* I have to admit that my favorite headline today comes from Ed Rogers: What Would Lee Atwater Do About Donald Trump?”
What’s not to love about the idea of unleashing the infamous Atwater on the current frontrunner in the Republican presidential primary? What’s even more fun is to imagine what Roger’s is essentially saying to the rest of the Republican field: “You’re a bunch of wimps compared to Atwater.”
More popcorn, please.
* Just in time to prove Rogers’ point comes this from the guy in charge of Jeb Bush’s Right to Rise superpac:
Hey @realDonaldTrump! Next time you are doing one of your one stop no Q&A events in Iowa, look out the window… pic.twitter.com/Dr7D1jVLtA
— mike murphy (@murphymike) January 7, 2016
Twitter is having a field day with that one.
— Adam Smith (@asmith83) January 7, 2016
* The Clinton campaign got some great news today. For the first time Planned Parenthood has endorsed a candidate in the presidential primaries.
Planned Parenthood, which has become an ideological minefield in the 2016 presidential election, said Thursday that it would endorse Hillary Clinton — its first endorsement in a presidential primary in the nonprofit’s 100-year existence.
…The decision to break with tradition and endorse Mrs. Clinton comes as the House has approved a measure, endorsed by the leading Republican presidential candidates, that would repeal parts of the Affordable Care Act and strip away federal financing for Planned Parenthood, which provides reproductive and health care services.
“Everything Planned Parenthood has believed in and fought for over the past 100 years is on the ballot,” said Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood.
* Claire Landsbaum writes that Bernie Sanders Literally Only Cares About Income Inequality. Here’s my favorite quote from the article:
Gutman [his former chief of staff] says Sanders used to have two interests: playing basketball and wealth inequality. Then he stopped playing basketball.
I suspect that’s exactly what Sanders’ supporters like about him.
* Finally, Rev. William Barber has written a powerful piece in the wake of the decision to not indict the Cleveland police officers who shot and killed Tamir Rice.
The first act of a free people must be to lament the painful reality of our world. This is the only path to liberation. We must mourn our collective refusal to even seek the truth before a jury with cross examination as a horrendous hypocrisy that will haunt the American soul until we repent and change our wicked ways.
We must grieve the two seconds in which a child was accused, tried, convicted, and sentenced to death by a system that, upon appeal, upheld the “lower court’s” decision.
We must curse the mockery of equal justice which proclaims that black death does not matter.
