The history of Southern rock music is set to be explored in a new exhibit opening at GRAMMY Museum® Mississippi in Cleveland, Miss., on Sept. 30, 2022.
Curated by Bob Santelli and the Mississippi Museum, The Sounds of Southern Rock will spotlight the bands and artists who were integral in the development of the genre, including the Allman Brothers Band, Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Charlie Daniels Band, Little Feat, the Outlaws, Molly Hatchet, and more.
A partnership with Hard Rock International, the exhibit will be on display in the Museum’s Special Exhibits Gallery through the fall 2023. Additional sponsors include Visit Cleveland, Gertrude C. Ford Foundation, Quality Steel Corporation, and Visit Mississippi. The exhibit’s opening events will be announced soon.
“The Southern rock genre exploded in the 1970s as an extension of an already long and vibrant Southern music heritage that encompassed blues, country, gospel, R&B, and even big band jazz,” said exhibit curator Bob Santelli. “This exhibit will explore how Southern rock rose to become one of the most popular genres of the decade and will spotlight the bands who made it famous, including the Allman Brothers Band and Lynyrd Skynyrd.
While Southern rock’s heyday ended with the plane crash that took the lives of members of Lynyrd Skynyrd, the genre lives on in the hearts and minds of music fans everywhere.”
“Of the many contributions that the South made to American music, the Southern rock genre is one of them,” said Emily Havens, Executive Director of GRAMMY Museum Mississippi. “This exhibit will provide a unique and in-depth look at the genre and the bands who made it famous. We can’t wait to share these important stories of Southern rock bands with our museum visitors, and we thank Hard Rock International for their partnership to help bring this exhibit to life.”
Artifacts on display in the exhibit will include:
Duane Allman’s and Dickey Betts’ Gibson guitars
Ed King’s Fender Stratocaster with custom-made shell picks
Charlie Daniels’ acoustic/electric Barcus Berry fiddle
Original sheet music for “Green Grass and High Tides” by Hughie Thomasson
Lynyrd Skynyrd drummer, Michael Cartellone’s Pearl drum set
Vintage concert posters, stage outfits and much more
Many of the artifacts on display in the exhibit have been provided by Hard Rock International, as well as the private estates of Charlie Daniels, the Allman Brothers and Ed King of Lynyrd Skynyrd.
Additional sponsors include Mitchell Signs, Coopwood Communications, and the Maddox Foundation.
“We need to decrease our reliability on Chinese products, not increase it,” writes Gibson.
Take a stroll through Natchez, the oldest city on the Mighty Mississippi River, and you will quickly see what makes this town special. Don’t be surprised if you see a famous Hollywood actor who happens to be in Natchez making a film, but for sure you will see many smiling, hard-working entrepreneurs, operating their gift shops, restaurants, and small hotels, greeting tourists from all over the world with unrivaled Southern Hospitality. You’ll see majestic historic homes, bed and breakfast establishments, and all sorts of stores with gifts and antiques, fine china and clothing. These small businesses are an important part of our community. They help give local flavor to the City of Natchez.
And it’s not just Natchez. Downtowns across Mississippi and the entire country rely on small businesses to help attract visitors, showcase their cities, and drive their economies. While these small businesses love foot traffic, they also rely on technology tools to reach customers beyond the town in which they reside. From promoting on Facebook and Instagram, to Google AdWords, to websites and e-commerce ability and more, these are just a few examples of how technology helps these businesses expand their customer base.
This became especially true during the pandemic when many businesses and organizations turned to digital tools and online platforms to keep their businesses running when physical visits to their stores were abnormally limited. Did you know more than 90 percent of small business owners in Mississippi significantly increased their use of digital tools during the pandemic?
These technology tools are not only vital to our small businesses, but to our healthcare systems and schools as well. Just ask the teachers who had to adapt lesson plans to online teaching for a while or doctors who now routinely conduct patient visits via telehealth.
Unfortunately, there is legislation currently being considered in Congress that threatens to hurt our economy by breaking up the tech companies that provide these vital tools. Recently, a coalition of chambers of commerce sent a letter to Congress opposing the legislation. The letter states, “These bills would harm consumers by raising prices, fueling inflation, reducing investment, and damaging innovation.”
Now, we all know the tech companies have their faults. Privacy, censorship, and data breaches are all serious issues Congress needs to properly address, but there is always a balance in life that tends to be the wiser choice. We already have enough economic struggles in Southwest Mississippi and across the country with wages not keeping up with the cost of housing, food and transportation, so let’s not pull the rug out from under the millions of American jobs tied to technology as Congress attempts to kill the golden goose.
And it’s not just our economy at risk – it threatens our national security. It’s no secret the U.S. and China are in a high-stakes battle over the global technology sector. The United States has led the world in technological innovation since World War II; however, U.S. leadership in this race is threatened and no longer taken for granted, especially since Chinese companies are steadily pirating American technology. We need to decrease our reliability on Chinese products, not increase it.
A new white paper published by the Lexington Institute, in partnership with the American Edge Project (AEP) – The New Arsenal Of Democracy: The U.S. Commercial High-Tech Industry’s Role In Countering The China Threat– warns that anti-innovation legislation currently being considered by Congress will undermine domestic technology development and jeopardize America’s ability to compete with China in the coming years and decades.
The hopes and dreams of future generations of Americans are at stake, even for us in
small towns like Natchez.
Congress must be prudent and wise. Thankfully, Senators Wicker and Hyde-Smith are not prone to knee-jerk reactions and have long been leaders in promoting sound policies that support our Main Street economies. As they, and so many Mississippians know—too much Washington almost always hurts American prosperity.
Please join me in urging Congress to support our small businesses and defeat this attack on America’s tech industry. Contact your Senator or Congressman today. Mississippi Deserves More.
That’s how Karrece Stewart describes the feeling of owning her own makeup studio, Get Glam Beauty in Fulton. Little did she know when she set out with this new venture that she would face barriers making it nearly impossible.
Karrece placed her dreams on hold because the State of Mississippi required her to have a cosmetology or esthetician’s license simply to apply makeup – something women have done on their own for centuries.
She found herself involved in a lawsuit after finding that the Mississippi State Board of Cosmetology required 1,500 hours to become licensed in cosmetology and 600 hours to receive an esthetician’s license – neither of which focuses on makeup. Karrece was surprised to learn that a cosmetologist’s license focuses primarily on hair while an esthetician’s license focuses on facial massage, facial treatments, electrotherapy, and hair removal while quickly touching on makeup.
Karrece was not willing to spend the money in gas to drive nearly two hours away nor was she willing to spend the money on classes that did not focus on her area of interest. In fact, she had already had years of practice, an online course learning application technique, cleanliness, and other skills. She learned shading, highlighting, contouring and makeup application based on complexion in the online class – none of which was required by the board of cosmetology to receive a license to apply makeup.
But with one change in the law, Karrece has been able to follow her dreams. The state now exempts makeup artists like Karrece, as well as eyebrow threaders and those that apply eyelash extensions from licensing requirements. These practices are extremely safe and do not involve cutting, coloring, or chemically treating hair.
“Now that the lawsuit is settled, I am able to do what I love,” she said. “I’m able to get out there and use my gift. My vision for my business has come to pass and it is amazing to be able to help women and empower them to know that their beauty is as flawless as their spirit. That’s
Referred to as “The Big Apple of the 14th Century,” Moundville Archaeological Park is one of the premiere Native American sites in the country. Once a power community, Moundville was the largest city north of Mexico. Located just outside of Tuscaloosa on the Black Warrior River, the park encompasses more than 300 acres and 29 flat-topped mounds. Today, visitors get to see the how the Mississippians lived nearly 800 years ago on this land. There are so many reasons why a visit here is a must!
Jones Archeological Museum: Opened in 1939 when the site was simply known as the Mound State Monument, the Jones Archeological Museum greeted visitors for many years before the University of Alabama took on an effort to revive and redefine the museum. The result was a $5 million renovation in 1999. The museum that guests see today was opened in 2010 and offers some of the most stunning artifacts found on site. Their state-of-the-art technology and history exhibits tell the story of the civilization for visitors from all over the world.
Campground: Most visitors do not get the pleasure of staying on the site of such a significant historical site but that is exactly what is offered here! Even though reservations are only made on-site, the campground has 5 sites with electric, water, and sewer hookups, 24 sites with electric and water hookups, and 5 primitive sites with no utilities. However, there is a bathhouse on site! What a neat place to spend a few days!
Facility Rental: The Nelson B. Jones Conference Center is not only the place many special events are held by the park, but it is also available for rental for the public! The center overlooks the Black Warrior River and contains a full kitchen, fireplace, sound system, internet, and a video projector. This is a perfect location with a stunning backdrop for any of your special occasions.
Native American Festival: Scheduled for October 12-15 of this year, the event gives guests an opportunity to get a better understanding of the Native American culture through performers, demonstrations, and living history teachers. The festival will
State legislative leaders spent an inordinate amount of time in 2017 passing the Medicaid and Human Services Transparency and Fraud Prevention Act to put in place additional reporting requirements and other safeguards to ensure poor Mississippians were not getting benefits some feared they did not deserve.
“We (Mississippians) have the second-lowest work participation rate in the country,” Jameson Taylor, then vice president for policy research with the Mississippi Center for Public Policy, told the Heartland Institute at the time. “Welfare is a trap. We want to help move people from dependency to dignity, and from poverty to prosperity. That’s what these reforms do. They will also save the state money by kicking fraudsters off our rolls.”
Around the same time that legislators and others were concerned about fraud related to poor Mississippians who were receiving government assistance, $1.3 million in welfare funds were diverted to then-Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves’ fitness trainer, Paul Lacoste, who used $300,000 of those funds to pay himself a salary and another $70,000 to purchase a truck, according to the state auditor.
Additionally, $5 million was spent to build a volleyball court at the University of Southern Mississippi, and $1 million went to pay NFL and USM standout quarterback Brett Favre for speaking engagements that he did not make. Other welfare funds went to invest in drug research at the behest of Favre — with the blessings of former Gov. Phil Bryant. The list goes on and on and on. As much as $92 million in welfare funds could have been misspent, according to a 2020 state audit.
But legislators have yet to devote even a tiny fraction of the time addressing those misspent funds as the time they spent on the Medicaid and Human Services Transparency and Fraud Prevention Act, which was signed into law by then-Gov. Bryant and supported by Reeves, who then was lieutenant governor and is now governor.
In fairness to the Legislature, it should be pointed out that finally in the 2021 session, the welfare benefit for poor families was increased from $170 to $260 per month for a family of four. Those funds are earmarked for children and their caregivers.
Based on research done by Mississippi Today, less than 3,000 poor state residents normally receive cash benefits through the program. A study by Mississippi Today found only 5% of Mississippi’s federal block grant welfare funds went for monthly cash assistance. And until the legislation was passed in 2021, those monthly benefits for the poorest of the poor — paid entirely with federal welfare funds — were the lowest in the nation.
These are the same welfare benefits that were used to pay for the volleyball court, the fitness program and multiple other programs designed to help the supporters of Bryant, Reeves and others.
When the Medicaid and Human Services Transparency and Fraud Prevention Act was passed in 2017, one of the concerns cited was that there were dead people on the Medicaid rolls.
During debate in the Senate, then-Sen. Bill Stone, a Democrat from Holly Springs, asked of Medicaid Chair Brice Wiggins, R-Pascagoula, “Are you talking about dead people on the rolls for Medicaid?”
Wiggins responded, “I am talking about everybody, yes. It doesn’t matter if it is dead people. It doesn’t matter if it is people double dipping. They need to be following the law.”
The benefit a Medicaid recipient receives is health care. The state Division of Medicaid pays the providers — such as doctors, hospitals and nursing homes — for providing care. Medicaid recipients do not receive any cash payments, just health care.
It is difficult to envision a person assuming the identity of a dead person on Medicaid and then going to the doctor to receive health care. Perhaps it has happened.
No doubt, Wiggins, then the chair of the Senate Medicaid Committee, knew it would be unlikely for dead people to be receiving Medicaid benefits, but just got twisted up in his explanation since the bill dealt with making sure poor people were not cheating both the Medicaid program and the Department of Human Services. And as cited earlier, some poor Mississippians do receive cash benefits through Human Services — just not very many and not very much.
Medicaid, on the other hand, is a state-federal program that provides health care for the disabled, poor pregnant women, poor children and the elderly. Most adults are not eligible for Medicaid in Mississippi.
There is a small percentage of adult caregivers of Medicaid recipients, earning less than $578 monthly for a family of four, who are eligible for Medicaid.
If Mississippi expanded Medicaid, like 38 states have, other adults, primarily the working poor, would be eligible.
But dead people need not apply. In Mississippi, it is difficult enough for living poor people to garner help.
A federal appeals judge upheld the ruling that a Cleveland Central High School student did not have her civil rights violated in the process of awarding graduation honors.
Olecia James, a 2018 graduate of Cleveland Central, had her GPA recalculated weeks before graduation which resulted in her being ranked third and losing her position as salutatorian. James alleged in the original lawsuit that the change was racially motivated to allow a white male to receive the honor instead due to fear of white flight from the school district, which had recently consolidated East Side High School and Cleveland High School into Cleveland Central under a federal desegregation order.
After filing suit in the spring of 2019, a federal district ruled that James’s civil rights had not been violated in the summer of 2021, which was upheld on Friday.
“That James did not end up class salutatorian may seem unfair. It was surely disappointing. But it was not unconstitutional,” the most recent order reads.
James was not the first student to file suit against the Cleveland School District for discrepancies with graduation honors. Jasmine Shepard, who alleged that school officials forced her to share the 2016 valedictorian title with a white student despite Shepard having a higher GPA, also lost her case in federal court and her appeal, according to court documents.
“It’s sad that students have no rights that school officials are bound to respect relative to academic honors in the Fifth Circuit (Appeals Court),” Lisa Ross, attorney for James and Shepard, told Mississippi Today. “While students must play by the rules, school officials are permitted to make up rules about academic matters at the end of a student’s graduating year.”
James told Mississippi Today in 2019 that she lost eligibility for a scholarship to the University of Mississippi because she lost salutatorian status. She instead decided to attend Alcorn State University, majoring in mass communications.
“I was sad but at the moment it was all about resilience and controlling what you can control,” James said in 2019. “I got a lot of doors opened for me … and I can’t wait to see what the future holds for me at Alcorn.”
Attorneys for the school district and former school officials did not respond by press time.
Mississippi State University put faculty on post-tenure review at the highest rate during the 2021-22 school year, according to data released at a meeting of the Institutions of Higher Learning Board of Trustees.
Post-tenure review is a kind of periodic evaluation that “goes beyond” typical evaluations by creating a pathway for a university to revoke a faculty member’s tenured status, according to the American Association of University Professors.
Out of 499 tenured faculty at Mississippi State last year, 19 faculty members – or 3.8% – were placed on post-tenure review, the highest rate of any public university in Mississippi. The institution with the second highest percentage was Mississippi Valley State University which placed 3 faculty out of 90 – or 3.3% – on post-tenure review.
MSU and MVSU are the only two public institutions in Mississippi that require tenured faculty to go through post-tenure review in the sixth year of employment, according to a report from the Joint Legislative Committee on Performance Evaluation and Expenditure Review.
No faculty were fired or placed on a development plan as a result of post-tenure review this past year, according to the analysis.
The remaining six public universities, including the University of Mississippi Medical Center, did not place any faculty on post-tenure review last year, according to the data. Across all IHL universities, a little over 1% of all tenured faculty, who made up less than half of all faculty in Mississippi, were placed on post-tenure review last year.
The IHL board conducts this analysis annually, but the data released Thursday comes after trustees quietly revised IHL’s tenure policies earlier this year to add new criteria for post-tenure review. The data was presented on the board’s information agenda, so trustees did not publicly discuss it.
The analysis initially contained a “clerical error” for the numbers of tenured faculty on post-review tenure at Jackson State University and UMMC, Caron Blanton, IHL’s spokesperson, wrote in an email. IHL updated the numbers after an inquiry from Mississippi Today.
A type of indefinite job protection, tenure guarantees faculty can only be fired for cause or extenuating circumstances, such as egregious misconduct or the loss of departmental funding. Faculty work for years to achieve the status, and it is meant to ensure faculty can research controversial topics without fear of retaliation or political pressure.
But ever since tenure was widely adopted by American universities in the 1940s, politicians and administrations have periodically sought to chip away at the protection it provides. By the mid-1990s, post-tenure review emerged as a new way to curtail academic freedom, according to the AAUP. The process is typically triggered after a faculty member receives one or more a negative evaluations during a set time period.
Many faculty say that post-tenure reviews are duplicative because they already undergo periodic reviews for the purpose of salary raises or appointments to university committees.
“We already have processes in place for dealing with problematic professors,” said Dan Durkin, the chair of University of Mississippi’s faculty senate. “Post-tenure review is not even really necessary.”
In Mississippi, the purpose of post-tenure review is to “ensure tenured faculty remain effective,” according to the PEER report last year on tenure policies at the public universities.
“A concern frequently linked to granting tenure to university faculty is that those faculty will become less productive following the receipt of tenure,” the report says. “In order to prevent that concern, the IHL Board established policies that require the annual evaluation of faculty and the establishment of a post-tenure review process for all tenured faculty.”
Durkin said that post-tenure review can make faculty risk-averse, leading some to pursue less controversial research that might be less productive.
“Post-tenure review essentially creates tenure part two, and that changes the way professors approach things,” he said. “They may not research something that’s controversial, they may not publish papers out of concern, instead of spending time thinking and really developing something. It can fundamentally affect the way we do our jobs, and that is harmful to academia and ultimately harmful to the larger society.”
IHL’s policy revisions earlier this year added new criteria by which faculty could be evaluated during post-tenure review, including a faculty member’s “effectiveness, accuracy and integrity in communications” as well as their “collegiality.”
The revisions were widely criticized by faculty as vague standards that could be weaponized against marginalized faculty, particularly faculty members of color. Two national organizations – PEN America and the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression– intervened, writing a letter to Alfred Rankins, IHL’s commissioner, requesting the board roll back the changes.
Rankins’ reply defended IHL’s tenure changes as “improvements to prior policy language,” adding “in reviewing your concerns, I must point out that almost any criterion commonly used in evaluating faculty for tenure could be used by a bad actor as a pretext for denying tenure for impermissible reasons.”
Jeremy Young, PEN America’s senior manager for free expression and education, told Mississippi Today in May that he was so concerned by Rankins’ response, he wrote IHL a second letter. Young told Mississippi Today that IHL hasn’t replied.
Faculty are now working to implement these changes in handbooks. At UM, Durkin said the faculty senate is looking to ensure the handbook hews as close as possible to AAUP’s recommendations.
“Everything we’re doing, we’re making sure we’re applying the filters of First Amendment and academic freedom,” Durkin said. “We’re looking to not only define what things are, but also define what they’re not.”
Post-tenure review policies vary from one university to the next, according to the legislative report. At JSU, faculty have asked the administration to clarify the university’s post-tenure review and evaluation policies, according to faculty senate meeting minutes.The current faculty handbook, which was ratified in 2011, mentions post-tenure review only one time, in the preface. The handbook does not define a clear post-tenure review process separate from the annual evaluations that faculty receive.
The faculty handbook at University of Southern Mississippi notes that post-tenure review “is not a re-evaluation of tenure but is a way to assist faculty members in their professional development and document their ongoing commitment to the University’s mission.”
“China’s dramatic military rise has been aimed at dominating the Western Pacific, especially Taiwan,” Wicker writes.
Nothing upsets China’s communist leaders like a thriving democracy on their doorstep. Taiwan is a case in point. Located some 100 miles from the Chinese coast, Taiwan is an outpost of freedom in the Pacific. This prosperous country, home to 23 million people, has rejected communism in favor of liberty. Recently, China’s threats against Taiwan have grown increasingly severe. When House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan earlier this month, the Chinese military responded by firing missiles over the island and surrounding it with warships. They soon launched a second wave of exercises after another U.S. congressional delegation visited the country. The communist regime in Beijing simply does not know how to handle a free Taiwan charting its own future.
China’s dramatic military rise has been aimed at dominating the Western Pacific, especially Taiwan. President Xi Jinping has even vowed to seize Taiwan by force if necessary – something U.S. defense experts predict could occur by 2027. Such an invasion would be a major blow to the free world and our nation’s economy. President Biden can help deter such an outcome now by embracing a strategy of peace through strength, as President Reagan modeled with the Soviet Union. By building up our military and especially our Navy, we can convince our adversaries that there is no point in starting a war with us and our allies.
U.S. Needs a Larger Navy
We have already begun to make some progress in rebuilding our Navy in recent years. This past March, I participated in the christening of the USS Jack H. Lucas, a brand new destroyer built in Pascagoula. In addition, last week I attended the keel laying ceremony for the USS Jeremiah Denton, another destroyer being built in Mississippi. These state-of-the-art vessels will help us counter China, but we will need a lot more of them.
As a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, I helped negotiate the National Defense Authorization Act, which is now awaiting action in the full Senate. This legislation will authorize funding for our military in the upcoming fiscal year. As part of this measure, I secured $250 million for a new amphibious transport dock and $23 million for a personnel barracks craft, both of which will be built in Mississippi. The legislation will also let the Navy procure up to 15 guided missile destroyers and will boost the number of Mississippi-built amphibious ships from 28 to 31.
One Year Since Afghanistan Chaos
One potential reason China is acting more aggressively is that President Biden showed weakness in Afghanistan. It has now been a full year since President Biden’s poorly planned and chaotic exit from Afghanistan. Our rapid withdrawal shocked and dismayed our NATO allies and needlessly led to the collapse and swift takeover of the country by the Taliban. The Pentagon reports that some $7.1 billion in taxpayer-funded equipment fell into enemy hands, including more than $500 million in weapons. Afghanistan has now returned to being a nest bed for terrorism, just as it was when our nation was attacked on 9/11.
It is noteworthy that American forces recently took out the head of al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, in a surgical strike in Kabul. This is a testament to our world-class military and intelligence professionals. Nonetheless, the presence of this terrorist leader in the capital city of Afghanistan indicates that the Taliban is giving free rein to al-Qaeda. Now that we have withdrawn our forces, it will be harder for us to combat global terrorism.
Hinds and Harrison counties can apply for a portion of the more than $100 million in emergency rental assistance funds that Gov. Tate Reeves is returning to the U.S. Treasury.
According to June 28 guidelines from the U.S. Treasury, “When feasible and consistent with jurisdiction needs, Treasury intends to reallocate excess funds from a grantee to another grantee in the same state. When appropriate, after such an intrastate allocation, a grantee’s excess funds will be reallocated in other states.”
It is not clear whether Hinds or Harrison will apply for the funds being returned to the federal government by Reeves. Credell Calhoun, who is president of the Hinds County Board of Supervisors, recently said he would inquire about the money.
The COVID-19 federal rental assistance program started in 2020 with the first round of pandemic funding for states and continued last year with a subsequent round of federal funding. Mississippi was allocated about $340 million. But earlier this month, Reeves announced he was cutting off applications for the program on Aug. 15 and returning all unobligated funds to the federal government.
It is likely the state will return more than $100 million – a portion of which could be available to Hinds and Harrison and to other states.
By discontinuing the program, Reeves said he was incentivizing people to find jobs.
Besides federal legislation providing funds for states, large-population counties received money directly for emergency rental assistance. In Mississippi, Harrison and Hinds were the only counties to qualify for direct funding.
Hinds has obligated its allotment – about $15 million. Harrison has received about $11.4 million and still has some money left.
Sara Miller, senior policy analyst with the Hope Policy Institute, said if Hinds and-or Harrison applied for and received a portion of the state funds, they could only be spent in those two counties.
Vangela Wade, chief executive officer of the Mississippi Center for Justice, said: “Every Mississippian with a financial need for assistance and who qualifies for rental assistance should receive assistance regardless of their county of residence. “
In social media posts and during a news conference, Reeves said the Mississippi economy is booming and people do not need help with rental assistance.
The program, Reeves wrote, “was originally intended to help those struggling as a DIRECT result of COVID. Yet, like so many other government programs on Democrats’ wish lists, it fundamentally lost its way and no longer serves its original purpose. “
Reeves later commented a Clarksdale landlord pleading guilty in civil proceedings in federal court in the Northern District of Mississippi of defrauding the Rental Assistance for Mississippi Program.
Reeves said the announcement is “more proof that Mississippi made the right call by ending RAMP. Not only did this program run astray of its original intent, but saw an increasing number of potentially fraudulent applications. While some Democrat politicians lambasted our decision, the discovery of this fraud scheme further justifies terminating the program.”
In a statement earlier this month, Wade of the Center for Justice said it is “ironic” that the governor was talking about fraud involving poor people when state audits have revealed that possibly more than $90 million in welfare funds have been diverted from the poor to supporters of many in the state’s political leadership for a litany of projects ranging from building a volleyball court to paying for cars and houses.
Based on information provided by the Home Corporation, which was tapped by Reeves to oversee the Mississippi Program, about 65% of the applicants approved to receive funds through the program are employed, and a majority are Black and female.
U.S. Census data, for the week ending July 11, showed that 44.5% of adult Mississippians surveyed reported being behind on their rent or mortgage, with eviction or foreclosure in the next two months being either very likely or somewhat likely.
During the same time period last year, 60.5% reported eviction or foreclosure as likely. At times during the pandemic, Mississippi led the nation in the percentage of people reporting likelihood of eviction or foreclosure.
Reeves reported in early August that 86,146 people applied for the program and that 36,889 were approved for assistance. It is not clear how many additional applications were approved during the final weeks that the Home Corporation was taking applications.
Submitted by Kelley Williams with Bigger Pie Forum
There was a time when utilities built plants to meet growing demand for electricity. Now electricity demand growth is flat.
In reality, electricity from solar and wind (renewable energy) can supplement energy from fossil fuels (oil, natural gas, coal). But thinking it can replace fossil fuels is wishful thinking. Why? Because renewables are intermittent (sporadic). Solar panels generate electricity about 30% of the time on average. But they may not generate any electricity for days. Same for windmills.
So natural gas or coal plants must be on standby 24 hours a day to backup intermittent renewables to prevent blackouts. This increases plant costs and makes Green electricity expensive even though sunshine and wind are free.
Why is it hard to understand and admit this? And that renewables can’t provide the carbon molecules needed to make plastics, antifreeze, pharmaceuticals, and thousands of other necessities? Why? Because it’s profitable for the Green Energy Cartel and the “scientists” and politicians and virtue seeking hustlers to ignore reality. And say net zero carbon emissions are possible and necessary to save the planet.
When wishful thinking meets physics, physics wins. Politicians in Germany and Great Britain thought wind could generate needed electricity. They shuttered natural gas, coal, and nuclear backups and went all in on windmills. Their wishful thinking will be painful for constituents this winter.
Closer to home, California and Texas grid failures show that intermittent Green energy causes blackouts. Mississippians must be slow learners because EntergyMS just built a new solar plant in the Delta and schemes to build nine more. None are needed to meet customer demand (which isn’t growing).
The plant was shilled as virtuous Green electricity to make Mississippians feel good and as bait to lure out-of-state virtue seeking investors. However, its Green electricity will be exported to northern states or Canada. Entergy’s Mississippi customers will pay for the plant. Some may feel good to pay for others’ electricity. Most probably won’t.
The Public Service Commission enabled the plant and makes Mississippians pay for it. Say what? You thought the PSC’s job is to regulate utility monopolies and see that customers get reliable affordable electricity. And instead, it lets utilities build unneeded plants and makes customers pay for them. And has done it for years.
You remember when the PSC enabled Mississippi Power’s Kemper County Lignite Plant. That fiasco began in 2009 when two wishful thinking PSC commissioners said a $1.5 billion experimental plant was needed – even though there was no demand for its electricity, then or now. (The third commissioner opposed the experiment.)
That experiment cost $7 billion. It failed to convert lignite to synthetic natural gas. The plant wouldn’t run. At all. But the PSC made customers pay $1.3 billion (twice the cost of a new plant) to modify part of the failure to run on natural gas. Now, two commissioners want to shut down an operating coal plant to create a need for the modified failure’s electricity.
Despite these failures, one new wishful thinking commissioner says the PSC doesn’t get enough respect. Seriously? What has the PSC changed to earn respect? The other new commissioner, the new Chairman and a realist, says the PSC must change. The carryover commissioner, who opposed Kemper, may think so too. But recent PSC decisions haven’t changed.
Look at its decision enabling the first plant in EntergyMS’s $1.5 billion scheme to build ten solar plants. No plants are needed to meet demand. It’s still flat. Entergy’s scheme is Kemper deja vu. Groundhog Day. Chinese solar panel water torture. Drip. Drip. Drip. One unneeded (but profitable) solar plant after another.
Why are the plants profitable? Because utilities are monopolies – legal monopolies. Customers must buy from them regardless of price. Their price includes a guaranteed 10%+ profit on their plant investment if the PSC says it’s “prudent.” The PSC has never said a needed plant that runs wasn’t prudent. So when the PSC says a new plant is needed, it’s higher electric bills for customers and higher dividends for shareholders if the plant runs at all.
There was a time when utilities built plants to meet growing demand for electricity. Those plants were profitable, and customers benefited from them. Then demand growth slowed with more efficient use of electricity (e.g., LED vs. incandescent lights, efficient appliances, smart thermostats, etc.). Now electricity demand growth is flat in many states including Mississippi.
Utilities still replace old generating plants with more efficient new ones. But investments to replace old plants don’t increase profits and dividends enough to satisfy shareholders. So utility executives must find other reasons to build new plants – like virtuous electricity.
Utilities saw flat demand growth coming and joined other Green energy promoters to push wind and solar. Renewables are a twofer for utilities since they require more natural gas backups. Voilà: twice the investment and profit.
In 2013, the Edison Electric Institute (utilities’ trade association) and the Natural Resources Defense Council (environmental advocate) teamed up. The Solar Industries Association joined them later. This cabal promotes solar power. Early this year, it preached solar to the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (i.e., the country’s PSC’s). It was preaching to the choir for the new wishful thinking commissioner. He promoted solar while running for the PSC.
The WSJ recently ran a three-page spread explaining “America’s New Energy Crisis.” It can be explained in seventeen words: Too much Green energy (windmills and solar), not enough fossil fuel energy (oil, natural gas, and coal). The “too much” and the “not enough” result from bad federal policy (laws, regulations, executive orders, tax breaks, higher taxes, etc.) that encourages Green energy and disparages fossil fuels. There’s some bad energy policy in Mississippi too.
Too bad the PSC shills for utilities. Two realist commissioners might change this. Too bad the Public Utilities Staff is not the PSC watchdog the Legislature intended. A competent Executive Director might change this – if the Governor appoints one. Change might mean cheaper electricity. And no blackouts. That could actually lure investors.
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Submitted by Kelley Williams with Bigger Pie Forum. Promoting market-driven economic growth for a bigger and brighter Mississippi. Learn more about BPF here.
