Gingrich: Town Hall in Jackson

Newt Gingrich will be holding a town hall in Jackson on December 3. From a Gingrich email:

We will be holding a town hall event where members of the audience can ask me questions and share ideas about how we can provide small businesses and entrepreneurs with the right incentives to create jobs and get the economy moving again.

Please click here to let us know if you plan to attend and how many people you plan on bringing so that we can make appropriate arrangements. Seating will be limited and given out on a first come basis.

Here are the full details for the event:

WHAT: - American Solutions Townhall Meeting
WHEN: - December 3, 2009, from 4:00-6:00 PM
WHERE: - Millsaps College Recital Hall; 1701 North State Street; Jackson MS 39210-0001

MSGOP: "Mr. Franks presents no ideas, no vision, and no solution to Mississippi’s budget challenges"

Mississippi Republican Party Chairman Brad White put the smackdown on Jamie Franks. As we mentioned yesterday, the Mississippi Democratic Party's reaction to Governor Haley Barbour's budget proposal was essentially: "No". Rather than suggest ideas, they only attacked.

GOP Chairman Brad White responded (ht Y'all):

“Jamie Franks shows us the difference between big government, big spending Democrats and the prudent reforms presented by Governor Haley Barbour.”

“Governor Barbour presented a comprehensive recommendation to balance the budget, improve the delivery of services, and not raise taxes. That's real leadership. And the Governor said he's willing to listen to other proposals and work with other perspectives, but Mr. Franks offers no constructive proposals, only negative attacks and tired political rhetoric. Mr. Franks presents no ideas, no vision, and no solution to Mississippi’s budget challenges. I’m sure Governor Barbour fully expects to work with a number of Democrats to hammer out a balanced budget and recognizes that Mr. Franks does not speak for them."

“The governor will have to make more cuts to our current budget, next year’s budget will be even tighter, and 2012 looks to be even worse. His reforms will balance our budget during these tough years, and when the recession ends, Mississippi will be better positioned to grow faster and stronger as a result - but not if we listen to Jamie Franks. His same old, tired, broken-down political rhetoric won’t pay the bills or balance the budget. He needs to sell his Obama-Pelosi style policies somewhere else because Mississippi is simply not buying them.”

Booya.

Majority in Mississippi also has some thoughts on this.

MS Dems become the Party of No

Chairman Jamie Franks responded to Governor Haley Barbour's budget recommendation. What is his vision for Mississippi? "NO"

He doesn't present any ideas on how to solve the budget crisis. All he does is attack the Governor. He says the Governor should cut his own staff. If he had read the budget proposal, he would see the Governor cuts his staff 12 percent on top of previous cuts to his office.

All his other comments are essentially: "NO"

We reread his statement several times to find solutions, ideas, vision, recommendations, just any kind of path or an ounce of leadership for Mississippi. But there was none.

This release is just another example of the wisdom of Mississippi voters in not choosing Franks as lieutenant governor. We guess the Mississippi Democratic Party has now been reduced to becoming the Party of No.

Jackson Municipal Judge urges residents to file contingency fee lawsuits

Dickie Scruggs once had this to say about "magic jurisdictions" where judges favored lawsuits and defendants didn't have much of a chance.

[W]hat I call the “magic jurisdiction,”...[is] where the judiciary is elected with verdict money. The trial lawyers have established relationships with the judges that are elected; they’re State Court judges; they’re popul[ists]. They’ve got large populations of voters who are in on the deal, they’re getting their [piece] in many cases. And so, it’s a political force in their jurisdiction, and it’s almost impossible to get a fair trial if you’re a defendant in some of these places. The plaintiff lawyer walks in there and writes the number on the blackboard, and the first juror meets the last one coming out the door with that amount of money. . . . The cases are not won in the courtroom. They’re won on the back roads long before the case goes to trial. Any lawyer fresh out of law school can walk in there and win the case, so it doesn’t matter what the evidence or the law is.

Certainly a municipal judge is different from what he was speaking about, but lest you think Mississippi's judiciary has swung away from favoring trial lawyers comes this story from Saturday's Clarion Ledger where a judge is actually advocating people to file lawsuits, to come together to file them as a class action, and to not worry about the cost because lawyers will take the case on a contingency fee, or a portion of the win.

Municipal Court Judge Ali ShamsiDeen, who spoke at the meeting, had some unconventional advice - sue.

ShamsiDeen said property owners can file simple negligence or nuisance lawsuits against property owners if they can show damages, such as decreases in property values attributable to the blighted property.

Damages in such lawsuits can cover more than monetary losses, including mental anguish or loss of the use and enjoyment of property "because of all these boarded up houses and the dope traffic," he said.

"People are going to have to become more involved in their communities," ShamsiDeen said. "One way is through civil suits."

ShamsiDeen said using tort law to attack blight is "new territory," but it is catching on as cities try to counteract the damaging effects of large numbers of vacant properties.

"The person or persons you are going after don't have to be breaking the law," he said. "Your claim is that (the property owner's) negligence has impacted your home negatively. You aren't looking for a crime. You are looking for cause and effect."

Such litigation can take months or even years to complete, but ShamsiDeen said it costs $155 to file suit and lawyers often take such cases on a contingency basis if a defendant with deep enough pockets can be found.

"One way to attack the problem is as a class action," he said. "The whole neighborhood can sue."

Some attorneys still frown on lawyers going out to chase ambulances for cases, here is an example of a judge doing it for them.

US Attorney Hopeful Would Never Protest Fellow Democrats

If this were a Republican nominee for U.S. Attorney, the left would be going nuts.

Northern District U.S. Attorney hopeful Christi McCoy, among those at the fundraiser, said she may not always support Childers, but she would never protest a fellow Democrat.

"It shows public discord within my party," McCoy said, making Democrats "seem vulnerable."

Frankly, we don't care whether she protests a fellow Democrat or not, as long as she will prosecute regardless of party or friendship...unlike our Attorney General who said prosecuting Joey Langston, Steve Patterson and Tim Balducci "would be like prosecuting a relative."

Jim Hood and Brandon Presley's Political Roadshows

It isn't unusual for politicians to do tours of their districts. Heck, that is part of the power of incumbency, you get to go out and meet the voters in your official capacity. We noticed two incumbents launched tours last week: Attorney General Jim Hood and Northern District Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley.

Jim Hood is doing his "Did You Know?" tour that his office describes as a "grassroots initiative" to tell Mississippians what it is the Attorney General's Office does. The trip includes visits to Meridian, Hattiesburg, Laurel, Gulfport, Moss Point, Vicksburg, Lexington, Tupelo, Starkville, Columbus, Natchez, Clarksdale, and Batesville.

Coming up on his seventh year in office, I guess its about time people find out what he does. The commenters over at Y'all Politics have had fun with this.

Brandon Presley's roadshow is different, he is setting up regular office hours in the county's in his district. He will be counting on staff to fill these offices, not himself obviously, because many counties have the same times on the same days. For example on the first and third Tuesday of each month he will have office hours in Winston, Tate, Pontotoc, Coahoma, Monroe, and Montgomery counties all at the same time (9-11am). Assuming he staffs one of them himself, that means he'll have five Public Service Commission staffers working the other courthouse offices. He also has office hours over-lapping the second and fourth Tuesday of every month, every Wednesday of every month, and the second and third Thursday of every month.

Its a good thing Presley argued for additional staff during the session and budget standoff that the Stimulus provided $824,901 to the PSC for additional staff, they obviously are in dire need of more staff to occupy courthouses in North Mississippi.

ObamaCare is Uncool