is battling back against two accusers, one who said he sexually assaulted her in 2004, and one who said he raped her while in college in 2000.

Dr. Vanessa Tyson, a Scripps College professor, has alleged that Fairfax sexually assaulted her at the 2004 Boston Democratic National Convention. In her statement published by the New York Times, Dr. Tyson said she came forward after the news of Fairfax’s likely elevation to the top political position in Virginia as the governor is embroiled in racial controversy, because it “flooded” her with “painful memories, bringing back feelings of grief, shame, and anger that stemmed from an incident with Mr. Fairfax.”

Meredith Wilson, a student at Duke University in 2000, while Fairfax also attended the North Carolina college, came forth last week with allegations that she was raped by Fairfax in a “premeditated and aggressive” fashion.

Fairfax has called the accusations “false and unsubstantiated,” a “totally fabricated story,” and “demonstrably false.” The lieutenant governor has also accused staffers of embattled Governor Ralph Northam (D) for leaking the sexual assault allegations and engaging in a “vicious and coordinated smear campaign” to derail his pathway to the governor’s office.

In a raucous press conference in the crowded capitol rotunda, Fairfax reiterated “how important it is for us to listen to women,” but an NBC News reporter caught Fairfax saying “f*** that b****” as he tried to discredit Dr. Tyson during a private meeting last Monday night.

In a recent press release from Nancy Erika Smith, Watson’s attorney with New Jersey-based Smith Mullin, P.C., comments rang out against Fairfax as she claims that he wishes to quash the allegations and defame his accusers in “secret” meetings.

“After Dr. Vanessa Tyson and Meredith Watson reported that Lt. Governor Justin Fairfax raped them, Fairfax said he wanted ‘due process’. Impeachment hearings would have provided just that. It turns out that Mr. Fairfax does not want due process; he wants to assault the character of his victims in secret, not in public, and certainly not under oath,” she said.

Smith stated that Watson and Dr. Tyson are asking for a hearing to testify to the alleged crimes Fairfax committed, expressing that they “reject a secret and delayed proceeding.”

Regardless, Virginia’s second in command is resisting widespread pressure from nearly all elected leaders, both Democrat and Republican, to step down from his post.

As the scandal continues to garner the national spotlight, two of Fairfax’s three government aides, policy director Adele McClure and scheduling director Julia Billingsley have left his staff, as well as employees from his political action committee, executive director Dave Mills of We Rise Together and fundraiser Courtney McCargo.

PAC communications director Lauren Burke and chief of staff Larry Roberts, however, still remain in their posts.

The Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that Mills, interestingly, is the husband of State Senator Jennifer McClellan (D-Richmond) who is now being considered as a serious contender to replace Fairfax as lieutenant governor should he resign or be removed from office.

His removal from office via the introduction of articles of impeachment weakened yesterday following Delegate Partick Hope (D-Arlington) announcing on Twitter late last week, “On Monday, I will be introducing articles of impeachment for Lt. Governor Justin Fairfax if he has not resigned before then.”

After Delegate Hope said he sent draft language for articles of impeachment to his colleagues, he received an “enormous amount of sincere and thoughtful feedback which has led to additional conversations that need to take place before anything is filed.”

Although Fairfax continues to call for an FBI investigation into the sexual assault allegations, it is unclear why he is proceeding that route. As a former U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, he must know that the FBI has no jurisdiction in the matter because the alleged incidents are neither federal crimes, nor is the investigation within the agency’s extent of background checks for certain federal officials.

A spokesperson for Fairfax has also relayed that the lieutenant governor has voiced skepticism about a legislative investigation, stating that he “believes that an inherently political process is not the most likely path for learning the truth.”

With the job of lieutenant governor being a part-time position, Fairfax’s joined San Franciso-based law firm Morrison & Foerster in early 2018. Following the scandal, however, the firm placed him on paid leave.

“We take the allegations against Justin very seriously. As a firm, we believe that it is important to seriously listen to any allegation of sexual assault or harassment, and to treat all persons making such allegations with respect and sensitivity,” the firm’s Chairman Larren Nashelsky said.

Fairfax’s growing sexual scandal is just one-third of the situation surrounding the Commonwealth’s Democrat-led executive branch.

Governor Northam reportedly appeared in a photo in his 1984 Eastern Virginia Medical School (EVMS) yearbook either in blackface or in Ku Klux Klan robes. He first confirmed that he was in the photo – not saying which one – then backpedaled the day following at a very odd press conference, which included an attempt to “moonwalk” in front of reporters and his wife, Pam, telling him “inappropriate circumstances.”

Attorney General Mark Herring (D) admitted to wearing blackface to look like black rapper Kurtis Blow at a party at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville in 1980. His admission came just days after he previously called for Northam’s resignation for also appearing in racist photos.