Category: Corruption and Scandals
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Notes from the Right Wing Echo Chamber
By Peter Galuszka On Wednesday, I was standing next to the Capitol grounds in Richmond watching brightly decorated cars and pickups drive on 9th Street, their horns blaring. I was attending the drive by protest rally on assignment for Style Weekly and happened to speak to Jason Roberge, a Spotsylvania County resident who is one…
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Spy V. Spy in Virginia Politics?
By Peter Galuszka Erik Prince, the highly controversial former Navy SEAL and founder of the security firm Blackwater, recruited spies to infiltrate liberal groups and the 2018 political campaign of U.S. Rep Abigail Spanberger, according to media reports. His role was disclosed in a lawsuit deposition involving the right-wing group Project Veritas that has tried…
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Is This What We’ve Come to? Now Terry McAuliffe and Levar Stoney Are Racist?
MEMO TO: LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR JUSTIN FAIRFAX FROM: JIM BACON If you’re seriously interested in running for Governor, you’re not helping your case when you call former Governor Terry McAuliffe a racist, and, more inexplicably, when you call the African-American mayor of Richmond, Levar Stoney, a racist. Sure, I get it: You’re angry about the sexual…
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Mayberry on Acid
By Peter Galuszka In a bizarre case for a small Virginia locality, 14 former and current local leaders of Warren County and Front Royal — including the entire Board of Supervisors — have been charged with misdemeanors relating to a major embezzlement case that involves the local economic development authority. The Sept. 24 charges by…
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Blackface Controversies? That’s Still a Thing?
“Ralph Northam Assures Trudeau His Political Career Will Suffer No Consequences Whatsoever,” reads yesterday’s headline ripped straight off the Internet. RICHMOND, VA—As Justin Trudeau found himself embroiled in a scandal over painting his face dark for ethnic costumes in the past, he began to despair. “How will I ever overcome this, eh?” he said, shaking…
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Bad News at Richmond’s City Hall
Back in 2015, the City of Richmond was a managerial mess. Accusations flew of incompetence, conflicts of interest and revolving chair style management. One big problem was the deeply flawed installation of a financial computer system crucial to keeping the municipality functioning. Then-Mayor Dwight Jones’s solution was to hire a ringer, Selena Cuffee-Glenn, who had…
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Politico’s Juicy Tale of Liberty and the Falwells
by Peter Galuszka Jerry Falwell Jr. is hitting the news big time following a Politico investigation that alleges self-dealing and sexual misconduct by the powerful head of the evangelical Christian school Liberty University. More than two dozen Liberty officials and Falwell associates working for Falwell as a “dictatorship” where people are afraid of discussing issues…
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Blackface Mystery Solved: Ralph Northam as Michael Jackson
Published in the Roanoke Times today, a concise synthesize of my blog posts about Ralph Northam costumed as Michael Jackson: Ralph Northam’s racism controversy has tumbled down the memory hole. The governor has struck with the story that the photograph appearing in the 1984 Eastern Virginia Medical School yearbook of a man in blackface was…
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Give Fairfax a Chance to Clear His Name
Lawyers for Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax have formally requested prosecutors in Suffolk County, Mass., and Durham County, N.C. to open criminal investigations into the sexual assault allegations made against Fairfax in February, reports WJLA. The allegation of Meredith Watson, who accused Fairfax of raping her in 2000 when they were students at Duke University, should…
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Elephant in the Corner? What Elephant?
The news media has settled into a new narrative about Ralph Northam’s blackface scandal: After keeping a low profile for four months following the revelation of a racist photo appearing in his 1984 medical school yearbook, the governor is back in the public eye and reasserting his gubernatorial prerogatives. Without explicitly saying that he has…
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Northam Blackface Update: Head and Shoulders Analysis
As part of its examination into the Eastern Virginia Medical School (EVMS) yearbook scandal, in which an unidentified figure appeared in blackface on Ralph Northam’s profile page, investigators with the McGuire Woods law firm considered a piece of evidence submitted by Northam’s personal law firm, Alston & Bird: a facial recognition report. “This report, conducted…
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Northam in Blackface: Talk to the Hand
Several days ago I advanced the argument that the identity of the blackfaced individual in Ralph Northam’s infamous 1984 medical school yearbook was none other than Northam himself, garbed in the likeness of Michael Jackson. That theory landed with a resounding thud. No one in the media (or anywhere else, for I can tell) took…
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More Blackface Backlash
Governor Ralph Northam seems to be weathering the blackface scandal, but that doesn’t mean he won’t continue to suffer fallout from the P.R. debacle. The Virginia Southern Christian Leadership Conference is launching a statewide tour to address issues arising from revelations of a photograph of a person dressed in blackface and another in Ku Klux…
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Update: Northam in Michael Jackson Costume
I have expanded the photographic evidence and commentary in my previous post, in which I argued that the figure in the infamous Eastern Virginia Medical Society yearbook photo was Ralph Northam costumed as Michael Jackson. I wrote the original post as a lark, but after digging deeper, I am 95% certain that my theory is…
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The Blackface Photo: Northam as Michael Jackson
Governor Ralph Northam astonished the world at a press conference earlier this year when he denied appearing in blackface in a notorious 1984 medical school-yearbook photo — and then volunteered that he had darkened his skin that same year as part of a Michael Jackson costume for a dance contest. The governor was widely mocked…