Jackson Free Press

I say all the time on the @jfpsports Twitter account that one of the biggest parts of sports is responding. If the other team scores can you respond with a score of your own or if your team scores can the defense respond with stop and so on. The New Orleans Saints got punched in the mouth (repeatedly) last week by the Washington Redskins. Washington dominated the New Orleans offensive and defensive line most of the game.

It was an exciting start to the NFL season last week. The first week of the season started with Dallas upsetting the New York Giants and ended the Raiders special teams handing a win to San Diego.

The story Friday was the Saints players suspended out "Bounty Gate" getting back on the field after appeals lift players suspensions. New Orleans had Will Smith on the field in the home opener against the Washington but Redskins rookie quarterback Robert Griffin III stole the show. Things started poorly for the Saints after they received the opening kickoff. New Orleans failed to gain a first down and was forced to punt after a three and out. Drew Brees opened the game 0 for 3 passing and the theme of the day was set with the Redskins defense harassing the New Orleans record-breaking quarterback all day.

In its Sunday edition, The New York Times is reporting that New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is investigating several private equity firms, including Bain Capital for possibly abusing a tax strategy "in order to slice hundreds of millions of dollars from their tax bills."

The attorney general, Eric T. Schneiderman, has in recent weeks subpoenaed more than a dozen firms seeking documents that would reveal whether they converted certain management fees collected from their investors into fund investments, which are taxed at a far lower rate than ordinary income.

Among the firms to receive subpoenas are Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Company, TPG Capital, Sun Capital Partners, Apollo Global Management, Silver Lake Partners and Bain Capital, which was founded by Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee for president. Representatives for the firms declined to comment on the inquiry.

Mr. Schneiderman’s investigation will intensify scrutiny of an industry already bruised by the campaign season, as President Obama and the Democrats have sought to depict Mr. Romney through his long career in private equity as a businessman who dismantled companies and laid off workers while amassing a personal fortune estimated at $250 million.

The subpoenas, by a Democrat, went out before a huge document leak recently that raised questions about Bain Capital's practices:

The tax strategy — which is viewed as perfectly legal by some tax experts, aggressive by others and potentially illegal by some — came to light last month when hundreds of pages of Bain’s internal financial documents were made available online. The financial statements show that at least $1 billion in accumulated fees that otherwise would have been taxed as ordinary income for Bain executives had been converted into investments producing capital gains, which are subject to a federal tax of 15 percent, versus a top rate of 35 percent for ordinary income. That means the Bain partners saved more than $200 million in federal income taxes and more than $20 million in Medicare taxes.

The subpoenas, which executives said were issued in July, predated the leak of the Bain documents by several weeks and do not appear to be connected with them. Mr. Schneiderman, who is also co-chairman of a mortgage fraud task force appointed by Mr. Obama, has made cracking down on large-scale tax evasion a priority of his first term.

As a retired partner, Mr. Romney continues to receive profits from Bain Capital and has had investments in some of the funds that documents show used the tax strategy.

Be sure to read the entire article for a succinct explanation about the fees/interest practices of many financial firms. This ends the piece:

The leaked documents show that Bain has in recent years waived management fees in at least eight private equity and other funds, including one formed as early as January 2002. The documents stated that Bain executives had the right to decide either annually or each quarter whether to waive some or all of their management fees; they also had …

This week, Mississippians got in an up roar when several news outlets referred to our state as the "Landmass" between New Orleans, LA. and Mobile, AL. It has made the rounds on Facebook and Twitter with a post even of the JFP site.

File this under the finally, about time file.

Augusta National Golf Club announced today that the club will welcome its first two female members when the club opens for its new season in October. For years, the home of The Masters has resisted allowing women to join the private all-male golf club.

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and South Carolina financier Darla Moore have accepted to join the club and will be the first female members to don a green jacket in the club’s history. This move has been coming since 2002.

Martha Burk of the National Council of Women's Organizations wanted the club to add women members in 2002 and lead a small boycott of the 2003 Masters tournament. Former club chairman Hootie Johnson, chairman during Burk’s protest, dug his heels in once saying Augusta National might one day have a woman in a green jacket, "but not at the point of a bayonet."

The Masters lost television sponsorship for two years and the club paid CBS to broadcast the tournament commercial free for those two years. Johnson retired in 2006 and Billy Payne has been more open to allowing women than his predecessor.

"These accomplished women share our passion for the game of golf and both are well known and respected by our membership," Payne said in a statement. "It will be a proud moment when we present Condoleezza and Darla their green jackets when the club opens this fall. This is a significant and positive time in our club's history and, on behalf of our membership, I wanted to take this opportunity to welcome them and all of our new members into the Augusta National family."

In the ESPN article linked above, it states from private sources that women have been considered for membership five years ago. It is about time, Augusta National added women members and hopefully these two women will not be the only female members added.

The news exploded today that a Republican senatorial candidate in Missouri, Rep. Todd Akin, has declared that women can't get pregnant from "legitimate rapes." This idiot was defending his anti-abortion stance (including rape and incest, of course):

“It seems to me, first of all, what I understand from doctors is that’s really where—if it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”

and:

“Let’s assume that maybe that didn’t work, or something,” Akin said. “I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be on the rapist and not attacking the child.”

Clearly, every woman who has ever gotten pregnant from a rape is lying about it being rape, according to this fool's logic.

Much has been made so far this year about the "war on women"—from Rush Limbaugh's horrendous attacks on Sandra Fluke to many Republicans supporting all sorts of anti-women regulation including outlawing in vitro and birth-control pills.

This latest affront to women—1 in 6 are sexually assaulted before age 18 as I was—is where we must say "ENOUGH"! We must demand that all of our elected officials disavow Akin's remarks. More importantly, we must demand pro-women and actual pro-family legislation from our elected officials, including right here in Mississippi. Women have the power to stop these attacks on us and our rights, if we only will.

This is too much, and it's time we decide what kind of nation we're going to be in the future. Speak up, women and men. An attack on one woman's rights and self-respect is an attack on us all.

The band DEVO has teamed up with Dogs Against Romney to take a jab at presumptive presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

From the press release: "Gerald Casale, a founding member of the American punk/New Wave band DEVO, has announced a new single “Don’t Roof Rack Me, Bro! (Seamus Unleashed).” The track, written by Casale, will be released in conjunction with a mobile game titled The Crate Escape: Seamus Unleashed, a new mobile game that satirizes the dog-on-roof incident. Both the single and game are planned to launch on August 26, which is both National Dog Day and one day before the Republican National Convention. The single will be available at all digital music retailers while the game is initially being launched as an app on iTunes.

"In releasing this single, DEVO has joined forces with Dogs Against Romney, an online advocacy group with more than 70,000 members on Facebook, and Censault LLC, a Dallas mobile/social game publisher, to help call attention to Mitt Romney’s 'crate-gate' scandal."

“'I can’t overstate how excited we are to have DEVO’s Gerald Casale as a partner with us in making sure every voter in America knows Mitt Romney strapped his dog, Seamus, to the roof of his car for a 12-hour trip to Canada,' said Scott Crider, founder of Dogs Against Romney. “The new DEVO song Gerald created with his bandmates is awesome, and I believe it will be the soundtrack for Romney’s defeat in November.'

"... The Crate Escape: Seamus Unleashed game will be launched as a free app for the iPhone and iPad. Pledges are being sought on Kickstarter to raise money for adding additional features to the game and for the creation of version compatible with and playable on other devices. For additional game info and images, go to www.facebook.com/CrateEscapeGame."

Read more about it and listen to the song on the Rolling Stone website.

In a move that I wouldn't be surprised to see repeated in the near future in the Magnolia State, Governor Rick Perry of Texas declared today that he [won't be implementing Obamacare][1] in Texas. Specifically, he says the state will not increase its Medicaid roles to cover additional working poor with the program, and the state will not set up the state exchange that's required in the law.

Perry's office sent a letter to U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on Monday morning asserting his opposition, both to accepting more than a hundred million federal dollars over the next several years to put more poor Texas adults onto Medicaid, and to creating an Orbitz-style online insurance marketplace for consumers.marketplace for consumers.

The story notes that the insurance exchange isn't optional, and that the Federal government will set up a "one size fits all" exchange for the state.

“If anyone was in doubt, we in Texas have no intention to implement so-called state exchanges or to expand Medicaid under Obamacare," Perry said in a statement. "I will not be party to socializing healthcare and bankrupting my state in direct contradiction to our Constitution and our founding principles of limited government."

Texas, according to the story, has the country's highest percentage of uninsured residents.

But Dan Stultz, president and CEO of the Texas Hospital Association, said without the expansion, "many will remain uninsured, seeking care in emergency rooms, shifting costs to the privately insured, and increasing uncompensated care to health care providers."

And for folks who think the current ACA is a "socialist" expansion, does anyone find it curious that conservative leaders would leave their state exchanges to the Federal government to set up? It seems you would want a hand in there, making sure free market principles reign and such.

Although I guess stamping your feet and say "No! No! No!" feels like better politics to Governor Perry.

[1]: http://www.texastribune.org/texas-health-resources/medicaid/perry-tx-wont-implement-key-elements-health-reform/marketplace for consumers.

Today, the JFP launched a series of interviews and other coverage of the 2013 mayoral race in Jackson. (Council coverage is coming soon.) Ongoing mayoral race coverage will appear at jfp.ms/mayorsrace. Right now the link goes to the first interview, with Jonathan Lee, which is linked below as well. But it will change shortly to a special mayoral coverage page with interviews, story links, video, audio and much more that we will collect as the campaign progresses (you can send us stuff, too, and post on your own blog entries).

Now, though, what we want to know is what questions you want our reporters to ask the candidates for mayor? Please make these open-ended (not yes-or-not, or leading "don't you think...?") kinds of questions and serious ones (that don't include unsubstantiated allegations or personal attacks). We will attempt to ask all candidates your questions, and you can also suggest questions for particular candidates. (If you have something you want us to look into that must be factchecked or substantiated, please email it directly to [email protected]). We are also checking factual statements that the candidates make and will include any corrections; we ask you to let us know if we miss anything.

We encourage a higher level of dialogue in this election than we usually see in Jackson elections, and will use the JFP site and paper, as well as public forums, to do what we can to make that happen. We need your help, though, so please let us know your serious thoughts (and disclose if you are connected to a campaign, or who you know who is). All of this is vital information for voters.

So let's get started. Following is a question we just got on Twitter for Jonathan Lee, which inspired me to do this blog post now. We will ask Mr. Lee to answer this question and add it to the bottom of his JFP interview. Note that the question was asked in an accusatory yes-or-no fashion that adds nothing to the dialogue. I will post it in its original form and then change it into a real interview question as an example of how we can all work together to do this well:

Why no question about J Lee's position on sales tax bill for infrastructure improvements?

Better question: Please ask Mr. Lee his position onthe sales tax bill for infrastructure improvements.

Oh, and we also welcome any of the candidates to come on the site and answer themselves!

Let the campaign, and respectful dialogue, begin.

So, this morning we had a team of a reporter, an intern and photographer out at Mississippi's only abortion clinic. It's the morning after federal Judge Dan Jordan issued an injunction keeping the clinic open until at least July 11 because, in part, the folks who pushed it made it clear that their goal was to eliminate abortion in Mississippi -- which they focused on far more than on women's health and safety.

What was funny this morning, to us, is how Roy McMillan (the man who sits in front of the clinic every morning with big fetus posters and other signs) yelled at my folks to tell me that "shoes are optional!" along with various other criticisms of the JFP's coverage. He was clearly referring to this recent JFP editorial, which I wrote a few weeks ago criticizing McMillan and his wife, Dr. Beverly McMillan, for trying to make any form of hormonal birth control, including the pill and the morning-after pill, illegal.

I ended the editorial: "Dr. McMillan is as welcome to those views as her husband is to sit in front of a clinic when he could be out helping children that are already born, hungry and unwanted. But it is not her place to tell hard-working American women that their health insurance should not pay for their health-care needs because she'd prefer that they get pregnant. Whether Dr. McMillan also prefers them barefoot is still an open question."

It's good to know where they stand on that question.

What was funny is that I drove by not long afterward, not knowing about McMillan's messages for me, and snapped some photos from my iPhone. An anti-abortion couple sitting next to the gate told me that they appreciate the JFP's coverage of the controversy because we report all sides and include comments from everyone. So, I suppose, the anti-abortion movement isn't filled with people who all think alike, just like the pro-abortion rights movement isn't. And I rather suspect there are a good number of folks out there against abortion who know that easy access to birth control will actually lower the number of abortions in our state and America. Unlike the McMillins, who don't seem to care about that point.

Meantime, I encourage everyone to read former JFP assistant editor Casey Parks' indepth feature on the Pro-life movement in Mississippi. It includes very interesting reading about the McMillans (they liked this story then, they told us) and other people inside the movement, including lobbyist Terri Herring.

http://jacksonfreepress.com/users/photos/2012/jul/02/3378/

Alright, I am about to leave the office and hop on I-55 to Memphis, where I'll join up with MTV, VH1 and the Flaming Lips as the band tries perform a world-record 8 concerts in 24 hours. All the while, they will be hosting the O Music Awards, which will be broadcast for the entire 24 hours on OMusicAwards.com. I'll be taking the entire trip, hopefully. I'm definitely going to be there from Memphis to Jackson, including shows in Clarksdale and Oxford. Whether I continue on to Hattiesburg, Biloxi, Baton Rouge and New Orleans is largely up to the glorious Donna Ladd. I will be updating the blog with words and photos whenever I get the chance from the road. So as you watch the live online stream, go to the shows or do whatever life has in store for you over the next 28 hours or so, check in here for all the Flaming Lips world-record tour info you can handle.

Also, if you attend any of the shows, see the caravan pass by or run the Flaming Lips at a gas station, tell us about your experience here!

Update 5:54 p.m.: I called my contact with MTV on my way to Memphis to ask where I need to meet the media caravan. He told me that the bus was full, and I was not on the list, as Gayle from Text100 told me I was June 19. He is still going to give me passes to all of the shows, but I don't have a ride.

Gayle was extremely apologetic, and said there was something lost between her and the folks at MTV. She thought I was on the list.

Since I would have been stuck in Memphis with no ride, I came to Oxford, where I have friends going to the show. I'll be going to the show here, starting at 9 p.m. and following the band to Jackson (if my ride doesn't fall through, again).

My plan is to follow them on to Hattiesburg, and probably call it quits after that, as I don't think I'll be awake enough to drive after that. I'm pretty bummed that I didn't get on the media bus, especially after I was told that I had a spot on it. Not going to let it ruin my night, though. I'll still give you all updates from the road. I think Virginia Schreiber will take the photos in Jackson. I'm sure she'll share those as well. Check back for more updates from road, from Oxford to Hattiesburg...

Update 7:49 p.m.: I'm sitting at Ajax in Oxford. Just got a call from MTV, they said there is room on the bus after all. I already have a ride from Oxford to Jackson, and we can get to Jackson faster than caravan. So I'll get on media bus after Jackson show and follow the rest of the tour. Great to know someone got on the list and didn't care …

It is JFP Chick Ball season in Jackson, and we need your help to fight domestic abuse—this year to start a rape crisis center and raise awareness about sexual assault in our city and state! Here are 10 easy ways you can help.

The JFP got more great news Friday night when we learned that we are winning two first-place and one second-place award from the Society of Professional Journalists' southeastern division. Valerie Wells takes first place for feature writing, the Personhood team (this time, including R.L. Nave and Adam Lynch) takes second place for public service, and I won first place for serious commentary. Here is the full press release. Cheers to the team, congratulations to all the winners. We're honored to be in your company:

Football recruiting is as competitive as the game played on the field. Recruiting has become bigger and bigger in the digital age with sports sites building pages to follow top prospects.

Join the JFP, the Center for Violence Prevention and the Chick Ball Committee for a free JFP Chick Ball happy hour Thursday, May 31, at Hal & Mal's downtown (200 S. Commerce St.).

Yesterday was a very good day for the JFP staff, and especially our writers and designers.

Today marks my last day of online classes at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, where I've spend the last three years studying graphic design.

The wait is over, kids. Mississippi House members finally have a new legislative district map to vote on. The maps, which add two districts in rapidly growing DeSoto County, were unveiled at the Capitol today. Under the plan, several Democrats could lose their seats either by hasquaring off with fellow Democrats or by having to compete in mostly GOP districts.

NFL Wild Card Weekend proved just how big the NFL is in America. The ratings for last weekend were huge for the NFL and showed how much we love football in this country.