IN: Paul Davis Ryan Jr. (born January 29, 1970) is an American politician serving as the 54th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives since 2015. He was the Republican Party nominee for Vice President of the United States, running alongside former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney in the 2012 U.S. presidential election. Ryan also has been the U.S. Representative for Wisconsin's 1st congressional district since 1999. He was previously chair of the House Ways and Means Committee from January 3 to October 29, 2015, and, before that, chair of the House Budget Committee from 2011 to 2015.

Ryan was first elected to the House in 1998, winning the 1st District seat of Republican Mark Neumann, a two-term incumbent who had vacated his seat to make an unsuccessful bid for the U.S. Senate. Ryan won the Republican primary over 29-year-old pianist Michael J. Logan of Twin Lakes, and the general election against Democrat Lydia Spottswood. This made him the second-youngest member of the House.  Reelected eight times, Ryan has never received less than 55 percent of the vote. He defeated Democratic challenger Jeffrey C. Thomas in the 2000, 2002, 2004, and 2006 elections. In the 2008 election, Ryan defeated Democrat Marge Krupp.  In the 2010 general election, he defeated Democrat John Heckenlively and Libertarian Joseph Kexel. In 2012, under Wisconsin election law, Ryan was allowed to run concurrently for vice president and for Congress and was not allowed to remove his name from the Congressional ballot after being nominated for the vice presidency. He faced Democratic nominee Rob Zerban. As of July 25, 2012, Ryan had over $5.4 million in his congressional campaign account, more than any other House member. He was reelected with 55 percent of his district's vote and 44 percent of the vote in his hometown, Janesville.  Zerban again challenged Ryan in the 2014 House election. Ryan won with 63 percent of his district's vote.  In the 2016 Republican primary election, Ryan faced businessman Paul Nehlen, who had been endorsed by Sarah Palin. Because of Nehlen's support for Trump, Trump publicly thanked him on Twitter and later told The Washington Post that Nehlen was "running a very good campaign", even though he did not endorse him. On August 5, 2016, Trump endorsed Ryan's re-election after pressure from fellow Republican leaders. In the August 9, 2016 primary election, Ryan overwhelmingly defeated Nehlen, taking over 84 percent of the vote. In the November general election, Ryan faced Democrat Ryan Solen and won with 65 percent of his district's vote.
QUESTION: Did he win his congressional election?
IN: Frankie Laine (born Francesco Paolo LoVecchio; March 30, 1913 - February 6, 2007) was an Italian American singer, songwriter, and actor whose career spanned 75 years, from his first concerts in 1930 with a marathon dance company to his final performance of "That's My Desire" in 2005. Often billed as "America's Number One Song Stylist", his other nicknames include "Mr. Rhythm", "Old Leather Lungs", and "Mr. Steel Tonsils". His hits included "That's My Desire", "That Lucky Old Sun", "Mule Train", "Cry of the Wild Goose", "A Woman In Love", "Jezebel", "High Noon"

Laine cut his first record in 1944, for a fledgling company called "Beltone Records." The sides were called "In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning", (an uptempo number not to be confused with the Frank Sinatra recording of the same name) and a wartime propaganda tune entitled "Brother, That's Liberty", though the records failed to make much of an impression. The label soon folded, and Laine was picked up by Atlas Records, a "race label" that initially hired him to imitate his friend Nat "King" Cole. Cole would occasionally "moonlight" for other labels, under pseudonyms, while under contract to "Capitol", and as he had previously recorded some sides for Atlas, they reasoned that fans would assume that "Frankie Laine" was yet another pseudonym for "Cole."  Laine cut his first two numbers for Atlas in the King mode, backed by R&B artist Johnny Moore's group, The Three Blazers which featured Charles Brown and Cole's guitarist (from "The King Cole Trio"), Oscar Moore. The ruse worked and the record sold moderately well, although limited to the "race" market. Laine cut the remainder of his songs for Atlas in his own style, including standards such as "Roses of Picardy" and "Moonlight in Vermont".  It was also at this time that he recorded a single for Mercury Records: "Pickle in the Middle with the Mustard on Top" and "I May Be Wrong (But I Think You're Wonderful)." He appears only as a character actor on the first side, which features the comedic singing of Artie Auerbach (a.k.a., "Mr. Kitzel") who was a featured player on the Jack Benny radio show. In it, Laine plays a peanut vendor at a ball game and can be heard shouting out lines like "It's a munchy, crunchy bag of lunchy!" The flip side features Laine, and is a jazzy version of an old standard done as a rhythm number. It was played by Laine's friend, disc jockey Al Jarvis, and gained the singer a small West Coast following.
QUESTION: Is there anything else interesting?
IN: Black Flag was an American punk rock band formed in 1976 in Hermosa Beach, California. Initially called Panic, the band was established by Greg Ginn, the guitarist, primary songwriter, and sole continuous member through multiple personnel changes in the band. They are widely considered to be one of the first hardcore punk bands as well as one of the pioneers of post-hardcore. After breaking up in 1986, Black Flag reunited in 2003 and again in 2013.

Despite 1984-85 being the most fruitful period for the band and their record label, Ginn and Rollins would ultimately decide to eject Roessler from Black Flag, citing erratic behavior. It has also been suggested that Ginn's accommodating Roessler's college schedule created tension in the band. Her absence, and the lack of a steady drummer (Stevenson quit and was replaced by Anthony Martinez), contributed to the comparatively weak reputation of the last few Black Flag tours. However, the live album Who's Got the 10 1/2 ? shows the evolving line-up, with Kira and drummer Martinez, to be a powerful and entertaining unit. Furthermore, various bootlegs of shows circulating from the 1986 tour, as well as the Dave Markey documentary Reality 86'd, show the Ginn/Rollins/Revuelta/Martinez lineup to be a ferocious and cohesive group.  By 1986, Black Flag's members had grown tired of the tensions of their relentless touring schedule, infighting, and of living in near-poverty. The band had been together almost a decade, and true commercial success and stability had eluded them. The band's erratic artistic changes were a barrier to their retaining an audience - Ginn was so creatively restless that Black Flag's albums were often very dissimilar. At one point, Rollins apparently said, "Why don't we make a record that was like the last one so people won't always be trying to catch up with what we're doing?" The next album, In My Head, with its powerful bluesy proto-grunge-metal, did seem to finally be a cohesive follow-up to their previous album Loose Nut, but it would be their last.  Black Flag played its final show on June 27, 1986, in Detroit, Michigan. In his book Get in the Van, Rollins wrote that Ginn telephoned him in August 1986: "He told me he was quitting the band. I thought that was strange considering it was his band and all. So in one short phone call, it was all over."
QUESTION:
What were the top recordings during this time?