I Can Call Em

So remember when I gave you the Jim Hood playbook?  You remember-"I'm Jim Hood, and I'm against Crime!" (And the implication is that if you're not Samson himself, YOU DON'T CARE ABOUT CRIME).

I turned on my TV this morning, and what did I see?  A Jim Hood ad targeting Mike Hurst for not prosecuting Domestic Violence cases.

Cause that's a federal crime, you know?  (HEAVY SARCASM GUYS).

You know what else Mike Hurst hasn't ever prosecuted?  People who ran against his buddies. You know, like Hood did for Jamie Franks.

It Wasn't Me (with apologies to Shaggy)

"It Wasn't Me"(feat. Barry Messiah)

(Yo', Barry) Yo'(Open up, Barry)
What do you want, man?(The constituents just caught me)
You let them catch you?(I don't know how I let this happen)
With who?(The folks in Mississippi, you know)
Man (I don't know what to do)

Say it wasn't you (Alright)

Election came in and they caught me red-handed
Creeping with the netroots next door
Picture this, we were both asking for money,
Obama on the internet, sure

How could I forget that they had
Googled all kinds of stuff on me
All this time they were standing there
They never took the eyes off me
How you can grant the folks access to your browser
Trespasser and a witness while they pull down your trousers

You better watch your back before it turns into a killer
Best for you and the situation not to call the Deaner
To be a true player you have to know how to play
If they say a night, convince them say a day
Never admit to a word when they say makes a claim
And you tell them baby no way

But they caught me on Internet Explorer (It wasn't me)
Saw me getting endorsed by Obama (It wasn't me)
I don't know if I voted for Kerry (It wasn't me)
WREG even caught me on camera (It wasn't me)
I was sweating down the shoulders (It wasn't me)
Heard the words that I told her (It wasn't me)
Heard the sobs gettin louder (It wasn't me)
Can't wait til this is all over

Davis came in and he caught me red-handed
Pallin' around with the Dems next door
Picture this, we were both tryin' to get elected
Browsing in the internet world
I had tried to keep them
From what they was about to see
Why should they believe me
When I told them it wasn't me

Make sure they know it's not you and lead them on the right prefix
Whenever you should see them make the Conservative flex
As funny as it be by you, it not that complex
Seeing is believing so you better change your specs
You hope they're not gonna be worrying bout things from the past
Hardly recollecting and then they'll go for Jeremiah's mass
Wait for your answer: go over there
But if they pack a camera you know you better run fast

But they caught me on Internet Explorer (It wasn't me)
Saw me getting endorsed by Obama (It wasn't me)
I don't know if I voted for Kerry (It wasn't me)
WREG even caught me on camera (It wasn't me)
I was sweating down the shoulders (It wasn't me)
Heard the words that I told her (It wasn't me)
Heard the sobs gettin louder (It wasn't me)
Can't wait til this is all over

Media came in and they caught me red-handed
Creeping with the Speaker next door
Picture this, we were both in elections,
gettin' in on the ground floor
How could I forget they had
Googled all this stuff on me
All this time they were standing there
Voters never took their eyes off me
Gonna tell them that I'm sorry
For voting for Gore and Kerry

I've been listening to your reasoning
It makes no sense at all
We should tell Nancy that I'm sorry
For the pain that I've caused
You may think that you're a player
But you're completely lost
That's why I sing

Election came in and they caught me red-handed
Creeping with the netroots next door
Picture this, we were both asking for money,
Obama on the internet sure
How could I forget that they had
Googled all kinds of stuff on me
All this time they were standing there
They never took the eyes off me
How you can grant the folks access to your browser
Trespasser and a witness while they pull down your trousers
They never took their eyes off me

An Update From College View Drive

Rumor around the coffee shops in Lee County has incoming Superintendant Mike Scott keeping outgoing super Johnny Green on as a 'consultant.' I'm sure the folks in Lee County appreciate keeping a retiring employee on the payroll. Heck, we pay for two Speakers in the state House of Representatives-why not pay for two Superintendants of Education in Lee County?

Of course, Mr. Green-whom we affectionately refer to as 'Slimy' here-played Hamlet with his qualifying papers until the filing deadline passed, keeping many who would have run to replace him from filing-except, of course, for Mike Scott, the principal of Shannon High School.

Mr. Green's most prominent success was getting a school bond issue passed-one which, of course, was tilted heavily toward the North Lee Attendance Zone, a/k/a Saltillo and Guntown schools (of which he was the head principal for many years). 7 of the 10 projects were slated for that attendance zone, with two headed to the Shannon Attendance Zone and one to the Mooreville Attendance Zone. In fact, an alternate project for Mooreville was a new cafeteria. I'm sure the teachers there-who were sharing classrooms all over the facility while just four teachers at Saltillo were doing the same-just loved the idea of a getting a new cafeteria.

But hey, I'm sure the Lee County School Board will love having him around for a few more years and probably a good chunk of his old salary. Because heck, if one superintendant is good...two MUST be GREAT!

The Unintentional Comedy of Jim Hood's Ads

The latest Jim Hood ad is really funny to me. I mean, how funny is it that a guy responsible for throwing a school teacher in jail is talking about how safe he's made schools? Seems to me that a safe school has all its teachers, not just the ones that happen to have not run against your buddies.

That's a load of hooey, by the way-school safety is an administrative issue, not an AG issue. You can pass all the laws and do all the training you want, but if a kid gets caught with a marijuana seed and the school district only gives a kid 9 days out to set a precedent, and then catches a kid with a dime bag and has to give him the same (mostly due to the first kids' last name, naturally) it doesn't matter how trained you are.

It doesn't matter how much training you do-if the administration lacks the guts to kick a kid out or send them to the alternative school, discipline will be an issue. And yes, that includes "automatic" punishments-that can be put to the side if an administrator wants to. Naturally, this goes back to lawsuits, and the fear schools have of them. But hey, trial lawyers are just out there to help us all. They risk so much for the good of all of us.

Too Much For the Oxford Eagle

Oxford's second-best newspaper won't let you see John Helmert's ad. That's ok. We here at the Tank, thanks to Brett Kittridge at Majority in Ms, will.

http://www.electjohnhelmert.com/helmert_ad.pdf

John Helmert's a great guy with a great vision for Mississippi. Here's hoping the voters in District 13 are as impressed with him as we at the Tank have always been.

Hampton, On the AG

David Hampton in his blog today basically tipped the hand of the CL editorial board on the AG's race. If he cheered any harder for Samson, we'd have to UPS him a megaphone. Of course he asked Samson about his pay for play, I mean, fee arrangements with outside counsel, and bit on the 'oh, it's so hard out there for a lawsuit pimp' line that Samson has been feeding editorial boards and opinion writers for weeks now. Yeah, those huge houses and nice cars and trophy wives don't come cheap. I guess working for the state is the new sugar daddy now that tort reform has been passed.

I wonder, though, did he ask him about why he never looked into Ike Brown's shenanigans? About why the killers/kidnappers of two young women in the Tupelo area have never been found or prosecuted, despite 15 and 10 years passing (I can answer that question, and it has a lot to do with Hood's future ambitions to move from one executive branch office to another as to why certain old murders are prosecuted, and others are not)? Was there a question in there regarding the statement that he didn't know if a federal judges' ruling applies in Mississippi? About the Ethics breach earlier in the year? About why he was so out of the loop with the Feds in the Beef Plant investigation, and about why he admitted knowing wrongdoing was going on in Benton County's elections while District Attorney yet doing nothing? About why Shannon Police Chief Bobby Spencer's murder remains unsolved a decade after the fact (I've got a theory or two on that one, as well)? How about the rumors of upcoming indictments of candidates unfriendly to his agenda?

Do I even need to mention the fact that he prosecuted a schoolteacher for campaign finance fraud, yet gave 91 members of the state legislature passes for what amounts to a paperwork mistake? About the state resources that were spent to recoup a $300 civil fine and an amended 24 hour finance report?

Tell me you asked those questions, Dave. Tell me you did. 'Cause otherwise you weren't doing your job.

A Lesson in Government

It seems that our esteemed Attorney General and State Rube Samson doesn't understand the system of checks and balances set up in both the US Constitution and the Mississippi Constitution. So, free of charge, I'm providing this lesson for him. I promise, nobody's going to pay me $14 million for helping, fellow travellers. See, we have three branches of government, Samson. The Executive Branch (that's you, oh folicled one) is charged with enforcing the law. In Mississippi, we have an attorney general that's elected to enforce the law. The second is the legislative branch, which is supposed to write the law that the executive branch enforces. The executive branch's head in Mississippi is weak on purpose; his proclamation power is necessarily weak. The legislative branch holds the power of the purse strings, allocating money as it sees fit (and, admittedly, sometimes it's discretion is a little...um...off-kilter). The last branch is the judicial branch. Their job is to interpret the law and determine punishment when its broken. In a vestige of Jacksonian democracy (that's the guy the city is named for, not the city itself) here in Mississippi almost all of our judges are elected. But here's Samson's problem: He wants to be in all three branches at once. See, he's already charged with enforcing the law. But that's not enough for the State Rube (who doesn't know if federal law or rulings of a federal judges applies in our fair state. Um, check the US Constitution's Supremacy Clause for that one). But, Samson wants to be in the Judicial branch too, as you can tell by his constant issuing of "Attorney General's Opinions," in which he and his predecessor sought to interpret the law in the stead of a judge. Admittedly, this is within his job as the state's lawyer-though neither he nor his predecessor sought so much responsibility in this function of the office when it didn't suit them. Lastly, he's taken upon himself to award monies that are rightfully the state's to third parties, such as The Partnership for a Healthy Mike Moore. That, as we've already seen, is the purview of the Legislative branch. You know, for someone who supposedly knows the law, Samson sure doesn't seem to understand how our system works. Especially the parts about checks and balances and separation of powers. But hey-he does have lots of hair, and the Daily Journal sure likes him a lot. I guess that makes up for messing up cliches. But remember, Jimmy, if you didn't have a D by your name, Marty Russell would make fun of your intelligence.

The Ever Increasing Cost...

...of being a Republican:

"If you aren't making $200,000 a year, you should be voting Democratic."

--Attorney General and State Rube Samson, 2004, in the Tupelo Daily Journal.

"If you aren't making $250,000 a year, you shouldn't be voting Republican."

--Attorney General and State Rube Samson, 2007, in the Greenwood Commonwealth.

"If you aren't making $298,723.45 a year, you should be voting Democratic."

--Attorney General and State Rube Samson, in a newspaper near you, the near future?

Who knew voting patterns were influnced by inflation? Me neither.

Back to that Picture...

I promise, that's as flattering a picture of Jim Hood as can be run. The man looks happy, you can't see the effects of gravity on his neck, there's very little mullet showing, and he's smiling like he just won the Greater Chickasaw County Conway Twitty Look-Alike Contest, Silent Auction, Bake Sale and Gun Show.

(I happen to know that while he refrains from singing "Louisiana Woman, Mississippi Man" and "Hello Darlin'," since everyone does them, but he spits out a mean version of "Boogie Grass Band.")

http://www.ceder.net/recorddb/lyrics_viewsingle.php4?LyricsId=867

I just find it interesting that they couldn't have run a picture of Al Hopkins that doesn't make him look like he's about to slap the taste out of someones mouth because they're asking stupid questions. But, I guess if I was sitting in a room with the yokels that run the Tupelo Daily Urinal and had to listen to their speechifying-I mean, questioning-I'd have that look, too.