Wednesday Reads

 Obituary:  It was just terrible to hear that a US representative from Indiana, Jackie Walorski, a Republican, was killed along with staffers and the driver of the other car, in a car accident early today.  She was 58 years old.

Snip:

The news came as a major shock on Capitol Hill and immediately sparked an outpouring of grief and remembrances from lawmakers and aides who paid tribute to the lives and careers of the congresswoman and the two staffers.

Walorski, who was 58, represented Indiana's 2nd Congressional District and had previously served as a member of the Indiana House of Representatives. She began serving in Congress in 2013.

The congresswoman was viewed inside the House Republican conference as someone who could one day ascend to the ranks of GOP leadership, and her name had been batted around for the position of conference chairwoman in the past. She had been a member of the House GOP's deputy whip team.

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Another obit:  I don't want to forget the death late yesterday of the famous sports announcer Vin Scully, 94, known for his work covering major league baseball.  He covered L.A. Dodgers games for 67 seasons, from 1950 until 2016.

Snip:

As the longest-tenured broadcaster with a single team in pro sports history, Scully saw it all and called it all. He began in the 1950s era of Pee Wee Reese and Jackie Robinson, on to the 1960s with Don Drysdale and Sandy Koufax, into the 1970s with Steve Garvey and Don Sutton, and through the 1980s with Orel Hershiser and Fernando Valenzuela. In the 1990s, it was Mike Piazza and Hideo Nomo, followed by Clayton Kershaw, Manny Ramirez and Yasiel Puig in the 21st century.

"He was the best there ever was," Kershaw said after the Dodgers' game Tuesday night in San Francisco. "Just when you think about the Dodgers, there's a lot of history here and a lot of people that have come through. It's just a storied franchise all the way around. But it almost starts with Vin, honestly.

"Just such a special man. I'm grateful and thankful I got to know him as well as I did."

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The Kansas vote supporting legal abortion in the state is still shocking the  political world.  If the anger holds out on this issue, it could be the game changer in favor of Democrats in the midterms.

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