A Small Gripe With Gallo

I was listening last week when Jay Hughes, the progressive-pretending-to-be-moderate candidate for Lt. Governor on the D side, was on Gallo. I was slightly disappointed with Mr. Gallo. I know he has to be civil for the sake of getting guests that he might not see eye to eye with on the air.

However, Jay Hughes is the guy who is running as a veteran and wants to be civil. So explain to me this:

Jay Hughes compares EdFirst to ISIS.

Now, I am a bit hyperbolic on this here blog from time to time, as my 50 or so readers can attest. But I think you should, if you are sincerely "looking for purple in a red state," not compare some paid consultants to ISIS. After all, one makes recommendations, the other cuts people's heads off on YouTube.

I'm kind of sad Paul Gallo let him get away with that. Yeah, he said it 3 years ago. Doesn't matter. He needs to be asked-is there any other group that he thinks is worthy of being compared to a terror group.

What's Your Number?

Everybody, as a famous Mississippi resident noted, has a price.

I've heard my friends for a long time talk about how much more Jim Hood is going to get them paid. He's going to raise teacher pay, and public employee pay, and this, and that. And he'll do it by cutting grocery taxes!

(If you cut grocery taxes, property taxes go up, especially in municipalities, because that's where a lot of their funding comes from. But don't expect Jim or his media enablers to tell you that.)

So my question is: What's your price?

What's the price of being able to defend your home? Jim Hood doesn't want you to be able to do that.

What's the price of being able to defend your business from lawsuits, especially like those that Jack Phillips has had to go through?

What's the price of not giving boards and commissions over to the people who gave us this nickname?

What's the price of only defending Mississippi laws during election years when you need some pro-life cred with the "Bible thumpers?"

What's the price of watching unsolved murders continue to go unsolved just because nobody at the New York or Chicago or LA papers cares about them? Even when the crime occurred 35 miles from Jim Hood's house in Houston?

Bet you thought we forgot about that one, didn't you?

What's the price of giving power over to someone who has no problem using his office to punish his political opponents, or those of his friends?

Oh, you thought we forgot about that one too, didn't you?

So is your raise worth all those things? When you're probably getting a raise anyway, no matter who you're voting for?

Give me your number. Because you've admitted you have one. Just go ahead and say what it is.

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.)

All The Time In The World

One of the great things about social media is the mask often comes off of people.

Take Stuart Stevens. He ran Mitt Romney's 2016 presidential campaign. He's a Mississippi native, 8th generation! It's to him what being a vegan cross-fitter atheist is to bar jokes. He is what you think of when you think of an "establishment Republican." His twitter background is where he went skiing last year, for crying out loud! 

(If you follow him on twitter, it was the most extended and insufferable humble-brag in the history of humble-brags).

He's anti-Trump, and that's caused his mask to slip off quite a bit.  Ostensibly, he is a Republican...who just happens to be pro-abortion. He despises the average Republican voter. He despises his fellow Mississippians as racists, uninformed yokels, and marvels that we dislike the politics of New York and California, who "pay 40% of the state's budget."

(Never does he mention that much of that is in programs that are the nation's debt drivers, and also the drivers of much of our continued pathologies of poverty. After all, if you want more of something...you subsidize it). 

Yes, I don't like the politics of New York and California. One is a city-state that ignores 90% of its state in order to please the unpleasant city dwellers and the other is a place where it's basically legal to poop and use heroin in the streets. California is a state where a college professor that committed assault with a bike lock was allowed to walk away Scot Free. The great thing about federalism is that I can live freely with a minimal amount of input from New Yorkers and Californians. 

He was very vocal about Senator Hyde-Smith and Mike Espy, so he keeps an eye on what's going on in state. He was ashamed, y'all. Ashamed. But he's been strangely silent about something that's affecting a whole lot of people in the state, which is the flooding in the south Delta area.

If you don't know (and why should you? It barely gets covered on the national news. We didn't deserve coverage after Katrina, and I guess we still don't deserve it now), there's about half a million acres in the Yazoo backwater area that are currently under flood conditions. Due to the volume of water coming down the Mississippi, the Yazoo River and its tributaries are backed up and have spilled their banks. This has affected people throughout the lower Delta. People have lost their homes and livelihoods. Would you like to guess how many times that this influential Mississippian, with his numerous connections, presumably, has said anything on social media about the flooding?

None.

He's had plenty of time to tweet about Donald Trump (who hasn't?). He's had time to tweet about the threat that Robert E. Lee poses to the world (he's been dead since 1870). He will moralize until the cows come home. But he can't be bothered to summon up the humanity to do something that might actually help people in the state. He loves Mississippi. He just doesn't like Mississippians, especially those who don't blindly do what our betters who get to go on CNN tell us to do.

There's a word for that. Hypocrite.

Teacher Pay Raise

Jim Hood wants to "raise corporate taxes" to pay for a pay raise for teachers. Apparently, out in the country, where Jim Hood is from, remember, they didn't ever talk about the goose that laid the golden egg. In the last 16 years Mississippi has been able to attract businesses because of our low tax rate and favorable business climate, but hey, LEROOOYYYY JENKINS! to all that.

I have another funding source: All the attorney's fees that Mr. Hood has disbursed to his friends over the last decade and a half (and Mike Moore before him). When the state of Mississippi wins a lawsuit, it sure would be nice to get that money, instead of the guys that Jim Hood decides need to be able to fund his campaign make an honest living out there a-lawyerin', as they say out in the country, where Jim Hood is from.

In reality, the money is there. It's always been there. It just never actually reaches the teachers due to the bloat and bureaucracy that infests both the Mississippi Department of Education (Hi, Dr. Wright and your ridiculous salary!) and many of the school districts.

How come they never suggest cutting her $300,000 per year? I  know it's a drop in the bucket, but as a character in a movie once said, "What is an ocean, but a multitude of drops?"

You're Not Pro Life Unless You're Pro Big Government or Something

I see this statement a lot (or something like it). I have kind of pondered it over the last few weeks. This is mostly because it's the left's new favorite talking point to shame you into giving them whatever they want, namely expanding the welfare state.

Yeah, I'm pro-life. That doesn't mean that I love the border situation. I'm so pro-life that I don't want them killed, which I think the authors intimate all pro-life people want, though I do want an orderly and lawful immigration system that discourages the risky proposition of travelling clandestinely to the southern border from all points south using less than savory means or people. That's a pro-life position-that the law should not be so haphazardly enforced that they encourage people to risk their life in order to break them.

I'm pro-life. That means that I want an efficient, humane Department of Human Services in my state that doesn't have judges sign blank documents so that kids could be illegally taken from their parents. This is a pro-life position-that the state should not have unlimited power to simply take children from their parents. The corruption of the Kentucky Health and Family Services people did that in the above link; increasing their budget (or that of their counterpart in Mississippi) wouldn't help the issue, simply because they are abusing their power.

(An aside-in a country with a less-government worshiping press, the Kentucky story would have led the front page in every widely read paper the country-and the Clarion-Ledger too-and would have been a top story on the TV news. But alas, I had to learn about it through other means).

I'm pro-life. That means I think that your wacky ideas about vaccines being unhealthy is stupid.  I don't care if you're a hot actress from the 90s or 00's or the son of one of America's leading political families. I don't want them within a mile of a healthy child.

Yeah I'm pro-life. I donate to Crisis Pregnancy Centers in order to help women avoid the trauma of an abortion. I've donated clothing and other items to charity specifically to clothe them. I've encouraged people to adopt for years, after the example of my own family, which has 4 adopted members. Your snarky tweet or shaming article isn't going to make me change any of that behavior.

It's an old talking point on the left-"You only care about children til they're born!" But for the most part it isn't true. If it was true, I guess the opposite is true of the left-you guys only care about people on election day, since that's the only time some of them see you.

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.

The Media, Mike Espy, and You

You want to know why I can't stand the media, especially the quite lazy media we have in Mississippi?

This is why.

Please explain how it occurred that you described these signs which make clear it was a Democratic stunt only as "hate signs" and omitted their content completely in your initial, highly deceptive, reporting. https://t.co/Q0skVTPul6

— Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) November 27, 2018

The state media and Democrats (but I repeat myself!) have decided to go all-in on Mike Espy. And when I saw this report this morning, I already knew what was up. If I was more conspiracy-minded, I would think that WLBT or the Clarion-Ledger staff (which is run by the former executive director of the state Democratic party, Sam Hall, though as we've pointed out before, he doesn't exactly advertise that anywhere that I can find) cooked it up. It's almost too good to be true, and it fits the narrative too well. When did I know, you ask, that it was a false flag? 

When nobody would report what was said on the signs. 

See, if it had been anything about Mike Espy, or in favor of Cindy Hyde-Smith, it would have been published immediately. After all, WLBT was called, and their reporters got there before the authorities did! (My apologies to the media-you guys only think you're the authorities.)

You're being played. The objective is to see how many votes they can whip for Mike Espy, and without ever having him leave Jackson! (Seriously, if he's left the Jackson metro, I haven't seen it. But I guess the state media has been busy looking through old yearbooks, a la Bret Kavanaugh, to see what he's up to.)

Don't fall for it. They earned every Fake News taunt they've ever gotten, and this just earned them a few more. 

Jim Hood's Announcement Speech-EXCLUSIVE First Draft

Below is the EXCLUSIVE first draft of Jim Hood's Announcement Speech. Please credit us here at the Spot for any excerpts.

**********************************

Hello Darlin'. Nice to see ya.

Oh, wait, this is my announcement speech, not next week's Conway Twitty Look-Alike Contest. That one's on me.

My fellow Mississippians,

Over the last 10 years, while I've been in Houston-not Jackson, you understand, because I'm a good old country boy from Houston, not a lawyer that moved to Jackson first chance he got-being your Attorney General, I've done a lot of things I'm proud of.  

I've defended allowing liberal activists to sue you if you dissent from their agenda.

I've defended the idea that a judge in Jackson should be the education czar for the state.

I've gone after Google to figure out which of you are pill-poppers (not to get your search information, heavens no, just to keep you off the drugs you criminals want). 

I've tried to make it illegal for adults to vape, or to consume alcohol that might have some kind of flavor other than "acetylene torch."

I've smeared every opponent as BEING FOR CRIME BECAUSE THEY WERE AGIN' JIM HOOD.

I've insisted there is no voter fraud, ever. But I've also made sure you knew whenever we, I mean *I* prosecuted someone for it.

I've made sure that you couldn't engage in the sin of...daily fantasy sports.

I've made sure you were protected from the paperwork snafus of my cronies' opponents.

I've also made sure that fine public servants such as Ike Brown are allowed to practice their service without so much as a peep from me.

And any time I've been cornered on an issue, I've demurred cryptically to Jesus, to make sure you rubes get to hear me say it without ever actually giving a position that might expose me for the fake "moderate" I am. 

So you see, I want to make sure that I can continue to give you the benefit of my services for the next four years as governor. And with the help of my friends at the Clarion Ledger, Daily Journal, and Sun-Herald, not to mention all the fine folks from out of state that want to see me succeed, we can continue this record of success. Even if you don't want it.

Also, if you're in the area, I'm competing at the Tri-States Conway Twitty Look-Alike Contest at the old train depot in Potluck, Arkansas next weekend. Hope to see you there!

Per the Clarion-Ledger...

Jim Hood is waiting on his wife's approval to run for governor.

It's just like Hamlet, ya'll. He wouldn't do it unless she was ok with it.

I'm sure we'll all be shocked when she says yes, right?

Right?

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.

On Boycotting the Trump White House

It's come to my attention that many professional athletes and White House press corps members (why do they call themselves a corps? Is there a Press Lt. General that they answer to?) are debating or have outright stated that they will not attend events at the White House so long as Trump occupies the Oval Office.

My sincere wish is that they do so.

The practice of athletes visiting the President is semi-monarchical; its unfitting for a republic such as ours to have visits to the Executive Mansion to kiss the ring of a Dear Leader.  The same for the White House Correspondents Dinner. It has devolved into a poor comedy show, and that is something that Trevor Noah, Seth Meyers, James Corden, and Jimmy Fallon have given us enough of on a regular basis. Kill it, and do it quickly.

While we're at it, let's rid ourselves of the State of the Union as an address to Congress. It reeks, as Kevin Williamson has noted for years, of the Queen's Address from the Throne.  It's outlived its usefulness; the President does not need 90 minutes of prime time to get his message out, not with near as many twitter followers as the combined audience of the 3 legacy network's newscasts.

It's a modest proposal.

An Addition to the Bill Luckett Post Below

Bill Luckett Voted In Tennessee. Meaning he lived in Tennessee long enough to see the point in registering to vote there.

Yes, the man who chided people for leaving Clarksdale and "taking their money out of public schools..." Left Clarksdale, and "took his money out of public schools."

Motes and Beams, Mr. Mayor.

A Thought on Clarksdale

The CL did a story on Clarksdale and the Blues.

And while I don't mind the work-it's really something the state newspaper should be doing more of-some things stood out.

First of all, the mayor, former gubernatorial candidate Bill Luckett, who once tried to insult his way into that office, dismayed the state of the city, and one of the things he pointed to was the school district, and "white flight." One of his gripes was that white families left the school district for the academy, and took their tax dollars with them.

Ahem.

One does not remove oneself from paying school taxes simply because one does not have children attending the public schools.

Clarksdale's population has dwindled over the past several decades-it has seen a 13% drop in population since 2000, mainly through out-migration. Meanwhile, Batesville has seen an increase of 4%, Senatobia 22%, Oxford 60%. This doesn't even factor in the growth of the Memphis suburbs. Why did they all leave? Was it because they just can't be governed by those of another race? Or is it the fact that mechanization has decreased the amount of labor necessary for agriculture, and no other industry was there to take up the slack, and people-of all races-had to find gainful employment elsewhere? Wasn't that the entire point of the article-that the Blues was the main thing keeping Clarksdale alive?

Instead of casting blame at the citizens who stayed in Clarksdale, no matter where they send their children, perhaps the mayor should thank them. After all, if Clarksdale suffers from them not sending them to their schools, how much more would it suffer if they were to pull up stakes and simply leave altogether?

The quote from the mayor is telling. It really reveals how those on the left-and Bill Luckett is on the left, from reading past statements he's made-view citizens. We are not the engines that drive places economically, socially, and spiritually. We are cows to be milked.

How To Talk To Your Family About Politics This Thanksgiving

Don't.

Enjoy their company. Eat too much. Clean up after yourself.

Happy Thanksgiving.

So This Has to Happen, Right?

NFL players, after the Josh Brown arrest, pretty much have to refuse to wear the NFL shield, cause otherwise they're all culpable, right? Forget the fines.

That's how this all works, isn't it?

If not, they're hypocrites.

But you knew that.

The Clarion-Ledger Comes out For Kaep

I presume that they now support Tebowing as well, since FREEDOM OF SPEECH Y'ALL!

Spare me your lectures on "Principles," Ms. Pettus. They seem to be selective at any rate. Mr. Kaepernick's kneeling seems to have correlated with his sitting, as he seems destined for the dust bin of history. I can't wait for the '30 for 30' on him, where he will undoubtedly blame his inevitable release not on his cratering skills but on his political stances.

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.

All Your Google Searches Belong to Hood

Harmful Content

I'm sure Google searches for Jim Hood will now only tell you he is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being you'll ever know in life.