Et Tu, Tea Party?

Allowing himself to blow with the political winds of the moment, Gov. Phil Bryant continues to ratchet up his new-found opposition to Common Core education standards that he has approved over the past two years. Going against the wishes of the state Board of Education and business groups like the Mississippi Economic Council, Bryant flip flops on a position he agreed with just two months ago! Citing such sources as Tea Party state Sen. Michael Watson of Pascagoula, and let's take a moment to think about that, Bryant feels he has tapped into a vein of opposition he must follow.

Beyond such unremarkable legislators like Watson and Tea Party Sen. Angela Hill of Picayune, Tea Party leader and person who gives me mean looks in the Capitol Laura Van Overschele says that even though Bryant has changed his views on Common Core, his new-found opposition may be too little too late. Read her words for yourself.

“My worry is that he [Bryant] hasn’t figured that out yet—whether he wants to be re-elected for a second term as governor,” Van Overschelde told Breitbart News. “I’m wondering whether the groundswell that has amassed for Chris McDaniel and his conservative values, I’m wondering if he [Bryant] will ever be able to convince enough of the electorate, who supported him overwhelmingly in 2011—are they really going to be able to bite that bullet? I don’t think so. It could be really politically bad for him.”

When asked if Bryant is still salvageable from the grassroots perspective, Van Overschelde said, “he’s going to have a lot of work to do.”

“He’s tone deaf,” she said. “We had extensive conversations with him about the army we were amassing to support Chris McDaniel. We told him about it not very long after Sen. Cochran announced that he was going to run again. We told him this was going to be a grassroots thing. We’re going to get the people in Mississippi to look at what’s going on here. The people are not happy with a lot of the state things that have happened. It’s coming. You can bet on it. It’s going to be a hard road to hoe to convince enough people that they can believe in you when you’ve been backing Cochran all that time.”

After all Bryant has done to advance the Tea Party's agenda, and thereby transforming the Republican Party, Van Overschelde and her army of malcontents are threatening to punish the man who has done more for them than Haley Barbour ever would. Still no word on pardon reform, mind you.

For crying out loud, Phil Bryant isn't conservative enough for the Tea Party?! My goodness! This is the same Phil Bryant that said mothers getting jobs is the reason for faults in our education system! Bryant has dragged his knuckles across the ground with his Tea Party supporters from day one! I don't understand how much more conservative they need Bryant to get before they view him as a team player.

If Bryant is not as conservative as they want, I wish Van Overschelde and her colleagues would move beyond platitudes like "we want conservative leadership" and actually explain what they mean when they say that. If Bryant isn't their guy, who is? Explain to us, or We The People, what an ideal candidate looks like to them. If Bryant isn't safe after all he has done for the Tea Party base of the Republican Party, I hope every other Mississippi Republican hears the footsteps coming up behind them.

Gun rights GOP's demise?

A few days before the primary, a letter from the National Association for Gun Rights went out urging Mississippi voters to vote for Chris McDaniel, claiming he is in "100% support for your gun rights." Despite his 100% rating and endorsement from the National Rifle Association, the NAGR's letter claims Senator Thad Cochran is hiding his anti-gun views because he did not return their candidate survey.

While this might seem like a fairly innocuous mailer, a similar survey unanswered in Virginia by Rep. Eric Cantor is being partially blamed for his defeat last week. From Politico's analysis:

"A few weeks out from the election, the Virginia Citizens Defense League, a gun rights group, pressed Cantor’s campaign to perform what they saw as a routine request: reaffirm his support for the Second Amendment by completing a simple questionnaire. It was the kind of request any typical Republican running in a conservative district would answer.
But Cantor ignored the group, which claims 26,000 supporters, as he had for years. The congressman never responded to the survey or its plea to relocate an annual GOP event in the district from a pavilion that banned concealed guns... The slight, his critics argued, was emblematic of Cantor’s broader attitude that he was untouchable."

The bigger picture in Virginia, and the same picture being painted here in Mississippi, was of course that the Washington folks are out of touch with the people back home. This particular issue also represents the Tea Party and GOP's incessant fight to out-conservative one another. Though rumors are circulating that many outside groups are not participating in this runoff, we'll see how the mailers and commercials evolve over the last few days.

As for the NAGR, they touted their own victory in Virginia over Cantor last week. The article also highlights the press conference they gave last year to a room full of their staffers posing as reporters. A simple search of the group produces some equally bizarre message board threads.

The entire NAGR letter endorsing McDaniel is below.

NAGR Endorsement of Chris McDaniel

Tea Party Seeks to Take Away More Voting Rights

A leading Tea Party group, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), is striking at the heart of the 17th Amendment to the United States Constitution: the direct election of United States Senators by popular vote. If we needed another example that Tea Party Republicans are living in 1913, when the 17th Amendment was ratified, this is certainly it. For all of the Tea Party's claims about preserving the Constitution, they seem to be in an awful hurry to weaken it.

What ALEC seeks to do is allow state legislatures to nominate hardcore Tea Party candidates for the United States Senate and bypass the electorate when ALEC thinks it is necessary. Their reasoning is simple: to push their Tea Party agenda, they need to find a new mechanism to select the candidates that they want rather than abide by the will of the voters. The best way to do that is to take control away from the voters and place it in the hands of state legislatures that are agreeable to their positions. Bear in mind that what ALEC is starting out with is not a full repeal of the 17th Amendment, but we can see that this is the beginning of that process.

Let's look at Mississippi's legislature. At last count, we have 32 Republicans and 20 Democrats in the Senate and 65 Republicans and 57 Democrats in the House. Simple math tells us that if the legislature was voting on candidates, a Tea Party Republican would win. If a Senate nominee like Thad Cochran is not conservative enough for the Republican base, yet he still wins the nomination, the Tea Party-led legislature could reject the decision of their primary voters and nominate someone like Sen. Chris McDaniel (R-Ellisville) instead.

To find a list of Mississippi legislators who are members of ALEC, click HERE.

Let's say that this idea floated by ALEC is in effect and our legislature, as it exists today, got to make nominations for our next United States Senator. One can expect it would be a spectacle of national magnitude surpassing the 2008 vote for Mississippi's House Speaker.

All of this gets back to the civil war within the Mississippi Republican Party where the Haley Barbour group is getting squeezed out and the Tea Party, encouraged by the likes of Speaker Gunn (R-Clinton) and the Senate Conservative Coalition, has taken control.

Mississippi Republicans have been consumed by the Tea Party and recent polling backs up that argument. The poll noted that 55 percent of Mississippi Republican voters want someone more conservative than Republican Sen. Thad Cochran.

Voters should get Republican members of the legislature on record whether they would support state Sen. Chris McDaniel or Sen. Thad Cochran. If you see a Republican legislator at a football game this weekend or any other time for that matter, be sure ask him or her whether he or she is on Team Cochran or Team McDaniel. Let the pivoting begin!

I guess the saying is true: you can either be a Tea Party Republican or a rational person in Mississippi.

McDaniel Receives Another Tea Party Endorsement

State Sen. Chris McDaniel (R-Ellisville) has received the endorsement of the Tea Party Express!

Several prominent mouth-breathing experts were on hand to celebrate this accomplishment. If you recall, the individual to McDaniel's left once noted the country might have been better off if it was still just men voting.

Congratulations, Senator!

Mother Jones: Cochran's Tea Party challenger pals around with neo-Confederates

All of y'all flipping out over me pointing out that Mr. Chris "Restore the Constitution" McDaniel has the Three-Fifths Compromise emblazoned on the side of his RV as he drives it through Mississippi should have a field day with this.  (Paul Gallo, I'm looking at you.)

Mother Jones has a story up about McDaniel spending the last few months hanging out with neo-Confederates.  From the article:

In August, McDaniel addressed a neo-Confederate conference in Laurel, Miss., near his hometown of Ellisville. A local chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV), the Jones County Rosin Heels, hosted the two-day event, which the group described in invitations as a "Southern Heritage Conference" for "politically incorrect folks." Attendees were advised to dress in "Confederate uniforms and antebellum ball gowns or wee kilties." McDaniel's appearance at the Rosin Heels heritage conference was not a one-off occurrence; weeks earlier he was the keynote speaker at a separate event in Jackson. 

The Rosin Heels does more than regret the outcome of the Civil War. Its monthly newsletter routinely features articles and essays advocating for present-day secession. Its August newsletter highlighted the seven-year-old "Burlington Declaration" from the First North American Secession Convention, which stated that the right of secession was a "[truth] of natural law and the human experience." (While it did not advcoate for specific secession movement, the proclamation affirmed the right of the conference's various attendees to do so.) In September, the newsletter included an essay on secession from the League of the South, lamenting the loss of southern independence at the hands of the "plutocracy and proletariat of the world." A note from the editor stated that "we are living in the times that Jefferson Davis predicted would one day come," in which the conflicts that presaged the Civil War would flare up again. The June issue compared Obama's policies to the ravages of Reconstruction: "Our people have had to put up with for the last FIFTEEN DECADES!!!" 

... 

The group also purchases billboards, with messages such as "Happy birthday, President Jefferson Davis," and "Fort Sumter was fired on when Lincoln tried to reinforce his customs house for tax collection."

So, how do y'all feel about poor ol' Chris "Three-Fifths" McDaniel now? Was I too harsh?

Sen. Thad Cochran's Tea Party challenger, Chris McDaniel, has the Three-Fifths Compromise emblazoned on his RV

In case you don't remember off hand, back when our Founding Fathers penned our Constitution in 1787, we still had this whole slavery thing going on down here in the South. An impasse arose at the Constitutional Convention over whether or not slaves would count as persons for purposes of taxation and representation in Congress. Shamefully, our Founding Fathers decided to kick the slavery issue down the road by reaching what is known as the "Three-Fifths Compromise". The gist of it is that slaves would be counted as 3/5ths of a person, rather than a whole person. So for every 10 whites, you had 10 people. But for every 10 blacks, you had 6. Just think, if we still had the Three-Fifths Compromise in place, Republicans wouldn't be in such bad shape nationally.

Anyway, the Three-Fifths Compromise isn't exactly a little-known feature of our Constitution. And it's fairly easy to find, as it's right there on the front page in Article 1, Section 2, Paragraph 3. It reads:

Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all other Persons. (Emphasis added.)

It's also easily found on the side of the campaign vehicle of self-proclaimed constitutional scholar Chris McDaniel, who is running a Tea Party-backed challenge to U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran (R - Miss) in next year's Republican primary. First, a picture of McDaniel's campaign RV:

(click to enlarge)

Now here's a close-up of the Constitution on his RV (I've underlined the Three-Fifths language in red):

(click to enlarge)

The main talking point of McDaniel's campaign is that he wants to "restore the Constitution". Given that he's touring Mississippi (of all states) with the Three-Fifths Compromise on the side of his campaign vehicle, he should be clear about exactly what parts of the Constitution he does and does not want to "restore".

Chris McDaniel opened his US Senate campaign's Vimeo account 3 weeks ago

State Sen. Chris McDaniel (R - Ellisville) announced his Tea Party campaign against incumbent U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran (R - Miss) two days ago after telling everyone, including the AP's Emily Wagster Pettus, that he was still praying about whether he should enter the race:

Emily Wagster Pettus ‏@EWagsterPettus17 Oct

Campaign RV for ChrisMcDaniel, who told me 2 nights ago he was still praying about whether to run for US Senate. pic.twitter.com/Ls5UzX8wSR

Well, it's not an RV, but his campaign's Vimeo account was launched three weeks ago:

Leadership you can trust!

Well, well, well. Look what we found: Chris McDaniel's "welfare state" announcement video

Yesterday, state senator Chris McDaniel (R - Ellisville) announced he would challenge U.S. Senator Thad Cochran (R - Miss) in the GOP primary in 2014. He posted an announcement video on his campaign website, but quickly blocked public access to it.  This was after others, including Northern District Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley (D), took him to task for calling Mississippi "a welfare state."

I sent up a flare looking for it yesterday, and by this afternoon, I had it. Here it is:

 

The Hunt for Red October: Chris McDaniel's hidden announcement video

Earlier today, Mississippi state senator Chris McDaniel (R - Ellisville), announced that he would challenge longtime incumbent U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran (R - Miss.) in the 2014 Republican primary.  He held a campaign event in his hometown, and simultaneously unveiled a campaign website complete with videos on his positions.

Shortly thereafter, McDaniel began to receive immense criticism for calling Mississippi a "welfare state" in his announcement video.  Take for instance this tweet by Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley (D):

Brandon Presley ‏@BrandonPresley5h

Chris McDaniel's campaign video calling MS a "welfare state" is sick. Our people work harder than plenty of people NY, CA or any other state

Then a funny thing happened.  McDaniel made the video "private", meaning that no one could view his announcement video without his permission.  You can check for yourself here:  http://youtu.be/TETb6Am7le0

Maybe it will go live again at some point in its unaltered form.  Maybe someone saved the original and will put it out there for us all to view again.  In the meantime, here's a screenshot from the 118 seconds Chris McDaniel wishes he had back:

So, Sen. Chris McDaniel (R - Ellisville) has announced he'll be the Tea Party challenger to US Sen. Thad Cochran (R - Miss)

Sure looks like Chris McDaniel's going to make the run against Sen. Thad Cochran

From McDaniel's Facebook page an hour ago:

Why? Why is that impossible? You're so concerned with squabbling for the scraps from [the king's] table that you've missed your God-given right to something better. There is a difference between us. You think the people of this country exist to provide you with position. I think your position exists to provide those people with freedom. And I go to make sure that they have it. -- William Wallace (Braveheart) (one of my favorites)

Word from earlier in the week was that McDaniel would not run. But that quote is not posted by someone looking to stand on the sidelines. That quote is for someone getting ready to accuse Sen. Thad Cochran of being a terrible U.S. Senator. Get your popcorn ready.

Hattiesburg Hospital Takes Financial Hit; Others Likely

It has been argued for months that without Mississippi expanding access to Medicaid services, some hospitals across the state would continue bleeding red ink. We noted a case in Hancock County last month, and now we're reading that the Forrest Health System, based in Hattiesburg, is feeling the financial pinch of having more patients to treat without the financial resources to do so.

Forrest Health is expecting a $2.5 million loss in its FY 2014 budget. Those aren't numbers to take lightly. They are already losing nearly $4 million in support payments made by the federal government to treat low-income persons. The Chief Financial Officer of the Forrest General Hospital hoped for Medicaid expansion to occur, but we know that did not happen.

Rep. Toby Barker (R-Hattiesburg)

During this summer's Medicaid special session, the tea party-led Legislature rejected a proposal to expand Medicaid eligibility in the state. Among those voting no were Hattiesburg's Representative, Toby Barker. This expansion would assist his financially-strapped hospital by plugging financial holes so they can continue offering services without interruption. Let's not forget that the Forrest Health System is one of the largest employers in the area. All that aside, Barker took his marching orders from Speaker Gunn and voted against a plan that would have helped his hospitals and his district.

Sen. Billy Hudson (R-Hattiesburg)

On the other side of the Capitol, Hattiesburg Senator Billy Hudson was a lonely Republican when it came to Medicaid expansion. Hudson was quoted by the Hattiesburg American as saying, "If the money's not there and they (Forrest General Hospital) starts laying off people, it's going to hurt." He went on to say that "I’m told there’s about 6,000 jobs (in the Pine Belt medical industry), and that’s tremendous to the economy, even if you don’t care about poor people or sick people who need help — which I do," ... "We go crazy about getting a new industry in here that’s going to work (200 or 300) people at $11 an hour." Even the Republican President of the Forrest County Board of Supervisors acknowledges this isn't a partisan issue: it's an economic one.

Hudson understands the economic and human impact the Forrest Health System has on the Pine Belt region. Barker, on the other hand, seems more interested in following the tea party leadership of Speaker Gunn. While Barker is falling in line, one of his district's largest employers is pleading for assistance in staying afloat.

Sadly, the cases in Hancock and Forrest Counties are just the beginning. As more hospitals look at their balance sheets in the coming years, there will likely be more of them sounding the alarm that the Legislature needs to revisit its misguided approach to expanded access to Medicaid.

Tea Party Rally Draws Tens of Patriots

Tea Party rally around 11:15 am today

Tens of tea party protesters took to the steps of the Mississippi Capitol this morning to rally against, well, I'm sure it was something truly terrible. One can conclude that this lightly-attended rally of one of the biggest grassroots political movements of the 21st Century was to object to the influx of federal government money coming in for Governor "Three Mile" Phil Bryant's nuclear dump plan. It's more likely that they were protesting Obamacare and our representatives in Congress. Is anyone brave enough to tell those brave few protesters that our delegation to Congress does not work in that building? Still, it is good to see Americans exercising their right to protest, even on the grounds of government property like our Capitol.

How do we explain the different eyewitness accounts of the alleged incident yesterday at the Capitol?

There's been quite a bit of talk today surrounding what happened or did not happen with the alleged shoving of Rep. Reecy Dickson (D - Macon) by a reported Tea Party member yesterday.  How can so many people who claim to have seen the same event have such different accounts of it?  Here's my crack at an explanation:

EMCL - Eyewitness identification and testimony - Is it reliable?

Audio of Rep. Chuck Espy (D - Clarksdale) on floor speaking about alleged shoving of Rep. Reecy Dickson (D - Macon)

Rep. Chuck Espy (D - Clarksdale) addressing House concerning alleged shoving of Rep. Reecy Dickson (D - Macon)

The HOME website has the audio of Rep. Espy's fiery speech on the House floor yesterday concerning the alleged shoving of Rep. Reecy Dickson (D - Macon) by a reported Tea Party member.  I referenced the speech here before, and recommend that you go listen to it.  Will be interesting to see what happens with Rep. Espy's investigation.

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

Tea Party candidate touts family values, which is rich, because...

Some of you may remember Tea Party candidate Jerrerico Chambers, who is running against longtime Rep. Tommy Reynolds (D-Charleston). If the name doesn't ring a bell, I'll fill you in below. But anyway, Chambers recently sent out the following:

Jerrerico Chambers flyer

It's typical Tea Party stuff, and Chambers of course says he's going to "work to preserve family values."

So, who is this Jerrerico Chambers guy? Well, you may remember...say...THIS from his Facebook account. Family values, indeed. What say ye, Tea Partiers?

(Here's the original post on Chambers from back in July, for those who missed it.)