OXFORD — Bill Waller Jr. may be a long shot to beat Tate Reeves in next week’s Republican primary for governor, but I wouldn’t rule it out.
The recent Mississippi poultry plant raids that uncovered hundreds of employees who were allegedly in the United States illegally may wind up changing workplace hiring procedures. But not in the way most people think.
Medicaid expansion
Richard Roberson minces no words when he hears people argue that there’s no reason to expand Medicaid to the working poor since they can already get free medical care at hospital emergency rooms if they can’t afford to pay for it.
The runoff for the Republican nomination for governor was already bound to be interesting: Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves, a leader of the legislative branch, vs. Bill Waller Jr., the former leader of the state’s judicial branch.
The business world doesn’t like uncertainty about cost increases almost as much as the increases themselves.
Consolidated district
Given the beastly hot weather of the past few days, this may come as a surprise. But according to a review of federal weather data going back to 1895, Mississippi is right in the middle of the area where temperatures have been increasing at the lowest rate.
MERIDIAN — Roughly 95,000 more Mississippians voted in the Republican primary this year than four years ago, a 34% increase. This pushed Republican turnout over Democratic turnout for the first time. These new GOP primary voters could noticeably impact the Aug. 27 runoffs.
How surprising. The Mississippi Department of Education polled high school teachers and three-fourths of them said the state should stop requiring students to take a comprehensive U.S. history exam to demonstrate they have acquired some of the knowledge expected of a high school graduate.
STARKVILLE — The Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in Scott County and other Mississippi locales where there are large-scale poultry-processing operations are more than headlines to me.
If Jim Hood truly believes that Tate Reeves abused his office to try to get an access road built — at taxpayers’ expense — to the gated community where the Republican lieutenant governor lives, then Hood needs to distance himself from investigating the matter.
Rural Mississippi is about to see whether its desire for high-speed internet service matches the cost of providing it.
Editor, Commonwealth:
Editor, Commonwealth:
Immigration
RIDGELAND — On Aug. 3 1971, there were seven persons on the ballot for governor in Mississippi’s first Democratic primary. Lt. Gov. Charles Sullivan, a longtime Mississippi politician, was heavily favored to win. Former Hinds County District Attorney Bill Waller was considered his chief riva…
As we’ve said earlier, the U.S. government should throw the book at any companies or managers who knowingly employ illegal immigrants.
On election night, a colleague pointed me to a map on The New York Times website that illustrated the winners in each of Mississippi’s 82 counties in the Republican gubernatorial primary.
This week’s massive raid of seven chicken-processing plants in Mississippi has prompted applause from those angry about illegal immigration and disgust by those who accuse the federal government of picking on vulnerable people for political purposes.
If the Leflore County Board of Supervisors thinks it can afford to get into the streetlighting business, it should handle it as a unit, rather than letting each supervisor decide where the lighting goes.
JACKSON — I turned 61 last week. I’m still alive.
The Motley Fool is an investment website that tries to provide solid financial information about the stock market without taking itself too seriously. One of its many offerings is a weekly email called “Foolish Wisdom,” and one that arrived recently contains some valuable ideas about investi…
With a conservative majority now in place on the U.S. Supreme Court, there is a movement — its size probably pretty small — to try to add some seats in hopes that a future Democratic president could tilt the court’s leanings back in the other direction.
Editor, Commonwealth:
BATON ROUGE, La. — James Williams, an attorney and the chairman of the Louisiana State University Board of Supervisors, told the 609 graduates at LSU’s summer commencement last Friday that there are three kinds of graduates: magna cum laude, cum laude and “Thank you, Lawdy.”
Following last weekend’s back-to-back slaughters in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, there were plenty of suggestions for what the country should do to shed its distinction as the mass-killing capital of the world.
Rand Paul, the fiscally conservative Kentucky senator, tells it like it is when he says that big spending and big government are a bipartisan failing.
Greenwood hospital
STARKVILLE – It’s been 20 years since mass shootings became part of the national lexicon in America with the Columbine, Colorado, massacre.
The biggest threat from “outside agitators” these days in Mississippi comes from four-legged, long-snouted, two-tusked creatures with voracious appetites and no natural foes.
Carroll County took a step back in time Tuesday with an election night watch on the courthouse grounds in Carrollton.
Editor, Commonwealth:
Medicaid expansion
OXFORD — There was no shortage of self-styled “pro-Trump conservatives” in this month’s Mississippi Republican primaries.
Mississippi homeowners who are thinking about becoming seriously energy-efficient now have one good estimate on how much that might cost: $15,000.
One of the most difficult choices for voters Tuesday in these parts may be in which primary to cast their ballot.
Consider the following scenario.
JACKSON — That time-tested adage “be careful what you wish for” could prove prophetic for the gubernatorial campaign of Democratic Attorney General Jim Hood.
If you think the Delta is headed in the right direction — despite its declining population, its troubled public schools and severe teacher shortages, its crumbling roads and bridges, its financially endangered hospitals — then Tate Reeves is your candidate for governor.
MERIDIAN — The last and only Republican to hold the office of attorney general in Mississippi was George E. Harris back in 1877. As Republicans began their surge to take over statewide offices in the early 1990s, Mike Moore and Jim Hood easily held on to the position for Democrats.
No matter who is elected Mississippi’s next secretary of state, it’s probably going to be a step down from the higher-than-normal competence that has led that office for nearly a quarter-century.
As far as Delbert Hosemann, endorsing him over token challenger Shane Quick is a no-brainer in the GOP primary for lieutenant governor.
Editor, Commonwealth:
MADISON — Normally, I don’t like to be wrong. But I wouldn’t mind being wrong about next Tuesday’s Republican gubernatorial primary.
Even as Republicans have steadily and increasingly dominated political office in Mississippi for the past couple of decades, the one position that has eluded them is attorney general.
Democratic presidential candidates should hope that their debates this week — one was Tuesday night and the other Wednesday night — significantly reduce the oversized group that is seeking the nomination.
Editor, Commonwealth:
Tate Reeves may be in trouble. That probably surprises some of you. It is significant, as he recently suggested, that he may be in a runoff. If that happens, all bets are off — anything can happen in a runoff.
Republican voters next Tuesday have two capable individuals to choose from as their nominee to be Mississippi’s next state treasurer.
When Republican Mike Tagert decided not to run for re-election as transportation commissioner for Mississippi’s Northern District, a handful of GOP hopefuls lined up to try to take his place.
OXFORD — The July murder of a pretty Ole Miss coed is eerily similar to one that occurred about 33 years ago when the daughter of a couple who then lived in Magnolia was sexually assaulted and slain in her off-campus apartment in Oxford.
The stupidity of college students can be boggling at times. It makes one wonder about the quality of American education, particularly how well or how much young people are taught about history.
It might be mostly a symbolic cause, but President Trump is still correct in telling the World Trade Organization to stop categorizing China as a “developing” nation and giving it any preferential treatment when the WTO is refereeing trade disputes.
Editor, Commonwealth:
Downtown music
Circumstances at the southern border illustrate both America’s greatness and its failings. The promise of this nation’s prosperity is what is drawing desperately poor immigrants from Central America.
MADISON – We don’t live in America the Beautiful anymore. Now we live in dwell in America the Sleepless.
If Republican primary voters in Mississippi were looking for fireworks in Tuesday night’s debate between the party’s three candidates for governor, they were disappointed.
Tuesday’s Republican governor debate didn’t provide any major revelations, but it did give some insights into the most important race facing Mississippi voters this year.
If it is true that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell recently told President Trump that no politician has ever lost an election for spending more money, it is game, set and match for any hope of fiscal restraint in Washington.
Forrest Gump, quoting his mother, was right: “Stupid is as stupid does.”
It’s almost back-to-school time for thousands of students across the Mississippi Delta, and that signals the time to shop for school supplies, which include lists that are long and items on them sometimes pricey. It can be a stressful time for some.
STARKVILLE — American politics has unfortunately long since devolved into a predictable battle between voters on the nation’s east and west coasts and in the largest cities who are predominantly liberal/progressive/socialist and rural voters in the nation’s “flyover” sections of the South, t…
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