Tuesday, March 26, 2013

PARTY TIME AT DMR!!! Woooo!!! Let's take the boats out again!



Gov. Phil Bryant has announced that former Chief of Staff for Congressman Steven Palazzo, Jamie Miller, will be the new head of the Department of Marine Resources.

I've avoided the DMR topic here for too long, primarily because it is quite complicated, and I don't want to screw it up.  But suffice it to say that DMR needed a new head man because it was out of control and possibly broke a slew of laws.

So Phil Bryant has named Jamie Miller to lead the staff of DMR, which, by anyone's measure, had gotten out of control over the last few years.  Presumably, Bryant's objective was to find someone with a steady hand and history for running a clean, tight organization.  That's what you need in the wake of the DMR scandal, right?

Well, let's take a look at Palazzo's staff under the leadership of Jamie Miller.

Folks will remember Jamie Miller as Palazzo's lead man during the dust-up over an Animal House-style  party thrown by Palazzo's staff in Maryland in late 2011.  Miller was also chief of staff during a fiasco in which it was uncovered that Palazzo was using his staff to perform personal tasks, which is prohibited by House ethics rules.

I don't know about you, but when Roll Call refers to the staff Miller controlled in D.C. the following way, it doesn't give me much confidence in the future of DMR: "Covering the office of Rep. Steven Palazzo (R-Miss.) has almost become a job unto itself...."

Maybe this means we can take the boats out again!

Flounder with Phil, y'all.

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