Jim Hood Will Meet With Women Behind Closed Doors!

So will this guy.



Also, he will fight for an Equal Pay Act.

(The Equal Pay Act passed Congress in 1963, and was signed into law by President Kennedy, but since Jim Hood is just a good ole country boy that lives in the country, he doesn't know it. Things move slower out in the country, you see. Also, imagine the lawsuits his friends can file if he gets it passed! Win-Win!)

Seriously, though. You can't really win this fight. You either invite the controversy of not being alone with a woman, or you invite the possibility of scandal. There's only one solution in either the professional world or the political one in the age of "MeToo".



(Also, John Kennedy had some of his own issues with things that would be...less than charitably viewed today.)

The Clarion Ledger Organizes a Strike

From Today's Edition

I guess they've decided that Magnolia State Live and Mississippi Today (or is that reversed? I can't even remember) aren't liberal enough, and they're going to out-leftist them. Good luck with that

Seriously. They are openly advocating at this point for teachers to walk out of schools, and to "punish" businesses that support "anti-education" candidates. If they were any more in the pocket of the MAE, they'd be choking on lint. A majority of 1700 teachers responded to a survey...out of about 63,000 teachers in the state.

It's no wonder people have "punished" the CL to the point where I don't even know who the beat writer for my college team is.  If that's going to be the case...if you're going to "punish" people for disagreeing with you...then why would those people ever do business with someone who advertises with the Gannett company? See, this works both ways.

Here's a dirty little secret: The majority of teachers aren't members of the MAE. They aren't even members of the MFT. They avoid those two like the plague because they are political organizations that have teachers as members, not the other way around.

If we're going to have economic warfare, that's fine. But the CL should remember that they're in a far more precarious position than, say, the local grocery store or outdoor supply company.

EDITED TO ADD: Strange coincidence that is article was published the week after State Auditor Shad White dropped a ridiculous stat about school funding in regards to the increase in administrative positions relative to the number of teachers and students decreasing. Million to one chance that happened I guess.

Future Clarion-Ledger Exclusives on Immigrant Detainee

Immigrant Detainee Has Lunch

Immigrant Detainee Watches TV

Immigrant Detainee Buys Groceries

Immigrant Detainee Drinks Milkshake

Immigrant Detainee Walks Down Street

Immigrant Detainee Sings Karaoke

Immigrant Detainee Searches For Bigfoot

Immigrant Detainee Contacts Elvis

Immigrant Detainee Finds Pot of Gold at End of Rainbow

Immigrant Detainee Can Believe It's Not Butter

After what seems like forever, how far are we from seeing these headlines? I know a manipulative sob story when I read one. It's almost like...she's getting exactly what she wants. Fawning press coverage from the state's newspaper, which is owned by a national newspaper brand, which will then be on national wires.

Between that and the distinct "this is Anti-Woman" slant of the last week (keeping up with "Anti-Woman" bills? Who exactly determines that?) it's like...they're setting up a narrative. Who benefits? Other than the state's finest Conway Twitty impersonator, you mean?

A Play, in Two Acts

A nice read on Bill Simmon's site, The Ringer, on Sports and Politics.

Sports, Worship and You

It's a nice theory, but I have a better one. But first, read this piece of damage control:

https://twitter.com/Rachel__Nichols/status/833038757410512898

You, sports writer, are a celebrity worshiper.

Of course, you are sympathizing with the underdog! Who happens to be your lifeline to a better life, to more prestige, to more fame for yourself. The tweet above is my exhibit A. Kyrie Irving, if you haven't heard, thinks the Earth is flat. Rachel Nichols is in full damage control mode, but Irving never says he doesn't think the world is round. He rambles a bit about the state of media and reporting. And to someone with a vested interest in keeping the celebrity happy makes sense of it and falls in line for damage control.

She follows up by stating that he did get into Duke, after all. Because no one with screwy ideas could ever go to Duke, right? And it's not like anyone with screwy ideas could ever teach at Duke, right?

Maybe celebrity worshiper is too much. Celebrity enabler is more appropriate.

They feel like they're courageous, but really, I think they're motivated by fear. Fear of losing access to the golden goose. In that, they're now exactly like their political counterparts.

Today's Bit of Media Hypocrisy

Bobby Harrison of the Daily Journal has an article about the confluence between interest groups and legislators. 

You can read it here, and conspiracies abound.

I will be interested to see if Mr. Harrison will also be doing a piece on what influenced Attorney General Jim Hood's decision to forgo his constitutional and statutory duty to defend the laws of Mississippi in the courts. I also will not be holding my breath while doing so. 

I will remind everyone that if any other elected official in the state refused to do his or her duty, Jim Hood would have thrown a library's worth of books at them. And he would be lauded for doing so by the press in our state. But he's Jim Hood, and they're the Mississippi press corps, so I will leave you with a bit of wisdom from ages ago:

He who expects little, is never disappointed.

What is Political Correctness?

I was reading the Daily Journal and Clarion Ledger today, and saw Charlie Mitchell's op-ed on PC.

Now, I think Charlie is one of those well-meaning guys who just doesn't see things for what they are.  I was intrigued by his assertion that PC is little more than politeness, which it probably was back in the 1970s when you could get away with saying the N-word on TV.  Can you imagine such a thing today?  I can't think of a time when the word has been uttered on TV outside of hip hop since an episode of Law & Order (Original Flavor) in the early 1990s, uttered by Courtney B Vance, until the American Crime Story OJ series. (Also featuring Mr. Vance.  Admittedly, it would have been impossible to not use the word in that series, with much of the defense being based around the use or non-use of the word.)

But today?  It would seem that Mr. Mitchell, who is a professor of journalism at Ole Miss, has missed out on the Social Justice Warrior.  Maybe it just hasn't hit Ole Miss yet.  But it's hit Missouri, with the school president forced to resign.  It's on many of the Ivies and Potted-Ivy schools.  They rail against privilege, most of which exists in their heads.  They mostly suffer from Selma envy, wishing they could measure up to their grandparents.  (I don't suffer from this problem.  I figured out long ago I'd never measure up to them.)

What's going on at the American college is similar-eerily so-to China's Cultural Revolution.  Started in 1966, it sought to replace what Mao thought of as the ills of society.  He described them as the Four Olds.  These were the Old Culture, Old Customs, Old Thoughts, and Old Habits.  His followers forced people to self-criticize themselves, admitting to "crimes," and destroyed anything they considered emblematic of it, such as priceless artifacts, manuscripts, and other treasures.

If this sounds familiar, it's EXACTLY the SJW playbook.

So when people are Anti-PC, this is what they are.  It has nothing to do with manners, which is what Mr. Mitchell seems to think it is.  It's not about not acknowledging the past.  It's all about combating the Thought Police, before we're all in front of a committee apologizing for something that happened before we were born, or when we were small children.  It means not allowing people to be destroyed because they don't want to associate themselves with something they feel violates their conscience.  Bryan Adams, after all, was allowed to not do business with Mississippi because of his conscience.  Many of us just wish we were given the same allowance as Mr. Adams.

My thoughts are incomplete on this, and it's late at night.  I may later add to this.  But it's miles to ride before I sleep.

(That's an old poem, written before I was born.  I hope it's ok to use it.)

Our Greatest Investigative Journalist

Jerry Mitchell, Mississippi's Greatest Investigative Journalist (TM), has a twitter.

And like all of our esteemed media in Mississippi, he is up in arms about allowing guns in church.  He tweeted out this afternoon a picture of the New Bethel Church celebrating being allowed to carry in the church house.  He's sending the picture out to show how ignorant all these Mississippi yokels are, ha ha ha!  Look at the dummies with their NRA stickers in the parking lot!    

One church celebrating #GunsInChurches in Mississippi. https://t.co/mU0Dl6K6F7 pic.twitter.com/6kEkfiuXe0

— Jerry Mitchell (@JMitchellNews) April 16, 2016

There's just one problem. Ok, two.

The first is the picture wasn't even taken this decade.  A quick google image search by Mississippi's Greatest Investigative Journalist (TM) would have revealed it was taken in 2009.  I say this because of the number of fake meme generators out there has gotten to the point where my default assumption is "if it looks to good to be true, it probably is."

And the other thing Mississippi's Greatest Investigative Journalist (TM) missed?

The picture is from Kentucky.

I know how you feel, Jerry.  I've been taken in by images, too.  But then, I'm not Mississippi's Greatest Investigative Journalist (TM).  I'm not the one who's virtue has to be signaled.  And I'm not the one who has to show all of his colleagues that "I'M NOT LIKE THOSE PEOPLE."

I'll leave you all with this thought from Jerry, Mississippi's Greatest Investigative Journalist (TM):

A free press is not only a right & privilege, but a necessity in a great society. #JournalismMatters pic.twitter.com/xljPzg1TIs

— Jerry Mitchell (@JMitchellNews) April 14, 2016

I guess an accurate one would be nice, too.

I should add this on 42...

When you look at the people who are the press flacks and go-to folks for journalists regarding 42, who are the names that come up?

Jonathan Compretta-who I'm sure is in no way related to the family of Democrats in Bay St. Louis.
Patsy Brumfield-former Daily Journal staffer.

Yeah, I'm sure this isn't partisan, and there's no way that journalists would ever give the benefit of the doubt to other journalists.  Makes you wonder how unbiased our media really is.  At least give us a disclaimer, like you do when you make sure to note that Jim Barksdale is a Republican (though he did use Bill Clinton's Justice Department to go after Microsoft while he was CEO of Netscape, has made numerous contributions to Democrats, and the only first-page Google result for his party affiliation uses liberal publication Mother Jones as a source).

See, some background information might be useful to voters.  If only we had an honest press that wasn't intertwined with political interests.