We have lost 21 U.S. soldiers in Iraq since Oct. 1 When will it stop?!? While Texas governor, Bush would spend 15 minutes considering each possible state execution (including Karla Fay Tucker) before dooming them. I wonder how much time he's spent thinking about each solider who has died to date in his ill-planned "shock and awe" campaign.
I guess this is the cost of greed.
Our thoughts and prayers are with the people of Pakistan, Afghanistan and India today. AP is reporting:
A powerful 7.6-magnitude earthquake near the Pakistan-India border Saturday reduced villages to rubble, triggered landslides and flattened an apartment building, killing hundreds of people in both nations. Pakistan's army called the devastation "a national tragedy."
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My old friend Sarah Ferguson writes for the Village Voice about Saturday's anti-war protest—and the Iraq war veterans who turned out against the war:
Organizers with the dueling anti-war groups United for Peace and Justice and International ANSWER estimated the crowd size for Saturday’s march on Washington, D.C., at 300,000—making it the largest demonstration since start of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. Capitol police gave a loose estimate of 150,000—still a heap larger than the 4,000 or so who turned out for the Pentagon’s pro-war “Freedom Walk” on 9-11.
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[verbatim statement from Mississippi Development Authority] JACKSON, Miss. - In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Georgia-Pacific Corp. (NYSE: GP) announced it plans to restart its idled Gloster plywood and Roxie, Miss., sawmill production facilities. The company expects to hire approximately 500 workers and the state estimates that more than 1,000 indirect jobs will be created with suppliers including transportation companies. The facilities are expected to be operational by the end of the year.
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Clarion-Ledger reports:
A day after the city administrator revealed a proposed tax increase, Jackson Mayor Frank Melton on Tuesday asked City Council members to find money elsewhere in the 2006 budget.
All but one of the seven City Council members said they probably wouldn't pass a budget with a tax increase. City Administration Director Peyton Prospere on Monday had presented council members a proposed property tax increase to fund public safety projects, such as a new city holding facility, police raises and equipment purchases. But Melton sent council members a note Tuesday asking them to look at cutting $1 million from the budget rather than raising taxes for the equivalent amount.
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AP is reporting:
President Bush's standing with an American public anxious about Iraq and the nation's direction is lower than that of the last two men who won re-election to the White House - Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton - at this point in their second terms. ... "This president should be glad he's not running for re-election," said Karlyn Bowman, a public opinion analyst from the American Enterprise Institute. "But the president is clearly holding his base. It's very important for him to keep the base support in terms of getting things done."
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A federal jury has found Mississippi Supreme Court Justice Oliver Diaz innocent on all charges. They also returned innocent verdicts on many of the other charges against other defendants, but could not reach a verdict on other specific charges.
The Sun-Herald reports:
The jury in the judicial bribery trial returned verdicts of not guilty on all charges against state Supreme Court Justice Oliver Diaz Jr. on Friday morning. The jurors found attorney Paul Minor former trial judges John Whitfield and Wes Teel innocent of some of the 17 counts and failed to return a verdict on other charges.
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The Clarion-Ledger bemoans today:
Mississippi Beef Processors Inc. will probably go down in state history as the worst public investment in private business, with taxpayers holding the bag for $55 million. But did anyone notice that Cleveland's Baxter Healthcare Corp. announced job layoffs this week?
Only last month, Baxter was given $14 million by the Legislature in grants and loans in a special session called by Gov. Haley Barbour to "help Baxter remain a cornerstone of the Mississippi Delta economy."
Of course, The Clarion-Ledger supported the Baxter welfare hand-out ...
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The Mississippi Supreme Court has issued an order in the case of Haley Barbour, Governor of the State of Mississippi and the Mississippi Division of Medicaid in the Office of the Governor v Jim Hood, Attorney General Ex Rel State of Mississippi Tobacco Litigation.
[Verbatim Order] This matter is before the Court en banc on the Petition for Permission to Appeal and for Extraordinary Relief and Request for Expedited Appeal filed by Petitioners, the Response filed by Respondent and the Motions for Leave to File and Answer to Petitions for Interlocutory Appeal filed by The Partnership for a Healthy Mississippi. Petitioners seek leave to appeal from the Order Granting Continuance in cause no. 94-1429, Jackson County Chancery court, dated June 21, 2005.
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As AP reported that public support of Bush's handling of the Iraqi war has dropped to 38 percent, and as he said today that the U.S. will stay in Iraq despite the rising death toll of our soldiers, the Gold Star Families for Peace are going to George Bush's vacation home in Crawford, Texas, this Saturday, Aug. 6 at 11 a.m. to confront him with the following questions:
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I just got off the phone with U.S. Attorney Dunn Lampton's office. After a meeting with other law enforcement, he is announcing that he will work with state officials, as well as Natchez-area county and city officials to solve and seek prosecutions in the 1964 murders of Charles Moore and Henry Dee near Meadville, as well as the 1967 bombing and murder of Wharlest Jackson, near Natchez.
Lampton said that Thomas Moore's recent efforts spurred him to action. "I became involved in the case because the brother of one of the victims, Thomas Moore, came to see me," Lampton said today. "I looked at the file and thought, 'Maybe there is something more we can do."'
Read the JFP's narrative of Thomas Moore's journey for justice..
Posted on Jul 29, 05 | 5:06 pm | | +
The Associated Press reports today:
Seventeen Mississippi National Guardsmen — 37 total soldiers with Mississippi ties — have been killed, and state politicians have recently found themselves faced with decisions about how to handle services for soldiers they may have voted to send to war. Some say the funeral is private, but others say it is a public official's obligation to attend.
Gov. Haley Barbour attends visitations but does not attend funerals. Barbour has attended visitations for six soldiers and awarded medals to the families of two more soldiers killed in action.
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July 28, 2005/verbatim statement/WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Trent Lott of Mississippi tonight accused Senator Richard Durbin of Illinois of an unfair characterization against the State of Mississippi when Durbin asserted on the floor of the U.S. Senate that Mississippi is responsible for the murders of Illinois citizens. In a brief exchange with Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island during consideration of the gun liability bill, Durbin alleged that Mississippi laws permit guns to be exported to Illinois gun traffickers “to kill innocent people in my state.”
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Clarion-Ledger reports:
A TV comedian posing as a foreign journalist duped WAPT-Channel 16 into interviewing him live Tuesday on the station's morning news show. Sacha Cohen, the host of HBO's reality/comedy series Da Ali G Show, posed as Borat Sagdiyev, a journalist from Kazakhstan as he was interviewed on the air about his "documentary" on America. "We were gotten," said Stuart Kellogg, WAPT's general manager. The interview was recorded by a cameraman working for HBO and will be shown on an upcoming episode of Da Ali G Show.
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In a victory for drug warriors, the U.S. Supreme Court today overruled states' rights to allow the medicinal use of marijuana. The Associated Press reports:
People who smoke marijuana because their doctors recommend it to ease pain can be prosecuted for violating federal drug laws, the Supreme Court ruled Monday, overriding medical marijuana statutes in 10 states. The court's 6-3 decision was filled with sympathy for two seriously ill California women who brought the case, but the majority agreed that federal agents may arrest even sick people who use the drug as well as the people who grow pot for them.
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[verbatim statement/just in] – Governor Haley Barbour today signed a bill that pays off the State's debt for the now-defunct Mississippi Beef Processors plant, and called lawmakers back for a third special session on June 28 to pass Momentum Mississippi, a plan to update Mississippi's economic development programs. "Today I am signing legislation to pay the cost of a bad attempt at economic development. Mississippi Beef Processors, a creation of a legislative process led by the current House leadership, is costing the taxpayers $40 million," said Governor Barbour. "The last administration got snookered on Mississippi Beef Processors, and the Legislature ended up buying a pig in a poke. We're not going to have that kind of good ole boy logrolling any more. We're not going to trade beef for pork."
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May 31, 2005—A hurricane is brewing on the Mississippi Gulf Coast over a "stealth amendment" introduced by Sen. Thad Cochran and signed into law by President Bush as part of his budget package in April, and enabled by the Mississippi state Legislature last year, to turn the Gulf Islands National Seashore islands over to the state for seismic testing and then to allow oil drilling within a mile of the Barrier Islands. State Rep. John Reeves of Jackson is in the middle of the typhoon, which broke internationally this week when the Los Angeles Times reported the story. A coalition with members ranging from the Sierra Club to the casinos on the Coast have formed to stop the "stealth" move that would likely harm both the environment and tourism, as well as quality of life for animals and people alike along the Coast.
Read a thread started by a JFP blogger about the plan on April 23, including links to news stories. If you want to stop the drilling, click here for a Mississippi Sierra Club petition. Please click on the original thread to comment.
Posted on May 31, 05 | 9:11 pm | | +
The Chronicle at Duke University is reporting:
Three crosses were burned in separate locations in Durham late Wednesday evening, Durham Police Department officers reported. Ku Klux Klan fliers were also found at one location, police told The Associated Press. DPD Lieutenant Kevin Cates classified the cross burnings as a “hate crime.” “It is too early into [the investigation] to tell if it is actually directed at one person or one group,” Cates said. “We just have to wait and see.”
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AP is reporting:
Black voters are upset with the Democratic Party for coming around just weeks before elections seeking their votes, party chairman Howard Dean said Tuesday in an interview with The Associated Press. Taking black voters for granted is a long-standing problem for the party that dates to the 1960s, said Dean, who promised changes in strategy even as he cited diversity at the top of the Democratic National Committee.
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Clarion-Ledger reports today:
A fender bender at the drive-through of a fast-food restaurant in Ridgeland early Sunday morning ended with a Brandon woman being shot, police say. Vicksburg residents Randy Clark, 33, and Judith Kristie Smith, 37, were charged with drive-by shooting, police said. The shooting occurred after words were exchanged at the Krystal restaurant at County Line and Old Canton roads, police said. Wiltshire went to check the damage to her vehicle and words were exchanged with the people in the Jaguar, police said.
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Today the New York Times reports on a 2,000 report from an Army investigation into U.S. torture of Afghan detainees. The details are chilling:
Even as the young Afghan man was dying before them, his American jailers continued to torment him. The prisoner, a slight, 22-year-old taxi driver known only as Dilawar, was hauled from his cell at the detention center in Bagram, Afghanistan, at around 2 a.m. to answer questions about a rocket attack on an American base. When he arrived in the interrogation room, an interpreter who was present said, his legs were bouncing uncontrollably in the plastic chair and his hands were numb. He had been chained by the wrists to the top of his cell for much of the previous four days.
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AP is reporting:
(Spokane, Wash.) Mayor James West, the subject of an FBI probe into accusations he offered municipal jobs to men he met in gay online chat rooms, is complaining he is the victim of a "brutal outing." In an e-mail sent to nearly 140 people affiliated with a race relations task force, West wrote that the group is responsible for making Spokane a community where "harassment, intimidation, discrimination" are unacceptable. "Does that include people who have an internal struggle with who they are sexually and are searching for a way to come out ... ?" wrote West, who is co-chairman of the task force. "Do others who desire to be out but are having similar struggles now live in greater fear because of a brutal outing?"
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The New York Times Science section today reports on a new study that lends credence to the argument that homosexuality is a matter of biology, not choice:
Using a brain imaging technique, Swedish researchers have shown that homosexual and heterosexual men respond differently to two odors that may be involved in sexual arousal, and that the gay men respond in the same way as women. The new research may open the way to studying human pheromones, as well as the biological basis of sexual preference. Pheromones, chemicals emitted by one individual to evoke some behavior in another of the same species, are known to govern sexual activity in animals, but experts differ as to what role, if any, they play in making humans sexually attractive to one another.
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An interesting story on Alternet about a fight in Memphis involving Corrections Corporation of American, et al:
The seven white Republicans on the racially-divided Shelby County Commission, who hold a one-vote majority over the six African-American Democrats, are trying to privatize and expand the Shelby County Jail and the Shelby County Correctional Center, popularly known as the "penal farm." The county commission originally received bids from three companies, including Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the world's largest for-profit private prison corporation. One of the other companies, Correctional Services Corporation, dropped out. To sweeten its bid, CCA has offered to make a $30 million up-front cash payment to Shelby County. It's no wonder CCA needed a sweetener. In the past year alone, there were riots at three of CCA's facilities in Mississippi, Colorado and Oklahoma. A woman prisoner at the CCA-managed Metro Detention Center in Nashville was beaten to death.
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MSNBC reports:
To the dismay of gay-rights activists, the Food and Drug Administration is about to implement new rules recommending that any man who has engaged in homosexual sex in the previous five years be barred from serving as an anonymous sperm donor.
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The Boston Globe reports that Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson accepted a free trip to the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands in 1997, as did Rep. Tom Delay of Texas and James E. Clayburn of South Carolina:
The office of Tom DeLay, House majority leader, says a US territorial government was supposed to pay for travel by two of his staff aides to a Pacific islands commonwealth. Two Democratic representatives filed disclosure forms saying a nonprofit group paid their expenses to the same place. They all were at least partly wrong, according to lobbying firm records obtained by the Associated Press. The expenses were paid initially by lobbyist Jack Abramoff or his former firm, despite House rules prohibiting lobbyists from paying for the travel of lawmakers or their aides.
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MSNBC reports:Two small makeshift grenades exploded outside the British Consulate in New York early Thursday, causing slight damage to the building but injuring no one, officials said.
Emergency services, including a bomb squad, were seen at the site in Midtown Manhattan and the building was evacuated, NBC affiliate WNBC-TV reported.
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All, the JFP's 2005 City Elections Blog is now live, or at least the index page is fully operational.
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The Clarion-Ledger reports:
A nine-year Jackson police officer was killed Thursday following a gun battle on a city street with a carjacking suspect who also died. Thomas Catchings, a 41-year-old motorcycle patrol officer, died while in surgery at the University of Mississippi Medical Center.He'd lost a large amount of blood from a gunshot wound to the abdomen, Dr. Robert Schwieg said.
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AP is reporting:
Bernard Ebbers, the once-swaggering CEO of WorldCom, was convicted Tuesday of engineering the largest corporate fraud in U.S. history - an $11 billion accounting scandal that capsized the big telecom company three years ago. The verdict marked a colossal fall for Ebbers, who had turned a humble Mississippi long-distance provider into a global telecommunications power, swallowing up companies along the way and earning the nickname "Telecom Cowboy."
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