COLUMBIA — Before Brown v. Board of Education ordered desegregation of public schools, before Emmett Till’s murder woke up the nation, before the Freedom Riders drew attention to conditions for black people in the South, before the Voting Rights Act guaranteed everyone equal access to the po…
Misleading, negative campaign ads are a fact of life in politics, and they aren’t going away. But the voters should at least know who is really paying for them.
Clarksdale Mayor Chuck Espy, in a remark clearly born of frustration, said recently he is willing to spend up to $10,000 of his own money to help criminals move away from that nearby Delta city.
Courthouse lawn
STARKVILLE — As noted more often than this writer cares to remember, the fact is that public health care for Mississippi’s poor, working poor, uninsured or underinsured is an expense that will ultimately be borne by the taxpayers.
Robert F. Smith is a billionaire hedge fund operator of whom few had heard until his surprising pledge at Sunday’s Morehouse College commencement ceremony made national news and guarantees he’ll be in high demand as a future graduation speaker.
As Mississippi’s latest effort to limit abortion plays itself out in the courts, the owner of this state’s lone abortion clinic used an odd choice of words to describe the effort to further restrict her ghastly operation.
OXFORD — Back in the days when daily newspapers published free obituaries, reporters assigned to write them sometimes jokingly complained about retired farmers.
Maybe it shouldn’t have taken $5 million and the use of gigantic, portable diesel-powered outdoor floodlights to prove it, but the evidence is in: Extra light at nighttime can reduce serious crimes.
This is not a big issue in the Delta, as most public schools, under federal rules, qualify to provide all of their students with free lunches, regardless of family income.
When a mother-in-law’s death brings tears to your eyes, that’s pretty compelling evidence that she was a mighty fine mother-in-law.
Reporters in this state can testify it’s nearly impossible to get information about an arrest made by the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics and other state investigative bodies.
In 2016, there were 18 Republicans running for president, and that was way too many. This election cycle, Democrats seem determined to outdo their philosophical counterparts, and they have indeed done it.
Editor, Commonwealth:
JACKSON — Drive through parts of Jackson where Bill Waller Jr. grew up and still lives or even through parts of south Madison County, and it is not unusual to see signs touting his campaign for governor.
Holmes County school officials would not have known three years ago when they hired Dyana Terrelle Thomas that he would get locked up for allegedly having sex with a student of the high school where he has been the assistant principal.
Nosy cops
LAWRENCE, Kan. — In August of 1955, Emmett Till was lynched in the Mississippi Delta. The 14-year-old African American reportedly whistled at a white woman, violating the racial norms of the Jim Crow South. For this supposed infraction, he was abducted, tortured, shot and dropped in a river …
MERIDIAN — So, my conservative friends, what is the ideological difference between a tax subsidy for the wealthy and a financial subsidy for the poor?
The Mississippi Hospital Association has made public a plan it’s been privately pushing, with no luck, to Gov. Phil Bryant to expand Medicaid to the working poor.
Unita Blackwell’s life story was a remarkable one that led others to join her in taking risks to extend the fundamental rights of a democracy to Mississippi’s black citizens.
STARKVILLE — How big an impact does forestry make on Mississippi’s economy? For the last six years, the Mississippi State University Extension Service says that forestry contributed more than a billion dollars annually, with an estimated value of $1.2 billion in 2018 alone. Behind poultry, f…
Money may not be everything, but in politics it sure means a lot. And if money is used as a measuring stick in this year’s Mississippi elections, it points to Tate Reeves winning the governor’s race and fellow Republican Delbert Hosemann succeeding Reeves as lieutenant governor.
President Donald Trump likes to say that China will pay the tariffs he’s set up on about $300 billion worth of the country’s exports to the United States. His top economic adviser says otherwise.
OXFORD — An Associated Press article and picture in the newspaper the other day got me to reflecting on my experiences with the Speed Graphic camera.
When the Trump administration started its trade war with China last summer, most farmers stood with the president, even though it cut into one of the largest markets for the crops they grow.
As the U.S. Justice Department looks into the failed coal gasification plant in Kemper County, a manager heavily involved with the construction claims the cost overruns and delays were well-known but covered up by the plant’s owner, Mississippi Power Co.
Courthouse lawn
A couple of years ago, the Mississippi Legislature enacted by the hardest some changes to how government entities in this state purchase goods and services.
JACKSON — One of the greatest blessings to us all is the love of our mothers.
It’s taken a while, but the stigma about mental illness is slowly fading in this country. That’s thanks to the educational efforts of the psychiatric community, the advocacy of groups such as the National Alliance on Mental Illness and, perhaps most of all, personal exposure.
Margie Pulley, the Commonwealth’s 2019 Mother of the Year, set high standards for her three sons.
JACKSON — The call came in the fall of 2013. It was an inmate on his cellphone. He was inside a Mississippi prison, and he had something to tell me.
Women dying in childbirth is something associated with undeveloped countries or America prior to the 20th century.
It’s surprising that some of the Democrats running for president apparently didn’t pay attention to previous outings of their stingy fellow party members.
Courthouse grounds
MERIDIAN — Reckon conservatives will listen when two conservative, pro-capitalism columnists say health care is a big issue in Mississippi?
America’s rising suicide rate, up 35 percent since 2000, deserves more attention than it’s been getting. A recent report in The Washington Post suggests that pursuing policies that help the working class might help.
Mother Nature has turned into a party pooper for Greenwood. Last weekend, she put a damper on the Que on the Yazoo barbecue festival. This weekend, she’s already caused one outdoor music festival to reschedule for next month and the other to consider moving indoors.
Courthouse grounds
STARKVILLE — Only Walmart/Sam’s employs more people in Mississippi than does Ingalls Shipbuilding at about 12,500 employees. But Ingalls and other shipbuilders pay significantly better than Walmart.
The evidence continues to grow that technology companies, in their determination to develop better products, and make more money, essentially are spying on their customers.
JACKSON — Tiger Woods’ miraculous comeback last month at the Masters seemed like destiny. That’s because it was.
As an increasing number of lower courts rule against election lines drawn for partisan purposes, the situation begs for the U.S. Supreme Court to provide guidance as to what’s legal and what’s not.
Need any more proof that Mississippi did the right thing by being strict on requiring childhood vaccinations?
Editor, Commonwealth:
Editor, Commonwealth:
Last Saturday, when Beth Stevens was biking atop the levee from Humphrey Highway to the Greenwood-Leflore Airport, she was bowled over by the undisturbed natural beauty around her.
Good for Rep. Sally Doty, R-Brookhaven, who was a prime advocate in getting the Mississippi Legislature this year to allow people convicted of felony drug crimes to receive federal food assistance.
Attorney General William Barr has decided he is not subject to congressional oversight, an imperial attitude that cannot be left unchallenged.
Editor, Commonwealth:
Editor, Commonwealth:
Cowan building
JACKSON — Did you know that Mississippi has a law on the books that allows licensing boards to suspend or revoke your professional license if you default on your student loans?
For more than 40 years, Holmes County politico Eddie Carthan has played the racial victimization card.
Just when you thought it was safe to forget about the Kemper “clean coal” fiasco, the mess has resurfaced with the revelation that the U.S. Justice Department is investigating the miserably failed experiment.
Tax refunds
MERIDIAN — Mississippi politicians running for re-election or higher office are out, about and on social media touting how good things are and how they helped make things that way.
For decades the Republican Party has tried to ride Ronald Reagan’s coattails, forever hailing the former president as a small-government, low-taxes conservative who was unfailingly patriotic and optimistic.
Editor, Commonwealth:
Editor, Commonwealth:
STARKVILLE — There were some justifiable fears in the late 1950s and early 1960s — threats such as polio, global thermonuclear war or the president appearing on TV to talk about anything. If he did, you could forget about TV for the night on either of the channels that were available to us (…
One sentence Tuesday from The Associated Press perfectly explains everything that’s wrong with Washington:
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