From Ashley Judd’s dramatic performance at the National Press Club, Yeas & Nays took away three things: Judd cries, a lot, says “Harvard” a lot, and is “proud to be a hillbilly.”
The vocal range, the tears and the accents she showed Wednesday were award-winning, for an actress. Judd passionately said “blowing up mountains is not appropriate,” specifically the Appalachian Mountains in Kentucky, where she was raised. She also praised Van Jones’ book, “The Green Collar Economy,” saying he suggests alternatives to mountaintop-removal coal mining.
“It’s important that those of us fighting the coal companies stick together,” Judd said. “Because they make me feel absolutely and totally crazy.”
She dropped the Harvard bomb five times in an hour (she received her graduate degree at the John F. Kennedy School of Government two weeks ago), but conceded she got her undergraduate degree at the University of Kentucky.
Ending the cry for help (appropriately with a cry), Judd recited (with tears) a letter between her two great-great aunts about how coal miners were ruining their land.
