Jackson Free Press

In a near unanimous 7-1 decision announced earlier today, the U.S. Supreme Court decline to rule in Fisher v. University of Texas.

I've seen a lot of comments of Facebook, Twitter and other social media or in just every day conversation of should Ole Miss fans root for Mississippi State in the College World Series?

One thing is for sure, the rest of the SEC is rooting for MSU to win a national championship. You will hear a loud and proud "SEC" chant breakout today if the Bulldogs beat Oregon State when the two teams meet today at 2 pm on ESPN.

SEC fans have pulled for the SEC team in the national championship game for football while the conference has won seven straight titles. SEC fans have rooted for Florida and Kentucky when they were playing for a national title in basketball.

South Carolina, LSU and Georgia have gotten love when playing for the title in previous College World Series. It stands to reason that the other 12 members not named Ole Miss will be rooting for the Bulldogs.

Which brings me back to my original question. Should Ole Miss fans root for Mississippi State?

I believe the Rebels fans out there should swallow their hatred of their arch-rival for just a bit. Ole Miss fans should root for Mississippi State to win the College World Series or at least until the Bulldogs get eliminated (knock on wood that they don't).

I will take it a step farther. As a state we should get behind this baseball team.

For the next few days, there shouldn't be Golden Eagles. There shouldn't be Tigers.

There shouldn't be Braves, or Delta Devils. No Statesmen/Fighting Okra, Choctaws, Majors Blazers, or anything mascot.

We should all be Bulldogs. If just for awhile.

When Millsaps was in the Division III College World Series, this year, we all should have been Majors. When Delta State was playing for a Division II national championship in football, in 2010, we all should have been Statesmen or at least Fighting Okra.

We all should have been Tigers last fall when Jackson State was playing in the SWAC Championship Game.

Anytime we have a school that can accomplish something special, we should put our allegiances aside for awhile and support one of our state schools.

I always support our schools when they are playing for something special. I rooted for all the schools mentioned above and Ole Miss this year in the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament.

It is a personal decision but I feel it is o.k. to let go of rooting for my school (if I had a school) when the school I root (theoretically) can't accomplish the same goal. I rooted for both MSU and Ole Miss in their bowl games last season.

I root for our schools to do well because it also spotlights our state for something positive. Even if you don't agree with college athletics, these young men are putting the best face forward for our state.

We should all be Bulldogs. We should all be Maroon and White.

Forget about making Mississippi healthier. Forget about the cost to taxpayers. The fight over Medicaid in Mississippi is turning into an all-out partisan turf war.

The latest salvo came yesterday, when Democratic Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood issued an opinion stating that the governor cannot lawfully run the Medicaid program if the Legislature fails to reauthorize the program.

At odds over whether the state should expand Medicaid, lawmakers couldn't come to a consensus on renewing Medicaid before the legislative session ended this spring, leaving the future of the program up in the air.

Republican Gov. Phil Bryant, who opposes Medicaid expansion, has said that if Democrats, who support the expansion and have asked for legislative debate on the subject, continue standing in the way of Medicaid's reauthorization that he would run the program himself.

In recent weeks, legislative Republicans and the Mississippi Republican Party have blitzed the Internet and social media with anti-Obamacare messages ahead of the July 1 Medicaid deadline. The MS GOP has started an online petition against Obamacare while Speaker Philip Gunn, a Clinton Republican, has written op-eds for several local newspapers and blogs.

Hood's opinion this week relies on a similar opinion Hood issued in 2009, which states that "a governor cannot create or re-create a state agency that has been repealed by operation of law, nor can a governor divert funds which may be appropriated to a statutorily repealed agency to some other agency."

The response from Bryant's office was terse. Bryant's spokesman, Mick Bullock, responded to Hood in an email to the Associated Press: "That's all it is, his opinion."

http://jacksonfreepress.com/users/photos/2013/jun/20/12276/

Here is the list of events scheduled for Lumumba's inauguration celebration, which will apparently last four days:

Friday, June 28, 2013 Kick-off celebration (3 p.m. - 7 p.m.) - Smith Park

Saturday, June 29, 2013 Ward 2 celebration (10 a.m. - 1 p.m.) - Presidential Hills, Ward 3 celebration (Noon - 3 p.m.) - Grove Park, Ward 4 celebration (2 p.m. - 5 p.m.) - Westside Park, Wards 5 & 7 celebration (4 p.m. - 7 p.m.) - Battlefield Park

Sunday, June 30, 2013 Ward 1 celebration (1 p.m.-4 p.m.) - Parham Bridges, Ward 6 celebration (3 p.m. - 6 p.m.) - Leavell Woods Park

Monday, July 1, 2013 Inaugural prayer service ( 8 a.m.) - Word and Worship Church, Oath of office ceremony & reception (Noon) - Jackson Convention Complex, The People's Inaugural Celebration (7 p.m. - 11 p.m.) - Jackson Convention Complex

No word on music for the People's Inaugural Celebration, but here's to hoping it's as good as the election-night entertainment at the Clarion Hotel with Southern Komfort Brass Band.

Jackson television station WLBT is reporting that JPD Chief Rebecca Coleman has resigned.

The 61-year-old Coleman has served as a JPD officer for 24 years.

Mayor-elect Chokwe Lumumba said at a WAPT/Clarion-Ledger debate at Mississippi College's School of Law that, if elected, he would replace Coleman.

Coleman told WLBT her plans are to "take it easy for a while," do some traveling and volunteer work.

Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood's office sent out the following news release this afternoon:

Jackson, MS—A Hinds County resident has been arrested a second time for depraved heart murder, announced Attorney General Jim Hood today.

Tracey Lynn Garner (formerly known as Morris Garner), age 52, of Jackson was arrested Thursday (June 13) by Investigators with the Mississippi Attorney General’s Office Consumer Protection Division Intellectual Property Task Force, with assistance from investigators with the Attorney General’s Cyber Crime Unit, and charged with one count of depraved heart murder.

Garner has been indicted in Hinds County on the recent charges involving the death of a Selma, Alabama resident while Garner was performing a buttocks augmentation. The indictment alleges that Garner, on or about January 13, 2010, “did kill Marilyn Hale…by means of injecting a silicone substance into the body of Marilyn Hale, thereby committing an act eminently dangerous to others and evincing a depraved heart.”

Garner was arrested at his home where he was under house arrest facing charges in another depraved heart murder case involving the death of Atlanta Georgia resident, Karima Gordon, who also allegedly received injections of a foreign and possible counterfeit substance during an illegal buttocks augmentation performed by Garner at his 1020 Peyton Avenue address in Jackson.

“Our intellectual property task force is involved in these cases to investigate the possibility that the substances injected into the victims were a counterfeit version of silicone,” said Attorney General Hood

The Attorney General encourages anyone who may have received a buttocks or breast augmentation from this defendant to please notify the AG’s Consumer Protection Division at 1-800-281-4418.

If convicted of these crimes, Garner faces up to life in prison. As with all cases, the defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

The case is being investigated by Lee McDivitt and Richie McCluskey of the Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Division Intellectual Property Task Force. Prosecution of the case will handled by the division director, Assistant Attorney General Patrick Beasley.

http://jacksonfreepress.com/users/photos/2013/jun/17/12226/

A few new releases due out tomorrow...

Veteran state Rep. George Flaggs will officially retire from the Mississippi House of Representatives on June 30.

Flaggs, a Democrat, recently survived a gauntlet of a race for Vicksburg in which the incumbent became the focus of a federal corruption probe and another contender became a victim of her own past as a sex worker.

Flaggs, formerly chair of the House Banking and, more recently, Corrections committees will be sworn in at 6 p.m. on June 30 in Vicksburg.

Before the Legislature finished its work this spring (well, unless you count that whole Medicaid thing), Speaker Philip Gunn appointed Flaggs long enough to gavel the body adjourned sine die. Gunn will officiate Flaggs' Vicksburg inauguration.

Through a release, Flaggs called serving in the Mississippi House an "amazing journey."

“I’ve grown a lot during my time here, and I’m thankful for everything I’ve learned and accomplished through the years. The decisions I’ve made and the relationships I’ve cultivated motivated me to run for Mayor of Vicksburg where I can be more hands-on with the city and the people," he said.

“However, I’m looking forward to continuing my work with the leadership of the state...I want to make Vicksburg the most competitive city in Mississippi. Vicksburg is open for business!”

In a unanimous and completely unsurprising move, the Mississippi Republican Central Committee rejected the federal Affordable Care Act, which Congress passed three years ago.

The state GOP said it was supporting the positions of the state's Three Tops--Gov. Phil Bryant, Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves and Speaker Philip Gunn--in resisting the implementation of the ACA as well as the expansion of Medicaid.

“Our party is unified and supports the prudent and careful approach advocated by the Governor, Lieutenant Governor and Speaker. At a time when we learn more every day about improper government intrusion into the lives of ordinary citizens, it defies logic to embrace an expansion of that intrusion,” MSGOP Chairman Joe Nosef said through a press release.

Of course, Obamacare is being implemented anyway. Last summer's U.S. Supreme Court decision assured that the ACA, including its controversial individual mandate provision, would be the law of the land even if it lets states opt out Medicaid expansions, which the architects of the law hoped would pay for a big chunk.

Nosef is right on one point, though: Mississippi Republicans have been unified in saying they reject Obamacare.

Emphasis on saying.

Most Mississippi state Republicans have stated their opposition to the federal health law, but there is evidence that the party's armor is starting to chink, most notably Sen. Billy Hudson, R-Hattiesburg's recent coming out in favor of expanding Medicaid.

Meanwhile, Republican congressmen are quietly soliciting Obamacare funds for a Rankin County health clinic.

There'll be more about that in tomorrow's paper.

I got my hopes up today when I saw an item on a city council workshop meeting agenda about a tax increment financing (TIF) for a hotel project in downtown Jackson. We've heard rumors for weeks the city is close to a deal with a hotel management group to build and open a much-needed convention center hotel.

Unfortunately, this wasn't it.

The city council meeting didn't happen because there weren't four members present at 4 p.m., but mayor Harvey Johnson Jr. stuck around long enough to fill us in on that item.

"This is not the much-anticipated convention center hotel," Johnson said. "This is another much-anticipated hotel down on West Street at the site of the old Mississippi Valley Title building. ... It's a good project, it's an exciting project, but it's not the convention center hotel."

Westin Hotels has apparently bought the old MS Valley Title building, and plans on tearing it down to put in a hotel at the same location. Details on the plan are not available yet, but the agenda item to be voted on by the city council at tomorrow's regularly-scheduled 10 a.m. meeting calls for the city to provide tax incentives not to exceed $1.75 million to the hotel group.

The mayor added that they are in talks with a hotel group about the convention center hotel project, and that hopefully they would have something to say about that before the end of the month, which is his last day in office before mayor-elect Chokwe Lumumba takes office on July 1.

"We just need to figure out exactly what we need to do to make sure of what the city's portion of the deal would be, and try to get some indication from them that that proposal would be acceptable," Johnson said. "Then they can move ahead with some financing. At that point, we'll pass some kind of resolution of support or something along those lines."

Hopefully the city council will get a quorum tomorrow, because I'd sure like to hear more about the deal.

Mississippi Democrats are basking in the post-electoral bliss of having held on to or picked up a number of mayor's seats yesterday.

A shock to no one, Democrat Chokwe Lumumba coasted to a W in Jackson (lesson here for future secret campaign engineers: being on the down-low never helped anyone).

Other incumbent Dems who also won reelection include Parker Wiseman of Starkville, Connie Moran of Ocean Springs and Patt Patterson of Oxford. Two sitting Democratic lawmakers, George Flaggs Jr. and Billy Broomfield, will also become mayors of Vicksburg and Moss Point, respectively. Each man defeated fellow Democrats and incumbents in those cities in primaries this spring.

What Democrats are beaming most about are the cities they took away from Republicans. In Tupelo, it was young Jason Shelton, in Meridian it was Percy Bland and in Booneville, it was Derrick Blythe. Tupelo was particularly sweet for Democrats, who haven't had the mayor's chair for three decades.

State Rep. Steve Holland, a Tupelo-area Democrat, credits Democrats' strong messaging and investment of "sweat equity" for yesterday's victories. Holland called Shelton a super guy with lots of energy and spunk.

"He had a cooler campaign that I would have had," Holland said of Shelton. "He tried to out conservative the other guy, and apparently it worked."

Two other Democrats--Glen Cook of Stonewall and James Young of Philadelphia -- also won election.

You know, Harvey Johnson told the JFP once that The Clarion-Ledger was still institutionally racist, and doesn't even know it, and they have done little—consistently, any way—over the years to prove that it's not true. After Lumumba's historic (whether you like him or not) win, THIS was the front-page news story this morning. And we can all be pretty positive that it wouldn't have been there had Johnson or Lee won the election.

Beyond the negative slant, it is filled with Eason's analysis of whether he thinks the mayors can get along with the emphasis on Lumumba. I went and looked at it because I saw a lot of people complaining about it on Facebook, and I see why. There is a good story to be done about regional cooperation, but this ain't it. And it's bad timing, to boot. The question I keep asking about their city reporter is: Does he have an editor!?!

Of course, if you scroll down and read the comments, you can see who such a piece is likely pandering to. Shudder.

http://jacksonfreepress.com/users/photos/2013/jun/05/12074/

I guess it's no surprise that Gov. Phil Bryant told The Washington Post that education went to pot when women started entering the workplace: We're guessing he's a fan of FOX News, and they've been hawking that meme, Melanie Tannenbaum blogs at Scientific American. Even thought it's news to us who never look at FOX News, apparently they've been arguing this issue there of late, with a bunch of men blaming working mothers for behavioral and educational problems, even though serious research shows otherwise. Imagine.

Tannenbaum writes:

[W]hen looking at samples where the families were on welfare, children whose mothers worked while they were very young (1-3 years old) actually performed significantly better on measures of overall achievement and had significantly higher IQs , although there were no differences when it came to performance on formal achievement tests. On the contrary, when looking at samples where the families were not on welfare, there were no differences in overall achievement or IQ between the children whose mothers worked and did not work during their early childhood years, although higher SES children whose mothers worked while they were young actually did slightly worse on formal achievement tests.

What if we look at whether or not the child is coming from a single-parent household? Same story. Children who lived with single mothers performed better on measures of overall achievement and IQ if these single moms worked while the kids were very young. Children who lived in two-parent households, on the other hand, showed no differences in overall achievement or IQ, but did worse on formal achievement tests if their mothers had worked.

And what about behavioral problems, like externalizing behaviors (aggression or impulsivity) or internalizing behaviors (depression or anxiety)? After all, if lower-income children whose parents work outside the home have higher IQs but also have higher rates of depression and anxiety, that’s still a problem, right?

Sure, it would be a problem — if that were the case. But it’s not. Once again, the pattern is the same. Children who lived with single mothers who had worked outside of the home while the kids were very young actually exhibited significantly lower rates of overall behavior problems, significantly lower rates of aggression and impulsivity, and marginally lower rates of depression and anxiety. Children from two-parent households showed no such difference in overall behavior problems, aggression, or impulsivity, though they also showed lower rates of depression and anxiety. So, across the board, when mothers worked outside of the home where their babies were very young, it didn’t matter if they were single mothers or members of a two-parent household. Looking across a wide variety of racial and socioeconomic groups, studies either found no relation between employment and behavioral problems, or they found that children whose mothers worked while they were young actually had fewer behavioral problems and better academic outcomes than their counterparts whose mothers stayed at home.

The data keep telling the same story, no matter how you …

Verbatim statement, just in:

National Organization for Woman, Mississippi Insists Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant apologize for statements against working mothers

The Mississippi Chapter of the National Organization for Women condemns the comments Governor Phil Bryant made regarding working women and working families being the cause of education problems in Mississippi.

His statement places all responsibility on mothers and none on the state. It disregards the impact of racism and integration in the decline of Mississippi's historically underfunded schools. It conveniently takes away any responsibility from the Governor and his failure to focus on jobs, healthcare, states economy, and equal/adequate funding for schools.

Rather, the Governor and GOP-controlled House and Senate have been focused on abortion restrictions, guns, school prayer, and immigration.

The Governor is missing the economic reality of the lives of many Mississippians--where both parents have to work, they do not choose to work. Even if women are not economically forced to work, we have the right to make a career without being made scapegoats by state officials who are not doing all they can to create great schools.

If Governor Bryant is sincerely concerned about having a Mississippi where one parent can stay home-if they choose-then we urge him to focus on statewide policies that make that possible. We encourage him to support policies like state-funded childcare so families can afford to have one person work. We encourage him to support raising the minimum wage, so one job/one parent can support a family. Lastly we encourage him to support medicaid expansion because healthy kids are able to learn better and kids need healthy parents.

Policies like these matter just as much if not more than if a child's mother has a job. Governor Bryant you can not blame Mississippi mothers for the state not doing its job.

The campaign to elect Chokwe Lumumba as Jackson's next mayor just posted a video of rapper Ludacris endorsing Lumumba for mayor and urging Jacksonians to vote today.

You can see the video here.

The secret, underground Quentin Whitwell write-in campaign could be doomed if they don't get an emergency endorsement from Chingy in the next hour.

Yes, he did. The Washington Post is reporting that our esteemed governor, Phil Bryant, blamed working mothers for the problems in the education system:

Bryant was participating in a Washington Post Live event focused on the importance of ensuring that children read well by the end of third grade. In response to a question about how America became “so mediocre” in regard to educational outcomes, he said:

"I think both parents started working. The mom got in the work place."

Bryant immediately recognized how controversial his remark would be and said he knew he would start to get e-mails. He then expanded on his answer, saying that “both parents are so pressured” in families today. He also noted that America seemed to be losing ground internationally in regards to educational outcomes because other nations began to invest more in their own school systems and make progress.

And folks are worried about Chokwe Lumumba's views.

What will the election of new Jackson Mayor Chokwe Lumumba mean for our somewhat besieged city and the communities that surround it? (anyone who lives in the Jackson metro area and who doesn’t believe that as Jackson goes so goes the metro area is being both short-sighted and provincial). How will he choose to govern the city, and how will his lifetime of civil rights activism and his career as a defense lawyer influence his decision making and term as mayor?

OK, Snark King, it's your turn.

I've had it in the back of my head to blog about a really offensive post by The Clarion-Ledger's city reporter Brian Eason for weeks now, but it had fallen to the side in the need to report actual news. But while cleaning up my desk today, I started noticing a pattern—first from a clipping of another snarky thing he wrote calling a whole city office stupid, and then I saw a blog post belittling an enterprise story by our staff this week, but without actually saying what was in it or linking to it. So here's my Friday afternoon round-up of what I've been noticing about Mr. Eason's snark, which I assume is meant to be humor, except none of it is funny.

No. 1. Don't dare compare crime to terrorism, dumb little council candidate. After 20-year-old minister Corinthian Sanders decided to get involved enough to run for City Council, he made the mistake of saying that the "terrorism" of crime was one of his top priorities (as if he's the first to ever say that here). Sanders told the Jackson Free Press: "Let’s talk about getting our lawbreakers, criminals—I call them terrorists….(If) you can’t go anywhere without killing someone or robbing someone or terrorizing someone, that’s terror, (and) you’re a terrorist; you’re a domestic terrorist.” The mention of the word terrorism tickled Eason's funny bone. He snarked:

"To my knowledge, no major terrorist attacks have occurred or been planned on our streets, and the Jackson Police Department reported no terrorist incidents in 2012, according to its published crime stats. But maybe that’s what the terrorists want us to think.

"Lest anyone think Sanders is trying to politicize the Boston Marathon bombing, rest assured, his commitment to fighting terrorism on the streets of Jackson predated the explosions at the marathon.

"But while Sanders listed counter-terrorism as his No. 2 priority, right behind “protect, improve and increase affordable housing,” none of his competitors — or, indeed, any other candidates in the entire metro area — mentioned local terrorism as a problem worthy of their consideration.

Eason's blog post shows he later clarified what Sanders meant, and quoted Sanders' above words from the JFP in an addendum to the snark-post, but that nasty horse was out of Eason's barn by then. That's what you get for running for office in Jackson, Corinthian. The ire of a native Dallasonian. And I really don't know what all his references to monkey videos on your Facebook page were about, and don't care.

No. 2. In a post called "Common sense? Not at clerk's office," Eason showed the entire staff of the Jackson city clerk's office not to mess with him, no sir. He was irked that he couldn't get election results from the clerk's office at 11 a.m. the day after the primary. They didn't have certified results available, yet, and gave him a bit of a runaround. OK, it's fair to …

Social media is buzzing today about a New York Times article that features a lot of amazing personalities and locally owned businesses that make our city great—many of which started in the city's last decade of progress. This is the kind of media we need to see more of about the city—not the whole metro, but the city itself—and it's up to all of us to create the kind of place that national media want to cover. Cheers to all of you, especially the folks we love who ended up in the article. Nice going, Jackson!

My only regret about it is that the reporter didn't look around more parts of our city for cultural points and businesses to include. One that I believe should be in any article about Jackson's progress is Koinonia Coffee House, which is not only an excellent restaurant, but has become a gathering place for diverse Jacksonians. I like to think of it as our own tiny Busboys & Poets. And now that city election season is nearly over and emotions running less high, it's going to be even more fun to hang out in again. In fact, I just got off the phone with a St. Louis organization that brings a diverse group of black and Jewish students to Mississippi every summer, and they just assume that is where they will gather at least one time during the trip. Go there if you haven't!

Any other spots y'all think they missed? Feel free to add them below.

Mississippi Democratic Party Chairman Rickey L. Cole's letter to the state ethics commission.