For the last week, we have been trying to run down rumors of Gov. Kay Ivey's health taking a bad turn. She has made no public appearances and her office refuses to say where she is. 🧵al.com/news/2022/08/w…
Beginning last Thursday, I sent direct questions to her spokesperson. No answers. I called her chief of staff and left a voicemail and text messages. No reply.
2.
Throughout the day last Friday, I called the main line at the governor's office five times. No one answered the MAIN LINE.
3.
Subsequent attempts to get any kind of comment from Ivey's office have yielded the same non-result. Other reporters and state officials have hit the same wall. We're now a week into this, and nothing.
4.
The governor's office needs to say what's going on. They've had ample opportunity, but they think by not giving us anything, we won't be able to report anything.
5.
That strategy has worked. Until now.
6.
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A little backstory ... The Alabama Democratic Party has been trapped in political dysfunction for years, to the point where the DNC had to intervene. At the center of this circus was party chair Nancy Worley, and party boss Joe Reed. 2/ al.com/news/2019/10/d…
Worley and Reed clung to power by making up rules during executive committee meetings or ignoring rules that were on the books. Worley was last elected chair when there were more votes than there were committee members signed up to vote.
3/
Mo Brooks: “It’s quite clear that Donald Trump has no loyalty to anyone or anything but himself." 🧵 al.com/news/2022/06/w…
2. I asked Mo Brooks whether Trump has betrayed Trumpism. He almost wrote my column for me.
3. I called Katie Britt to ask her to answer Brooks' two big questions: Does she think the election was rigged and does she think Donald Trump won? Rather than speak the words herself she insisted on having her spokesman email me a statement.
This is a lesson in how real media bias works. It takes things that are uncommon and makes them seem common. It ignores the common, even when horrible. It distorts our vision. And it has little to do with politics. bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…
The consequence is that people believe the NY subway is dangerous, when you can count the murders on your hands, and all deaths with a box of match sticks. Among 5m weekday riders, that ain’t bad. 2/x
Meanwhile Alabama has nearly 1K traffic fatalities each year among about 5m people. 3/x.
The first thing you see while ascending the Alabama Capitol steps is the visage of a man from Mississippi. He lived here for three months while Montgomery was briefly the Confederate capital. Today is a state holiday in his honor. Yes, we still do this. 🧵
Montgomery was the capital of the Confederacy for all of three months, but if you've ever visited that old building on Goat Hill, you might think it was the only thing that ever happened there. 2/x al.com/news/2022/01/a…
While digging through Marie Bankhead Owen's papers, I found a back-and-forth among the Daughters of the Confederacy debating how best to honor Davis, eventually settling on that statue. 3/x al.com/news/2022/02/h…
Something very serious is happening in Alabama and there's no way to tell what the heck it is. Someone has given @kayiveyforgov $2 million. It's a secret. 🧵 al.com/news/2022/05/w…
This isn't piddly money in an Alabama election. It's one out of every four dollars Ivey has raised. I tried to shame the folks involved into fessing up. They won't say. 2/x al.com/news/2022/05/1…
The size of this money is a big clue. There are only so many folks with an interest in AL politics with millions to give. The old "Big Mules" are more discreet. Jimmy Rane doesn't give a damn. He puts his name on his money. 3/x
Someone is trying to buy Kay Ivey. You deserve to know who it is. 🧵 al.com/news/2022/05/1…
Virginia-based dark money group Get Families Back to Work has donated $1.75 million to Kay Ivey's campaign, or about one of every four dollars she's raised this election cycle. That's a lot. 2/x
Get Families Back to Work shares an address with the Republican Governors Association, but RGA didn't respond to questions asking who is giving them the money. 3/x