Only two years later, Ivins would be writing an obituary. Barbara Jordan died on January 17, 1996, in Austin, Texas, after many years battling multiple sclerosis and leukemia.
In “Eloquent Barbara Jordan: A Great Spirit Has Left Us,” Ivins wrote, “Her great baritone voice was so impressive that her colleagues in the Legislature used to joke that if Hollywood ever needed someone to be the voice of the Lord Almighty, only Jordan would do.”
In “The Making of Barbara Jordan,” columnist and screenwriter Bill Broyles wrote about the reaction to her voice:
On hearing it for the first time, one awed young woman said, “I turned on my television set and thought I was listening to God.” It sounds, as Congressman Andrew Young of Georgia says, “like the heavens have opened up.”
Beyond the impact of her voice, and the impact of her presence on the national stage—during the impeachment of Richard Nixon in 1974, and keynoting at the Democratic National Convention in 1976—she has left us both the legacy of her words and the example of her deeds. As we celebrate the first week of Women’s History Month 2016, join me in honoring the life and work of Barbara Charline Jordan.
An accurate depiction of the current state of the Republican Party. I believe the one with the tail is Ted Cruz.
An accurate depiction of the current state of the Republican Party. I believe the one with the tail is Ted Cruz.
I feel like I should put a notice on this APR.
WARNING: the contents here are high in Donald J. Trump. People who have more than half a brain have determined that exposure to Donald J. Trump, in even moderate doses, is bad for your temper, can cause sleeplessness, frustration, despair, ennui, rage, and a conviction that the world has already been loaded into one ugly, hairy, spray-tanned handbasket for that final trip to hell.
Seriously, industrial-sized doses of melatonin and keeping your eyes closed until November might be the best thing. Just don’t oversleep. You’ll need to drag yourself to the polls to be sure that the nation isn’t in for a thin coating of cheap gold paint. Or possibly to thwart The Handmaid Ted before he replaces the Constitution with select pages from The Crucible.
So… sorry to hear you’re awake. Fortunately, at least some of the writing this morning is really, really good.
FORMER U.S. SEN. GEORGE VOINOVICH QUOTED IN ‘THE NEW NEW DEAL’ BY MICHAEL GRUNWALD
The “he” is President Obama. The “we” is the Republican Party. And it is not coincidental that as the former pushes toward the end of his second term, the latter is coming apart.
The GOP is an incoherent mess. Republican-on-Republican rhetorical violence has become commonplace. Party members find themselves mulling whether to break away and form a third party or unite behind a coarse, blustering bigot whose scapegoating and strongman rhetoric has Holocaust survivors comparing him to Hitler.
Yes. Of course. An ex-friggin’-xactly. It’s precisely the path that the GOP selected for “victory,” the path that started with “the nine most terrifying words” and which runs through “eighty years of precedent” that leads straight to Trump.
The situation is so objectively and transparently grim that many on the right no longer even bother to spin it. “I’m a lifelong Republican,” tweeted historian Max Boot last week, “but [Donald] Trump surge proves that every bad thing Democrats have ever said about GOP is basically true.”
“It would be terrible,” wrote Wall Street Journal columnist Bret Stephens last week, “to think that the left was right about the right all these years.”
I hate to… no I don’t. I told you so. Everyone told you so. Because it was immediately obvious to the most casual observer.
Michael Grunwald distilled the GOP’s thinking as follows: “As long as Republicans refused to follow his lead, Americans would see partisan food fights and conclude that Obama had failed to produce change.”
Republicans and their media accomplices buttressed that strategy with a campaign of insult and disrespect designed to delegitimize Obama.
Leonard Pitts writes some of the finest regular columns of our time, but this one is timeless. Go read it. Put down the muffin. Read it now.
And yes, there’s more of Trump stuff inside, and I’m sadly all out of sloth-buckets. Come on in anyway.
Yes, Jan Brewer's still singing that tune, long after immigration has declined, border crime is down, deportations are up, and some Arizona employers can't find workers because so many Latinos have left the state.
Yes, Jan Brewer's still singing that tune, long after immigration has declined, border crime is down, deportations are up, and some Arizona employers can't find workers because so many Latinos have left the state.
Jan Brewer won the Arizona gubernatorial race in 2010, not because she was the most qualified, but because on April 23 of that year she signed SB 1070, the “papers please” law, in the wake of the 2009-2010 Year of Hate. Until she locked arms with the racist Arpaio-Pearce wing of the Arizona GOP, a Brewer victory was not certain. In fact, a year before the election she trailed former Phoenix Mayor and Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard by 10 points or more.
But as the tea party pustule festered nationwide, Brewer tied her political future to the disruptive bigotry playing out on our TV screens. Almost nightly we watched far-right, raging voters scream at, shout down and threaten Democratic candidates at town halls. These astroturf protests, orchestrated by a number of conservative causes, stoked the embers of hate that resulted in Donald Trump. And now they’re trying to stop the monster they created. Screw ‘em.
In Arizona that kind of organized hate is old hat. With authoritarian bigots like Sheriff Joe Arpaio and Sen. Russell Pearce in charge, and County Attorney Andrew Thomas sanctioning their racism, the 2009-10 chaos was cranked up to 11 here, and papers-please-embracing Jan Brewer rode that wave of vitriol right into the governor’s office, defeating Terry by 12 points, even after her disastrous PBS debate where 16 seconds of deer-meet-headlights went viral.
Kowtowing to the crazy that elected her, Gov. Brewer continued to spew hateful BS about immigrants during her term. She lied about headless bodies in the desert, and she cozied up to extremist bozos in the militia movement, even suggesting that the state give dangerous white supremacist nutballs like J.T. Ready a badge and authority to continue his hatin’ on Mexicans. (Ready eventually murdered a family of four before offing himself.)
Voters in several states are casting ballots in the race for president today, with a wide range of starting times (for caucuses) and closing times (for primaries) scattered throughout the day. You can use this thread to chat about the returns as they come in. Note: All times listed below are Eastern.
Results:
Kansas caucuses (3 PM ET for Republicans, 4 PM ET for Democrats)
Kentucky caucuses, Republicans only (4 PM ET in the eastern half of the state, 5 PM in the western)
Where we’re at: The AP has called Louisiana for Clinton, where she’s won by a healthy margin, while calling both Kansas and Nebraska for Sanders.
For the GOP, the AP has called Maine and Kansas for Cruz, and Louisiana for Trump. However, since Louisiana was called, Cruz has made up considerable ground: According to the Secretary of State’s website, Cruz trails Trump by only 42-38 with 79% reporting, indicating a big shift as the bean-counters have moved on from absentee to election day ballots. It might not be enough to see this race being un-called by the AP or the major networks, but it’s definitely something to keep an eye on.
Meanwhile, we’re still waiting on a call for the GOP contest in Kentucky. Currently, Trump is leading Cruz by a 35-31 margin, with 63% reporting.
Whoomp — there it is! The AP has called the hard-fought Kentucky caucuses for Donald Trump. He’s currently up by 35-31 over Ted Cruz, with Marco Rubio looking increasingly hapless at 17%.
We speculated earlier about the possibility of Louisiana being un-called by the AP, but at least one other major outlet is feeling confident enough to affirm a Trump victory there: ABC News just called the state for Trump, as well.
Alright, folks. The Daily Kos Elections team is calling it a night. What a wild ride: Rubio on the verge of total collapse, Cruz rejuvenated, and Trump still the front runner by a huge margin. I can live with that!
You would think Denny would have trouble getting in so much… trouble, all in just one of Rask’s short days. Though some previous episodes have only edged 2,000 words, this week is better than 12,000. That’s a lot of Whetsday. In fact, there’s about a fifth of the book in this single episode.
But there’s a reward if you make your way through it. Two rewards. No, three!
First off, tonight has not one, but two new examples of Amy Jones’ fantastic sketches for On Whetsday. I’m telling you, it was worth the effort of writing the thing just to see these images.
And then there’s… something else. Lurking. Way down there. Twelve thousand words under the break. But you have to read all of the in between stuff to get there. No skipping.
Though I tell you what. I’ll make you a deal. If you’d rather not read all that, you can listen to the audio version read for you by genuine actor, Raymond Shinn, a man who has been on a real stage, making with the words.
Okay, I know I can trust you. Flip the switch, it’s time to start the show.
Voters in several states are casting ballots in the race for president today, with a wide range of starting times (for caucuses) and closing times (for primaries) scattered throughout the day. You can use this thread to chat about the returns as they come in. Note: All times listed below are Eastern.
Results:
Kansas caucuses (3 PM ET for Republicans, 4 PM ET for Democrats)
Kentucky caucuses, Republicans only (4 PM ET in the eastern half of the state, 5 PM in the western)
A 6th win for Ted Cruz: The Maine Republican Party announced the full results during a live event, and Cruz received 46 percent of the vote, ahead of Trump's 32.6 percent and Kasich's 12.2 percent. The big story: Marco Rubio only received 8 percent. That is below the state's modest 10 percent viability threshold, so the Florida Senator will receive none of the state’s 23 delegates.
Bernie Sanders has won the Nebraska caucuses, per NBC News’s projection. This is his second win of the night, after the Kansas caucuses. In Nebraska, Sanders is leading 54.8 percent to 45.2 percent with 75 percent of precincts reporting.
Donald Trump gets his first win of the day: the AP has called the Louisiana primary as a victory for him. It could be a comfortable one: Trump is leading with 47.7 percent of the vote in early returns.
To summarize the AP calls so far: Clinton has won Louisiana by a healthy margin, while dropping Kansas and Nebraska to Sanders.
For the GOP, the AP has called Maine and Kansas for Cruz, and Louisiana for Trump. However, since Louisiana was called, Cruz has made up considerable ground: According to the Secretary of State’s website, Cruz trails Trump by only 42-37, indicating a big shift as the bean-counters have moved on from absentee to election day ballots. Could we possibly see this race being un-called by the AP or the major networks?
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