Good morning, Whitewater.
Monday in the city will be mostly sunny with a high of seventy-six. Sunrise is 6:27 AM and sunset 7:17 PM. There’s a full moon this evening at 8:38 PM. It’s the thirds and final supermoon of summer:
Common Council and the Community Development Authority will hold a joint meeting at 6:30 PM this evening.
On this day in 1974, Pres. Ford pardons Richard Nixon:
On September 8, 1974, Ford issued Proclamation 4311, which gave Nixon a full and unconditional pardon for any crimes he might have committed against the United States while President.[61][62][63] In a televised broadcast to the nation, Ford explained that he felt the pardon was in the best interests of the country, and that the Nixon family’s situation “is a tragedy in which we all have played a part. It could go on and on and on, or someone must write the end to it. I have concluded that only I can do that, and if I can, I must.”[64] On September 16, shortly after he announced the Nixon pardon, Ford introduced a conditional amnesty program for Vietnam War draft dodgers who had fled to countries such as Canada as well as for military deserters. The conditions of the amnesty required that those involved reaffirm their allegiance to the United States and serve two years working in a public service job.[65] Full pardon for the draft dodgers, however, did not come about until the Carter Administration.[66]
The Nixon pardon was highly controversial. Critics derided the move and claimed a “corrupt bargain” had been struck between the men.[9] They claimed Ford’s pardon was granted in exchange for Nixon’s resignation that elevated Ford to the Presidency. Ford’s first press secretary and close friend Jerald Franklin terHorst resigned his post in protest after President Nixon’s full pardon. According to Bob Woodward, Nixon Chief of Staff Alexander Haig proposed a pardon deal to Ford. He later decided to pardon Nixon for other reasons, primarily the friendship he and Nixon shared.[67] Regardless, historians believe the controversy was one of the major reasons Ford lost the election in 1976, an observation with which Ford agreed.[67] In an editorial at the time, The New York Times stated that the Nixon pardon was “a profoundly unwise, divisive and unjust act” that in a stroke had destroyed the new president’s “credibility as a man of judgment, candor and competence”.[39] On October 17, 1974, Ford testified before Congress on the pardon. He was the first sitting President to testify before Congress since Abraham Lincoln.[68]
After Ford left the White House in 1977, the former President privately justified his pardon of Nixon by carrying in his wallet a portion of the text of Burdick v. United States, a 1915 U.S. Supreme Court decision which stated that a pardon indicated a presumption of guilt, and that acceptance of a pardon was tantamount to a confession of that guilt.[69] In 2001, the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation awarded the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award to Ford for his pardon of Nixon.[70] In presenting the award to Ford, Senator Ted Kennedy said that he had initially been opposed to the pardon of Nixon, but later stated that history had proved Ford to have made the correct decision.[71]
On this day in 1958, Janesville lets women drink at the bar:
1958 – Janesville Women Belly Up to the Bar
On this date the Janesville city council voted 4-2 to finally end a paternalistic and discriminatory ordinance that prohibited women from drinking at the bar. Since the end of Prohibition in 1933, women had been banned from being served while standing at the bar in Janesville taverns. [Source: Janesville Gazette]
Google-a-Day asks a history question:
What city, that became a capital in 1991, saw protesters gather to oppose the elimination of a fuel subsidy that doubled the cost of gasoline in their country?