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The flood of children coming into the U.S. in the last several months is making national headlines. Nearly 60,000 unaccompanied children entered the U.S. illegally in the past year, most of them from Central America. Several states remain under consideration to house many of them, including Mississippi. (SNIP) He wrote President Obama about it, and explained “We simply do not have the resources, the location in which to house children who come here and do not speak our language, have no relatives in Mississippi.” Congressman Bennie Thompson also wrote the president, saying Bryant doesn’t speak for all Mississippians.

The Republican National Committee should censure the committeeman from Mississippi, Henry Barbour, and perhaps request (although not demand) his resignation from the RNC. Barbour’s apparent involvement with nakedly race-baiting ads and robocalls during the GOP senatorial primary runoff in his state, and his prevarications afterwards both in public and in e-mails to other committee members, merit an official public shaming. To be clear about exactly what in Barbour’s conduct does and doesn’t deserve a rebuke, and to take care of some housekeeping with regard to journalistic ethics, please forgive a bit of personal backstory.

Even in the bitterly fought primary battle between Mississippi senator Thad Cochran and his challenger, state senator Chris McDaniel, some of the radio ads that aired against McDaniel were considered especially incendiary. One charged that a McDaniel victory would set back “race relationships between blacks and whites and other ethnic groups.” Another warned that his campaign was part of an attempt to “roll back the hand of time.” The political-action committee that aired the ads raised eyebrows from the outset.

Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) is back with his colleagues in Washington, D.C., after winning his hard-fought primary runoff — but he had a bit of trouble finding Senate Republicans' weekly luncheon on Tuesday. Cochran, while talking with The Hill, made a few wrong turns before accidentally ending up at Senate Democrats' luncheon. After exiting a Senate elevator on the wrong floor, Cochran and The Hill reboarded. He then found the right floor but turned away from the Senate GOP luncheon, a few yards from the elevator, to stroll in the opposite direction, arriving at the Democrats' weekly gathering a few...

The headline in the New York Times over the weekend was straightforward: “Unease in G.O.P. Over Mississippi Tea Party Anger”: The stormy aftermath of Mississippi’s Republican Senate runoff has sent Tea Party conservatives around the country to the ramparts, raising the prospect of a prolonged battle that holds the potential to depress conservative turnout in November in Mississippi — and possibly beyond. Well, there’s an understatement. Just last night Texas Senator Ted Cruz was on Mark Levin's show talking about “the D.C. machine” running “false attacks” that were “racially charged” and demanding that allegations of criminal conduct — one man...

JACKSON, Miss. — U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran won the state's Republican primary runoff over challenger Chris McDaniel by 7,667 votes, according to a certification made by the state Republican Party and submitted to the Secretary of State on Monday, the legal deadline. The result was wider than the 6,800-vote win counted by The Associated Press after the June election. Tallies usually change as county parties examine provisional ballots and finalize results....

Down in Mississippi, Chris McDaniel is still fighting his race against Senator Thad Cochran. His lawyer, Mitchell Tyner, said Monday he was confident the campaign would turn up enough fraudulent ballots to swing the results of the election. Cochran won that race by approximately 6,700 votes and Tyner told reporters he “would be surprised if we don’t find 6,700″ bad ballots. Volunteers on Monday began reviewing all of the ballots cast in Mississippi’s runoff election in an effort, weeks after the the conclusion of the contentious race, to show that McDaniel is the legal victor. McDaniel has yet to concede...

A week after defeating Chris McDaniel, the Republican campaign opened a line to reporters. Then all hell broke loose.The Senate race in Mississippi is so strange that they can’t even get through a conference call without weirdness breaking out. After winning last week’s Republican runoff, the campaign of six-term incumbent Senator Thad Cochran held a conference call for national media on Wednesday to respond to allegations from defeated Tea Party challenger Chris McDaniel that the election was somehow stolen. The call lasted about ten minutes before descending into absolute anarchy after a pro-McDaniel blogger obtained the dial-in information and posted...

A conference call held by Sen. Thad Cochran’s campaign quickly devolved into chaos and ended Wednesday after one of the participants repeatedly asked racially charged questions. The call was held to address a lawsuit challenging the runoff results for the Republican nomination. Cochran defeated his primary challenger, state Sen. Chris McDaniel, by 6,700 votes last week, but McDaniel has refused to concede and his supporters allege Cochran won with the help of illegal votes. The call was held for the national media who could not be at a news conference in Jackson. But 5 minutes after it started, there were...

RNC Chairman Reince Priebus released the following statement on today’s jobs report: “We’re glad to see some Americans found work last month, but we can’t rest until jobs are easy to find. That’s why Republicans have passed dozens of jobs bills in the House of Representatives. Sadly, Democrats in Washington, DC, have other priorities. The most recent GDP numbers not only revealed that the economy slowed down in the first quarter; they also showed that Democrat policies are wrong for the economy. (SNIP) We need a Republican majority in the Senate so we can get job-creating legislation to the president’s...

On Tuesday’s broadcast, Fox News's “Hannity,” network correspondent Ainsley Earhardt unveiled one of the attack radio spots that aired on stations around the state including WMGO. "If someone tells you that by voting today, you cannot vote in November - it’s just a Tea Party, bald-faced lie." Are you going to let the clock run out on today? By not voting, you are saying 'take away all of my government programs, such as food stamps, early breakfast and lunch programs, millions of dollars to our black universities.’ Everything we and our families depend on that comes from Washington will be...

As the curtain is pulled up on all the shenanigans involved in one way or another with last week’s Mississippi GOP Senate primary, the cast of characters amazes. At the story’s center is a group calling itself Mississippi Conservatives. The group is on the receiving end of furious charges of race-baiting and racism that have smeared not only Tea Party candidate Chris McDaniel but the larger GOP and the GOP Establishment that participated in the smear. We’ve been through the names of contributors over there at the Federal Election Commission, and looked into some of those involved. The still unfolding...

JACKSON, Miss. — The question seemed to tug at Senator Thad Cochran throughout his bumpy re-election campaign in Mississippi: Why, after a long, distinguished career — 42 years in Congress, including six terms in the Senate — was he seeking a seventh term? By all accounts, Mr. Cochran had needed to be talked into running. He told one national publication that he had planned to retire, and another that the first thing he wanted to do after Election Day was take a nap. And while the snowy-haired, 76-year-old Republican tried to hush whispers that he was not quite as sharp...

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) has asked a pro-Thad Cochran Super PAC, called Mississippi Conservatives, to provide additional information about what the newspaper Roll Call said “appears to be campaign finance violations.” At issue are last-minute expenditures made by the PAC in the days before the initial June 3 primary. The FEC “Request for Additional Information” says the PAC does not appear to have disclosed some of its spending in a timely manner. The FEC notes in the letter sent to treasurer Brian Perry that failure to “adequately respond” by Aug. 1 “could result in an audit or enforcement action.”...

I lot has happened in the last 24 hours, more than I can keep up with, even after pulling an all-nighter! ****For starters, the McDaniel campaign has now identified 3300 illegal votes with only half of the counties canvased. It seems highly likely they may find enough invalidated votes to overturn the results of the election, especially if what has been said about absentee votes is true. Of course, McDaniel doesn’t actually need to find enough illegal votes to overturn the election, to prevail here. You see,they as backwards as Mississippi’s voting system seems to be, they actually have very...

When even the Democrats admit the election was stolen, it's time for a re-do. Sen. Thad Cochran emerged from the June 24 GOP senate primary run-off election against state senator Chris McDaniel with a margin of victory of about 6700 votes. Haley Barbour's machine dangled enough money in front of enough Democrats to get 35,000 of their votes for Cochran. Now if any of those Democrats voted in the Democratic primary on June 3, they were ineligible to vote in the Cochran-McDaniel run-off. Thus, if the poll books indicate that somewhere in the neighborhood of 7000 votes were improperly and...

Volunteers working for tea party challenger Chris McDaniel in Mississippi say they have already found 20 percent of the invalid double-votes they need to cancel Sen. Thad Cochran’s business-funded runoff victory. “We’re finished with Hinds County, and we’re up to 1,500” invalid votes, said Noel Fritsch, Daniel’s press aide. That’s critical because McDaniel can force another runoff if he can find more invalid votes than Cochran’s roughly 7,000-vote margin-of-victory on June 24. Votes are invalidated if voters cast ballots in both the Democrats’ June 3 primary and the GOP’s run-off on June 24. However, McDaniel can also force another election...

A Mississippi radio station aired an ad warning voters that the Tea Party would “take away” food stamps and other welfare benefits before the run-off between incumbent Sen. Thad Cochran and his challenger, Chris McDaniel. Calling the run-off the most important election since the re-election of President Barack Obama, the WMGO radio station ordered listeners in Madison County to vote for Cochran the day of the run off. The ad appeared to target black voters. “By not voting, you’re saying, ‘Take away all of my government programs, such as food stamps, early breakfast and lunch programs, millions of dollars to...

A week ago the Hinds County Republican Executive Committee certified election results in the controversial House District 56 race. Philip Gunn lost to incumbent Jep Barbour by 17 votes. But Gunn says more than 200 Clinton-area voters weren't allowed to cast thier ballots because of well-documented election errors. Now many of those voters say they might take their frustration out on the governor's race. "I would be hardpressed voting Republican at this time," said Linne Godfrey. "Maybe I will, maybe I won't," said Reva Daniel. "Right now it would be difficult."

UNE 27, 2014 Meet Mitzi Bickers A scandal-plagued Democratic operative worked the black vote for Cochran By Eliana Johnson Meet what appears to be one of the keys to Thad Cochran’s black-turnout operation, Mitzi Bickers. She is, from all appearances, something of a renaissance woman: She is not only the pastor of Atlanta’s Emmanuel Baptist Church but also a former president of the Atlanta school board, a former construction-company executive, and a Democratic staffer and political strategist with a checkered past. Last year, she left her job as a senior adviser to Atlanta mayor Kasim Reed after news surfaced that...