News

Supreme Court to consider Cheney's secret task force

CBS Marketwatch is reporting: "The U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether the White House must reveal the energy-industry contacts that helped a task force headed by Vice President Dick Cheney formulate an energy policy blueprint in 2001. The high court on Monday said it would hear a White House appeal of a lower court ruling that ordered the Bush administration to hand over details of the task force meetings to Judicial Watch, a government watchdog group, and the Sierra Club, an environmental group."

Dean Under Attack, Trippi Says

To watch the attack ad in Windows Media Player, click here:

E-mailed to Dean list this a.m. from Trippi: "A faceless group that the Washington Post calls 'despicable' is using hundreds of thousands of dollars to air vicious television ads that use pictures of Osama bin Laden to attack Howard Dean. Don't wait. We're under attack, and we need your help now.

Democratic ‘Shadow' Groups Face Scrutiny

The Washington Post reports: "Leading campaign finance watchdog organizations as well as Republican activists intend to challenge the new 'shadow' Democratic Party -- a network of independent groups gearing up to spend as much as $300 million on voter mobilization and pro-Democratic TV ads. The organizations -- the Center for Responsive Politics, the Campaign Legal Center and Democracy 21 -- contend that the pro-Democratic groups are violating prohibitions on the use of corporate and labor money for partisan voter registration and mobilization drives. Trevor Potter, chairman of the Campaign Legal Center, said the groups have become 'the new soft money loophole. . . . This is the beginning of an important discussion about how these groups are going to operate.'" ... Harold Ickes, who runs the pro-Democratic Media Fund, contended the Republican and watchdog critics are "one, trying to tie us up; two, divert our attention; three, force us to spend money on legal fees rather than electoral activities; and four, to try to chill our contributors."

[Talk] Gettin' Safer

Jackson has lunged out of the "Top 10 Most Dangerous Cities" to No. 16, according to just-released 10th annual Morgan Quitno Press "most dangerous city" rankings for 2002. Using M-Q's standards, the city of Jackson made gains in 2002 over 2001 relative to other U.S. cities based on overall FBI crime figures, moving up six spots in the new rankings from the No. 10 spot (framed as "in the top 10" by key Republican candidates in the 2003 election) in the group's 2001 rankings.

[Lott] A Generous Giving

To hear some folks talk, you'd think that big places with the most compassionate liberal attitudes and bountiful personal incomes would be teaming with the most generous, nicest, most appreciative people on Earth — thankful for and humbled by their material blessings and, in turn, always helping the poor, the downtrodden and anyone with less for which to be thankful. In fact, it's the opposite. Some of America's biggest, wealthiest and so-called "progressive" places are the stingiest in terms of the percentage of their charitable giving, while America's smallest, most conservative and less affluent states tend to be the most generous. Among these, Mississippi is the most giving.

Debra Kassoff

Seated demurely before me was the first rabbi I'd ever met—a slim clear-eyed young woman who looks like she could be a lawyer, a teacher, a counselor—not the stereotypical picture I have in my head of a rabbi—a man with a beard, wearing glasses and a yarmulke on his head. Debra Kassoff, 33 and a native of Maryland, joined the staff of the Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life in April 2003 as the director of Rabbinic services. Based on the old-time tradition of the itinerant rabbi, Kassoff serves small Jewish communities in 12 Southern states.

Gore Endorses Dean

Former Vice President Al Gore endorsed Howard Dean for president today. AP reports: "Gore said Dean 'really is the only candidate who has been able to inspire at the grass--roots level all over the country.' He said the former Vermont governor also was the only Democratic candidate who made the correct judgment about the Iraq war. 'Our country has been weakened in its ability to fight the war against terror because of the catastrophic mistake the Bush administration made in taking us into war in Iraq,' Gore said."

Mobilizing the Youth Vote

The New Voters Project announced plans to try to mobilize youth voters in 6 states for the upcoming election cycle. The six states areColorado, Iowa, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon and Wisconsin; a combined population of 2 million 18 to 24 year olds who are eligible to vote.

Gore to Endorse Dean

Reuters is reporting that Al Gore is to endorse Howard Dean for President on Tuesday morning at a Harlem event.

Bloggers Speak Out

Mississippi keeps cropping up out there on the weblogs (called "blogs," we're talking about Web sites that update daily with news and politics coverage) and—almost universally—in a familiar context. I saw our fair state mentioned last week on the Democratic "inside baseball" site http://www.dailykos.com)]DailyKos, in a completely gratuitous mention that's par for the course: "Don't fear, however. CT is a safe Dem state. There's as much chance of Bush taking the state as of the Dems taking Mississippi."

Move Over, Boys

Lakshmi Chaudhr writes: "Whether she is a divorced waitress in Harlem, a welfare mom in Iowa, or that thirty-something singleton sipping a Cosmopolitan at your local bar, the unmarried woman may hold the fate of the 2004 elections in the palm of her hand. 'Unmarried women, given what they think and feel, are the group with the greatest potential to be agents of progressive change in this country because of their size, their desire for change, and their record of under-voting,' says Page Gardner, manager of the 'Women's Voices Women's Vote' project."

MoveOn.org Parties in Jackson this weekend

Heard of MoveOn.org, the hip and powerful grass-roots movement that is doing an end-run around party politics and the media? This Sunday, Dec. 7, MoveOn is holding house parties all over the country to screen Robert Greenwald's new documentary, "Uncovered: The Whole Truth About the Iraq War." The Jackson screening and party will be held in Rainbow Plaza, at the corner of Old Canton and Lakeland, at 7 p.m. Steve Rozman, political science professor at Tougaloo College, will lead a discussion after the film. See you there. Read a story about Moveon.org here. And enter your zip code here for other parties around the country.

FOX Works for GOP

MoveOn.org warns: "The wall between objective journalism and partisan politicking at Fox News fell last week when it became clear that Fox News staff contributed to the orchestration of the Republican-led 39-hour Senate talk-a-thon intended to counter the Democrat filibuster against four of President Bush's most radically conservative judicial nominees."

MoveOn.Org Irritates the Right

Michelle Goldberg writes in Salon: "Bill O'Reilly wants its nonprofit status revoked. Republican National Committee chairman Ed Gillespie sees it as part of the 'Democrat plan to subvert campaign finance laws.' House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's office plays phone pranks on its staffers. ... Clearly, MoveOn.org has arrived."

Harvey Talks Back: The 2003 JFP Interview with Mayor Johnson

Jackson Mayor Harvey Johnson Jr. is having one hell of a year. On the one hand, the Vicksburg native has presided over a city for six years that seems to have shifted into high-gear renaissance mode, or certainly as high gear as re-development has been in this city since harmful out-migration to the suburban areas began decades ago. About everywhere you look in the city, it seems there is construction; dilapidated buildings are being razed; a city that has been left to decay for many years by other administrations seems set on re-inventing itself at a slow, if steady, pace. Yet, there is a dark side.

Seetha Srinivasan

From her fifth-floor window at the Education and Research Center of Mississippi—known as the R&D Center by most—Seetha Srinivasan has a splendid view of the surrounding trees. Not that she's got her head in the clouds. This petite lady—dressed, always, in her traditional sari—was born 60 years ago Dec. 27 in Bangalore, India. Today she has her feet planted firmly in the state she calls home and where she serves as director of the University Press of Mississippi.

Truth in the Hands of Artists

Radiohead's Thom Yorke and author/historian Howard Zinn talk about the artist's role in politics. Yorke: "This goes back to what should be causing extreme alarm. If there are political programs on TV, yet it takes an artist to actually energize political debate, that tells you something really quite frightening about the level of the political debate happening on mainstream channels – right-wing-biased mothers. One of the interesting things here is that the people who should be shaping the future are politicians. But the political framework itself is so dead and closed that people look to other sources, like artists, because art and music allow people a certain freedom. Obviously, the duty of artists is there, but it's more an indictment of the political system that someone like Zinn views artists as the seers, idealizing them as the people responsible for inspiring change. I think that would be great, but the reason people think like that is because there is no other element of participation anywhere."

Bush's ‘Crimes Against Nature'

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. writes: "George W. Bush will go down in history as America's worst environmental president. In a ferocious three-year attack, the Bush administration has initiated more than 200 major rollbacks of America's environmental laws, weakening the protection of our country's air, water, public lands and wildlife. Cloaked in meticulously crafted language designed to deceive the public, the administration intends to eliminate the nation's most important environmental laws by the end of the year. Under the guidance of Republican pollster Frank Luntz, the Bush White House has actively hidden its anti-environmental program behind deceptive rhetoric, telegenic spokespeople, secrecy and the intimidation of scientists and bureaucrats."

Dixie Dems: Dean Too ‘Liberal'

The Washington Times reports that Democratic leaders in the South consider Howard Dean "too liberal" to win electoral votes in the South: "Most acknowledge the growing conservatism that dominates their region, and some concede it will be difficult, if not impossible, to carry many Southern states if the nominee is out of step with mainstream Southern values."

Bill Minor on the Democrats' Future

Bill Minor writes that Democrats didn't lose in the state as big as Republicans would like to pretend: "In the wake of the Republican mini-earthquake that hit the state Nov. 4, not just a few Democrats were wondering if their party can survive in Mississippi. That question arose after Kirk Fordice sent shock waves through Democrats in 1991, and some said it heralded a mass conversion to the state GOP in the 90s. It didn't happen. Republicans got a momentary uptick, but by the end of the decade, Mississippi Democrats, unlike those in several other Southern states, still had a decided majority in the Legislature and held virtually all state offices."

Vouchers, They Are A'Comin'

AP is reporting that national Republicans are about to make a push for vouchers: "Republican Senate leaders plan to force a vote this week on the nation's first federally funded school voucher experiment, tucking the program into broader spending legislation that would be politically difficult for Democrats to block.

Bush may veto overtime, media ownership rules

AP is reporting : "The GOP-run Senate voted in September to block proposed Labor Department rules that opponents say would make it easier for employers to deny overtime for millions of workers. The House, also run by Republicans, voted narrowly to support the rules, but later cast a nonbinding vote in favor of blocking them. The administration is insisting the proposed rules be allowed to take effect."

Schwarzenegger Takes Office in California

It's official, folks. The Governator has been sworn in. I'm really curious to see how he handles the state's $25 billion deficit. Of course, his inauguration (with Vanessa Williams and Jamie Lee Curtis, among others) sounds way better than Gray Davis':

Liberals and ‘Flyover Country'

Middle America - which includes most of the South, Midwest and West - too often gets dismissed by liberal politicians and liberal interest groups who seem to look down on our values. They refer to the area between the East and West coasts as "flyover country." The attacks on Judge Charles Pickering's conservative background and religious activity shows this acute divide. Yet, Senators from "flyover country" are striking back, letting the left know that we are here, we are part of America and we expect more, especially better consideration of our judicial nominees.

Bush Plan to Ban Abortion

Michelle Goldberg writes in Salon: "Unnoticed by much of the public, the Bush administration and the Republican-controlled Congress have been laying the groundwork for a repeal of abortion rights." (Click on the free ad to get access to the story.)

Rhonda Richmond

Rhonda Richmond's voice comes as a complete surprise. An earthy, organic, smooth sound weaves itself around your soul and into your heart. I first heard Richmond sing, swaying softly to the music, for the small crowd of jazz-lovers gathered at the Mississippi Museum of Art atrium on an October Thursday.

Two Large Unions May Support Dean

AP reports: "Two of the nation's largest and politically powerful unions initially overlooked Democrat Howard Dean as a marginal, quirky presidential candidate from a small state. But that changed as he surged in fund raising and state polls in key states such as New Hampshire and Iowa and began attracting large, boisterous crowds."

‘Confederacy of Dunces'

Salon's Joan Walsh reports that Howard Dean's critics have it wrong: "Does anyone really believe that former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean was borrowing a playbook from the GOP and telegraphing coded support for Southern racism when he said, in an interview last week, 'I still want to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks'? Dean explained his unorthodox approach this way: 'We can't beat George Bush unless we appeal to a broad cross section of Democrats.' I'd add this: Democrats can't beat Bush unless they abandon their elitist approach to working-class cultural conservatives, especially in the South -- and the opportunistic, preachy pile-on by Dean's Democratic opponents after his remarks won't help."

And the Winners Are…

...Republicans (and Jim Hood) in contested statewide elections, Democrats in Hinds County and Legislative elections and turnout -- over 818,000 people had voted in the Lieutenant Governor's race with 92% of precincts reporting, suggesting that turnout was better than the Secretary of State, Eric Clark, had predicted at the beginning of the day, and besting recent gubernatorial elections.

Election Post-Mortem

Well, all, there weren't a lot of surprises Tuesday night, and a lot of our prayers about the state rising above the race game went unanswered ... for now. But I truly believe that this election is meant to challenge progressive Mississippians to do everything it takes to attract better candidates and increase the voter base. And that work doesn't start three years and six and a half months from now. It starts tomorrow. So buck up; we have hard, but satisfying work to do, and powerful coalitions to build. And it will be done.

Ellington