House of Hypocrisy, Part Two

Our local conservatives are singing from the same hymnbook as their heroes, the House Republicans. One particularly ugly rant was posted on the blog Jackson Jambalaya, attacking an article written by Ronni Mott of the Jackson Free Press. The title of the JJ post was "Is Ronni Mott a Liar, Hack, or Just Plain Stupid?" You can read the whole post here: http://kingfish1935.blogspot.com/2009/02/is-ronni-mott-liar-hack-or-just-plain.html

What the JJ blogger calls a "lie" is this sentence by Ms. Mott: "The [stimulus] bill’s passage proved to be highly partisan—with Obama and the Democrats on one side and the nearly the entire GOP lined up against it—despite the president’s best efforts to reach across the aisle."

Ronnie Mott's whole story is here: http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/index.php/site/comments/stimulus_transparency_021709/

Perhaps our local conservatives should check the actual statements of the House Republicans. Now that the stimulus bill has been enacted into law, they are falling all over themselves to tell their constituents what wonderful things have been included. One of many catalogs of these comments has been posted on Jake Tapper's blog on ABC News' website. You can find it here: http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/02/back-at-home-co.html

Here's a sampling of what House Republicans say when they get back home:

Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, for instance, issued a press release last week heralding how he "won a victory for the Alaska Native contracting program and other Alaska small business owners" by working with Democrats to pull a provision from the Senate bill that he feared would hurt American Indian and Alaska Native owned businesses.

Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., issued a press release saying, “I applaud President Obama’s recognition that high-speed rail should be part of America’s future.”

Rep. Pete Hoesktra, R-Mich., "tweeting" to his homefolks: "If you know of someone thinking of buying first home, now may be the time. Stimulus incentive is very generous! Up to 8k! Check it out."

In New Jersey, Rep. Leonard Lance, R-N.J., toured a Army Corps of Engineers construction site that will likely get stimulus dollars. "This is a classic example of a "shovel-ready' project," he said.

In Kirksville, Mo., Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer, R-Mo., visited Truman State University where he said: “Within the stimulus package there is some Pell Grant money, which is a good thing. It helps students be able to pay for their education and that's kind of a long term stimulus effect there. I mean obviously that's not gonna provide a job in the next 120, 180 days, but the ability of someone to get an education is an economic development tool."

Sen. Kit Bond, R. Mo., heralded $2 billion in funds in the stimulus bill to jump start low income housing projects. "Bond says the $2 billion amendment is small potatoes in the nearly $800 billion package, but it will save jobs, employing more than 3,000 people in Missouri alone," the local paper reports.

So if Republicans had "no input" into the stimulus package, why are they falling all over themselves to TAKE CREDIT for it?

What happened -- just as Ronni Mott reported -- is that the Obama Administration reached out to Republicans, then included spending items and tax cuts that had their support. (The President also excised items after Republicans complained -- the family planning funds come to mind).

Only after they got much of what they wanted through private discussions, did the Republicans quail about the overall cost of the bill. Their complaint that they "never saw the language" until the day it was proposed rings hollow -- the Bush/Paulson bank bailout was only a page long but had support from both sides of the aisle.

So leave Ronni Mott alone, folks. She's dead-on right. Again.

Uncle Tom's Courtroom

Folo collects two stories about the new Assistant District Attorney in Lafayette County:

http://www.folo.us/2009/01/24/colorful-court-talk-in-oxford/

Tom Levidiotis was formerly the part-time Public Defender in that county. He was also formerly a staff attorney at the Mississippi Office of Post-Conviction Counsel (MOCPCC), toward the end of the years that Robert Ryan was Executive Director. Ryan's tenure marked some of the most shameful mis-representation of clients that has ever been seen in Mississippi death penalty jurisprudence.

Note: the JFP story I wrote about the execution of Earl Berry, and Ryan's woeful work, is at
http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/index.php/comments/the_execution_of_earl_wesley_berry/

The JFP's Ronni Mott did her own excellent reporting on the subject of MOCPCC:
http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/index.php/site/comments/dereliction_of_duty_070908/

But back to the land of Faulkner. Folo connects us to the Oxford Eagle's website (http://www.oxfordeagle.com/archives/2009/0109/011909-012309/012309/news1.html), where we experience this bit of courtroom drama:

The trial against the man accused of murdering University of Mississippi track star Rodney Lockhart has been postponed for an undetermined amount of time after the state announced it would be seeking additional charges against Christian Bonner during a pre-trial hearing Thursday.

Bonner was indicted for capital murder in December 2007 for allegedly shooting Lockhart in the head on Sept. 29, 2007, during a robbery.His trial has been postponed several times. The case was set for trial Monday, but Bonner’s attorney, Kevin Camp of Jackson, filed a motion asking for a continuance because he had other trials pending in Jackson.

* * * *

[Circuit Judge] Howorth said he would continue the case for a short period of time but was interrupted by Assistant District Attorney Tom Levidiotis who announced the state’s intent to supersede the indictment with new charges — which apparently took everyone by surprise. What the exact charges are or whether they were related to the state seeking the death penalty against Bonner were not being released by the District Attorney’s Office.

The state had announced last year it was not seeking the death penalty in the case, but Thursday Levidiotis hinted that could change and that decision would be up to the grand jury on Feb. 9 — not the state.“If the grand jury says that Mr. Bonner needs killin’ then by God, I will prosecute it that way,” he said in court.

Of course, as an experienced criminal lawyer should know, the grand jury does NOT decide whether the defendant in a capital case "needs killin." It is the prosecutor's prerogative to seek either death or life without parole when a grand jury indicts a defendant for capital murder.

One wonders whether this latter-day "Uncle Tom" had this much killer instinct when he was supposed to be defending capital murder defendants. Maybe that explains the poor performance of MOCPCC?

Too bad the original Uncle Tom didn't have this one's flexibility. He would have enlisted in the Confederate Army.