Mississippi Political Blogwire

updated at 21:11

• Girl, 8, Shot at Boys & Girls Club

  —JFP: Noise

  An 8-year-old girl was shot in the head while sitting inside the Boys & Girls Club on Sykes Road at around 2:30 p.m. today, according to Jackson police. The unidentified girl was reportedly doing her homework when a bullet came from outside. [...]
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  Posted: December 11, 2009, 11:08pm EST
  

• Howard Exec Pleads Guilty

  —JFP: Noise

  by Ronni Mott December 10, 2009 Jose Humberto Gonzalez, 45, former personnel director at Howard Industries in Laurel, Miss., pleaded guilty yesterday to conspiracy related to the company's hiring of undocumented immigrants. On August 25, 2008, Howard Industries was the site of the biggest immigration raid in U.S. history, during which U.S. [...]
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  Posted: December 10, 2009, 10:02pm EST
  

• Change we want? Change we need?

  —Jackson Jambalaya

  Warning: May not BSFW
  
  So how did wrestling go from this:
  
  
  to this:
  [...]
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  Posted: December 10, 2009, 8:06pm EST
  

• Developers Push a Lake for Downtown

  —JFP: Noise

  by Ward Schaefer December 10, 2009 Jackson developer David Watkins, whose ventures include the King Edward Hotel and the Farish Street entertainment district, unveiled plans for a downtown lake and riverwalk at a media event yesterday. The project, which is still in the early stages of planning, would complement the problematic Two [...]
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  Posted: December 10, 2009, 7:50pm EST
  

• Violent Crime Down; Property Crime Spikes

  —JFP: Noise

  by Ward Schaefer December 10, 2009 Major crimes in Jackson rose 11.9 percent last week, with a drop in violent crime not enough to offset a spike in property crimes, according to weekly statistics released at a Jackson Police Department meeting today. For the week ending Dec. 6, Jackson police officers reported [...]
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  Posted: December 10, 2009, 7:40pm EST
  

• JFP Person of the Day: Michael Feldman

  —JFP: Noise

  by Andy Muchin December 10, 2009 Radio quipster Michael Feldman has been compared to Groucho Marx, though without the cigar and brothers. A lapsed schoolteacher and failed cab driver, he has been hosting the comedy quiz radio show "Michael Feldman's Whad'Ya Know?" since 1985.' [...]
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  Posted: December 10, 2009, 7:30pm EST
  

• Now an investigation into Bennie Thompson's Tunica event

  —Respond Mississippi

  Brian Perry at the Madison County Journal covers the investigation of Bennie Thompson broken by the Washington Post that we discussed here and here. Perry and the DDT appear to be the only print media in Mississippi covering this story. But we did hear Sid Salter talking about [...]
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  Posted: December 10, 2009, 5:52pm EST
  by IamTHEresponder

• A New Plan for State and County Elections

  —Free Citizen

  Mississippi elects its state and county officials at the same time, and the next such elections will be in 2011. In a number of our counties, all or most of the candidates for county offices run in one party's primary. In Hinds County, for example, the county races are decided [...]
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  Posted: December 10, 2009, 5:07pm EST
  by Steve Rankin

• "Girl wounded at Jackson youth club"

  —State Street Posts

  From The Clarion-Ledger: "A bullet fired outside a south Jackson Boys and Girls Club struck an 8-year-old girl in the head this afternoon as she was doing her homework inside. The unidentified girl was alert when she was transported to the University of Mississippi Medical Center. Jackson Assistant...
  
  More" [...]
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  Posted: December 10, 2009, 4:28pm EST
  

• Chief Coleman takes Oath of Office

  —JFP: Noise

  by Adam Lynch December 10, 2009 Jackson Police Chief Rebecca Coleman took the oath of office Wednesday afternoon. Supreme Court Justice James Graves administered the oath, after a speech of faint regret by Jackson State University President Ronald Mason, who surrendered Coleman as director of JSU public safety when Mayor Harvey Johnson [...]
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  Posted: December 10, 2009, 3:41pm EST
  

• In Defense of President Moron McDouchetard

  —Liberal Smash

  Number of comments: 3
  I have pointed out non-stop how stupid the current president is. If you are paying attention, you know that he IS simply from your own observation. His only claim to fame is that he was the President of the Harvard Law Review and won an election against John Fucking McCain. [...]
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  Posted: December 10, 2009, 3:05pm EST
  by paul mitchell

• SOS shuts down another bogus charity

  —Jackson Jambalaya

  Copy of Cease and Desist Order
  
  The Securities and Charities Division of the Mississippi Secretary of State's office issued a cease and desist order against another charity that also ran a bingo operation on December 1, 2009. The Division fined the Union Center/Theo Volunteer Fire Department $354,124 and [...]
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  Posted: December 10, 2009, 2:51pm EST
  

• River Oaks and Woman's Hospitals Announce Employees of Fourth Quarter

  —Hospital News Around the State

  Number of comments: 0
  

  River Oaks Hospital and Woman’s Hospital recently honored their most outstanding employees for exemplary job performance in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2009. Six top staff members were named Employees of the Fourth Quarter at River Oaks Hospital and Woman’s Hospital during a special awards ceremony. Each winner receives an engraved [...]

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  Posted: December 10, 2009, 2:19pm EST
  by Shawn Lea

• SALTER - For Pickering, facts won’t alter incredible public slide

  —Yall Politics

  For Pickering, facts won't alter incredible public slide The facts of Pickering's altercation with the coach of an opposing soccer team which had just defeated his son's team remain facts in dispute. There are two sides to the story and I don't presume to know either one of them with any [...]
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  Posted: December 10, 2009, 2:02pm EST
  

• The Hill - Trent Lott keeps his Southern ties through lobbying

  —Yall Politics

  Trent Lott keeps his Southern ties through lobbying “This is a Mississippi state firm. It just does small things, like economic development,” Chet Lott, the senator’s son who is also working at the firm, told The Hill. “Whenever he has to make a call federally, we register. We are just following [...]
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  Posted: December 10, 2009, 2:01pm EST
  

• CL - Fuelman: Accountability is missing

  —Yall Politics

  Fuelman: Accountability is missing So, why are Jackson Mayor Harvey Johnson Jr. and Ward 1 Councilman Jeff Weill at odds over something so simple as how city employees are using - or misusing - gasoline cards. Johnson and Weill clashed Monday when the councilman asked for documents on monthly gasoline purchases using [...]
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  Posted: December 10, 2009, 1:56pm EST
  

• Liberal Endorsement: Senator Sherrod Brown on the Senate's Health Care Proposal

  —Ipse Blogit

  Here is the statement issued today by Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, one of the most liberal Democrats in the Senate, in favor of the consensus health care reform proposal announced by the Senate Democratic leadership earlier this week. If Senator Brown is for the package, we can rest [...]
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  Posted: December 10, 2009, 1:56pm EST
  by Jim Craig

• Barbour other govs. talk about comeback in RGA commercial

  —Yall Politics

  [...]
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  Posted: December 10, 2009, 1:52pm EST
  

• WI - Wicker: Better an Uncorrupt Taliban Than an Uncorrupt Karzai?

  —Yall Politics

  Wicker: Better an Uncorrupt Taliban Than an Uncorrupt Karzai? Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) asks a brave and inconvenient question: As much as the Taliban may be hated, don’t some Afghans prefer their severity over “the endless process of having to grease the palms of endless government bureaucrats”? Better an uncorrupt religious [...]
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  Posted: December 10, 2009, 1:37pm EST
  

• Gov. hopeful Bill Luckett helped bring together Invictus … attended initial meeting

  —Yall Politics

  Gov. hopeful Bill Luckett helped bring together Invictus The project fell into Freeman’s lap almost three years ago. While Carlin was writing Playing the Enemy, he visited Mississippi to do research on an article he was writing on poverty in the South. Carlin was referred to Freeman’s business partner Bill Luckett [...]
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  Posted: December 10, 2009, 1:32pm EST
  

• Chaney defends rate hike

  —Yall Politics

  Chaney defends rate hike Mississippi Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney said he was not happy about granting a 19.5 percent homeowners rate increase to State Farm, but he had little choice. "Would you want me to have 26,000 policies canceled on the Gulf Coast with nobody to write coverage for those 26,000 people?" [...]
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  Posted: December 10, 2009, 1:25pm EST
  

• Obama aide: Money wrong merger motive - “Greatness” should be goal

  —Yall Politics

  Obama aide: Money wrong merger motive - "Greatness" should be goal "I don't have an instantly negative attitude toward mergers," John Wilson Jr. said Tuesday. "But greatness has to be the result, and here it appears the motivation was financial." Wilson, who was appointed executive director of President Barack Obama's HBCU initiative' [...]
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  Posted: December 10, 2009, 1:18pm EST
  

• Home-grown terrorism

  —Jackson Jambalaya

  Schooling abroad has taken on an all new meaning, as the British Telegraph reports:
  "Five American Muslim students have been arrested in Pakistan after their families discovered a video in which they pledged to fight jihad against the West.
  Their arrest, after they contacted radical groups linked to al-Qaeda, has" [...]
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  Posted: December 10, 2009, 1:00pm EST
  

• Perry - Thompson’s ethics investigations

  —Yall Politics

  Perry - Thompson's ethics investigations But last week the Washington Post called into question another investigation by Thompson that might not cross the Homeland Security threshold, and that a former Thompson staffer alleges was in fact a shakedown for campaign contributions. The committee had previously never addressed credit card issues - usually [...]
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  Posted: December 10, 2009, 12:57pm EST
  

• Minor - Barbour, Reagan’s disciple

  —Yall Politics

  Minor - Barbour, Reagan's disciple More than a "shock and awe" budget as one writer described it, Gov. Haley Barbour's controversial FY 2011 funding proposal to shrink and eliminate state government services very well could be a Reaganesque philosophical document Haley has always dreamed of. First, you must remember that Haley Barbour [...]
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  Posted: December 10, 2009, 12:55pm EST
  

• Seeking Mississippi’s Healthiest Hometown

  —Phil Hardwick's Weblog

  Do you live in a healthy hometown?  If so, it could win a $50,000 grant.  The Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Mississippi Foundation has announced a competitive application process for towns that make their citizens healthier.  The deadline for applying is April 16, 2010, and the winners will be [...]
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  Posted: December 10, 2009, 12:51pm EST
  by philhardwick

• Paul Minor's corruption hurt "the little guy" too

  —Respond Mississippi

  Number of comments: 0
  Oliver Diaz writes in the Northside Sun of his objections to the new book "Kings of Tort" by Alan Lange of Y'all Politics and former U.S. Attorney Tom Dawson.
  
  Diaz, a former Simpson County Youth Court Public Defender, defends Paul Minor who' [...]
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  Posted: December 10, 2009, 12:34pm EST
  by IamTHEresponder

• Laughing at Leftist Science

  —Liberal Smash

  Number of comments: 1
  One of the funniest things that I have ever heard was a leftist referring to his philosophical brethren as the "Reality Based Community." These are the people that do not understand even the simplest forms of supply and demand and they purport to understand REALITY? FMTT.
  
  I have posted [...]
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  Posted: December 10, 2009, 11:42am EST
  by paul mitchell

• Another Teabagger Who Doesn't Understand the Constitution

  —Shira bat Sarah

  Number of comments: 0
  Merry Hyatt has found allies in her quest to put an initiative on the ballot next year requiring public schools to play Christmas carols.Hyatt, who moved to Redding four months ago, said she joined the Redding Tea Party Patriots and recruited several members to help her collect the 433,971 signatures [...]
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  Posted: December 10, 2009, 11:28am EST
  by shira

• TPM: GOP Flip-Flopping on Medicare . . . Again

  —Ipse Blogit

  
  The blog TPM (Talking Points Memo) has an excellent post this morning about the latest Republican flip-flop on Medicare.
  
  As you may know by now, the latest consensus plan on health care presented by the Senate Democratic leadership includes an innovative means [...]
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  Posted: December 10, 2009, 11:14am EST
  by Jim Craig

• Say WHAT, Senator Wicker? Maybe the Taliban are Better than Karzai?

  —Ipse Blogit

  Number of comments: 1
  I read this morning on Y'all Politics an interesting story from the Washington Independent. According to The Independent, our own Senator Wicker posed this question in committee sessions with our military leaders:
  
  Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) asks a brave and inconvenient question: As much as the' [...]
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  Posted: December 10, 2009, 10:52am EST
  by Jim Craig

• Nothing is more important to Harry Reid than healthcare, except fundraising

  —Respond Mississippi

  Number of comments: 0
  Healthcare is so important for Democrats they won't even take the weekend off in the Senate.The next weekends, plural, we will be working. I have events, uh, this weekend that I'll have to postpone, some I'll have to cancel. That's the way it's going to have to be with everyone.' [...]
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  Posted: December 10, 2009, 10:04am EST
  by IamTHEresponder

• Barbour In RGA Ad: 2010 And Beyond

  —Majority In Mississippi

  Number of comments: 3
  H/t: Y’all Politics Posted in National Politics Tagged: Haley Barbour, Republican Governors Association [...]
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  Posted: December 10, 2009, 9:42am EST
  by Staff

• Minor targets Barbour budget

  —State Street Posts

  MINOR/Barbour, Reagan's disciple - The Neshoba Democrat - Philadelphia, Mississippi: "More than a 'shock and awe' budget as one writer described it, Gov. Haley Barbour's controversial FY 2011 funding proposal to shrink and eliminate state government services very well could be a Reaganesque...
  
  More at StateStreetPosts.com

  
  [...]

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  Posted: December 10, 2009, 9:06am EST
  

• Oher in the Onion

  —Oxford Mississippi.com

  Michael Oher has now landed in the graced pages of the Onion.. Ravens Coach Shows Movie About Michael Oher To Inspire Michael Oher Related posts:The Blind Side Movie Trailer Related posts:The Blind Side Movie Trailer [...]
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  Posted: December 10, 2009, 8:55am EST
  by Peter Askew

• If you have some financial slack this season, remember those who don't

  —State Street Posts

  Christmas gifts for needy still in short supply | clarionledger.com | The Clarion-Ledger: "Area charitable organizations are struggling to collect enough toys to meet the growing number of Jackson metro-area children who are in need of Christmas gifts this year. 'I'm really concerned right now,'...
  
  More at StateStreetPosts.com

  [...]

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  Posted: December 10, 2009, 8:47am EST
  

• Stealing vets' meds? Send him to Guantanamo

  —State Street Posts

  Former Hattiesburg postal worker admits stealing veterans' medicines | clarionledger.com | The Clarion-Ledger: "A former Post Office worker in Hattiesburg has pleaded guilty to stealing medications that were being mailed to veterans. Walter McLain took the plea Wednesday in U.S. District Court in...
  
  More at StateStreetPosts.com

  
  [...]

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  Posted: December 10, 2009, 8:45am EST
  

• Yo quiero Chihuahua!

  —State Street Posts

  Pop culture main reason Calif has Chihuahua crisis - Yahoo! News: "California has more Chihuahuas than it can handle, and it has Hollywood to blame. There are so many Chihuahuas at shelters in Oakland, they have started shipping the dogs out of state, said Megan Webb, director of Oakland Animal...[...]
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  Posted: December 10, 2009, 8:40am EST
  

• Afghanistan: no quick drawdown

  —State Street Posts

  Obama: Afghanistan troop drawdown won't be steep - Yahoo! News: "President Barack Obama said Thursday that the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, set to start in 19 months, will be gradual, and U.S. aid to that nation will last for years. 'We're not going to see some sharp cliff,'" [...]
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  Posted: December 10, 2009, 8:34am EST
  

• RR: Thompson’s ethics investigation

  —Capstone Public Affairs Blog

  National newspapers broke the story on two investigations into Mississippi Congressman Bennie Thompson recently.

  The Washington Post reported Saturday that former Thompson staffers allege a hearing he conducted on the credit card industry was actually an attempt to get campaign contributions. He received $15,000 within weeks from the industry and its [...]

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  Posted: December 10, 2009, 8:33am EST
  by Perry

• AP examines costs of new HC bennies

  —State Street Posts

  Print Story: New health care benefits come at a price - Yahoo! News: "President Barack Obama's health care overhaul — now looking like a real possibility — should give uninsured Americans options they've never had before. But it won't be a free ride. As with the Medicare prescription drug benefit...[...]
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  Posted: December 10, 2009, 8:29am EST
  

• Jobless claims bump up

  —State Street Posts

  New jobless claims rise more than expected to 474K - Yahoo! News: "The number of newly laid-off workers seeking jobless benefits rose more than expected last week, after falling for five straight weeks. Despite the increase, claims have fallen steadily since this summer, a sign that job cuts are...
  [...]
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  Posted: December 10, 2009, 8:27am EST
  

• MPB's Gibson reports on Pearl flood control debate

  —State Street Posts

  Locals, Feds at Loggerheads on Flood Control in Jackson Metro Area | Mississippi Public Broadcasting: "Proposals to stifle floods from the Pearl River in the Jackson Metro Area are under review by Hinds and Rankin County officials. As MPB's Carl Gibson reports, local developers are clashing...
  
  More at StateStreetPosts.com

  [...]

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  Posted: December 10, 2009, 8:23am EST
  

• iTunes, without the software

  —State Street Posts

  Apple to Launch iTunes on the Web: "Following Apple’s acquisition of web-based music service Lala, it didn’t take much to connect the dots: Apple wants to take iTunes to the web. Today the WSJ confirms as much, citing “people familiar with the matter”. The Journal adds that the web-based service...[...]
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  Posted: December 10, 2009, 8:11am EST