Ethics scrutiny into Bennie Thompson's travel continues

The Washington Post reported that a leaked report on ethics investigations in the U.S. House of Representatives indicates the probe into the travel of Reps. Charles B. Rangel (N.Y.), Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick (Mich.), Donald M. Payne (N.J.) and Bennie Thompson (Miss.), and Del. Donna M. Christian-Christensen (U.S. Virgin Islands) "appears to be ongoing, and the committee document gives no details about how far the investigation has progressed."

The members' official disclosure forms listed the New York Carib Foundation or Carib News Foundation, a nonprofit group affiliated with a New York-based newspaper, as the sponsor of the event. Because of that information, the ethics committee approved the trip before it occurred.

But an official with the National Legal and Policy Center, a conservative watchdog group, attended the 2008 event and came back with photos and other evidence suggesting that AT&T, Citigroup, IBM, Pfizer and Verizon may have played a role in sponsoring the conference.

The ethics panel also reportedly is scrutinizing a 2007 trip to Antigua and Barbuda that some of the same members took.

Under more stringent rules imposed in 2006, House members are not allowed to accept travel paid for by corporations, but they can take trips sponsored by nonprofit groups.

Rangel, who also is under investigation on several unrelated fronts, said this week that he has discussed the Caribbean trip inquiry with the ethics panel.

Milton Friedman on Capitalism

Thompson Wants to Protect Power

We're usually critical of U.S. Representative Bennie Thompson, but last week in a column for the Washington, D.C. newspaper Roll Call, he made some good points. He said:

Electric power is not only America’s economic lifeblood, but an essential element of our nation’s security. Businesses, chemical plants, banks, refineries, hospitals, water systems, grocery stores and military facilities all rely on electricity to operate. Our electric grid, in turn, increasingly relies on computer-based operating systems. Herein lies a unique homeland security challenge — how to protect the electric grid from failing, as a result of either intentional or unintentional events.

Today’s electric grid is very similar to the system that existed in the early part of the 20th century, with one critical difference: Computers are in charge. Our grid is highly dependent on computer-based systems. These systems are used to monitor and control sensitive processes and physical functions. When they were originally created, they were closed to the outside. To increase efficiency and save money, operators began connecting these systems to corporate networks and the Internet. Unfortunately, these connections also expose these critical systems to potential attacks online. Specifically, our reliance on electric power and the vulnerability of our interconnected system makes the electric grid a prime target for an adversary who seeks to cause catastrophic harm to our country. In fact, there is some evidence, according to a recently released publication, that cyberspies have penetrated the U.S. electrical grid and left behind software programs that could be used to disrupt the system. These malicious programs could do anything from briefly interrupting power delivery to destroying our nation’s large electric generating units.

Representative Thompson, as Chairman of Homeland Security, knows the threats to our electrical grid from foreign enemies. Such an attack not only turns out the lights, but it turns out the economy. It would also turn off Respond Mississippi...and we can't have that. We're glad to see he recognizes the importance of delivered power to our economy and hope he continues his efforts to ensure our electrical grid remains secure.

Malcolm Harrison's About Face: "I don't think it's important that you choose an African American"

It's funny how things change. Consider Malcolm Harrison attacking Governor Haley Barbour on his judicial appointments eight months ago.

"He has not appointed any African Americans for judge in any of his 20 appointments. It’s sad that he cannot believe an African American could do the job. African Americans are more than qualified to serve on the Mississippi Court of Appeals, as well as any other judicial appointment. In fact, Mississippi Court of Appeals Chief Judge Leslie D. King is an African American—at least he was last time I checked. There are qualified people who are available, but the governor has seen fit not to even consider an African American in these positions." - Malcolm Harrison, Jackson Free Press 2/11/2009

"We know there were qualified African-Americans who can serve on the judiciary, and why African-Americans have not been appointed or even considered makes no sense to us. The Republican Party in Mississippi doesn't believe diversity is important, especially not in the judiciary in Mississippi." - Malcolm Harrison, Associated Press 2/23/2009

Now that Governor Haley Barbour has appointed him to a circuit court judge position in Hinds County, Malcolm Harrison has changed his tune.

[Harrison] said race was never a part of his discussion with Barbour or the governor's staff. "In my conversations with the governor, he was serious about appointing the best person for the job," Harrison said. "I think it's important to take all opinions into account, but also have a diverse pool in which you choose the best qualified candidates. I don't think it's important that you choose an African American, but I do think it's important to consider everyone." - Clarion Ledger 10/28/2009

Most hard working, qualified people don't want to think they got a job because of anything other than their qualifications. They don't want a job just because they're black, or white, or male, or female. They want to know they got the job because they were qualified. I'm sure Malcolm Harrison feels the same way. Certainly, that is what the Barbour Administration is saying.

"[Harrison] was chosen for the judgeship based on his qualifications," Barbour spokesman Dan Turner told The Associated Press.

Here are a few more quotes by Harrison on his selection.

"Race was not an issue. The Magnolia Bar has a position. Me personally with my interview with Governor Barbour race never came up, not once. I thought the process was fair and balanced." - Malcolm Harrison, WLBT 10/29/2009

"Race was not an issue. During my interview with Gov. Barbour, race never came up, not once. I thought the process was balanced and fair.” - - Malcolm Harrison, WAPT 10/29/2009

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Obama Takes Credit For Katrina Recovery

We suspect the Nobel Peace Prize has gone to his head, because now the Obama Administration is taking credit for Mississippi's Hurricane Katrina Recovery. The Associated Press has this quote from White House spokeswoman Gannet Tseggai:

President Obama’s commitment to Mississippi’s recovery is demonstrated by his tireless work to cut through the bureaucratic red tape and improve coordination among federal agencies and local partners who have too-often failed to collaborate in the past four years. As a result, public assistance projects that had been stuck for years have moved forward since the start of the Administration.

It's one thing for President Obama to skip Mississippi, the place where Hurricane Katrina hit, and visit New Orleans, the place where levees failed and flooded the city; but, it's another thing entirely, to take credit for our recovery, the bulk of which belongs to the "local partners" the White House says "have too-often failed to collaborate" with the feds. We still have a lot of recovery to do, and Mississippi appreciates assistance from the federal government - both Democrat and Republican. But of all the people who want to take credit for what has been done, President Obama should not be pushing to the front of the line.

Bill Luckett? Mississippi Don't Believe It

With friends like this....we're big fans of Morgan Freeman - Unforgiven, Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, even Deep Impact and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. He is a great actor and entertainer. Today, he brought his entertainment to Mississippi politics.

Right of Mississippi has been following Bill Luckett's comedy of errors as right out of the gate he reportedly called non-Democrats "racists" and then blamed it on reporters. Now Luckett's business partner Morgan Freeman has described Mississippians as "mule-headed bunch of farmers" (which we think is a compliment compared to what Luckett said).

Thanks to the Associated Press for bringing us tonight's entertainment.

Democrats want to discuss Scruggs, Langston, DAGA money and Jim Hood

Louisiana Democrats are upset because Haley Barbour's PAC contributed $5000 to Louisiana Senator David Vitter's PAC. Later on, Chip Pickering's PAC contributed $5000 to Haley Pickering's PAC. The Democrats claim this was Pickering trying to secretly give to Vitter.

The problem with this is the FEC, which governs these issues, has a long standing "first in - first out" rule which means the contribution from Barbour actually represents money given to him maybe months or years ago. One day Barbour will certainly spend or contribute that Pickering money, but it wasn't that day, and it won't be tomorrow.

But here is where it gets good. The Mississippi Democrats decided to jump on and try to play politics on this issue.

Mississippi Democrats do not have clean hands when it comes to campaign finance issues, as Majority In Mississippi helpfully reminded us. They asked, "Do Democrats Really Want To Talk About Campaign Contributions?" describing the allegation that now convicted felons Dickie Scruggs and Joey Langston funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars through the Democratic Attorneys General Association to Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood in 2007.

Now the Mississippi Democrats have responded, "Yes, we want the conversation on campaign finance" and said "two attorneys making donations to the Democratic Attorneys General Association, which then in turn donated money to Attorney Jim Hood’s re-election campaign in 2007...in no way violated any campaign finance laws."

So now, let's discuss.

Let's recall this post by Y'all Politics which points out that the hundreds of thousands of dollars involved in the allegation involving Dickie Scruggs, Joey Langston, and DAGA came within 90 days of Attorney General Jim Hood sending his letter listing Scruggs as a "confidential informant" and asking that to be taken into consideration in a criminal contempt investigation against Scruggs. To which Alan Lange says:

Let’s pretend that we are a “confidential informant” in an investigation. Does it make sense that we, in a middle of an investigation, would funnel A HUGE AMOUNT of money to the prosecutor in that case? This doesn’t pass the straight face test.

Let’s pretend we are now the “prosecutor” - Jim Hood. Would a prosecutor under normal circumstances accept $400K of money that you know has come from “confidential informants” funnelled through a shell 527 group?

MEMO to Mississippi Democrats, this issue goes much further than campaign finance laws. Let's discuss some more.

MDOT puts new light on Open Meetings law

No to belabor the issue we've discussed extensively already, but here are a few reports from around the state on the latest involving Democrat MDOT Commissioners Wayne Brown and Bill Minor and their violation of Mississippi's Open Meetings Law.

The Greenwood Commonwealth: Dinner not exempt from sunshine law

When members of the Transportation Commission get together to discuss policy, it doesn’t matter whether they are doing it in a board room or over cocktails. It’s a meeting that the public has a right to know is occurring and the right to observe.

Minor, his fellow Commissioner Wayne Brown of the Southern District and Department of Transportation Director Butch Brown violated that requirement in August, according to the head of the state Ethics Commission.

This was no random social gathering. The intent of the dinner was clear -- to line up support on the commission for putting more state money into an interchange project, and to keep Hall out of the loop since he has been unreceptive to the idea. Furthermore, public officials don’t have to cast votes to be in a public meeting. They just have to have a quorum sufficient to conduct the public’s business — such as discussing where to spend its money.

If Minor and Brown don’t like those rules, they should regret the next time they’re invited to such a dinner.

The Madison County Journal: Skirting open meetings

An Ethics Commission report determined just that and found Commissioner Bill Minor of the Northern District and Wayne Brown of the Southern District guilty of violating the state's Open Meetings Act.

During his attempt to deny the charges, Minor actually confessed to the violation, not only confirming everyone who was present, but admitting they discussed funding for the Reunion interchange.

Ignorance of the law is no excuse, but so what if you're above the law.

Violators of the Open Meetings Act face a maximum $100 fine, that's all. The commissioners got a reprimand.

[Madison County Supervisor Tim] Johnson was joking about the violation recently during a meeting of the Board of Supervisors, saying he wanted to make sure everyone understood that a reception the board was invited to was "a dinner and not a meeting."

The statement drew laughter from other members of the board and county staff, but it's a meeting if they discuss public business.

If Johnson believes this is a joke and that such meetings are the appropriate way to conduct the county's business, then we are afraid to imagine what other open meetings infractions have occurred.

The fact these officials are not ashamed or afraid to break the law is good reason the Legislature should stiffen the penalty for violating the Open Meetings Act.

Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal: Transportation commissioners won’t fight ethics finding

Hood said late Wednesday that Commissioners Bill Minor of the Northern District and Wayne Brown of the Southern District withdrew their objection to his decision.

Last week, when Hood’s recommendation was released, the commissioners said they intended to object.

But Minor said Wednesday, “Let them do whatever they are going to do. I just want to get it over with.”

Hood will recommend to the commission that the transportation commissioners broke the law and that they be enjoined from violating it again.

While he said he wanted to put the incident behind him, Minor said he plans to ask the Ethics Commission for clarification on the open meetings law.

He said road contractors routinely invite all three transportation commissioners to lunch or dinner where often business is discussed.

The Madison County Journal: Law needs stronger penalty, experts say

Attorney Leonard D. Van Slyke, who operates a legal hotline for the Mississippi Center for Freedom of Information, said the case is a great example of the why the state's open meetings laws should be revised.

"I certainly believe that this case points out the need for stronger penalties and enforcement procedures," Van Slyke said. "Currently the law has very little steam and hopefully this will enable the legislature to see the need for strengthening these laws."

Van Slyke added that Minor and others involved seem to be unaware of the open meetings laws, as they continue to contend they've done nothing wrong.

Van Slyke said until more teeth are put into open meetings laws public officials will continue to ignore them.

"Stronger penalties would definitely promote public officials to seek education on the requirements of both the open meetings laws and public records legislation," Van Slyke said.

State Rep. Rita Martinson, R-Madison, says she will take a long look at the laws and supports change.

Martinson wrote a letter to the editor of several local newspapers calling out the actions of Minor and Brown, while questioning local officials' involvement.

She said such dealings should be done in public and those found in violation should face stricter punishment.

Butch Brown wants to hike your taxes

Butch Brown - the executive director of the Mississippi Department of Transportation through the support of MDOT Commissoners Wayne Brown and Bill Minor, both Democrats - wants to hike your gasoline taxes.

Charlie Mitchell writes about it.

An average Mississippi family may start shelling out that much more per driver in fuel taxes per year before too long. The stage is being set — artfully — to increase Mississippi’s excise tax by a nickel per gallon.

Building the case for an increase, among others, is Butch Brown, executive director of the Mississippi Department of Transportation. Assisting him in a loosely organized campaign are alliances of contractors. The companies that build bridges and construct, widen or resurface roads need the work, and MDOT needs the money to pay them.

Why does MDOT want more of our money? Mitchell speculates on that as well.

We also rank extremely high -- inexplicably, absent a belief there’s more than a little cash slipping through the cracks, so to say -- in what we pay per mile for road work as compared to other states.

Terrain is different and so are wages, but how does one explain a 1995 report to Congress that in Wisconsin the average wage on federally assisted highway projects was $15.55 per hour, more than twice Mississippi’s $6.69 per hour, yet the total construction cost per mile was $394,405 in Wisconsin and $641,238 in Mississippi?

Costs, not including “slippage,” continue to rise. Arkansas officially estimates it costs more than $100,000 per mile per lane this year for a good overlay job.

So Butch Brown and MDOT want to raise our taxes because we spend more per mile for road work than other states. Sounds like a management problem. Here's an idea, how about bringing costs under control before pinching more money from our pockets.

Maybe they could spend less of our taxpayer dollars (and on the special interest dime) visiting Budapest, Vienna, Brussels, Puerto Rico, Cancun, Key West, San Francisco, Walt Disney World (maybe they studied the monorail), Cape Cod, New York City and both country entertainment meccas Branson, Missouri and Opryland in Nashville.

Ethics Commission Chairman Tom Hood believes MDOT Commissioners Bill Minor and Wayne Brown violated Mississippi's open meetings laws (Butch Brown was there, too, but he is not a commissioner). Minor's response was one of confusion, as if he didn't know it was wrong. Perhaps that will be MDOT's response to the wasteful costs per mile of roads.

Ledger: Abolish Elected MDOT

Marshall Ramsey pokes fun at the MDOT Open Meeting case. Actually, the cartoon was likely the best thing coming out this matter from the perspective of Wayne Brown, Bill Minor and Butch Brown. We expect they'll have it on the their office walls.

But the Clarion Ledger editorial today makes it clear this is more than just bypassing Dick Hall.

It's not a matter of excluding just Hall. It's a matter of excluding the press, the public and everyone else with a right to witness the discussion of a public works project funded with taxpayer dollars.

How many other "dinner" discussions decide transportation policy for taxpayers, when taxpayers aren't invited?

This is just another in a long line of excellent arguments for abolishing the elected Transportation Commission and making MDOT accountable to the taxpayers - not just to the chosen few.

In years past, previous MDOT officials have not had a stellar record of honest public service. Violating the Open Meetings law does nothing to repair that reputation.

Energyville

Chevron and The Economist Group have teamed up to create an online game called Energyville where you can choose energy sources to power your own city and look at the results.

Basically, the key is to follow the Barbour energy policy: "all of the above." Solar, wind, and hydro help you meet the needed power levels, but you can't really succeed economically without nuclear, coal, natural gas, and oil. Just do the simple numbers: to get the amount of power modern consumers need, you need some major baseload generation.

Note for those on the Mississippi Public Service Commission: coal is very helpful to meet the economic needs of the city.

Ethics Commission reports Minor, Brown violated Open Meetings Act

The Clarion Ledger reported that Friday

Ethics Commission Director Tom Hood recommends the commission find that Southern District Commissioner Wayne Brown and Northern District Commissioner Bill Minor "knowingly and willingly" violated open-meetings laws by discussing the Reunion Parkway interchange with Madison County Supervisor Tim Johnson, county engineer Rudy Warnock and former county attorney Ed Brunini Jr. at a dinner in August at a Jackson restaurant - without public notification or access.

We've mentioned this Open Meetings violation previously here and here.

Wayne Brown and Bill Minor are both Democrats. The complaint was filed by Republican Dick Hall, MDOT Commissioner for the Central District.

Wayne Brown said of the report, "I don't understand this. We only conduct business in the (commission) conference room."

It isn't hard, Mr. Brown. With a three member commission, you only have to count to "two". When two of the members of MDOT plan to be together and they discuss MDOT business, it is a violation. That is not complicated.

The funny part is, Bill Minor's response to the Commission helped prove the case. The Madison County Journal reported:

The report cited a response by Minor that denied any wrongdoing, but in fact confirmed the violation by giving a detailed account of the meeting and stating that the group did in fact discuss funding for Reunion Interchange.

The report went on to read, "they assembled a quorum of the Mississippi Transportation Commission and discussed a matter over which the Mississippi Transportation Commission has jurisdiction without providing public access, providing notice or recording minutes."

Read the Ethics Commission report on the matter here.

Mississippi Democratic Party leader complains of Ledger's coverage on Kemper Coal

Last time we checked, electric power was nonpartisan. But Mississippi Democratic Party Executive Director Sam Hall seems to take issue with the Clarion Ledger's coverage of Mississippi Power.



Mississippi Power contributes to both Republicans and Democrats. We won't list the Republicans because they haven't made an issue over Mississippi Power. But as a Mississippi Democratic Party leader has: some of the Democrats who received contributions in 2007 and 2008 include Senators David Baria, David Blount, Eric Powell, Kenneth Wayne Jones, Haskins Montgomery, and Tommy Dickerson; and Representatives Brandon Jones, Bob Evans, Russ Nowell, Donnie Bell, Mark DuVall, and Jimmy Puckett. There are more Democrats, but this is a good start.