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Early one morning on May 5, 2006, Paul Allen Houser walked into a convenience store in Columbus, Miss., to purchase cold medicine, a copy of Tradewind magazine, lithium batteries and a 24-ounce bottle of Mountain Dew. Houser, then 43, had struggled with substance abuse for most of his adult life, after a work-related back injury at age 15 left him with a prescription-painkiller addiction. Houser was on his phone at the check-out counter when he noticed a police officer approaching the store. He rushed out after paying for his items and drove off in his truck. #Shortly afterward, the same...

JACKSON, Miss. (WDAM) - The Mississippi Supreme Court affirmed the 12-year sentence of a man convicted for having a cellphone in jail on Thursday. Willie Nash was originally booked in the Newton County Jail for a misdemeanor charge when he asked a jailer to charge his smartphone. The jailer confiscated the phone and brought it to the sheriff’s deputy in charge. According to court documents, Nash originally denied the phone was his. The deputy sheriff unlocked the phone using a code Nash provided and found pictures of Nash and text messages sent that day confirming his location as “in jail.”

... Mr. Grant clearly remembered Aug. 7, the day the Trump administration performed sweeping immigration raids on seven chicken plants in central Mississippi. He remembered the news flashing on his phone: 680 Hispanic workers arrested. He remembers seeing an opportunity. “I figured there should be some jobs,” he said. He figured right. The raids were believed to be the largest statewide immigration crackdown in recent history and a partial fulfillment of President Trump’s vow to remove millions of undocumented workers from the country. The impact on Mississippi’s immigrant community has been devastating. For nonimmigrant workers, the aftermath has forced them...

A federal appeals court says Mississippi's ban on abortion at 15 weeks is unconstitutional. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued the ruling Friday. It says a lower court judge ruled correctly when he blocked the state law from taking effect in 2018. The only abortion clinic in Mississippi sued the state after Republican Gov. Phil Bryant signed the law. Mississippi legislators came back in 2019 and passed a more restrictive law to ban most abortions at about six weeks. The same federal district judge blocked that law too. A legal fight over it continues.

At a time when momentum and political pundits seem to favor Barack Obama winning the Democratic presidential nomination, other indicators suggest the LGBT community's support is still largely behind Hillary Clinton, except in Texas. And Texas is one of three large primary states remaining that pundits say Clinton must win in order to stay even with Obama in the contest to secure enough delegates to win the nomination. The latest poll in Texas, conducted by CNN February 15-17 among 529 likely primary voters, found Clinton just two points ahead of Obama. A poll just a few days earlier, by the...

A Missouri mother’s unapologetic Facebook post on Monday defending her son’s decision to fight back against a bully has gone viral. Allison Davis posted a selfie picture of her son, Drew, who was suspended from school for “beating up the kid that has been tormenting and bullying him since middle school.”

An embattled Mississippi judge's nomination to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans faces opposition from civil rights groups that claim he has a poor record on issues involving race and sexual assault—and from conservatives who claim he is not conservative enough. For the fifth time, the U.S. Senate committee in charge of advancing federal court nominees cancelled plans to hold a vote on Judge Halil Suleyman "Sul" Ozerden last month, and has not rescheduled plans to hold a vote. In an October letter, The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights President Vanita Gupta wrote to...

There’s little disagreement that the object found in a white Mississippi firefighter’s locker was a hangman’s noose. But as with many things in America these days, there’s deep disagreement about what it meant. To some it was a reminder of lynchings that took hundreds of black lives in Mississippi, and it had no place on city property — though there was no suggestion that firefighter Shelton Russell had ever displayed it or used it to intimidate anyone. To Russell it didn’t carry that meaning. If anything, it symbolized America’s lawless wild-west culture, where cowboy vigilantes meted out rough justice. It...

FULL TITLE: Democratic Attorneys General Association to Impose ‘Abortion Litmus Test’ before Endorsing Candidates The Democratic Attorneys General Association announced Monday that it would only endorse candidates who publicly pledge to defend and expand access to abortion, becoming the first national party committee to establish such an explicit test. “Attorneys general are on the front lines of the fight for reproductive freedom,” New York attorney general Letitia James said in a video promoting the announcement. “They have the power to protect your rights.” Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum of Oregon, who is a co-chair of the committee and seeking re-election next...

Faced with growing public pressure to end racial segregation in public schools, thousands of white parents in the early 1970s enrolled their children in private academies that sprang up across the South. Ellen Ann Fentress, a journalist and writer, was one of them. She is telling her story and urging other alumni of “seg academies” to come forward and give testimony about how attending an intentionally segregated school has shaped their lives as well as the social, political and economic fabric of the South. Fentress first told her story in June with an essay in the online publication the Bitter...

The 2019 elections are in the books, and now the country can finally start paying attention to 2020. In many ways, Tuesday’s elections were a dress rehearsal for those a year from now: The parties’ performance relative to partisanship can tell us which way the political winds might be blowing, and obvious trends from 2019 — like the widening urban-rural divide — provide clues as to where the battles of 2020 will be fought.

The bright spots are the victories of Tate Reeves as governor of Mississippi and the GOP’s statewide margins in Kentucky in all races, except the gubernatorial contest. The mitigations are the Kentucky governor’s battle, which as of Wednesday morning the Associated Press said was too close to call, though other outlets called it for the Democrat — and the loss of both houses of the Virginia legislature for the first time in 20 years.

FULL TITLE: Tate Reeves Wins Mississippi Governor Race: “I’ll Make Mississippi the Safest Place for an Unborn Child” Democrats hoped that trashing President Trump enough would lead to an election victory in the state of Mississippi last night. Instead, pro-life Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves on Tuesday defeated pro-abortion Democratic Attorney General Jim Hood to become the next governor of the state. Reeves won with 52.2% of the vote compared to 46.6% for Hood, a 48,000+ vote margin of victory. Reeves will succeed pro-life Gov. Phil Bryant, who is limited by term limits and was a pro-life champion. Brad Parscale, Trump...

ANALYSIS — Voters in Kentucky, Mississippi, and Virginia were gracious enough to go to the polls on Tuesday and give us some tangible results to chew over with 12 months to go before the 2020 elections. Here are some thoughts. Kentucky was not an upset. Inside Elections changed its rating on the governor’s race from Lean Republican to Toss-up in mid July after finding Gov. Matt Bevin very vulnerable. So those who were surprised by Democrat Andy Beshear’s declared victory weren’t paying close enough attention. Trump was an asset, not a liability. Without a last-minute push and visit from President...

Mississippi Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves (R) will ascend to the state's top job after winning a contentious and competitive race for governor in one of the most conservative states in the country. With 93 percent of precincts reporting, Reeves led Attorney General Jim Hood (D) by a 53 percent to 46 percent margin. The Associated Press projected Reeves would win the race. While Mississippi has long been conservative, it has only recently become a reliably Republican state, as ancestral Democrats abandon their old party. Reeves will be the third consecutive Republican governor; Democrats have controlled the governor's mansion for only...

Freepers, I found a link to the Clarion Ledger's website. They have a great updated map of the gubernatorial election in Mississippi. But I think the Clarion-Ledger is Gannett and IIRC, posting anything from Gannett is one of Jim Robinson's big no-no's. CDoes anyone know if I can post the link or not?

A group of people carrying a white nationalist flag were caught on camera Saturday attempting to record a video in front of the Emmett Till memorial in Sumner, Mississippi. Patrick Weems, executive director of the Emmett Till Memorial Commission, told NBC News that the group was captured on camera by a new surveillance system that was updated when the bulletproof memorial was dedicated on Oct. 19. "This is the first incident we’ve seen of what appears to be white nationalists making a propaganda video," Weems said. One man can be heard in the video identifying the sign as a monument...

A private association is putting out a call for volunteers, armed or unarmed, to provide outdoor security for Trump supporters traveling to the president’s campaign rally Friday night in Tupelo, Mississippi. The group “Oath Keepers,” which calls itself nonpartisan, said in a notice on its website that it needs help “keeping the rally attendees safe” after a recent Trump rally in Minneapolis at which some of the president’s supporters were harassed and assaulted on their way to and from the arena. “We generally use both armed and unarmed volunteers in our security operations, so if you have a CCW [carrying...

TUPELO, MS — Supporters of President Trump began lining up overnight in anticipation of a campaign rally Friday night in Tupelo, Mississippi to shore up support for Lieutenant Governor Tate Reeves, the Republican nominee for governor, who will face Democratic candidate Jim Hood in November. Vice President Pence is also set to appear in the state on Monday.

A private association is putting out a call for volunteers, armed or unarmed, to provide outdoor security for Trump supporters traveling to the president’s campaign rally Friday night in Tupelo, Mississippi. The group “Oath Keepers,” which calls itself nonpartisan, said in a notice on its website that it needs help “keeping the rally attendees safe” after a recent Trump rally in Minneapolis at which some of the president’s supporters were harassed and assaulted on their way to and from the arena. “We generally use both armed and unarmed volunteers in our security operations, so if you have a CCW [carrying...