A deserved thank you to Speaker Philip Gunn (R- Clinton)

By now, you are all very much aware of the online petition to change Mississippi's state flag and the various comments from politicians on the issue.  One in particular stood out, seeing as the Mississippi Republican Party is the official "safe place" of racist white Mississippians.

(Just like this, but in the MSGOP version, both people are white.)

House Speaker Philip Gunn (R - Clinton), whom I have criticized on this blog more times than I can count, issued a statement last night stating his belief that we should remove the Confederate battle flag from the Mississippi state flag. I agree with him, and am glad to see he has opened his mind to the idea that a symbol of our state should be one that unifies, not divides.  So, kudos to him for that.  I stand with you, Speaker Gunn.

Now let's see you get that through a government currently dominated by Republicans. Best of luck.

53 years ago today, Rep. John Lewis (D - Georgia) was released from Parchman

On July 7, 1961, a young man named John Lewis was released from the Parchman State Penitentiary for using a "whites-only" restroom here in Jackson.  Here's his mug shot:

And here he is today in his Congressional photo, wearing his Presidential Medal of Freedom that he earned through his work in the Civil Rights Movement:

I can't help but wonder what those who arrested Rep. Lewis back then think of him now.  (I guess I could always go to a local GOP meeting and ask, couldn't I?)

Let's Tea Party like it's 1959

Jerry Mitchell, the award-winning investigative reporter for the Clarion-Ledger who's life's task has been to expose the craziness that exists amongst us, wrote an excellent article the other day about the Mississippi Tea Party.

Folks have been calling the Tea Party leadership nuts for quite some time, few more enthusiastically than I. They are hard shell, unrepentant, unreconstructed "conservatives" who seek to roll American society back at least 50 years. They've never met a federal government program or initiative they like (especially things like the Department of Justice and the Voting Rights Act). The Mississippi Tea Party leadership has generally been smart enough to keep those views out of the media, however, affording themselves plausible deniability.

Well, no more. Mississippi Tea Party Chairman Roy Nicholson, no doubt high on Election Day results which saw Tea Party candidates help Republicans gain control of the Legislature, decided to let his freak flag fly in the Tea Party's 2012 Legislative Agenda. To begin with, Nicholson takes aim at federal laws he doesn't like, and declares "We do not want lawsuits challenging these laws - but nullification and/or interposition." Yes, you read that correctly. The discarded legal theories used to support slavery and subsequently segregation are the weapons of choice for the Mississippi Tea Party.

Then, improbably, it gets even worse. The Mississippi Tea Party wants a legislative Un-American Activities Committee. Yes, you read that correctly. They want a committee established to "to make a study of un-American activities in this state and to report its findings." According to the Clarion-Ledger, Mississippi had a General Legislative Investigating Committee years ago, and this is what the Tea Party wants resurrected. The GLIC (that's what I'm calling it, anyways) was to investigate:

un-American activities includ(ing) those "intended to overthrow, destroy, alter, or to assist in the overthrow, destruction or alteration of the constitutional form of government" in the U.S. or Mississippi by "revolution, force, violence or other means" not authorized by the state or U.S. Constitution.

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Are we really going back down the Red Scare/McCarthyism road? And besides, wouldn't the GLIC be forced to spend an inordinate amount of time studying the very proponents of the legislation reenacting it?

MS Tea Party Chairman Roy Nicholson's idol, Sen. Joe McCarthy

Very interesting numbers from the counties, or "The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated"

Mississippi Republicans have been planning on getting local officials, particularly rural white Democrats, (the folks they deem "the courthouse crowd") to switch parties this year and run as Republicans.  In fact, they've gone so far as to acknowledge that succeeding at this plan is vital to longterm Republican success in Mississippi.

Well, they're failing.

Here are the numbers from 33 counties that contain the folks the MSGOP is targeting:

There are 478 incumbents. Of that number 403 have qualified for re-election, and of that number 390 qualified as Democrats. Two qualified as Independents and 11 as Republicans. Of the seven incumbents who have so far qualified for another position, six of them are running as Democrats.

Yes, you read that correctly.  That's 12 out of 478, or 0.025%.  If that was a batting average, well, let's just say folks would start suggesting that the MSGOP needs a tee.

The 33 counties are Alcorn, Amite, Attala, Calhoun, Carroll, Chickasaw, Copiah, Covington, George, Greene, Itawamba, Jones, Lafayette, Lawrence, Leake, Lincoln, Marion, Marshall, Monroe, Montgomery, Newton, Panola, Perry, Pike, Pontotoc, Prentiss, Scott, Smith, Stone, Tate, Tishomingo, Union, and Wayne.

McBride takes momentum into the last week of campaign

It’s not easy to distinguish yourself when you're one of seven candidates running for a down ticket office in a January election but television ads help. Of the seven candidates for Northern District Transportation Commissioner, Rep. Warner McBride has far outpaced the field with his ad buys to date. Only two other candidates have run television ads and those buys were noticeably smaller than McBride’s. The McBride campaign has also picked up the endorsement of the Mississippi Association of Realtors, one of the largest trade associations in the state.

That McBride has positioned himself well won’t come as a surprise to anyone who has tracked his career in the Mississippi Legislature. In Jackson, McBride has established himself as one of the most likeable and effective leaders in the state House. As Chairman of the House Transportation Committee, McBride has helped create a transportation budget that is responsible for over fifty thousand private sector jobs. Just last year, McBride was instrumental in passing a $300,000,000.00 jobs bill that not only put Mississippians back to work, but also included money to speed up highway projects and fix unsafe bridges across the state.

In a race that is almost certainly headed for a runoff, McBride looks like a strong contender.

June 1 it is

With Phil Bryant spending the day before the start of the 2011 legislative session jetsetting around the state and worrying about his future more than yours, folks are becoming aware that it's campaign season again in Mississippi.  2011 will certainly have it's own unforeseen wrinkles, but here's one sure thing:  Because Mississippi did not receive the 2010 census information from the U.S. Secretary of Commerce by January 1, the official qualifying deadline for legislative offices is June 1 at 5:00 p.m. This wrinkle in the law, spelled out in Miss. Code Ann. §23-15-299(1)(b), does not affect the qualifying deadline for statewide candidates which remains March 1.