The Clarion Ledger last month reported that Gloria Hill, a health provider at one of Mississippi’s largest nursing homes, announced she could no longer take it, and is leaving and moving to California, never to work in a nursing home again.
Since 1988, the Commission on Presidential Debates, a nonprofit bipartisan entity created by America’s two major political parties, has sponsored and produced the presidential debates that have occurred every four years since.
STARKVILLE — Democrats and Republicans alike have strained at gnats to obscure the fact that decisions regarding the naming of a successor to the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is about anything more than the future of the Roe v. Wade decision on abortion.
Most Republicans are overlooking the amusing degree of hypocrisy in the decision to fill the U.S. Supreme Court vacancy at the end of a presidential term.
OXFORD — The bromide, “Wait ’til next year,” is a familiar refrain for fans of Mississippi’s collegiate football, who, if their favorite team is losing, hope for a better future.
If it wasn’t obvious before, The New York Times has made it painstakingly clear why Donald Trump has repeatedly defied longtime precedent and refused to release his federal income tax returns: They paint a much different image of the real estate tycoon than the one Trump has carefully tried …
Itta Bena
You may have to be a bit wonkish to care about the distinction between constitutional law and general law.
When the branches of government — or just members within the same branch — are in conflict in Mississippi, it can create some odd legal arrangements.
This was not the way that Mike Leach and Lane Kiffin, the flamboyant head football coaches for Mississippi’s two Southeastern Conference schools, expected to make their debuts.
High school football
JACKSON — Kudos to Mississippi U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker for sponsoring a bill to amend Section 230 of the Communications Act of 1996.
There are bits and pieces of good news to report in Mississippi’s efforts to contain the coronavirus. While no one can claim the battle is won — there are still too many infections and deaths reported each day — it’s definitely fair to say things are better than they were this summer.
As many discuss Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death in the political sense, it can be equally important to note her death in a spiritual way.
Is it possible to have too many choices, too many options? The entertainment world seems determined to test that question.
STARKVILLE — From microwave popcorn to digital grocery shopping to telemedicine, our citizens worship time and the technology that saves time. But in Mississippi and a few other states, we reject the notion of our obsession with time and convenience when it comes to voting.
For all their crawfishing now about when it’s appropriate in a presidential term to fill a vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court, no one captures the shamelessness of the Republican majority in the Senate more than South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham.
Country club closing
OXFORD — State Auditor Shad White’s call for the University of Mississippi to fire sociology professor James Thomas brings to mind James W. Silver.
Every so often a peek at the future comes along that seems hard to believe but ultimately makes sense. That was the case with a story in The Washington Post about oil giant BP’s latest steps in adding the production of “clean energy” to its portfolio.
Saturday brought out a little more than 200 runners and walkers — many from the Greenwood area and some traveling from out of town — to the 40th annual 300 Oaks Road Race.
Granted, the results of the survey by Operation Peace Treaty were not scientific.
When Burl Cain was hired as Mississippi’s corrections commissioner earlier this year, the former Louisiana prison warden pledged to turn around the state penitentiary at Parchman.
It was a testimony of her tenacity that Ruth Bader Ginsburg was able to hang on as long as she did on the U.S. Supreme Court.
JACKSON — I finally got to go alligator hunting, thanks to my neighbor, friend and fellow church member, Judge Jeff Weill.
Mississippi’s state auditor, Shad White, has performed admirably as the watchdog of the people’s money in the two years he’s been in the job.
Those who are supporting the legalization of medical marijuana in Mississippi have two big challenges ahead of them.
Donald Trump
JACKSON — Gov. Tate Reeves bemoaned the politicization of the COVID-19 coronavirus last week, reported Mississippi Today. He complained that there are “certain groups that want to politicize everything.”
As recently as Sunday, the weather forecast for Mississippi looked grim. The tropical storm that became Hurricane Sally appeared poised to travel right up the middle of the state.
President Trump on Tuesday hosted the prime minister of Israel and the foreign ministers of two Arab nations in the Persian Gulf for a ceremony in which the three countries formally established diplomatic and economic ties.
STARKVILLE — The late New York Yankees catcher Yogi Berra would love this one.
A few thoughts on what had to be the National Football League’s strangest opening weekend ever:
As of Tuesday night, it appeared that Mississippi will not be hit as hard by Hurricane Sally as once feared and that neighboring Alabama’s Gulf Coast will take the biggest blow.
Editor, Commonwealth:
JACKSON — Mike Parker, the last Republican candidate for governor to lose in the general election, has for almost two decades been a non-factor in Mississippi politics.
When Congress earlier this year enacted several trillion dollars worth of COVID-19 relief funding, it wanted to be sure the money got spent quickly.
The COVID-19 pandemic has provided a glut of statistics, but here’s a surprising one: Public school retirements are down in Mississippi.
Editor, Commonwealth:
Mystery ribbons
Bob Woodward has been listening to politicians and others throw him lines of bull for 50 years.
It’s too early to tell how Chris Graham will perform as head of Mississippi’s Department of Revenue.
In a column printed this past week in the Commonwealth, former Mississippi Gov. Ronnie Musgrove joined the chorus of voices advocating for the state to expand Medicaid.
Plant thievery
JACKSON — As the $3 billion stimulus impact provided by Congress winds down, businesses spend out their Paycheck Protection Program loans, and the extra $600 in weekly unemployment payments ends, is Mississippi’s economy ready to go it alone?
Public schools in Mississippi and elsewhere in the nation were relieved last spring from the obligation to administer standardized tests to gauge how much their students had learned over the past year.
Of the 17 people in Louisiana who were directly or indirectly killed by Hurricane Laura, eight died as a result of carbon monoxide poisoning.
Editor, Commonwealth:
Donald Trump
BRANDON — There’s a $14 billion dollar industry that wants to sell their product in Mississippi.
These are the best of times and these are the worst of times for the gun industry and its lobbyist friends.
Democrats want the U.S. Census Bureau to keep counting past September. They say stopping any sooner will produce a larger undercount than normal of the nation’s population.
Editor, Commonwealth:
Tate Reeves
STARKVILLE — It’s difficult to think of Julia Reed without hearing her raspy, smoky voice — sort of an odd cross between Lauren Bacall and the sound a farrier’s rasp makes on the hooves of a draft horse. When she laughed, it was earthy, twangy and honest.
By now, everyone is familiar with the routine. Someone shows one or more symptoms of the coronavirus and gets tested. In due time, often several days, they receive a result showing either positive or negative. If they’re infected, it means two weeks of quarantine.
OXFORD — Andy Gipson doesn’t seem like the most logical state official to come up with a good idea on COVID 19-era public school education.
A few thoughts on last week’s magazine report that President Trump has described soldiers who were injured or killed in war as “losers,” and even wondered aloud to the father of a slain Marine why anyone would volunteer to serve in the military.
America’s attraction to illegal drugs seems as strong as ever. A story in a recent issue of Bloomberg Businessweek magazine makes it painfully clear that American businesses are playing a role in this dependence.
GHS transfers
One of the earliest and most lasting images used to describe the focus of former Georgetown University coaching great John Thompson centered on the deflated basketball he kept on his desk.
In the long and sordid ordeal of repeatedly trying Curtis Flowers for the gruesome 1996 quadruple slaying at a former Winona furniture store, the one thing the case desperately needed was an impartial set of prosecutorial eyes to look at the evidence and see whether it added up to guilt beyo…
Although Attorney General Lynn Fitch and her staff made the right call to drop the prosecution of Curtis Flowers if the evidence didn’t support another trial, the timing of the public release of their decision was suspicious.
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