Remembering Barbara Jordan
Commentary by Black Kos Editor Deoliver47
Some of you may not have been born on July 25th 1974, or were too young at the time to have been involved in politics. That date, was the day that the world sat up and took note of Barbara Jordan, though many of us were already familiar with her history, her roots and her imposing presence.
It was on that day, in Congress that she made her Statement on the Articles of Impeachment, regarding President Richard Nixon, to the House Judiciary Committee.
"My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total and I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminuation, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution.... It is reason and not passion which must guide our deliberations, guide our debate, and guide our decision."
- Testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, July 25, 1974
Barbara Jordan on Impeachment, July 25, 1974
She opened with these words:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, I join my colleague Mr. Rangel in thanking you for giving the junior members of this committee the glorious opportunity of sharing the pain of this inquiry. Mr. Chairman, you are a strong man, and it has not been easy but we have tried as best we can to give you as much assistance as possible.
Earlier today, we heard the beginning of the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States: "We, the people." It's a very eloquent beginning. But when that document was completed on the seventeenth of September in 1787, I was not included in that "We, the people." I felt somehow for many years that George Washington and Alexander Hamilton just left me out by mistake. But through the process of amendment, interpretation, and court decision, I have finally been included in "We, the people." Today I am an inquisitor. An hyperbole would not be fictional and would not overstate the solemnness that I feel right now. My faith in the Constitution is whole; it is complete; it is total. And I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction, of the Constitution.
"Who can so properly be the inquisitors for the nation as the representatives of the nation themselves?" "The subjects of its jurisdiction are those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men." And that's what we're talking about. In other words, [the jurisdiction comes] from the abuse or violation of some public trust.
Barbara Jordan addresses the Conference on Women in Public Life. This event was sponsored by the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs. City: Austin State: Texas Country: United States Date: 1975/11/11
What she had to say then, propelled her to be selected as the first black woman to give the keynote address at a Democratic National Convention, in 1976.
Barbara Charline Jordan
1976 Democratic National Convention Keynote Address
delivered 12 July 1976, New York, NY
Let us go back and explore how this woman, this black woman was able to rise from humble beginnings in a racially divided society to national prominence. She born under Jim Crow, and her schooling up through college took place under segregation.
A bio of her early years:
Barbara Jordan was born in the Fifth Ward of Houston, Texas to a Black Baptist minister, Benjamin Jordan, and a domestic worker, Arlyne Jordan. She attended Roberson Elementary and Phyllis Wheatley High School. While at Wheatley, she was a member of the Honor Society and excelled in debating. She graduated in 1952 in the upper five percent of her class. She wanted to study political science at the University of Texas-Austin, but was discouraged because the school was still segregated.
She attended Texas Southern University and pledged Delta Sigma Theta Sorority. Barbara was a national champion debater, defeating her opponents from such schools as Yale and Brown and tying Harvard University.In 1956, she graduated magna cum laude from Texas Southern with a double major in political science and history. She expressed an interest in attending Harvard University School of Law, but opted to go to Boston University and graduated in 1959. Ms. Jordan taught political science at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama for one year before returning to Houston in 1960 to take the bar examination and set up a private law practice. She ran for a seat in the Texas House of Representatives in 1962 and 1964, but lost both times.... however, she made history when she was elected to the newly drawn Texas Senate seat in 1966, thereby becoming the first Black to serve in that body since 1883. She was an oddity at that time, as the first Black woman in that state's legislature. Her brief record in the Texas State Senate is viewed as somewhat of a phenomenon. On March 21, 1967 she became the first Black elected official to preside over that body; she was the first Black state senator to chair a major committee, Labor and Management Relations, and the first freshman senator ever named to the Texas Legislative Council.
When the Texas legislature convened in special session in March, 1972, Senator Jordan was unanimously elected president pro tempore. In June of that year, she was honored by being named Governor for a Day. Shortly, thereafter she decided to run for Congress and was elected, in Nov. 1972, from the newly drawn Eighteenth Congressional District in Houston.
Here is an interesting interview with her conducted at the University of Texas. It provides a glimpse into her views on life's obstacles. Jordan, a staunch feminist, actually saw that her being female in that time period, was a greater obstacle than being black - to becoming a lawyer. There were black law schools at the time, but across the nation no matter whether the schools were white or black, there were few women among the student bodies or graduates.
Interview – 1992
Though retired from her role as a Congresswoman, Jordan was again called upon by her Party to deliver another keynote address at the national convention - this time, in 1992.
The 1992 National Convention of the U.S. Democratic Party nominated Governor Bill Clinton of Arkansas for President and Senator Al Gore of Tennessee for Vice President; Clinton announced Gore as his running-mate on July 9, 1992. The convention was held at Madison Square Garden in New York City, New York from July 13 to July 16, 1992. The Clinton-Gore ticket then faced and defeated incumbents George H. W. Bush and Dan Quayle in the 1992 presidential election.
The convention's keynote speaker was former Texas Representative Barbara Jordan, who had also keynoted the party's 1976 convention. Other notable speakers included Democratic National Committee Chair Ron Brown, Elizabeth Glaser, and governors Mario Cuomo (NY) and Zell Miller (GA)
Barbara Jordan speech at the DNC, 1992 - Part 1
Barbara Jordan speech at the DNC, 1992 - Part 2
Books:
For those of you who teach or who have young people in the family I would like to recommend this book for young readers as an excellent introduction to Jordan:
Barbara Jordan: Breaking the Barriers by Ann Fears Crawford
For adult readers, I would suggest this biography:
Barbara Jordan: Speaking the Truth with Eloquent Thunder
Revered by Americans across the political spectrum, Barbara Jordan was "the most outspoken moral voice of the American political system," in the words of former President Bill Clinton, who awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1994. Throughout her career as a Texas senator, U.S. congresswoman, and distinguished professor at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, Barbara Jordan lived by a simple creed: "Ethical behavior means being honest, telling the truth, and doing what you said you were going to do." Her strong stand for ethics in government, civil liberties, and democratic values still provides a standard around which the nation can unite in the twenty-first century.
This volume brings together several major political speeches that articulate Barbara Jordan's most deeply held values. They include: "Erosion of Civil Liberties," a commencement address delivered at Howard University on May 12, 1974, in which Jordan warned that "tyranny in America is possible" "The Constitutional Basis for Impeachment," Jordan's ringing defense of the U.S. Constitution before the House Judiciary Committee investigating the Watergate break-in Keynote addresses to the Democratic National Conventions of 1976 and 1992, in which Jordan set forth her vision of the Democratic Party as an advocate for the common good and a catalyst of change Testimony in the U.S. Congress on the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork and on immigration reform Meditations on faith and politics from two National Prayer Breakfasts Acceptance speech for the 1995 Sylvanus Thayer Award presented by the Association of Graduates of the United States Military Academy, in which Jordan challenged the military to uphold the values of "duty, honor, country" Accompanying the speeches, some of which readers can also watch on an enclosed DVD, are context-setting introductions by volume editor Max Sherman. The book concludes with the eloquent eulogy that Bill Moyers delivered at Barbara Jordan's memorial service in 1996, in which he summed up Jordan's remarkable life and career by saying, "Just when we despaired of finding a hero, she showed up, to give the sign of democracy. . . . This is no small thing. This, my friends, this is grace. And for it we are thankful."
Here is one critics view of two biographies of Jordan:
Austin Chronicle Two Bios of Barbara
By Clay Smith FEBRUARY 15, 1999:
Mary Beth Rogers' biography of Barbara Jordan, Barbara Jordan: American Hero, is what a biography of Jordan should be: tinged with awareness that any life story of so stoic a woman, whose ability to cohesively school the nation, and yet who could be so gravely forbidding, particularly in shielding her private life from her public one, must counter that public persona with a peek behind the seemingly impenetrable curtain Jordan constructed around herself. What did the woman who rained down her masterful verbal thunder upon President Nixon during the Watergate hearings do when she went home? Was she lonely, this big black woman about whom one Texas lobbyist remarked, "she looks like she might be God, if God turns out to be a black woman"? What was it like for Jordan when all the world wanted a piece of her? Did she take her coffee with sugar and cream?
Thankfully, Rogers covers the details. It's just that she doesn't cover precisely the same ones as Austin Teutsch, a Republican who ran for mayor in Austin in 1991. On page one and throughout the rest of his slim, fawning biography, Barbara Jordan: The Biography (which ought to be called Barbara Jordan: The Panegyric), Teutsch refers to Jordan as a lesbian. Page one states in part that "[Jordan] stood up for the underdog, constantly opposed prejudice against race, religion or sexual orientation, which was commendable considering the fact that Barbara was gay and her lifetime companion was a white woman, Nancy Earl." Nancy Earl shows up in Rogers' biography, too -- she shares a house with Jordan and is one of two people allowed by Jordan to know the full extent of her tragic illnesses -- but she comes off more like a friend, a particularly close one.
In the introduction to American Hero, Rogers explains that "Jordan had the audacity to believe her life was nobody's business. ... But her penchant for privacy was often misunderstood, and it fueled a certain kind of malicious speculation. What was she hiding? The question seemed to be most intriguing to those who sought personal gain at her expense, or those whose stock in trade was unsubstantiated gossip -- particularly in the area of sexual relationships. Speculation on the sex lives of public figures is a popular pastime. I declined to do that in my work on Barbara Jordan. Yet in two years of research for this book, there was one clear fact that emerged from almost every experience or relationship in her life: Barbara Jordan was soulmates with no one but herself and her God, and even her concept of God was truly her own private territory." (It should be made clear that Rogers is not accusing Teutsch of "speculation" in her introduction; although he published his biography before she did, she stated during a recent interview on C-SPAN 2's Book TV that she was not aware of the Teutsch biography while writing American Hero.)
In 1979 Jordan published her autobiography:
Jordan's name was reportedly on Jimmy Carter's list for the Supreme Court, but that was not to be. She was in very poor health.
Barbara Jordan suffered from a number of ailments in her later years, including a form of multiple sclerosis, and was confined to a wheelchair. She succumbed to pneumonia and leukemia in Austin on January 17, 1996, and is buried in the State Cemetery in Austin. On January 28, 1996, Jordan's friend Bill Moyers delivered the eulogy at a memorial service held on the campus of UT Austin. Her papers are housed at the Barbara Jordan Archives at Texas Southern University.
Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee delivered a wonderful eulogy for Jordan on the floor of the House, a week after her death. Here are excerpts:
...
Congresswoman Jordan began her public career as a Texas State Senator. Might I say to you, she was a first then, for there had never been an African-American in the Texas Senate, and she stood tall and proud. Her voice, although eloquent and resonating throughout the halls, was full of passion, and she felt compelled to represent those,
the least of her sisters and brothers, individuals who might never have gone outside of the realm of their neighborhood, who might not be able to read or write, did not have a job. She has spoken on behalf of small businesses. She was very concerned about civil rights, employment discrimination, equality and justice, even in the Texas Senate. She
served her country with great distinction as a Member of Congress and chairwoman of the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform. Her extraordinary impact on our country will be felt for many generations.
...
During her tenure in Congress, Congresswoman Barbara Jordan was a leader on issues relating to voting rights, consumer protection, energy, and the environment. Might I add that she was particularly forceful in including language minorities in the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which then covered Texas, and also allowed for Hispanics and others to be included so that they would have equal justice under the law as right, and have full participation in this Nation, and a full part of this Constitution.
...
After retiring from Congress, Congresswoman Jordan was appointed a distinguished professor at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. This position enabled her to have a major influence on the next generation of public officials. She impressed her students with her intellect and ability to inspire them to achieve excellence in the classroom, and to be committed to public service. Mr. Speaker, Barbara Jordan was buried on January 20, 1996. She was buried at the Texas National Cemetery. She was the first African-American in the history of the national State cemetery to be buried there, in her death a first, but making a statement that she was laid to rest among Texas heroes. They benefited because an American hero was laid to rest with them. As I stood on the burial ground and participated in that ceremony, it was an overwhelming feeling, for it came to me that we lost her too early. This was reinforced when one of her students came up to me, stood next to me and said ``I know you.'' And I said ``Yes? And who are you?'' ``I'm a student. I was taught by the honorable professor Barbara Jordan.'' I said ``How interesting. You have a great experience to cherish.'' She said, ``Yes, and in her classroom, she talked a lot about you.'' Both of us, touched very much at that time, just stood and embraced, for this was a woman who was not afraid of sharing herself and others, and she was not afraid of young people. She loved them. She wanted to give to them, and in them, she saw the opportunity for love and caring and the future.
Barbara Jordan Statue Unveiling
Students initiated efforts resulting in the commission and installation of a statue of Barbara Jordan, who became the first female public figure honored on the university campus in its history.
The idea to erect a statue of Barbara Jordan on The University of Texas at Austin campus emerged from discussions held among the members of the Fall 2002 Orange Jackets' tappee class. These students were concerned about the need for a female statue on campus. As an educator and public servant, the name Barbara Jordan quickly emerged to the top of the list as a female role model who had a lasting impact on the lives of all who were fortunate to share her knowledge and insight. Having been a professor within The University's LBJ School of Public Affairs, Ms. Jordan influenced not only the students enrolled in her class, but also other members of the UT-Austin community who had the honor of working with her to create a more inclusive society that served all of its members.
Her powerful voice will forever echo down the corridors of time, guiding new generations of young people to follow in her footsteps.
Thank you Ms. Jordan.
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News by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
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In St. Louis city & St. Louis County, there are seven zip codes – all of which have predominantly Black populations – that do not have a single full-service bank branch. Those populations total 102,219. Black and unbanked in St. LouisSt. Louis American:
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From 2007 to 2009, bank lending to low-income and minority communities in the St. Louis area declined while lending to upper-income and white communities increased significantly, according to a report released last week.
In the Equal Housing Opportunity Council’s report “Redlined: A Fair Lending Analysis of the St. Louis Metropolitan Area,” researchers found that lending to low-income neighborhoods has decreased by over 60 percent, and lending to upper-income neighborhoods has increased by 46 percent.
Predominantly minority communities have seen a decrease in lending by 68 percent, compared to a 24 percent increase in lending to white-populated areas. These predominately minority communities have significantly less access to bank services and branches.
In St. Louis city and St. Louis County, there are seven zip codes – all of which have predominantly African-American populations – that do not have a single full-service bank branch. These unbanked zip codes have a total combined population of 102,219.
In contrast, six zip codes with predominantly white populations have at least one bank for every 1,500 persons.
African-American borrowers have also experienced a significant decrease in lending. Since 2007, lending to African Americans decreased by nearly 50 percent, while lending to white borrowers increased by 22 percent.
Loan originations to African-American borrowers represent only 4.73 percent of all loan originations in 2009, compared to the 17 percent of black households in the metro area.
African-American borrowers and neighborhoods are still more likely to be denied a loan and are still more likely to receive a high-interest loan than a white borrower or neighborhood, according to the report.
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The push to eliminate the power of public unions to bargain collectively, as the GOP is trying to do in Wisconsin, can disproportionately affect black workers. Here's why. The Root: Gutting Unions Hurts the Black Middle Class
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"The Fabulous 14."
That's what Rozalia Harris and other members of the Milwaukee teachers union call the renegade Democratic state senators who fled Wisconsin on Feb. 17 to stop a vote on a proposed spending plan that includes restrictions on collective bargaining by public workers. "We are grateful to the Fabulous 14 because their willingness to put their jobs on the line has helped raise awareness of the problem of the proposed collective bargaining restrictions," Harris, a third-grade teacher and vice president of the Milwaukee Teachers' Education Association, the largest in Wisconsin, told The Root. "Without them, it might have sailed through the Legislature and no one would have been the wiser until it was time to sit at the bargaining table."
Unfortunately, the Fabulous 14's flight wasn't enough to stop the Wisconsin Legislature from passing the bill to eliminate collective bargaining rights for most public workers. The state Senate found a way to pass the bill without the Democratic senators Wednesday night, and the state Assembly voted in favor of the measure on Thursday. Gov. Scott Walker has vowed to sign the measure.
The fight in Wisconsin has drawn international attention to a trend that Democrats say is a push by Republicans to dismantle public unions. The move is alarming to African-American leaders such as Harris and the NAACP because a disproportionate number of public-union members are African American.
"It's quite significant that 25 percent of African-American college graduates work in the public sector and are represented by public-sector unions," Hilary O. Shelton, the NAACP's Washington-bureau director and senior vice president for advocacy, told The Root. In support of workers, last weekend celebrities and other attendees of the NAACP Image Awards in Los Angeles wore red-white-and-blue ribbons.
Demonstrators at the Wisconsin State Capitol, March 5, 2011 (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
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The AP reports that disparities are growing between graduation rates for white and black players at schools in the men's NCAA basketball tournament. AP:
Racial Graduation Disparity is 'Staggering' for NCAA Athletes
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A study released Monday shows growing disparity between graduation rates for white and black players at schools in the men's NCAA basketball tournament.
An annual report by the University of Central Florida's Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport found a 2 percent overall graduation rate increase to 66 percent for Division I players, but showed the rates for white players is increasing at a higher rate.
The gap has grown from 22 percent in 2009 to a current level of 32 percent. White players show a 91 percent graduation rate, which is up 7 percent. Black players have a graduation rate at 59 percent, up 3 percent from last year's study. This is the third straight year the gap has increased.
Richard Lapchick, the institute director and primary author of the study, said the gap makes it hard to celebrate the overall progress.
"To say that it's troubling is an understatement," Lapchick said.
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Signs of slavery abound around Charleston, but until the 1990s they were often missing from museums there. New York Times: Emancipating History
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Here, in this lovely town, once one of the most prosperous in the American colonies, there is no escape.
In the Old Slave Mart Museum that opened in 2007, you read: “You’re standing in the actual showroom, the place where traders sold — and buyers bought — American blacks who were born into slavery.”
Or go to Drayton Hall, a local plantation hewn out of the Low Country landscape by hundreds of slaves, who also made its rice fields so profitable. At a clearing in the woods near the entrance, you see an information panel and a memorial arch: this was a “burying ground,” used at least as early as the 1790s, where the plantation’s slaves buried their dead.
Or drive to Boone Hall, another local plantation, which you approach through an avenue of moss-draped ancient oaks that leads visitors to the main house: you see a row of rare brick slave dwellings, placed so no visitor could have missed the immense wealth in human chattel. At one time, these one-room homes were joined by others on each side of the road, creating corridors of the enslaved, ushering guests to the master’s domain.
Or walk into the almost Italianate backyard of the Aiken-Rhett House in town, in which William Aiken Jr., who served as South Carolina’s governor, lived in the mid-19th century. Listen to the audio tour explaining that this was a work yard, and that such yards “were part of every town house in Charleston in the first half of the 19th century and were the domain of slaves.”
The house, together with the yards, we learn, “is referred to as an urban plantation.” And though Aiken was, by all accounts, an enlightened master (and an opponent of South Carolina’s secession), he was also the third-largest slaveholder in South Carolina.
Slavery and its heritage are everywhere here. Charleston was one of the main colonial ports of the 18th century, dealing in rice, indigo and slaves. In 1860 South Carolina held as many slaves as Georgia and Virginia, which were at least twice its size. The genteel grace and European travels of its wealthy citizens were made possible by the enslavement of about half the population.
So on a recent visit, I searched for a public display of an understanding of that American past and its legacy. After all, is there any more vexed aspect of this country’s history than its embrace and tolerance of slavery? And is there any aspect of its past that has been less well served in museums, exhibitions and memorials?
Anne McQuary for The New York Times
The brick slave quarters along an avenue of oak trees greet visitors to Boone Hall Plantation.
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Racism is everywhere -- including virtual communities on the Internet. A panel at the SXSW Interactive conference in Austin, Texas, examines the changing nature of online racial identity. The Root: E-Racism: SXSW Panel Examines Prejudice in Online Gaming
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An iconic 1993 cartoon published in the New Yorker summarized the appeal of the emerging online space: "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog." The sketch captured the idea that real-world constraints would fall away, and participation in the new digital era was open to all, even the family pet.
Nearly 18 years after the cartoon's publication, the Internet has become a part of everyday life for most Americans. However, the promise of liberation from personal identity has developed a caveat: You can be whoever you want, as long as you aren't black.
At the SXSW conference in Austin, Texas (March 11-20), the intersection of online identity and racism was explored in a panel called "E-Race: Avatars, Anonymity and the Virtualization of Identity." Jeff Yang, who writes the "Asian Pop" column for the San Francisco Chronicle, organized and opened the panel, remarking that we are at the dawn of a new era.
Racial identity is becoming more malleable than ever before, as mixed-race and minority populations are steadily increasing and changing the American demographic. At the same time, our online selves are becoming larger reflections of who we are in the real world -- but why is that occurring? Yang asked Wagner James Au -- an expert on the virtual avatar community Second Life, and the pioneer of digital racial studies -- and Lisa Nakamura, a professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, to reflect on the changing nature of online racial identity.
The panel set out to explore a key theme: "What does the ability to hide or disguise identity mean in particular for the experience of race -- and racism -- online?" Counter to common assumptions, the ability to camouflage one's race online doesn't equal liberation from racism. In fact, since the default person online is assumed to be white and male, revealing yourself to be racially different often prompts other users to lash out.
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Voices and Soul
by Justice Putnam
Black Kos Tuesday's Chile, Poetry Editor
I'm going to do something a bit different this week. I'm going to post one of my original works; it is a short story of a dystopian universe in the not-distant future, that you may find unsettling in its familiarity; of a theocratic oligarchy masquerading as the United States. But reported by my fictional, former war correspondent alter-ego, Gerry Bronco.
The story speaks for itself.
NEW WRECK TIMES
Baby Killer Mom Executed At Federal Prison
The Faces of Our Nation
Special Edition
Senior Travel Editor
Gerry Bronco
Topeka, Kansas -- Lenore Michelle, who sought an abortion after being impregnated by a rapist in a violent attack, was executed in a Secret Federal Prison at 12:05 am today. Convicted under the extension of the Leave No Child Behind Act of 2013 that outlawed all abortions in the US, Mrs. Michelle ran out of appeals fifteen minutes before her execution.
In a sad sidebar, her unborn fetus that was the result of the rape died during the execution process.
Lenore Michelle, nee Lenore Jackson, age 32 was the first woman executed under the provisions of the Act. Several thousand more sentences are awaiting execution dates; with several hundred thousand more in the hearing stage.
A secret emergency order signed by President Huckabee late last week seeks to streamline the hearing process so execution dates will correspond more efficiently with Religious and Natural Holidays.
"It is every woman's sacred duty to sacrifice their own lives to bear the children God has chosen them for," Vice President Steven King said during his weekly radio address, "that is why I insisted on the provisions of the Leave No Child Behind Act. Every child is sacred and a gift from God. The Act simply codified when that child is protected under US Law."
The Leave No Child Behind Act Extension of 2013 specifies the beginning of life, otherwise known as conception, to be the first ovulation that a woman experiences. By Executive decree, that was determined to be when a woman is twelve years old. To attempt to terminate a pregnancy for any reason was a mandatory sentence of death. The Mandatory Sentence Act of 2012, that was inserted in a bill already voted on during the lame duck administration, was cited by the John Roberts Supreme Court™ as judicial precedent for the Federal Mandatories that became part of the Act Extension.
Mrs. Michelle sought an abortion two weeks after the violent attack at her office in late December. Mandated by an Executive signing statement that demands all gynecological questions and procedures; including menstruation, miscarriages and prescriptions to be reviewed by the Total Awareness Agency®, Mrs. Michelle was arrested two days later. Her rapist was never apprehended as the investigation moved to the crimes of Mrs. Michelle.
The wife of a creole sous chef, Jacques Michelle, Mrs. Michelle was the office manager of a small auto repair shop when she was raped and beaten while alone at the business.
When it was discovered that Mrs. Michelle was pregnant with the rapist's child, Christian hospital personnel hired by the James O'Keefe Center For Journalistic Strategies® secretly recorded her demanding an abortion. The tape was reviewed by the TAA® and Mrs. Michelle's arrest, trial, sentencing and execution were the fastest recorded in US history.
"That just shows the efficiency of the Act Extension," White House Spokeswoman Dana Perino said today. One of many experts from a previous administration, Miss Perino explained further, "Without the Federal Mandatories, some of these trials would have taken years to resolve in executions, instead of the weeks it takes now. Is that efficiency, or what?"
When asked about rumors of protests over the execution, Miss Perino replied,
"It is the duty of the press to report the good news and the good news is that this woman got just what she deserved."
When reminded that the unborn fetus was killed during the execution, Miss Perino sternly read from a prepared script,
"Who is to say what makes us sinners and when sin first begins. But we are all sinners and we will all be judged."
© 2008 and 2011 by Justice Putnam
and Mechanisches-Strophe Verlagswesen
(I've pledged the minimum $150 to help heat freezing folks in need on the Rosebud Reservation. Navajo has an important diary posted with all the particulars. Even a small amount can work towards building the minimum. Could you please help? Thanks! --JP)
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