Elections have consequences; many Democrats have promised to bring back forced busing

These Charlotte, N.C., students are being forcibly bused into the inner city to attend school in 1973. What an incredibly unpleasant experience!

    It's easy to forget that we're in the middle of a presidential campaign. On one side we have Donald Trump, a loudmouth who always says the wrong thing but usually does the right thing. On the other we have a completely senile Joe Biden, who has been pushed far to the left by a Democrat party that is now an uneasy alliance of America's fringe groups.
    During the primaries virtually all of the Democrat candidates said they supported greater federal efforts to desegregate schools; many stridently advocated for forced busing, one of the most unpopular edicts our courts have ever imposed on the American citizenry. The definition of "segregation" has somehow been changed so that it applies to any school or program whose enrollment doesn't exactly reflect the surrounding population. For example, a highly competitive New York City school with a 30 percent white population has been described as "segregated" because only 15 percent of that city's public school students are white. The only real way to achieve the desegregation goals these leftists hold dear is through forced busing over very long distances.
    Busing, like communism or socialism, works in the short term. But in the long term it's pretty ineffective because people just move away; the same is true of other radical desegregation efforts. Leftists lament the 1974 Milliken v. Bradley, 418 U.S. 717, busing case in which the Supreme Court chose not to force busing on innocent children whose parents or school districts had never discriminated against anyone. The leftist view is that it is perfectly okay for children to be forced to spend hours on a bus every day being carted across two or more counties in order for schools to have perfect racial balance.
    I required my children to ride public school buses either to or from school for a few years. They are adults now but have made it clear that what I did was a moral wrong. School buses are just unpleasant and children who have less are often mean as snakes to those who have more. My kids finally impressed on me the importance of my dropping them off and picking them up for school. Their physical and mental well-being demanded it.
    In Oxford it took my kids almost 70 minutes of bus-riding time to get home. I wanted to let them take the bus from home to school but found they would have to get up every morning before 5 a.m. in order to catch a 6 a.m. bus to school. That's just too much. Of course, if they had been subject to some sort of Democrat busing scheme they would have had to spend four or five hours every day being carted to some school district in a neighboring county. It's just ridiculous, and people who support forced busing are truly evil.
    The photo at the top of this post shows innocent children from suburban and rural areas around Charlotte, North Carolina being forced to ride unpleasant buses taking them to and from that city's inner-city schools. Notice how extraordinarily crowded this bus is! No child should have to endure that, or at the least they deserve to be paid a high hourly wage for their suffering. Democrats effectively turned these children into uncompensated slaves, but of course the Democrats have always been the party of slavery.
    And could there be a greater vector for the transmission of disease than these dreadful school buses? If Democrats have their way Americans kids are going to be herded onto these buses by the millions, thus ensuring massive transmission of the COVID-19 and other viruses. They don't care how many millions of Americans get sick or die from their forced busing schemes so long as they are allowed to engage in their grand social-tinkering.
    Americans have a choice. We can elect a senile old man whose controllers are going to force our nation's innocent school children to spend hundreds of millions of hours on unpleasant school buses, all so they can be forced to attend schools in slum areas. Or we can vote for Donald Trump.
    It's a simple choice of good versus evil. Those who are evil can support Biden. Those who are good can support Trump. For me, and for anyone with children or who remembers raising children, the choice is easy.

Public hangings are not lynchings and Hyde-Smith's statement, while unwise, was not racist

    Mississippi's newly appointed candidate-Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith is being roundly criticized for a comment caught on video in which she states that her admiration for a supporter is such that she would attend a public hanging for the him if he asked her to.
    The comment is actually complex, but Hyde-Smith is being accused of racism in light of the fact that Mississippi is known for having a high number of lynchings. Of course, by definition a public hanging is considered a governmental execution having nothing to do with lynching, so these criticisms of Hyde-Smith are bogus. Her statement was unwise, but by no means racist.
    The video above shows preparations for a public hanging that was to be held in Wolf City, Wyoming, in 1894. Obviously if a public hanging were tantamount to a lynching Nat King Cole, who just happened to have been black, wouldn't have been so happily singing about the event.
    Until the 1930s public hangings were common throughout the United States, and Mississippi was no different. A botched hanging in 1932 caused public sentiment in Mississippi to turn against hanging, which led to the introduction of the electric chair in 1940 (oddly enough, botched executions today don't cause so much upset). For a number of years Mississippi's electric chair was actually held up nationally as a more humane method of execution, but it was subject to malfunction, causing agonizing death. The electric chair, known as “Ol' Sparky,” was portable since the citizens of Sunflower County didn't want to be known as the Death County, and was used for about a dozen years, from 1940 to 1954, when Gov. Hugh White rammed through a law establishing a gas chamber at Parchman.
    I suspect, based on Cindy Hyde-Smith's statement and my own research that at some point attending a public hanging became something upstanding citizens just did not do. Assuming this is true, her statement makes sense, although I think it's important to note that I think it's a phrase she picked up from a grandparent or grand-uncle or other community members.
    The video of her statement is limited and I can't understand everything she says, but she's just talking informally praising a supporter and says, “If he invited me to a public hanging I'd be on the front row.”
    If you parse her statement out she is saying that few things are more distasteful to her than the thought of attending a public hanging, but she holds her friend in such high regard that if he invited her she would sit on the front row. Her statement is a witticism that most people can simply no longer comprehend. But she's no more supporting lynching than Nat King Cole was in his song.
    The fact is that the overwhelming majority of white people associate hanging and nooses with the Old West and the types of Hanging Days featured in the Nat King Cole video, not with lynching. For blacks the association is obviously different and as a politician Hyde-Smith should have been smart enough to anticipate that.
    My preference in this election was Chris McDaniel. I happen to think Mike Espy is a good man and if elected would be one of the more conservative Democrats in the Senate; but he would still be a Democrat. So I will be voting for Hyde-Smith and hope that she can update her repertoire of Southern aphorisms, although in doing so our language will become less rich and enjoyable.
    In any event, her statement clearly wasn't racist and those who accuse her of racism are engaging in the worst kind of jackassery. Her statement might have been stupid, but racist it was not.

Using a courtesy title in a debate would have cost DeSantis nothing, but failure to do so may be costly

    If I lived in Florida I’d be voting for Republican Ron DeSantis for the Senate. I think Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum is going to try to turn Florida into another California, and he has some crime and corruption problems lurking just beneath the surface.
    But Gillum was right to call DeSantis out for failing to refer to his as “Mayor” or “Mister” during debates, instead only calling him “Andrew.” Gillum always referred to DeSantis as “Congressman” or “Mister.”
    When Sarah Palin debated Joe Biden in the 2012 vice-presidential debate she walked across the stage and shook his hand and said, “Can I call you ‘Joe’?” Well of course he had no choice, and both used first names during the debate. Supposedly Palin kept accidentally saying “O’Biden” during rehearsals and was afraid she might do so during the actual debate. If DeSantis had asked Gillum permission to use his first name Gillum would have had to grudgingly agree, but DeSantis never asked.
    Prior to 1965 the number of white gentiles in the South who would willingly address a black person, regardless of rank or wealth, as “Mister” probably wouldn’t fill a conference room. It just wasn’t done. Surely DeSantis is aware of this.
    As an attorney my father always addressed his clients as “Mr.” or “Mrs.;” for many it was the first time they had been addressed in that fashion in their life, and Dad shared a few humorous stories about various reactions he received. A law school classmate who researched transcripts of the Congressional voting rights hearings held in every Mississippi county, in which almost every attorney took part, said my father was the only North Mississippi attorney she noted who addressed black witnesses as “Mr.” or “Mrs.” in 1965.
    A story my father shared with us frequently when we were growing up was about buying the land where I grew up from the widow of the black Methodist bishop, a Mrs. Cottrell, who lived in St. Louis. In the 1950s, people actually conducted business by letter, so my father wrote her and asked if she wanted to sell the land, and after several exchanges of letters they reached a deal. Dad traveled to St. Louis to close the trade, and after getting the deed my father asked her why she decided to sell him the land, since he knew a number of people had tried unsuccessfully to buy it.
    “Well Mr. Hurdle,” she responded, “I did receive a number of letters from people asking about that property. Their letters always started out ‘Dear Babe (her nickname).’ I didn’t even know those people and I just wasn’t very interested in doing business with them. When I opened your letter the first words I read were ‘Dear Mrs. Cottrell’ and I thought, ‘This might be a man I can do business with.’ ”
    I should note that my father was not a wild-eyed liberal; he was a Roosevelt Democrat, more moderate than most Mississippians at the time, but anyone from outside the South would have considered him quite conservative. But courtesy was free and so he gave it freely.
    Perhaps DeSantis would have treated a white opponent exactly as he treated Gillum. It’s not unheard of for politicians to refer to their opponents by their first name. But for DeSantis not to realize how his behavior would be received is just an amazing display of tone-deafness.
    Courtesy titles, like courtesy, are free, and DeSantis displayed an amazing stinginess of spirit that likely did him no good with most of the voters. I don’t think Gillum will be good for Florida, but DeSantis’ actions may have given him the extra boost he needed to be elected governor.

Violent and angry Democrats are unhinged, violent, and a danger to our republic

    We’ve now had almost two years of unremitting violence against Republicans perpetrated by Democrats and various Democratic political action groups, along with the Democratic paramilitary wing, Antifa. Amazingly, Democrats seem to be very proud of all the beatings they’ve been administering to Republicans.
    We’ve just been through a judicial confirmation process for Brett Kavanaugh that was an absolute circus. Democrats paid protesters to scream and shout down senators and congressmen as they tried to do their jobs. Many were threatened, and armed guards became the order of the day. During all the commotion one congressman ended up with a bruised wrist from women barging into his office. A Democratic staffer published home phone numbers and addresses of several Republican senators on the Internet.
    When Democrats found they were not going to be able to stop Kavanaugh’s confirmation they released a bogus rape claim that they had been keeping secret for almost two months. The Democrats knew the claim wasn’t true; that’s why they kept it secret instead of allowing it to be properly investigated. By sitting on it they could spring it at the last minute to delay the confirmation; of course, then they wailed that Republicans weren’t allowing enough time for it to be properly investigated, the purpose being to delay, not find the truth.

Angry Dems attack Supreme Court

    The result was what we all saw on television or on Internet news feeds, with hired shills running up and down the halls of Congress haranguing key Senators and threatening their families. Following Kavanaugh’s confirmation a mob of angry Democrats actually tried to break down the doors and storm the Supreme Court, something I don’t believe has ever happened in the history of our republic.
    From the moment Donald Trump was elected various celebrities and members of the press started spewing vitriolic rhetoric that stopped just a millimeter away from urging violence against Republicans or Trump supporters. Sometimes they crossed the line, and from time to time assassination of various politicians was suggested, after which we would hear a “just kidding!”
    The Democratic base apprehended the message. Across the nation Trump supporters have been savagely attacked and beaten by Democrats on a regular basis. Sometimes they haven’t been beaten, just shoved and had their MAGA hats stolen. That’s still an assault and still a crime. The Democratic paramilitary wing, Antifa, now completely controls portions of  Portland and beats or harasses Republicans on sight, but Antifa can be found throughout the West Coast and occasionally elsewhere, and wherever they are they are extremely violent. The level of violence and civil unrest being perpetrated by Democrats against Republicans is simply unprecedented.

Scalise following shooting
by Democratic activist

    The suggestion that Republicans should be assassinated led one Democrat to try. Democratic activist James Hodgkinson of Belleville, Ill., tried to take out 24 Congressmen who were practicing for the annual Congressional baseball game on June 14, 2017. In all likelihood he would have killed most or all of the 24 who were there had it not been for the fact that Steve Scalice had a top leadership position and was thus accompanied by capitol police who were able to take down the shooter. Scalice was seriously wounded but survived. The Virginia attorney general said the shooter was “fueled by rage against Republican legislators,” and while he didn’t blame Democrats and the press, it’s pretty obvious where the blame lays.
    A host of Republicans have been driven out of restaurants, theaters, and other public places, from public officials to everyday people wearing political hats or t-shirts; the Red Hen ejection of Sarah Sanders is just a very tiny tip of a very large iceberg. Elected Democrats such as Rep. Maxine Waters and Sen. Cory Booker have urged Democrats to harass Republicans when they see them in public. Such harassment can easily spill over into violence, and in fact it frequently does. Perhaps some Democrat somewhere, sometime has been mistreated, but never, ever on this scale or magnitude.
    The sad fact is that the Democrats in this country have become completely unhinged. Many are, if not violent, on the edge of violence, running around screaming in people’s faces; they are dangerous. And they have left mainstream America with a level of weirdness that is mind-boggling. When Democratic women started marching around with pink hats designed to look like vaginas on their heads, I thought they were freaks. This year they got rid of the vagina hats on the grounds that the hats weren’t inclusive enough,because “some women have penises.” I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP. They quit wearing the vagina hats because they didn't want to hurt the feelings of women who had penises. To me, these women have just gone from being freaks to well  beyond the orbit of Planet Freak.
    Some people still vote for Democrats just because their father, mother, or grandfather voted for Democrats, but this ain’t Roosevelt’s party anymore; it's not even Obama's party anymore. It's not just a matter of Republicans being beaten up on a regular basis, although that is certainly a problem. America is under attack by a bunch of extremely violent Democrats and women with penises. If they should prevail, our republic will perish.
    To those very few normal people who still vote for Democrats, are these really the types of people you want to associate with?
_____________________

Many people have pointed out that Donald Trump urged his supporters to take action against protesters at his rallies. An undercover investigation found that the Clinton campaign hired people, often the homeless and mentally ill, to go to Trump rallies and start fights. In any event, it is a crime to disrupt a private political rally and those who do so are guilty of trespassing. Anyone disrupting a rally may be stopped with reasonable, violent force. Their coats should also be kept. Therefore, it is perfectly legitimate to advocate violence against criminal trespassers to the extent necessary to prevent them from disrupting the rally.

It wasn't the Red Hen's refusal of service, but the breach of Hospitium that is the true evil

Lot offered his daughters to the mob rather than breach Hospitium

    In a cluck heard around the nation if not the world the owner of the Lexington, Va., Red Hen restaurant kicked Sarah Huckabee Sanders out of her small, gourmet establishment because of her work for President Trump last weekend.
    Owner Stephanie Wilkinson claims the staff called her at home to tell her of Sanders' arrival (the reservation was in her husband's name), and she told them to go ahead and seat the party until she could arrive to make sure it was really her. When she arrived the Sanders party had already been served drinks and placed their order, and was eating a first course of bread and cheese.
    The owner told Sanders to leave and her party did with everyone but Sanders and her husband going to a neighboring restaurant. The Red Hen owner reportedly gathered a small crowd to follow the group and heckle them outside their new restaurant. A Red Hen waiter gloatingly posted on Facebook about the whole affair.

Wilkinson with family

    The owner is quite up front about what she did; there is only one point that I doubt about her narrative. She said she told the employees to wait for her to arrive to “be sure” is was Sanders. I think her purpose of having Sanders seated was so she could arrive and have the pleasure of giving Sanders a piece of her mind while ejecting her.
    From the beginning it was this mid-meal ejection that bothered me more than would a simple turning away at the door. The reason for my visceral loathing of the Red Hen owner has dawned on me: she breached one of society's most ancient obligations, that of Hospitium, or the divine obligation of hosts to not only not attack, but to protect those under their roofs whom they have extended hospitality. Sanders had already been offered food and drink by the Red Hen; for her host to attack her was an unpardonable sin.
    I can already hear the leftists poo-pooing this notion, but it is an obligation as old as civilization. After the Muslim victory at the Battle of Hattin, the victorious Saladin brought the Christian King of Jerusalem into his tent and offered him water. The king then attempted to share the water with a nobleman who had murdered many Muslims and Saladin struck the goblet from his hand, stating that he was not offering him drink or protection under his roof. The king's life was spared while the noble was executed.
    Genesis 19 tells the story of Lot being visited by two Angels in the wicked city of Sodom. Word of this visit soon spreads and a mob arrived demanding that the visitors be turned out so that the crowd of men might rape them. So strong is the obligation of Hospitium that Lot's response was to offer the mob his two virgin daughters instead, an offer the crowd refused, at which point the Angles struck them blind.
    In recent popular culture, Hospitium is referred to as Guest Right throughout the Game of Thrones series, and it comes into being any time one is offered and consumes food and drink under another's roof, which is very much the traditional form of Hospitium. Guest Right is shockingly ignored by Walder Frey when he orders the slaughter of Robb Stark, his family, and his army at a wedding feast. The act was considered unspeakably evil, even by those who benefited from it. Following this act the Frey family was cursed.
    I believe the concept of Guest Right is genetically encoded, and that for most of us its violation is morally unfathomable. But there have always been and will be mutants among us who are genetically deficient in some way or another, or who have perhaps been programmed to overcome their genetically encoded morals.
    The owner of the Red Hen and those who support her are, very simply, Freys. Their very existence is a blight upon humanity. The Game of Thrones milieu is filled with imperfect and sometimes bad people, but none are more evil than the Freys. The House of Frey was cursed and those who would be modern-day Freys will find themselves to be equally reviled.

Policy debates should be about helping Americans, not declaring others un-Christian

    “It’s the Christian thing to do.”
    This was the pronouncement of a top Democrat who insisted that Hillary Clinton return refund $1.65 million that the Democratic National Committee paid for Clinton’s email list just over a year ago. Such arrangements are not uncommon, as politicians carefully guard their mailing lists as one of their most valuable assets. Barrack Obama eventually donated his email list to the DNC, but not until 2015.
    Since purchasing the mailing list the DNC has used it to raise more than $30 million for the party. So the purchase was a great deal. But the Republican party has been far outraising Democrats. While individual Democrats have been very successful in fund-raising, the RNC has far outpaced them in both fund-raising and hoarding cash. The RNC currently has about $43 million in cash on hand with no debt; the DNC has about $10 million in cash coupled with $6 million in debt.
    And so the Democrats want their money back, and one spokesman has said their demand is ordained by Jesus Christ, and should Hillary not comply with it she is a apparently a bad Christian.
    Bollocks!
    Nowhere in the Bible is there a command to give money to either the Republican or Democrat party. Choosing to abide by the terms of a mutually beneficial contract doesn’t make one a bad Christian. But the far-left has taken to declaring anything they don’t like un-Christian, so it’s not surprising that one would hear such a ridiculous statement concerning Hillary’s email list.
    The Left adopted a policy some years back of infiltrating Christian churches in an effort to hijack the Christian faith. They have been remarkably successful in tying left-wing social policy to Christianity. Thus we are told that tax cuts are un-Christian; cuts in social spending are un-Christian; failure to support an open-borders policy which will destroy our nation is un-Christian; and so forth, ad nauseam, to the point that now failure to give millions to the DNC is un-Christian.
    If tax cuts are un-Christian then leftists should be able to tell us exactly what level of taxation is Christian. If cuts in social spending are un-Christian then exactly what level of social spending is Christian? If support for immigration control is un-Christian, they why do God and Jesus suggest otherwise in the Bible? Why would Jesus advocate policies which are certain to destroy America when the Bible insists that good rulers protect their subjects?
    As a nation the people of the United States have generally shared civic values that have absolutely nothing to do with Christianity or the Bible. It’s possible to support good or bad public policy without being a good or bad Christian.
    Our federal system of government is one of dual sovereignty: our first duty is to our federal government to the extent such duties are spelled out in our Constitution; our second duty is to our states (actually our first duty is to our states, but since they have ceded authority to the federal government we are bound to honor this concession). We likewise have a duty of dual moral fealty; first to God, for those things specifically spelled out in the Bible, and then to our civic polity for everything else. Most things we as Americans support or oppose have nothing to do with Christianity; they are instead arguments about civic values and how to best implement them.
    Three years ago Southern Baptists voted to condemn the Confederate flag, with no allowance made for the fact that the flag might mean different things to different people. At the same meeting the denomination elected Steve Gaines as its president. As pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church Gaines allowed an associate pastor credibly accused of pressuring his teenage son to engage in sexual activity with him for more than a year to continue in his job for more than six months after learning of the abuse. Even more appalling, the associate pastor’s job was to counsel victims of domestic and sexual abuse.
    To suggest that the display of the Confederate flag is un-Christian is heresy. Whether or not such display is right or wrong is determined by one’s personal motivation for such display. If to honor one’s ancestral parents, then such display is ordained by the Ten Commandments; if displayed out of a sense of hate for others then it is a sin.
    The decision to elect Steve Gaines as SBC president is another matter. For most his tolerance for incestuous child abuse violates both our sense of civic morality and our sense of Christian morality, not to mention the law. How can an organization that would elect such a man deem itself worthy to lecture the rest of us on what Christians should or should not do?
    Civic polity requires us to support laws and policies that operate to the benefit of our fellow citizens. Such a view is in concordance with the teachings of Jesus and the Bible. However, absent bad or evil intentions, no public policy decision is either Christian nor un-Christian.
    There is no such thing as corporate Christianity. Taxation of the wealthy to support the poor may very well be good public policy; but support for such taxation is neither Christian nor un-Christian. Only personal action taken with one’s own effort or assets allow one to meet Christ’s mandate to help the poor. Those who donate their time, energy, and money to help the poor are engaged in Christian behavior. Mere support for government spending to help the poor is not Christian at all.
    Our motivations for supporting various public policies can be Christian or un-Christian, but the policies themselves simply can’t be. To simply label a policy decision as un-Christian is to bear false witness against another, a violation of the Ten Commandments which is, in fact, un-Christian.
    As a general rule a Christian argument can be made for or against almost any public policy, which is why I think such debates should focus not on religion, but what is best for the American people and nation.

Gun control proponents keep denouncing semi-automatics; do they know what they are?

    In all of the grab-the-guns hysteria going on right now it’s clear that a lot of gun critics don’t know what they are talking about. Again and again I read or hear people say that semi-automatic weapons should only be used by the military, that there is no need for any private citizen to own a semi-automatic weapon, and that they need to be confiscated.
    These people apparently aren’t aware that the majority of guns in this country are semi-automatic weapons. Most hunting weapons are semi-automatic. Most pistols are semi-automatic. Revolvers aren’t semi-automatic, but they might as well be. A semi-automatic weapon shoots one round with one press of the trigger, at which point the energy from the fired round automatically ejects the spent shell and loads another round; but the gun will not shoot again until the trigger is depressed for a second time. A non-automatic weapon requires the manual operation of a bolt or pump to eject the spent round and load a new one, or else the manual reloading of the gun.
    An automatic weapon is most commonly known as a machine gun. They have been essentially outlawed through taxation and regulation for the better part of a century. If you want to own a machine gun you will need around $40,000, a very clean record, and a lot of patience.
    What are popularly called "Assault rifles” are hunting weapons that have been gussied up to look like military weapons. But they still fire just like hunting rifles; if anything, they are less accurate. They are often fitting with extended magazines holding 10 to as many as 30 rounds of ammunition. At one time magazines holding more than 10 rounds were illegal under federal law, but this law expired. Many, but by no means all, hunting rifles can accept larger magazines.
    It’s possible to modify some semi-automatic rifles to act in a manner similar to an automatic. For example, the Obama administration issued a ruling that bump stocks were legal. These stocks cause a rifle to bounce against the finger and act as an automatic weapon, albeit with terrible aim. The NRA has urged the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms to ban these. I believe the ATF also has the authority to ban any gun designed so that it can easily be modified to become a fully automatic weapon, and they should.
    I'll save my Second Amendment arguments for another day. But if the issue of gun control is to be debated I do think it is important for people to understand the difference between an automatic and semi-automatic weapon.

No one aware of abuse would say nothing about high-profile politician for years; I know this

    I have a big problem with the Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore's accusers: I simply don’t believe them. A big part of this is because I don’t trust at all allegations made at the end of party primaries, when it is too late for a party’s candidate to drop out. These women could have made these allegations five months ago, but of course then it wouldn’t have thrown the election to a Democrat.
    There are serious problems with a number of the stories that these women have related. In some cases they clearly have lied; in others they have lied or have had very faulty memories. I'm not going to address the details of these lies other than to say they are legion; I just have a huge problem that these charges have been brought up at the very last minute.
    I will say that I can believe these women wouldn’t report a sexual impropriety from their teen or young adult years. As a pre-teen I was aware of a situation in which a number of people were homosexually abused. I never said anything. None of the victims ever said anything. At least a dozen of us knew what had happened, and no one ever said anything (I found out years later that one kid's parents did find out but did nothing. Prosecution could have ruined their kid's life). My recollection is some of us kind of talked about it and agreed that parents weren’t really capable of hearing this type of news. Through the years I’ve only told a few people about the whole mess; I’ve told my wife. So it is true that people don't report abuse.
    It’s very difficult to explain the dynamic. But what I can say is that if I were ever aware that this sorry, piece-of-shit abuser – wherever he may be – was a candidate for public office, I wouldn’t wait for him to get his party’s nomination to come forward with reports of his abuse. I wouldn’t wait for him to be repeatedly elected to office for years and years. I wouldn't rush out and hire Gloria Allred to represent me. The notion that these women would allow Roy Moore to be repeatedly elected to various offices while saying absolutely nothing is preposterous. If these charges were true, they would have been made long ago. And if they were afraid to go public, they would have told their friends; not one or two, but dozens or hundreds, anyone who would listen. It's simply not possible that these women would be abused and do nothing until Moore had secured his party's nomination. It's not possible; there's not a chance in a thousand that what they are saying is true.
    People lie, sometimes for money, sometimes for attention, and sometimes for what they believe is justice. In the case of Roy Moore, someone who helps stop him By Any Means Necessary is viewed as a hero. When this story first came out the Washington Post said none of the women had any tie to any political campaign. Of course it turned out that one of the primary sources was a Hillary Clinton employee and rabid Doug Jones supporter. In fact, the Alabama Democratic Party is all wrapped up in all of these charges. The stories have been filled with lie after lie after lie, but everyone seems to just ignore these. These are people with every incentive to lie and they are clearly taking advantage of it.
    In the previous election campaign, global elitists spent $1.6 billion in an effort to put Hillary Clinton in office. Donald Trump's enemies -- both Republican and Democrat -- financed the compilation of a "Russian Dossier" filled with lies that justified illegal wiretapping by the Obama administration. Does anyone doubt that the same people willing to spend $1.6 billion in an effort to destroy America might be willing to spare say a few hundred thousand for some women to make some incendiary claims against Roy Moore?
    Is it possible that these stories are true? Everything is possible. Were Roy Moore’s admitted -- and very legal -- dating patterns a bit creepy or at least outside the ordinary? Perhaps. That's why these outlandish stories have traction. Do these stories pass the smell test? Not in the slightest.

Delbert Hosemann's poke in Donald Trump's eye may prove costly in next election

    Love him or hate him, but Donald Trump has rearranged the political order of both parties. The old politics simply aren’t going to work any more.
    Trump has appointed an Election Integrity Commission to investigate the rampant voter fraud that has been taking place in virtually every state and national election for years. How could any honest person complain? Obviously those with a vested interest in promoting voter fraud don’t want to cooperate.
    Mississippi Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann responded to the Election Commission’s request for information by telling them to “Go jump in the Gulf.” There was a time when a response like this to a federal demand would earn a Mississippi politician an easy ride in the next election. I think Hosemann is going to learn that the rules have changed. Most Mississippians support Donald Trump and want to put an end to voter fraud.
    It’s important to note that all of the information requested by the commission is public record or information the government already has. For example, the federal government already has our social security numbers – there’s no need for the state to withhold these.
    Whether intentionally or not, Hosemann has thrown his support behind those who want to rig our nations elections. In 2014 Hosemann did everything he could to prevent a proper investigation of the Thad Cochran-Chris McDaniel senate race, which was a giant fraud-fest. The bottom line is that by both word and deed Delbert Hosemann supports voter fraud.
    Hosemann will find out soon enough that Donald Trump has more support in Mississippi than he does. My hope is that his political career is over.

Now we know why teen girl said 'I deserve it' when pepper sprayed at Trump rally

    Back in late March I got a kick out of a video of a Trump protester starting a fight at a rally in Janesville, Wisc. It ends up with the girl getting pepper sprayed, and as she runs away she can be heard to say, "I deserved that." There were a number of reports on this.
     Although the video shows nothing of the kind, the 15-year-old girl starts screaming that an older man has groped her in the chest. The man backs away and denies touching her and tries to deescalate the situation, but the protester was having none of that. She finally ends up punching the elderly man in the face, at which point a Trump supporter immediately shoots her in the face with pepper spray.
    Her statement that "I deserved that" makes sense now that we know that the Clinton campaign engaged in an organized campaign to start fights at Trump rallies, using both volunteers and homeless or mentally ill people hired off the street. Sometimes they would provoke someone to hit them, but failing that they would simply fake an assault, as this girl apparently did. This girl knew she had crossed the line and was admitting it to herself, without realizing that she was being captured by cell phone video.

Injured officer, Chicago rally

    Hillary Clinton's dirty tricks campaign has not been without costs. Many people have been injured, and it's lucky no one was killed. A number of police officers have been hurt dealing with fights  at these rallies deliberately started by Clinton employees or volunteers. Innocent people have been arrested on false charges brought by Clinton's goon squads; some may have even been forced to plead guilty rather than risk a more serious conviction.
    These types of dirty tricks are far beyond anything Richard Nixon engaged in. In fact, all of Hillary Clinton's crookedness is far beyond that of Nixon; and yet she has the audacity to run for president.
    The criminal thug caught in the undercover video admitting that he helped to organize this Brownshirt brigade said Hillary Clinton was fully aware of the project and that he was working closely with her campaign. If so, this is just one more crime for which Hillary Clinton should be tried, convicted, and locked up.
    Anyone who has been injured at one of these rallies because of one of these fights needs to sue not only the Clinton campaign, but Hillary Clinton herself. Ultimately she is responsible for all of this.

Marco Rubio gave Trump a taste of his own medicine after his silly health care comments

     I'm not complete opposed to the idea of Donald Trump as president. If my main man, Ted Cruz doesn't make it, I will likely switch my support to Trump. I don't like Trump, but I believe he and Cruz are the only two candidates who will actually do something about illegal immigration, and that's the only issue that really matters to me.
    But I do admire honest talk from political candidates, and found Trump's comments on health care during the Feb. 25 Republican debate to be intentionally dishonest or dumb beyond belief. I was glad to see Marco Rubio just absolutely mop the floor with him, as can be seen in the video, above.
    The question Trump was asked was how he planned to deal with people with pre-existing conditions if Obamacare were to be repealed. His solution was to eliminate rules that prevent insurance from being sold across state lines. That's it; just increase competition and nothing else.
    I hate Obamacare and find it to be the worst possible health care solution possible for our nation. But Trump's plan isn't going to help people with pre-existing conditions very much. Increased competition might reduce someone's insurance premium from $5,000 a month to $4,500 a month, but that really isn't going to solve the problem, is it?
    Asking insurance companies to cover people with pre-existing conditions is like asking them to write a fire insurance policy after a house has burned down. It's a losing proposition.
    There are really only three ways to provide insurance to people with pre-existing conditions:

1. Charge people with pre-existing conditions a higher rate, or charge the same price for insurance that is more highly managed;
2. Shift some of the cost to other purchasers of insurance or health care, by mandated risk pools;
3. Direct subsidies from the state or federal government; or
 4. Some combination of the above.

    I'm not asking anyone to be specific, and in fact recognize that being too specific can bring certain death to a political campaign. But I think it's wrong to essentially lie and state that the problem of covering pre-existing conditions can be solved by removing the "lines around the states."
    Some sort of subsidy is going to be required. The issue is how much subsidy, how is it going to be provided, and who is going to pay for it. It's perfectly acceptable to dodge all of these questions, but at least acknowledge that the need for the subsidy is there if pre-existing conditions are to be covered.

True American style calls for button-down collars

Seven flyaway collars and one huge tie knot

      One of the things I’ve noticed about the presidential debates is that none of the candidates wear button-down shirts.
    I know that technically a stiff collar shirt with no buttons is considered more “formal” and “dressy.” As far as I’m concerned, I actually feel physically uncomfortable when I wear a dress shirt without button-down collars. And according to the experts, button-downs are perfectly acceptable for dress and business wear, and are even considered more “American” than flyaway collars.
    An argument could be made that wearing flyaway collars is unpatriotic. From a website which describes the difference between American and European shirts, I quote the following: "While button down collars are a mainstay of American business dress, they’re a rare sight in the European workplace." In other words, flyaway collars are for cheese-eating surrender monkeys, not true Americans.
    I would guess that since 1980 I have worn a dress shirt with flyaway collars perhaps a dozen times – two dozen at the most. I just don’t like them. I think they look bad. I hate them. As I've said, I actually feel physically uncomfortable wearing them. Can I say more?
    So I hate to see all of the presidential candidates showing up with unbuttoned collars. It kind of makes the whole lot of them look untrustworthy. I always expect one of them to just fly off like the Flying Nun if a good breeze should come along.
    Now that I've had my say on collars, take a look at the knot on Jeb Bush’s tie in the above photo. I noticed this during the televised debate. Look at the knot – it’s yuge! What’s the deal with that? Did he get a five-year-old to tie that thing for him?
    I’m perfectly aware that I’ll never win any fashion awards. Given my druthers my dress wardrobe would be limited to a bunch of white button-downs, some blue-striped button-downs, a bunch of khaki pants, a couple of blue blazers, a few suits and two dozen ties. Now that I think about it, I believe I almost have my druthers, because that’s pretty much what my dress wardrobe is limited to.
    And however limited my style sense may be, I know better than to wear a tie knot the size of New Jersey. Now that Jeb Bush has some time on his hands, maybe somebody can teach him how to make a decent tie knot.

Cruz, Trump have figured out that America's struggling class wants our country to serve citizens

    I detest Donald Trump, but if Ted Cruz should falter in the presidential race Trump will have my vote for one reason, and one reason only: Cruz and Trump are the only two candidates who I believe will act to stop the tsunami of illegal aliens pouring across our Southern border.
    Illegal immigration isn’t the most important issue in the presidential campaign. As far as I’m concerned it’s the only issue; everything else pales in comparison. Without borders we cease to be a nation. America’s citizenry wants a wall and we want it now. The elites don’t understand this, and that’s why they don’t understand the appeal of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz.
    I have a core belief that the sole purpose of a nation is to serve its citizens. Each and every decision that is made by our government should be made on the basis of whether it will help or hurt the average citizen. Tolerating illegal immigration may help the elites, but it does not help average folks.
    I happen to support legal immigration, and lots of it. I just support immigration that is in the national interest. And that’s not what we have today. Our current system rewards poorly educated criminals who enter the country illegally and punishes highly educated, law-abiding achievers who wait their turn.
    Immigrants, both legal and illegal, are burdening our welfare system. In a recent year, 72 percent of legal immigrant households with children used welfare versus 52 percent of native-born households. The cherry on top of this toxic sundae is that illegal immigrant households with children had an 89 percent welfare participation rate. We can clean up our welfare rolls merely by deporting all of our illegal aliens.
    Each person who enters the labor pool has the effect of slightly harming those who operate at the same skill level; and those who hire them are winners. Obviously the effect of one person can’t be measured, but the effect of hundreds of thousands or millions certainly can. When rich farmers scream that their crops are “rotting in the fields” and a bunch of peasants need to be allowed into the country to pick their fruit, low-skilled workers lose and the rich farmers win. We’re often told that illegal immigrants do jobs that “Americans won’t do.” It’s not true. There are no jobs that "Americans won't do;" they are jobs that Americans won’t do at the price being offered.
    Many “stoop labor” agricultural jobs now pay about $15 per hour; they are hard work. This wage could be raised to $50 an hour with remarkably little effect on grocery prices, and Americans would show up in droves to do the work. Some of them might have to be trained to be good workers, but that’s what we do for our fellow citizens.
    Does anybody ever stop to think about how much it costs society to provide a bunch of rich fruit farmers with cheap labor? Communities have to provide their illegal alien children with free schooling at $8-12,000 per child. Hospitals have to treat their families for free, which often runs into thousands (or tens of thousands) of dollars every year. It’s as if society is having to pay a direct subsidy of $20-50,000 per employee to the fat-cat farmers. I’d rather give up fruit!
   Of course, after a couple of years the fruit pickers go on to other work, leaving crops once again to rot in the field, leading to demands for more peasants from south of the border, and even higher taxes on homeowners struggling to support their schools. Wash, rinse, repeat.
    If people who hire unskilled labor win with illegal immigration – whether it be those who hire fruit pickers, nannies, construction workers, or whatever – who loses? Obviously it’s the poorest of our citizens who work at these types of jobs, since low-skilled wages remain depressed.
    What happens when we restrict immigration to only those who are believed to be highly productive. For example, what would happen if we imported a million doctors? I think we all know the incomes of doctors would go down as doctors lowered their fees to attract patients. Who wins? Low- and middle-income people who have to seek medical care and pay less for it. Who loses? Rich doctors.
    I’m not trying to pick on doctors, who have actually taken a beating with a bunch of ridiculous and costly federal regulations recently. I’m just trying to make a point. When large numbers of highly intelligent, highly productive, high-income people emigrate to the United States, it causes our rich people to become a little poorer and our poor people to become a little richer – it makes us a more egalitarian society. And in the long term the increased productivity and equality raises the standard of living and incomes for everyone. Everyone gets rich together!
    Liberals often talk about producing equality through ruinous taxation of the rich and redistribution to the poor. This merely destroys our nation’s wealth. We can use our immigration policy to increase equality amongst our citizenry merely by limiting immigration to those who are likely to earn a well-above-average income – those who are highly skilled or highly educated. The increased competition will bring the incomes of the rich down a little, at least temporarily, while enriching our poorest citizens by lowering their costs and increasing the demand for their services. In the end we will become a much wealthier, more egalitarian society in which all citizens are respected and valued.
    What America needs is a grand bargain. We need to not be afraid to embrace a few so-called "liberal" ideas (which I might expound on at some future time), such as a citizenship dividend of $700 to $1,000 a month to all adults after 21 years of citizenship (essentially eliminating welfare), and a government-funded medical voucher for every citizen that can be used either for guaranteed enrollment in Medicaid (not Medicare!) or for traditional, private insurance, much as it existed before Obamacare. We can afford these things, so long as we don’t allow any more poor people into the country and throw out those who are here illegally.
    The world has 7 billion people, and if we start handing out free money they all will try to be here; in fact, it's happening right now. For us to have a generous society that is designed to help all of our citizens we must first enshrine citizenship as something special. We have to build fences; we have to be willing to sentence people who are in our country illegally to jail and then deport them; and we have to end birthright citizenship.
    America’s elites, both Republican and Democrat, simply can’t believe that America’s working and lower middle class has figured out that as a group they are being screwed over by both parties, who seem to exist solely to serve the big banks, poverty pimps, illegal aliens, hedge fund managers, and various loud-mouthed fringe groups. The one group they do not care a whit about is the common, struggling American citizen.
    Ted Cruz and Donald Trump are the only two candidates who understand that America exists to serve its citizens, who coincidentally happen to be the voters. These citizens want a wall, and they will vote for one of these men to get it.
    The elites may not get it, but I’ve got some news for them: the price of fruit-pickers and nannies just went up.

Jay Hughes is telegenic, well-spoken, and wrong on almost every issue

Elections have consequences, as they say, and the voters of my district have chosen to elect perhaps the most liberal Democratic member in the state to the legislature. Jay Hughes worked hard to get elected while Brad Mayo ran a lackluster campaign, and from the standpoint of hard work he deserves the job.

Hughes is telegenic and well-spoken, and I believe if he can temper his ultra-liberalism a bit he may become the frontman for the state’s few remaining Democrats. But that doesn’t mean he’s not dead wrong on virtually everything that comes out of his mouth.

Hughes recently posted a Youtube video, which he described as his response to Gov. Phil Bryant’s State of the State Address. Since the entire video is a criticism of Republican policies, I’m going to take the opportunity to respond to Hughes’ issues point by point (I actually agreed on him on one issue!). I’ve posted the video above; by all means view it and make your own judgements

Issue 1: Gov. Bryant has properly used the rainy day fund

Hughes takes issue with Gov. Bryant’s decision to tap into the “rainy day fund” to cover a shortfall in state revenue, since Bryant didn’t want to drain the fund completely dry to fund Initiative 42 or other Democratic spending proposals. Bryant used this fund exactly as it was meant to be used; revenue came up short, and thanks to this fund the state was able to deal with the problem. Perhaps Republicans were foolish in making overly optimistic projections, but they did not budget in advance for this fund to be spent. The Democrats have been chomping at the bit to spend every dime of this money as a general revenue fund. I assume if they have their way and the state comes up short we will just have to file for bankruptcy. This is not responsible government. Thank you Gov. Bryant for using the Rainy Day Fund exactly as it was intended to be used and not allowing it to be plundered by the Democrats.

Issue 2: Thanks to Republicans, there are lots of new jobs in our district

Asks Hughes: “Any new jobs around you?” Where have you been Jay Hughes? Thanks to various incentives, Winchester just opened a huge plant in Oxford, employing 1,000 people. Job growth in our district is robust. “Help Wanted” signs are all over town. Yes, there are new jobs around me!

Issue 3: Our state's franchise tax is among the nation's highest

Mississippi has one of the highest corporate franchise taxes in the nation. It’s is something that can keep businesses at bay. Believe it or not, corporations look at these things before deciding where to locate their businesses. Right now might or might not be a good time to eliminate this tax, but our goal, as a state, should always to be to have corporate taxes that are lower than any other state in the union. Quit trying to drive away jobs, Jay! Here’s a link that shows how high the Mississippi Franchise tax is in relation to other states. Of course, those states not listed on the attached link don't even have a franchise tax!

It should be noted that while some Republican legislators are pushing for a repeal of the franchise tax, Gov. Bryant apparently is not, at least for now. Bryant is pushing for a tax cut for people making under $52,000 a year; hardly the corporate fat-cats described in Hughes' video.

Issue 4: Corporate tax breaks are bringing new jobs and businesses to our state

All of this crap about corporate tax cuts being tax cuts for “their buddies” is just ridiculous. I dare say few state Republicans hang out with the top brass of Nissan, Toyota, Post, Volvo, etc. No tax breaks are provided to any of these people because they are “buddies.” They are provided because they benefit the people of Mississippi by bringing and keeping jobs in our state.

For example, in 2002 Mississippi enacted a Freeport Warehouse rule that exempted warehouses which shipped their goods out of state from the personal property inventory tax. This move was not without opposition, and I’m sure Hughes would have been opposed to this “tax break” if he had been in the legislature at that time. Since 2002 Warehouses have sprung up like mad in DeSoto and Marshall County, and the two counties have gone from having almost no warehouses to having more than 50 million square feet, with more coming almost monthly. Businessmen are actually building spec 500,000 sq. ft. warehouses. Volvo recently closed all four of their warehouses around the country and moved and consolidated them in Marshall County. Post Cereal has done the same. These are the types of “cronies” that Hughes wants to keep out of our state.

Well-tailored tax breaks for corporations don’t hurt Mississippians; they help them. We all know that Nissan, Toyota, and Winchester got tax breaks or incentives, and I’m glad they did. Hughes clearly doesn’t want any of this. I guess he wants us all to go back to an era of sharecropping. Well, just no!

Issue 5: Hughes is right, the Democrat should have been seated in District 79

Unless there is something I don’t know, Jay Hughes is absolutely right about House District 79. It seems to me that the Democrat was certified the winner in this race and should have been seated. If the Republican wanted to cite irregularities the proper venue is a circuit court, not through legislative shennanigans. See, everyone can find common ground!

Issue 6: As a practical matter we have no inflation; education funding increases are real

Hughes says record education funding doesn't matter due to inflation. This is just a crock! For the last four years the inflation rate has remained under two percent and for the past two has been under one percent. The inflation rate is negligible. Republicans have made real increases in education funding.

Issue 7: When properly used, testing is a vital part of the educational process

Hughes says time spent on testing is depriving our children of an education. Tests can certainly be misused and results unfairly used, but frequent testing is an absolute necessity if children are to be educated. Benchmark testing can tell teachers exactly who gets it and who doesn’t, so that children who need help can be identified. Children should be tested on a very regular basis, and every child should receive at least one nationally normed test per year. Testing is wonderful! I suspect Hughes is upset that test results don’t always come out the way ultra-liberal Democrats want them to, but that is no reason to deprive every child of a decent education. Make no mistake, those who attack educational testing are in reality attacking education accountability. Studies show that testing in general reinforces and solidifies learning. Leave our tests alone!

Issue 8: Transfering school taxing and spending to the local level is not a bad thing, particularly for Oxford

Hughes says state educational budget cuts may necessitate the raising of local taxes. Well, hallelujah! Anytime we can move taxation from the state to the local level, it’s a good thing. If the state were to cut taxes and quit funding education completely, forcing our local school districts to fund themselves entirely, most citizens would be far better off. The money the state spends is not produced by magic; it comes from taxing our local citizenry. The state funding formula is a complete rip-off for Oxford, and citizens could easily pay the added property taxes out of their savings from a state income tax cut. The lion’s share of local property taxes are paid by commercial businesses, industries, students through their apartment rent, and alumni with pied-à-terres, so shifting the tax burden would greatly benefit Hughes’ constituents at the expense of those rich fat-cats he hates so much.

Issue 9: If special needs vouchers help a single student, they are worthwhile

Hughes declares the special needs voucher program an “abject failure” because only 250 were approved and only 107 of these were actually accepted into private schools, which he accused of “cherry picking.” How if this a failure? One hundred seven students were able to get a better educational placement. Hughes wants to subject them to a life of slavery. If only one special needs student was helped the program is worthwhile. Why is it wrong to help people?

Issue 10: Americans and Mississippians deserve a say in how they receive their government-funded or subsidized education

I’m not gong to argue about school choice at length, save to say that there ought to be a way to allow citizens school choice while still protecting local school districts. Surely there has to be a way for everyone to come out a winner on this issue! Perhaps a student who opts out of a local school district should get a voucher for 60 or 70 percent of the funding that would be spent on him while the remainder would remain in his assigned district. And by the way, the government DOES give people a choice of where to spend tax dollars, whether it be through food stamps, Medicare, Medicaid, Pell grants, or a host of other programs. The idea that students should be forced to attend a school not of their choosing is, quite plainly, un-American.

Issue 11: Hughes fails to recognize that Mississippi has some of the best schools in the nation

Hughes says that tax breaks don’t attract businesses, good schools do. Actually both play a role. But Hughes fails to recognize that Mississippi already has some of the best schools in the nation, one of which is in the very district he represents.

Oxford High School students annually post extraordinarily high ACT scores, with 12 to 14 percent of each class scoring 30 or higher, compared to a national average of about five to six percent. In 2013 and 2014 eight Oxford students, or about 3.5 percent of the class, scored a 35 or 36 on the ACT. The national average? About half of one percent. Oxford offers four foreign languages and a host of AP classes.

Of course, there’s more to life than academics. The Oxford school orchestra has made great strides in the past few years. I was really impressed at their last concert. You can view a couple of their numbers by clicking here (or here). A couple of years ago I was stunned by the beauty of a performance of “Mary Did You Know,” which was arranged and sung by several chorus members. My friend Ed Meek was kind enough to send someone to video them the next day. And while the Oxford football team lost the state championship for the third time in a row this year, it’s quite a feat to have made it to state three years in a row.

Oxford isn't alone; there are outstanding schools throughout the state. DeSoto County and Madison Central come immediately to mind. Mississippi already has what relocating companies need as far as schools are concerned. We just don’t need to chase them away by enacting a bunch of punitive taxes. And we need for Jay Hughes to stop po’-mouthing us and start telling the world that “We’re the best!”

_________

There, I’ve had my say. I’m sure Jay Hughes is a nice guy; clearly a lot of local residents like him. I don’t see the world as a zero-sum game as he does. But if it is a zero-sum game, the policies he is supporting will, after all is said and done, drain money from the Oxford community and deposit it elsewhere in the state. He ought to look after us instead.

If he really cares about our local community, he will start working to repeal MAEP and replace it with a per-student formula which treats every student and every school district exactly the same. This will dramatically increase funding for our local schools, which obviously will benefit the constituents that Hughes was elected to serve.

In short, I’m asking Hughes not to support the various liberal boondoggles of his friends and left-wing cronies on the backs of the hard-working citizens of Oxford and Lafayette County. Put us first!

Both NorthMississippiCommentor and ThusBlogged Anderson are now offline

    Although I started this blog back in 2008 -- at that time under the name Mississippi Madness -- I didn't begin blogging with any regularity until 2011.
    I got a certain amount of inspiration from Tom Freeland's "NorthMississippiCommentor" blog. Freeland was an extreme left-winger, but I enjoyed his mix of politics, recipes, restaurant reviews, and generaly mouthiness. Tom could be a little -- or sometimes a lot -- sanctimonious, but I still enjoyed reading his comments.
    After Freeland's death in February 2015 his blog remained online, and I would reference it from time to time. Sadly, his web hosting account has now expired and his blog has gone black. I suppose that's something to be said for Blogger, which is free and lasts forever, or at least until Google decides otherwise.
    Another recent blog loss is that of Thus Blogged Anderson. I don't know Anderson, but based on his blog posts he's really liberal and really smart. A lot of the commentors on his blog tended to be the ultra-shrill liberal types, but Anderson was generally willing to carry on a reasoned discussion. Apparently some jackass lawyer made a big production about something that Anderson wrote during some legal proceedings, and he just chose to roll it up and call it quits.
    Although I am a conservative, I do miss being able to read these blogs. I actually have several year's worth of blog posts for both Freeland and Anderson thanks to my blog reading app. I suppose I could copy and paste them all into some type of archive file for future reference.
    I'm sorry for the loss of these voices, even if I usually disagreed with them. And I'm sorry their blogs are no longer online, so that I could at least be allowed to read their old stuff. Life goes on, though.

Judicial candidates shouldn't brag about harsh sentences when seeking office

Click to enlarge

    I recently visited the Jackson Jambalaya website, which is always full of great news, and saw the ad at right for Marlin "Marty" Miller, a candidate for 20th District circuit judge in Madison and Rankin Counties.
    All I can say is that Miller, who is currently a prosecutor, would not have my vote.
    Cannon 5, Section 3, Subsection d of the Code of Judicial Conduct provides that judicial candidates shall not:

i) make pledges or promises of conduct in office other than the faithful and impartial performance of the duties of the office;
(ii) make statements that commit or appear to commit the candidate with respect to cases, controversies or issues that are likely to come before the court;

    Now, to be certain, Miller's ad is not promising that he will as judge impose maximum sentences as a judge. But he is clearly trumpeting the fact that he obtained these lengthy sentences as a prosecutor, and the clear inference is that he will impose these types of sentences as a circuit judge. And for that reason the ad is, in my opinion, unethical.
    I confess that I'm glad that Miller helped put those criminals away for quite a while. They are scary looking guys. I just don't think it ethical to run for circuit judge on a platform of having obtained harsh sentences as a prosecutor. I would rather see a prosecutor run on a platform of being firm but fair, and see him brag about how few of his cases had been overturned on appeal. But that's just me; other people may disagree.
    A major problem with our criminal justice system is that we have far too many judges who go straight from the prosecutor's office to the bench. Many become fair arbiters overnight, but others never set aside their prosecutorial bias. I don't think a law banning anyone from being appointed or elected judge within two years of serving in a prosecutor's office would be unreasonable.
    I don't know Miller and have no axe to grind with him, but if Miller were to be elected and I were to be a poor defendant in his courtroom, based on his advertisement I really don't feel like I would get a fair trial. And that's not healthy for our judicial system.

If Initiative 42 language doesn't match explainations in petitions, it may not survive post-election challenge

    With all the arguments going on about Initiative 42, I’m surprised we aren’t hearing more about the almost fraudulent nature of the very petitions used to put this petition on the ballot in the first place.
    The original Initiative 42 petition which voters signed was accompanied by a statement on how it could be paid for, which asserted that it could be funded over several years out of new revenue only. This is not in the amendment.
    Another statement said, "For purposes of the initiative, a minimum standard of contemporary adequate education is described by the funding formula of the current version of the Mississippi Adequate Education Program and an efficient education is one that will, among other things, enable Mississippi's public school graduates to compete favorably with their counterparts in surrounding states." But again, nothing about MAEP appears anywhere in the amendment, and these statements will have no legal effect.
    Essentially the people who were asked to sign the 42 petitions were told it would do one thing when the words of the actual amendment say something else entirely.
    That’s why we keep hearing people insist that there will be no tax increases; after all, that’s what was in the explanatory statement of the petition they signed. It’s just not in the actual amendment. That’s why we keep hearing that the purpose of the amendment is to fully fund MAEP, even though MAEP isn’t mentioned in the amendment. The poor voters who were tricked into signing the thing were told, in writing, that the amendment was to fully fund MAEP.
    As a reminder, here is the actual amendment that is proposed. You will note that there is not one word about it being funded over time only out of increases in revenue, not a peep about MAEP, and that the chancery courts have no limits whatsoever placed on their power. This is just plain English:

Section 201 (Proposed)
To protect each child's fundamental right to educational opportunity, the State shall provide for the establishment, maintenance and support of an adequate and efficient system of free public schools. The chancery courts of this State shall have the power to enforce this section with appropriate injunctive relief.

    In 2011 the Mississippi Supreme Court refused to consider objections to the Personhood Amendment on the grounds that the issue was not ripe since it had not yet been approved by the voters. It held that the court should only consider the case if the Initiative was actually approved, at which time it would consider challenges.
    If Initiative 42 should pass it will become ripe for challenge. Opponents will be able to point out to the court that the amendment doesn’t include the provisions that were promised to those who signed the original petition, and therefore the attempt to amend the constitution should fail.
    It’s not hard to write a constitutional amendment that will do exactly what an explanation says it will do. There is no excuse for the Initiative 42 that is being laid before the voters to have none of the provision that were in the petition description, unless the omissions were intentional.
    This fraud on the public must not be allowed to stand.

In Initiative 42 debate, acknowledgement of risk isn't a lie and hopes of supporters are not the truth

    Supporters of Mississippi’s Initiative 42 have been flooding Facebook and other social media with messages that people shouldn’t believe the “lies” that are being told about the proposed constitutional amendment that give the judiciary the duty to ensure adequate school funding.
    I’m opposed to Initiative 42, so I suppose that makes me one of the “liars.” But the truth is that no one can say for certain what this sloppily worded amendment might do. Only if it passes will we know whether or not our fears were justified.
    As a matter of principle, I oppose involving the judiciary in the allocation and appropriation of state funds, period. So even if Initiative 42 were well written, I would still oppose it.
    With that said, nobody needs to tell any “lies” about Initiative 42; the language of the proposed amendment is scary enough. Let’s look at the language, which would amend Section 201 of the state constitution to read as follows (new language is underlined, old language has a strike-through):

SECTION 201.

Educational opportunity for public school children: To protect each child's fundamental right to educational opportunity
The Legislaturethe State shall
, by general law,provide for the establishment, maintenance and support of an adequate and efficient system of free public schools
upon such conditions and limitations as the Legislature may prescribe.The chancery courts of this State shall have the power to enforce this section with appropriate injunctive relief.

So leaving aside the scratch-outs, if passed Section 201 would read as follows:

To protect each child's fundamental right to educational opportunity, the State shall provide for the establishment, maintenance and support of an adequate and efficient system of free public schools. The chancery courts of this State shall have the power to enforce this section with appropriate injunctive relief.

    Submitted with this amendment was a statement proposing that the changes could be phased in over several years, and further asserting that "For purposes of the initiative, a minimum standard of contemporary adequate education is described by the funding formula of the current version of the Mississippi Adequate Education Program and an efficient education is one that will, among other things, enable Mississippi's public school graduates to compete favorably with their counterparts in surrounding states."
    This verbage would support to some extent the claims of Initiative 42 supporters. But none of it is going to be part of the amended Constitution, and what ultimately governs is the wording of the amendment, not the statement of the intentions of the petition signers.
    What is important is not what the proposed amendment says, but what it does not say. The proposed amendment does not recognize the right of the legislature to define "adequate." The courts might recognize the right of the legislature to continue to define what is "adequate," and then again, they might not. The new amendment has no limitation on the right of the judiciary to reallocate funds, so that the Hinds County chancery court, where any funding dispute will be heard, will be perfectly free to simply drain funding from high-performing districts while funneling tax revenue into Jackson's low-performing slums as part of some pie-in-the-sky scheme to improve test scores.
    This is exactly what happened in Kansas City, in what the Cato Institute calls "America's Most Costly Educational Failure." In Kansas City, a federal judge decided that enough spending would solve that city's educational woes. After pissing away $2 billion and draining the rest of Missouri's schools dry this grand experiment resulted in lower test scores and higher drop-out rates for the most lavishly funded school district in the nation. The lesson to be learned is that judges and school funding do not mix well, and judicial interference with the educational funding process is to be avoided like the plague.
    If we are going to continue this game of "Liar, Liar, pants on fire," let's look at the assertions of each side. Those of us who oppose Initiative 42 insist that you can't simply increase funding for one part of state government without either raising taxes or cutting spending elsewhere. This is just common sense. Perhaps we should reallocate our spending, but let's not pretend that such decisions are completely painless or cost free. In addition, we feel that the language of the proposed amendment carries with it a real risk of judicial overreach and of unintended consequences. Note the word "risk." We do not claim to know for certain that bad things will happen; we just think the risk is there, both from what the proposed amendment says and from what it doesn't say.
    Initiative 42 proponents steadfastly insist that there is no risk whatsoever, even though the language of the proposed amendment is scary as hell. They insist there is no chance of judicial overreach, and no chance of higher taxes or cutbacks in other state agencies. And they may be right! But I just don't understand why the amendment wasn't worded in such a way that it stated some of the limitations that its supporters insist it carries with it.
    To determine who is telling the truth on Initiative 42, I suggest simply reading the plain English of the amendment and consider the claims of each side. I believe the amendment carries with it great risk, but risk is by no means a certainty that things will go wrong. It's supporters insist there is no risk whatsoever. But in insisting that there is no risk, these well-intentioned souls confuse truth with hope.
    Acknowledgement of the risks that Initiative 42 poses is not a lie, and hopes by its supporters that everything will work exactly as they say is not truth. Those of us who are opposed to Initiative 42 are not lying, and those who support it aren't the ultimate arbiters of truth. We're all sharing honest opinions about what might or might not happen should this amendment be adopted.
    The fact is, though, that when transferring power to the judiciary, none of us can be certain of the outcome. The legislature can and should heed the call of state voters to increase educational funding, but we shouldn't do it by putting the courts in charge.
    That's only my opinion, but it's an honest opinion and not a "lie." I'm going to vote "NO" on Initiative 42 and would urge those who agree with me to do likewise. Others may have a differing opinion and are welcome to vote accordingly.
    And should Initiative 42 supporters prevail, I will certainly join them in hoping that their hopes turn out to be true.
   
   
   

Unpatriotic cities which ban our state flag shouldn't receive discretionary state funds

     A number of Mississippi cities, including Oxford, have decided to show their support for the Obama-donor-led effort to cram a new state flag down our throats by voting to remove our current state flag from city property.
    The idea is that our current flag is objectionable because it pays tribute to our Confederate forbears by incorporating the battle flag of Northern Virginia in its canton. And so cities with liberal boards of aldermen are voting to refuse to display our state flag to pressure the legislature into adopting another one.
    I happen to believe the Confederate flag is a wonderful symbol of our Southern heritage, and its inclusion in our state flag makes it unique. When people see it they know immediately that it represents a Southern state; most flags give no clue as to region. Every disparagement that can be made of the Confederate flag can also be made of the American flag, save that the American flag has represented far more evil.
    But I will leave the arguments over whether our current flag is a wonderful or evil thing to another day. Good or bad, it’s still our flag, and it’s the duty of our municipalities to display it.
    Suppose the Obama-donors were to be successful and the legislature were to adopt a new flag. Imagine the reaction of the same liberals if people like me refused to accept the new flag, or cities across Mississippi voted not to display it. I can just hear their sanctimonious sermonettes now!
    Mississippi is a sovereign state, and we as citizens have a duty of allegiance to our sovereign. This includes recognition of our state’s emblems, the most notable of which is our state flag. Municipalities incorporated under the laws of our state have an equal, if not greater, duty to recognize and display these emblems.
    As citizens we are welcome to seek changes in our state’s symbols. We the people are the sovereign together, but the decisions we make together must be respected by all. A refusal to display our state’s flag is, plain and simple, unpatriotic. It is a renunciation of citizenship.
    Mississippi’s various agencies distribute a great deal of discretionary money each year to counties and municipalities. If a city does not recognize its duty to show fealty to the sovereign through the display of our state flag, then the state should not provide these cities with any discretionary funding. The legislature should not advance any local bill for any of the municipalities, and if one should pass, Gov. Bryant should veto it.
    Certainly I will be contacting Gov. Bryant and other state officials and will ask them to end any discretionary funding for Oxford and other cities that have voted to ban our state flag. These aldermen can be just as unpatriotic as they wish, but if they have no allegiance to our state then our state owes them nothing, either.

___________________________

I have emailed the following to Gov. Bryant and will be sending similar messages to other state leaders. I urge everyone who disagrees with this nonsense to send a similar message to him and others.

Many cities are trying to pressure the legislature to change our state flag, despite the fact that the people voted overwhelming in favor of keeping the 1894 flag in 2001. This includes votes to ban the display of the Mississippi flag on municipal property.

I believe that municipalities have a duty of fealty to the sovereign, which includes the display of our state flag. Those municipalities which ban our state flag are effectively renouncing their state citizenship. I would ask that you, as governor, direct the executive agencies not to direct any discretionary spending to municipalities which have banned our state flag.

In the upcoming legislative session, I would also ask you to veto any local bill sponsored for the benefit of any municipality which has banned our state flag. Those who refuse to pay tribute to our state should not receive any special funding or favors from our state.

Thank you so much for standing up for the people and for the rule of law rather than the rule of the mob.

With flag decision Oxford's unpatriotic aldermen show lack of respect for democratic process

    In a rather disgusting attempt to curry favor with liberal elites, the Oxford board of aldermen voted unanimously to refuse to display the Mississippi flag on city property Tuesday night.
    The aldermen weren’t acting in response to a groundswell of citizen demand. In fact, 15 years ago Lafayette County voters decided in favor of keeping the 1894 flag, in the election where an overwhelming majority of Mississippi voters said “Leave Our Flag Alone!” The leftists who sought to change the flag 15 years ago are the same ones seeking to change it today. They just won’t quit.
    A recent newspaper ad calling for a new flag was signed by a number of "notable"Mississippians. A campaign donor search found most were either Obama donors or flunkies of ousted Ole Miss Chancellor Dan Jones. In other words, the people we should listen to the least!
    What has happened is that the Oxford city board has been filled for the most part with extremely liberal aldermen. Usually this doesn’t matter; after all, these people are running a city, not establishing national policy. But give them a chance to jump off the George-McGovern deep end, and they will.
    I happen to think we should keep our state flag. We’ve already voted on it, and by an overwhelming majority Mississippi voters made it clear they did not want a change. But if we have to argue this again, then the issue should again be presented to the voters. The city of Oxford shouldn’t be taking a position one way or the other.
    Suppose the left-wing fringe is successful in ram-rodding a new flag through the legislature. I’m sure they will immediately insist that it is the duty of all Mississippians to accept the flag which has been adopted through the democratic process. And yet, by refusing to display our state’s flag, Oxford’s city board has made it clear that it doesn’t respect the democratic process very much. Is every city henceforth to just display the state flag of its own choosing?
    I am a former Oxford resident, in that I now live a few hundred yards outside the city limits. So although I voted in the last election I can’t vote in the next one. But I still have an interest in what goes on in a city where I consider myself a resident. And what the Oxford City board has done is disgraceful. A refusal to display our state flag is unpatriotic, and in making this decision Oxford’s aldermen are not very different from the hippie flag burner’s of the 1960s. The hippies were wrong and so are Oxford’s elected officials.
    Unfortunately, Mississippi doesn’t have recall elections, but these are clearly power-hungry aldermen; most will be seeking re-election. Hopefully the citizens will turn them out en masse. Alderman Jay Hughes is seeking to oust Republican Rep. Brad Mayo in this fall’s legislative election. I hope the voters will send him – and the whole sorry lot – a loud and clear message.