There is a great post over on The Clarion-Ledger’s website about the wrong-headed vote of Sens. Thad Cochran and Roger Wicker in relation to protecting the rights of women serving overseas.

From Senate: Cochran, Wicker votes wrong:

The Senate passed an amendment Tuesday prohibiting the U.S. Department of Defense from contracting with companies like Halliburton if they require employees to resolve sexual assault, battery and discrimination allegations and other claims through arbitration rather than in courts of law.

Mississippi’s Republican U.S. Sens. Thad Cochran and Roger Wicker voted against that amendment along with 30 other GOP senators. The Senate voted 68-30 to attach the amendment sponsored by Democratic Sen. Al Franken of Minnesota to a larger defense spending bill.

Franken told The Associated Press that he sponsored the measure in response to the case of former KBR/Halliburton employee Jamie Leigh Jones, who alleges she was raped by co-workers while in Iraq in 2005. She went public with her story in 2007.

“Contractors are using fine print to deny women like Jamie Leigh Jones their day in court,” Franken said during televised debate on the amendment.

The Jackson Free Press also had a great piece on it here.

From those comments:

“This is nothing new for Barbour or Mississippi Republicans who routinely use shadow PACs, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and innocuous-sounding groups to hide their political money by attacking Democratic candidates so they can look like they are above the fray. However, this is something a bit more serious. What appears to have happened here actually violates federal law and is a serious offense for a governor who not only represents Mississippi but all Republican governors nationwide.”

Now comes a blog post from Majority In Mississippi, which asks the question: Do Democrats Really Want To Talk About Campaign Contributions?

In that post they compare what Barbour and Pickering did to 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.

MIM, which is a Republican blog, is waiving its left hand in hopes people won’t see what the right hand is doing. Here are the facts:

1. What happened in 2007 in no way violated any campaign finance laws.
2. What Barbour and Pickering did appears to absolutely violate federal campaign finance laws.

State and federal campaign finance laws are different, and MIM knows it. Barbour and Pickering got caught. Now they have to do their best to wiggle out of it.

Oh, and don’t forget about the fundraiser Pickering hosted for Vitter. Read about it here and here.

JACKSON – Chairman Jamie Franks released the following statement concerning allegations that Gov. Haley Barbour conspired with former Congressman Chip Pickering to circumvent federal campaign finance laws:

“This is a serious allegation, and the facts are pretty clear. It does not take a rocket scientist to see there is no coincidence in what happened. It appears clear that Gov. Barbour tried to hide a campaign donation from Pickering to Louisiana Sen. David Vitter.

“This is nothing new for Barbour or Mississippi Republicans who routinely use shadow PACs, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and innocuous-sounding groups to hide their political money by attacking Democratic candidates so they can look like they are above the fray,” Franks said. “However, this is something a bit more serious. What appears to have happened here actually violates federal law and is a serious offense for a governor who not only represents Mississippi but all Republican governors nationwide.

“If Gov. Barbour did nothing wrong, he should simply come forward and say so. He should tell the people of Mississippi that he has not been involved with Pickering in any way when it comes to raising money for Vitter. Short of such a claim, it is hard to believe these accusations are anything but true.”

The Louisiana Democratic Party filed a complaint with the Federal Elections Commission this week alleging that Barbour, Pickering and Vitter engaged in an illegal conduit scheme to hide a $5,000 contribution from Pickering to Vitter’s campaign.

From the Louisiana Democratic Party:

In August, Barbour’s political action committee, Haley’s PAC, received a $5,000 contribution from Pickering four days after making a contribution in the same amount to David Vitter’s campaign. Louisiana Democrats say there is strong evidence that David Vitter accepted a campaign contribution made in the name of another, a violation of federal law.

The $5,000 transaction was the only activity reported by Haley’s PAC and the Commerce, Hope, Innovation and Progress (CHIP), Pickering’s committee, in August. CHIP PAC has not reported any other transactions for 2009 and Haley’s PAC has made only one.

“When you lay out the facts, it’s clear that it is not simply a coincidence that in a four day period these two dormant PAC’s suddenly passed around an identical amount of money that ultimately ends up in David Vitter’s hands,” said Louisiana Democratic Party Chair Chris Whittington. “Most people who break the law manage to cover their tracks a little better than Vitter, Pickering and Barbour seem to have.”

CQ Politics reported this suspicious serious of transactions between Vitter, Barbour and Pickering last month, noting that “Pickering, like Vitter is a conservative Christian Republican accused of having an extramarital affair linked to the ‘C Street’ townhouse in Southeast Washington that is at the center of a spate of GOP sex scandals.” CQ Politics labeled the suspicious transactions a “$5K ‘C Street Relay.”

Their mutual scandals and their association with the ‘C Street’ group may explain why Vitter and Pickering would want to hide the contribution, Whittington says.

“Clearly, a direct and publicly disclosed contribution from Pickering to Vitter would bring unwanted attention to both scandal-plagued men and to the Republican Party as a whole,” Whittington said.

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I just wanted to remind you about a reception for Attorney General Jim Hood, which will be held tonight at the Old Capitol Inn, located at 226 North State Street in downtown Jackson. The event will run from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.

Hosts for the event include:

• Lee Abraham
• Honorable Reuben Anderson
• Representative Earle Banks
• Representative Ed Blackmon
• Trey Bobinger
• Dorsey Carson
• Merrida Coxwell
• Royce Delaney
• Roger Doolittle
• Tony Gelderman
• Honorable William Guy
• William H. Liston
• John Maxey
• Speaker William H. “Billy” McCoy
• Honorable Mike Moore
• Honorable Ronnie Musgrove
• Brad Pigott
• Crymes Pittman
• Mona Pittman
• Richard Schwartz
• Honorable Ronnie Shows
• Worth Thomas
• Ed Williamson

Donations of $250 per person/couple are recommended for the event. If you have any further questions, please contact Wendi Hooks at friendsofjimhood@gmail.com.

If you cannot make the event but want to support the attorney general, you can do so at:

http://www.actblue.com/page/jimhoodfr

Democratically yours:

Sam R. Hall
Executive Director

And I’m not being sarcastic either. Not at all.

This is not what Congress envisioned when it approved an initial $5.5 billion in disaster relief for Mississippi. It was disaster aid. The law required states and localities to spend 50 percent of the money on low- and moderate-income families. Over time, however, the state managed to get waivers and found other ways to spend the money on different projects.

In Mr. Johnson’s case, the problem was too narrow a definition of disaster relief. According to a startling new report by the Steps Coalition, a watchdog group, Mr. Johnson and thousands of other homeowners were shut out of the state’s assistance program because their homes were destroyed by wind rather than water.

While many Mississippians languished without help, the Bush administration’s Department of Housing and Urban Development allowed the state to shift $600 million of the recovery money to the refurbishment and expansion of the Port of Gulfport — a pet project of local politicians that was conceived long before Katrina.

With housing still the top concern on the coast, Republican leaders have lots of questions to answer about the way federal recovery funds have been spent.

To date, leaders like Gov. Haley Barbour and Lt. Gov. Phil Bryant have supported the rebuilding of industry at the cost of rebuilding homes. Certainly industry must be rebuilt for jobs to return and for people to afford to live on the Gulf Coast.

That said, a balance should be struck between revitalizing the economic machine of the coast and rebuilding the homes and communities that shelter the people there. A great failure has occurred on the latter.

The ruling was based on the successful and accurate argument that the voter ID law did not treat all voters equally:

But in the ruling Thursday, a unanimous three-judge panel of the Indiana Court of Appeals found that the voter ID law violated the state’s equal protection guarantee because it did not require mail-in voters and residents of some nursing homes to produce state-approved identification.

Under Indiana law, the court said, it might be reasonable to regulate absentee balloting more stringently than in-person balloting. But the voter ID law does the opposite, the judges said, by imposing “a less stringent requirement for absentee voters than for those voting in person.”

What does this mean for Mississippi? Little right now, since Republicans killed Voter ID in the Senate. But if it does pass by partisan measures, it will surely be challenged in court. And the Indiana case could provide one model of challenge.

Now comes a study from a non-partisan, independent group that shows why Mississippi is in need of health care reform.

From an article in the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal:

A report from Families USA, a national consumer health care advocacy group, said that nationwide, family coverage premiums rose 93 percent over the past decade while median income rose 19 percent. But in Mississippi, premiums rose nearly 102 percent while median earnings grew less than 14 percent.

What is causing the rise in premiums?

Families USA says premiums are going up for several reasons, including the rising cost and increased use of health care, a lack of oversight in the health insurance marketplace and a cost shift of the uninsured to the insured.

“What we’re seeing, too, is that premiums are bringing thinner coverage, which means higher co-pays, higher deductibles and fewer benefits,” said Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, which bills itself as a nonprofit, nonpartisan health care advocacy organization.

And in Mississippi, “workers are paying disproportionately more” while getting less health coverage, Pollack said.

Here are a few more facts from the study:

• For family health coverage provided through the workplace in Mississippi, the average annual health insurance premium (employer and worker share of premiums combined) in the 2000-2009 period rose from $5,983 to $12,079 – an increase of $6,096, or 101.9 percent.

• Between 2000 and 2009, the median earnings of Mississippi’s workers rose from $20,439 to $23,219 – an increase of $2,780, or 13.6 percent.

• For family health coverage in Mississippi, the employer’s portion of annual premiums in the 2000-2009 period rose from $4,427 to $8,407 – an increase of $3,979 or 89.9 percent.

“Merle is a true conservative, and has the full support of the Republican Party in Mississippi,” White said.

To clarify: A true conservative will lead the scheme to kill voter ID and other voter reform measures in the Legislature — measures that have already passed, mind you — so they can waste taxpayer money in a political stunt.

Got it. Now I know what a “true conservative” is.