Ted Cruz Rejects Donation from "Racist" Group Haley Barbour Embraced

According to Fox News:

• The Cruz campaign said in a statement obtained by Fox News that it was returning money donated by Earl Holt III, the head of the Council of Conservative Citizens. The donations were first reported by The Guardian.
  "Senator Cruz believes that there is no place for racism in society," the statement read. "Upon learning about Mr. Holt's background and his contributions to the campaign, he immediately instructed that all of those donations be returned." The Guardian and The New York Times reported that Holt's donations to Cruz amounted to $8,500 since 2012, though that amount was not confirmed by the campaign.
  The Guardian also reported that Holt had donated to the campaigns of Sen. Rand Paul and former Sen. Rick Santorum. The paper reports that Holt contributed $1,750 and $1,500 to those campaigns, respectively.

If you remember back in 2010, Former Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour was connected to the CCC. However, Barbour did not distance himself form the group, but rather, embraced it:

•  
  
  Then there’s Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, who recently entered into the GOP racist comment Hall of Fame when during an interview with the Weekly Standard, he remarked about being a teenager during the Civil Rights movement, “I just don’t remember it as being that bad.” I guess he forgot all the blacks who were killed and lynched or maybe if Haley had been black, he would have had a different memory. And his racially insensitive comments continued in response to the reporter’s question of how his hometown of Yazoo City, MS was able to integrate schools, Barbour credited the white Citizens Council. “You heard of the Citizens Councils? Up north they think it was like the KKK. Where I come from it was an organization of town leaders.”
  Organized in 1954 after the Supreme Court decision to end school segregation in Brown vs. Board of Education, the Citizens Council, was a white supremacist group that used economic pressure rather than violence to maintain segregation. There were chapters across the nation.
  Today the group is called the Council of Conservative Citizens (CofCC), which states on it’s website “The CofCC is the only serious nationwide activist group that sticks up for white rights!” cofcc.org Headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri, the white supremacist group has chapters in Chapter Sites in CA, IL, IN, LA, MS, MO, NC, SC and TN. --Conservative Black Chick Dec 2010

No MSGOP Unity Yet: Sen Sojourner & McDaniel Slam MSGOP Election Tactics

Melanie Sojourner

My disdain for those, so called Republicans, who still stand by Cochran's side grows stronger day by day. Despicable.
All I have done, since even before I ran for office, was fight to advance the Republican cause.
The actions of Republicans who stood by Cochran while Haley orchestrated this madness are the ones responsible for the split in the party. Not those of us who have been constantly fighting for the conservative principles and the constitution. [Original FaceBook Post]

Chris McDaniel

To all the so-called Republicans who defend this behavior in defense of Thad, you should be ashamed.
This article is illustrative of everything that is wrong with the GOP establishment. A Barbour bragging about receiving $350,000 from a Democrat donor?
From the article:
"Up to this point, at least, Parker’s contributions haven’t triggered significant backlash within the GOP. In Mississippi, the McDaniel campaign assailed Cochran for accepting outside support from both Parker and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, as well as for actively courting Democratic and independent voters in the state’s open Republican primary system

Article from June 2014 Politico:

."

Haley Barbour Boondoggle Dealt Another Blow; SMEPA Terminates Purchase Agreement

Fitch Ratings sees mounting pressure on Mississippi Power Company’s Issuer Default Rating (IDR) following South Mississippi Electric Power Association (SMEPA)’s decision to terminate the Asset Purchase Agreement (APA) for a 15 percent ownership stake in the Kemper project. Fitch currently rates Mississippi Power’s IDR ‘A-‘ with a Negative Outlook.

Fitch believes that finding another partner to replace SMEPA could be challenging for Mississippi Power given the low wholesale price environment and the construction issues/delays the project has faced. Mississippi Power could allocate approximately 30 percent of the capacity to the FERC-jurisdictional wholesale rate base, in line with its current generation portfolio split. However, allocating the balance to retail rate base would intensify the pressure on customer bills and require modification to the rate filings made only last week, thus, exacerbating the ongoing regulatory uncertainty regarding recovery of Kemper costs. [More at Mississippi Business Journal]

Mississippi Word Slinging: 05.23.15

Hospitals in Denial, Inmates with lawyers, Haley Barbour Boondoggle Pt 589, Spice Is not Nice, BB King comes home.

A former employee of a Mississippi hospital is getting almost $3.5 million as part of a string of settlements where 18 hospitals in seven states have agreed to pay $20.4 million over allegations they broke federal law by receiving Medicare reimbursements for psychiatric services that were not "medically reasonable or necessary."
Ryan Ladner worked for Allegiance Health Management at what's now Merit Health Wesley in Hattiesburg.
As the person who brought the fraud to the attention of the federal government, Ladner is getting 17 percent of the settlement amounts. None of the hospitals admit liability in their settlements. [Associated Press]

The U.S. Department of Justice has announced the completion of an investigation which concluded that both the Hinds County Adult Detention Center and the Jackson City Detention Center have violated prisoner's constitutional rights.
The Justice Department found that both facilities "fail to protect prisoners from violence by other prisoners and from improper use of force by staff."
The investigation also found the two jails were detaining prisoners beyond court-ordered release dates.[Mississippi Press]

The Collapse of the Haley Barbour Boondoggle: The decision by a group of electrical cooperatives to pull out of planned purchase of 15 percent of a Kemper County power plant is likely to mean a credit downgrade for Mississippi Power Co. Fitch Ratings said Friday that it plans to review the credit rating of the unit of Atlanta-based Southern Co., predicting it will fall at least one notch and maybe two. The South Mississippi Electric Power Association said Wednesday that it's pulling out of a planned $600 million purchase of a share of the $6.2 billion plant that Mississippi Power is building in Kemper County. [Associated Press]

 Spice use in the state of Mississippi has grown exponentially over the past month. WREG reported as of April 2, 317 were rushed to the hospital after taking it. Now the Mississippi State Department of Health is saying that number has risen to 1,204. It’s also believed to be the cause of death for 17 people.

A funeral director says he's prepared for lines around the block for a public viewing of blues legend B.B. King in Las Vegas. King died May 14 at age 89, and the open-casket event from 3 to 7 p.m. Friday at Palm South Jones Mortuary begins a week-long series of memorials. Mortuary manager Matt Phillips says viewers can file past King's casket, but there'll be a strict no-photos rule.  King's daughter, Shirley King, is hosting a Friday night musical tribute at the Brooklyn Bowl on the Las Vegas Strip.  A Saturday family-and-friends service is set at a Las Vegas chapel. [WLOX]

 [h/T @Jopup1 ]

Trent Lott's company made $450,000 from a Kremlin -controlled bank that was the target of US sanctions.

Oh, and Haley Barbour reaped some cash also. 

Bloomberg Reports:

• While Russia may be angry about international sanctions over the Ukraine conflict, Beltway lawyers are mopping up and big names in lobbying are piling in.
  Consider that last year, the Washington, D.C., lobbying firm of former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott raked in $300,000 from Kremlin-controlled OAO Gazprombank, which was a target of sanctions. The Gazprombank billings for Lott’s firm are about double what Lott made in annual salary during any of his 18 years in the Senate.
  Other high-profile ex-senators like John Breaux of Louisiana and Don Nickles of Oklahoma are also getting in on the Russian action, as is Haley Barbour, the former governor of Mississippi.
  What’s driving this is no mystery. While the West expresses displeasure at President Vladimir Putin’s deadly Ukraine adventuring and the human toll it is taking, other things are at stake -- notably billions of dollars of investments on both sides of the Atlantic in Russia’s energy and finance sectors.

Mississippi Power Seeks to Raise rates to Pay for Hayley Barbour's Boondoggle Kemper Power Plant

Mississippi Power Co. filed three proposals Friday with the Public Service Commission seeking higher rates to pay for the $6.2 billion power plant that it’s building in Kemper County. Under the worst-case scenario, typical residential customers could see monthly bills rise to $180.75.

 In a phone interview with Associated Press, CEO Ed Holland said the Southern Co. subsidiary prefers a plan that would result in the lowest increase for customers. Holland said the company will use a provision in state law to enact the steepest increase while waiting on a regulatory decision if the Public Service Commission doesn’t act within 120 days. Mississippi Power would have to post a bond for possible refunds if it did that.

Haley Barbour Boondoggle: Mississippi Power uses ads to persuade public on Kemper Project

Kemper Project has, at least, made Haley Barbour money. For the rest of the state; not so much. In fact the initial projected cost of Kemper has risen a couple times, and Mississippi Power said they had to raise energy rates on their customers. 

 

[c]Steve Wilson; Mississippi Watchdog

Mississippi Power is trying desperately to shift the tide of public opinion about the Kemper Project integrated gasification power plant as it hopes to get a rehearing in front of the Mississippi Supreme Court.

Full-page ads in the Biloxi Sun-Herald and Jackson Clarion-Ledger and a radio spot running on Mississippi radio stations extol the virtues of the $6.206 billion plant, which is two years behind schedule and billions over budget.

The Mississippi Supreme Court ruled in February that Mississippi Power must issue refunds on a 18 percent rate increase to fund Kemper’s construction because the Mississippi Public Service Commission hasn’t ruled yet on whether costs incurred for construction are justified. The company has asked the Court for a rehearing, along with the PSC.

The Mississippi radio spot invites listeners to “look at that facts.” Watchdog.org took a look and found several to be skirting with reality.

• “Kemper was ordered to be built by the Mississippi Public Service Commission after extensive hearings regarding the needs of Mississippi Power customers.”

Jackson attorney Robert Wise, who practices in front of the PSC, said Mississippi Power’s view on the PSC’s order is not exactly accurate.

“What the Commission did was grant them permission to build Kemper,” Wise said. “That gave them the go-ahead, but I don’t believe that they were ordered to build Kemper, come what may. They always retained the discretion to stop and inform the Commission that the plant had become unprofitable.”

Wise cited the example of Entergy’s plans to build a second reactor at the Grand Gulf Nuclear Plant in western Mississippi in the early 1980s. Even though the PSC was set to approve the plant via order, the company decided not to build the new reactor.

• “Kemper is bringing jobs, growth and progress to south Mississippi”

Dark Horse Mississippi Blog Issues Twitter Campaign Against #MS01 Candidate Starner Jones

I generally pass over blogs where the author remains anonymous but since the Dark Horse Missisippi has been stepping up its 2015 election coverage, I opted to pass the information on.

EXPLICIT: Read erotic scenes of Starner Jones that Haley Barbour called "fresh voice" #MS01 http://t.co/0TxD2vQcrX pic.twitter.com/jye7bO6gxk

— DarkHorseMississippi (@DHMPolitics) May 4, 2015

#MS01 "frontrunner" had interesting ways of depicting rape; focused on victim's bright bra http://t.co/0TxD2vQcrX pic.twitter.com/8r1j9gEkru

— DarkHorseMississippi (@DHMPolitics) May 4, 2015

#MS01 candidate Starner Jones' 2012 novel also riffed on minorities with some old jokes http://t.co/0TxD2vQcrX pic.twitter.com/WHmXV2p2qs

— DarkHorseMississippi (@DHMPolitics) May 4, 2015